Cleveland Real Estate News

 I’m looking at stats for the five west side zip codes, and I want to compare number of sales and average sale prices for 2006-2008. These stats cover the ’season’ I’ve been reviewing, April through the present date. Take into consideration that there have been foreclosures which deflate the averages. It’s also interesting to note that regardless of sale price or year, the averages for all of these zip codes for time on the market  was approximately 95 days.  Per usual, stats cover homes listed with area brokerages which is why I have access to them; and these stats are for single family homes (which includes town homes that are not part of a condo assn).

Zip Code 44109 - Covering Old Brooklyn and moving North to Metro Hosp. area.

2008   47 sales   The average sale price was $25,605 and $18 a square foot

2007   61 sales    The average sale price was $33,093 and $24 a square foot

2006   45 sales    The average sale price was $46,264 and $32 a square foot

Zip code 44113  Covering Tremont, Ohio City and reaching East to the Warehouse District

2008   51 sales    The average sale price was $150,349 and $94 a square foot

2007   81 sales    The average sale price was $182,917 and $120 a square foot

2006   77 sales    The average sale price was $188,002 and $107 a square foot

Zip code 44102  Covering Detroit Shoreway, Clark Metro and Edgewater Cudell

2008   106 sales    The average sale price was $37,028 and $25 a square foot

2007   202 sales    The average sale price was $62,008 and $37 a square foot

2006   158 sales    The average sale price was $85,227 and $53 a square foot

Zip code 44111  includes Westtown, parts of West Park

2008   105 sales    The average sale price was $43,306 and $35 a square foot

2007   125 sales    The average sale price was $59,984 and $48 a square foot

2006   142 sales    The average sale price was $72,052 and $61 a square foot

Zip code 44135  Includes Kamms Corner, Bellaire Puritas

2008   50 sales    The average sale price was $30,002 and $30 a square foot

2007   61 sales    The average sale price was $42,995 and $44 a square foot

2006   71 sales    The average sale price was $67,218 and $61 a square foot

As I study the neighborhoods and inner ring cities, some places held steadier on number of sales than others.  Here, zip code 44109 came the closest to having a steady number of sales over the three years for the six month period, although 2007 clearly saw more sales.  More to come, hope you find this helpful.  Peace Out - 3C

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This is the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act. It passed with a clear enough majority that it is vetoe proof and apparently (maybe because of that) President Bush has stated he will sign it.  I’m going to list how the Senators voted on HR 2095 - note please that Senator McCain voted nay, Senator Biden did not vote, your Senator (and mine) George Voinovich voted no, and Senator Brown voted yes. I think Senator Obama voted yes.  There is an asterisk after his name, but the ‘not voting’ list only contains two names so I’m assuming he is a solid ‘yes.’

The list:

Grouped By Vote Position
*YEAs —**74*
Akaka (D-HI)
Alexander (R-TN)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hagel (R-NE)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inouye (D-HI)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kerry (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lugar (R-IN)
McCaskill (D-MO)
McConnell (R-KY)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
*Obama (D-IL)*
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Smith (R-OR)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Stevens (R-AK)
Tester (D-MT)
Warner (R-VA)
Webb (D-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wicker (R-MS)
Wyden (D-OR)

*NAYs —**24*
Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Craig (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Martinez (R-FL)
*McCain (R-AZ)*
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Sununu (R-NH)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)

*Not Voting - 2*
Biden (D-DE)
Kennedy (D-MA)

I watched the  House vote on CSPAN (Wed) - h/t to Ed d’Amato for the list of how each Senator voted last night.

HR 2095 (which btw is the old SB294) can be browsed here on the Nat’l Assn of RR site.  Peace Out - 3C

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The Ohio Rail Development Commission (ORDC) received a grant of $62,500 and they consider this a positive sign that The Feds consider The Ohio Hub  a valid project for Ohio’s economy and future.  The grant came from the Federal Railroad Aministration. The grant is for a feasibility study with AMTRAK to “start up two round trips per day between Cleveland and Columbus and possibly to Cincinnati (which together define the “3C” corridor”).”

It sounds like the goal of the study is to figure out a short term ’round trip’ service but make sure it fits into the long term plans and strategies for the general 3C Corridor, Ohio Hub.

Good stuff. From the ORDC press release:

The awarding of the FRA grant follows the request earlier this year by Governor Ted Strickland to Amtrak CEO Alex Kummant to begin a ridership and revenue study of possible start-up service in the 3-C Corridor.  The corridor is the most densely-populated in Ohio with almost 60-percent of the state’s population, but has not seen passenger rail service since 1971. You can read about the 3C Corridor Plan here.

Peace Out - 3C

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There is a reason Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway (BH) have had so much success over the years. He seems to buy shares in companies that use the same common sense approach to business he does. He’s so successful now, that we all treat Buffet like the guy in the old EF Hutton commercial: when Warren Buffet speaks, we listen.

This article from CNN Money features Clayton Homes/Mortgages out of Tennessee. The business was bought by BH a few years ago because they liked the way they did business. Yes they are a home builder (mobile and prefab) but that is not why it got my attention.  Their banking arm or lending arm utilizes practices that make so much sense, they have not seen the same instability as so many other lenders/bankers around the Country.

This is not about thinking outside the box but using common sense lending practices. Most of their buyers are not speculators; they do not offer initial low prices to corral people into their loans.  They hold their own mortgages instead of selling them off.

Quotes from the article:

What’s behind the portfolio’s strength? Clayton is more careful about lending because it keeps all loans on its own books rather than offloading them to others by means of securitization.

As Buffett wrote, “When we make a mistake in making or buying a loan, it costs us money, not some buyer thousands of miles away who ends up with an RMBS, CDO, or (horror of horrors) a CDO squared.”

Another important fact is that Clayton has banked on homebuyers who can afford their monthly payments and who purchased their houses for shelter, not for speculation. Clayton also avoided the mortgage industry practice of enticing buyers with low initial payments, followed by much higher payments a few years down the road. Most notably, Clayton’s customers aren’t likely to walk away from a house simply because it has lost value.

We know, at Howard Hanna, that our mortgage arm is strong.  We have our own reserve funds (I think 125 million dollars). Back in the heady days of 2004 and 2005, some of my potential clients would get irritated that they couldn’t qualify for a loan with Howard Hanna Mortgage Services. But the truth is, this (by today’s standards) conservative approach to lending has helped HHMS stay solid and sound, much in the same way as the Clayton example here. I bet some of the people who harrumphed at HHMS (and subsequently me) during those years wound up with high interest loans they had trouble paying. Just like so many others around the US.

After all the scary instability banks and mortgage lenders are facing these days, I have a feeling more of them will be trying to follow the Clayton business model. Clayton, btw, has about 45% of it’s portfolio in sub prime loans. But as the quotes above show, they hold the loans and they loan mostly to owner occupants not speculators. Their success rate can be measured this way:

 ”….The company’s loan delinquency rates have been stable: On June 30, 2004, the rate was 3.26%; last year it was at 3.5%; and now it’s 3.82%. (In comparison, the delinquency rate in the traditional housing market is around 6.4%.) Annual credit losses are running steady at a reasonable 1.5% of the loan portfolio. And Clayton’s foreclosures have actually dropped from two years ago, from 5,823 to 4,588….”

A good model indeed.  Peace Out - 3C

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I tried not to write this post but it’s not possible. Collectively, we’ve all been at the edge of our seats for at least four days, wondering what our political leaders were going to do to try to correct our economic situation.  I can’t remember the last time I was this tuned in, second by second, to a House vote.

Good things happened over the last few days. My conservative and liberal (for lack of a better monniker, since we seem to need them) friends and I talked about the Bail Out…constantly. No matter what political party, everyone said 1)there was enough blame, on all sides, to go around. 2)we are all fed up with rhetoric. 3)we expect our leaders to do the right thing, whatever that is. 

It became clear to me that no one trusted anybody.

I was streaming the House discussion before the vote (CNN provided a stream on their website).  Many people talked, and then John Boehner spoke. I don’t share many of his political views, but I was impressed. Here was a conservative Republican, talking to his colleagues, imploring them to put partisanship aside, suck it in, and do the right thing for the Country by supporting the Bill. Then Nancy Pelosi got up to speak. 

I was appalled. I cringed. I started emailing friends, asking how someone like that can be Speaker of the House. They emailed back in agreement. This ‘agreement’ came from friends who are more liberal and friends who are conservative.

Let’s get this straight: The Speaker of The House of Representatives is supposed to be a leader who is adept at forging alliances.  Someone who leads, not someone who snipes. Yet there was Nancy Pelosi, not more than five minutes before a vote was expected, chastising the last 8 years of The Bush Admn. and conservative right wing politics run amok.  I wanted to be Elivs and shoot the screen!

I admit that the Republican Reps who said they didn’t support the Bill because of her sound lame. They can be pissed if they want, but don’t vote based on that or all you are doing is showing your lack of leadership as well.

Okay now for some good news. Thousands of people called their Representatives over the last week. Grassroots was at it’s best.  Supposedly, the voting was affected by the voter outcry. One more reason to believe that the more we all get involved, the better off we will be.

But how sad is it, that we cannot trust our political leaders? As Joel Auchenbach and Ashley Surdin said in the Post today, “A political establishment held in higher regard might have been able to hold together some kind of coalition of the willing. But distrust of the nation’s leaders, from the leaders of Congress to the president of the United States, foreclosed that possibility.”

The rest of the Washington Post article is here.  An even better example of the citizen outcry and involvement over the last week showed up in today’s WS Journal. This article is only one of many about the Bailout and in my opinion, the WSJ covered it best with an article entitled How Voter Fury Stopped the Bailout.  

Some sites and blogs weigh in, from the WSJ article:

The proposal’s defeat was also cheered on by a number of blogs that in recent days have posted links to lawmakers’ telephone and fax numbers and urged citizens to oppose the plan. They included stopthehousingbailout.com, a Web site organized by a 37-year-old Los Angeles attorney named Morgan Ward Duran, and    globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com, run by Mike Shedlock, an investment adviser at SitkaPacific Capital Management. Mr. Shedlock said in an interview Monday that his site had received 1.7 million page hits this month, which he said was half a million more than normal.

I plan on calling Dennis Kucinich and giving him a piece of my mind about Nancy Pelosi. (I am sure Dennis can’t wait to hear from me)   I think the best place to start is by getting a new Speaker. Someone who actually understands what the job of Speaker of the House was designed to do, not what it has evolved into at this point in time.  Bah humbug!  3C

BTW: This is the only guy, the only Representative who did not vote today. Jerry Weller from Illinois. You want to read about him? Send him an email and ask why, unless he was on his deathbed, he chose to add to his poor attendance record on the day when one of the most important votes needed to be cast?  Here is a link to Jerry Weller.

Crain’s Cleveland weighs in with some info from Sutton, Kucinich and LaTourette on why they did not support the Bill.

10.03.08 update:  by now everyone knows, the bail out has passed on it’s second go-round in the House (after tweaking by the Senate earlier this week).  Here is a PD run down of the votes.  Betty Sutton switched her vote, Kucinich and LaTourette still voted nay.

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Sometimes the Web is fabulous. Textbooks cost a fortune so any way to save money on them is wonderful, yes? I’ve seen a few websites that help students do this.  This one has the catchiest title, and seems really good: check out Textbook Revolt. It’s like a textbook coop. You list text books you have used and can give away to other students, and you list textbooks you need to get in return.  No cost to join the website service, and no cost for the books you receive.  You just have to give books to others as well.

There is another site called Campus Books.  You can apparently save money buying them from this site. I imagine it’s hard to get every book you need on the ‘Revolt’ site, since it depends on whether someone is giving it away.  According to this Market Watch report on Campus Books, you can save as much as 49% of the textbook cost.

Then there is possibly another option.  There is a real push in academia towards the Open Textbook concept. This means textbooks are online and useable by any instructor or student.  This is I think free as well. You can read about the Open Textbook movement here in USA Today.  The article features a Texas oceanography professor using the open textbook system. Are any of our local college professors using this system?  If not, and you are a student, you may as well learn what lobbying is all about and see if you can convince your profs to do this. Especially in subjects like Oceanography or Law or any medical field where the books are very expensive.

Saving money is a beautiful thing, as Martha Stewart might say :-)  Peace Out 3C

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h/t to @Breakingnewson on Twitter, here is the text of the proposed new Bailout Bill - it went from three pages to 106 so this time it’s going to take some reading. But well worth it!  Peace out - 3C

I’ll keep adding to this as we go along.  After many pages I found out that the initial amount of money for Treasury’s use is $250 mbillion.  Here is a summary of some of the other Bailout points from CNN’s website.

9/28/08 Sunday late afternoon updates: supposedly, just about an hour after the draft of an agreed upon Bailout Plan has been released (see above), news conferences are scheduled to talk about a final draft/agreement. 

Im paraphrasing but live blogging here: 

Nancy Pelosi: after much rhetoric on her part, she talked about the changes to the Bill. Oversight, allowing people to stay in their homes instead of losing them to foreclosure, and CEO compensation. Last night came down to 3 issues. How would the money be distributed; Golden parachutes and compensation from CEOs, as well as insistence that the american taxpayer was not going to pay this price. If there was not a payback in a period of time, the financial institutions would pay the bill, not the taxpayers. She says this is ‘not a bailout’ but a ‘buy in.’

Senator Harry Reid: Hearings by Dodd will be held by end of the year discussing how we got where we are. This is a bipartisan approach, plus both Presidential candidates have signed on to say this is a good piece of legislation now. Now we need the votes in the Senate. (At 12:30 Amtrak Train Safety Bill will be voted on call your Senators!) and sometime after that the House and Senate will begin working on the Bailout Bill.

Barney Frank; curtailing excessive CEO compensation is in this Bill, first time ever included in a Congressional Bill. 2009 will be year to deal with this - if there is a shortfall regarding the bailout money given, the President of the United States needs to send an explanation to Congress because the financial institutions who benefit from this bill financially will ultimately be responsible.

Trying to prevent the sub prime crisis from reoccurring. Frank claims they will deal with this issue in 2009

 (my comment, if this is truly a bi-partisan effort, why do they have to have separate Dem and Rep press conferences???)

financialservices.house.gov is the location Nancy Pelosi says houses (pardon the pun) the final version of this Bill. I can’t even get into the main site, let alone the Speaker’s page or the site she references here. I’ll include it, in case it’s just because of the volume of traffic that the bill can’t be accessed or the site for that matter. Peace Out Again.

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