Cleveland Real Estate News

You may recall my home seller’s limbo status. He is having trouble selling his four unit multi family home because the land on which the house sits is zoned two family not four — even though the City has been granting occupancy certificates to this property for decade, as a four family.

Teresa Dixon Murray posted a question from another person looking to refinance their home. Interest rates are lower, refinancing could not only give people more breathing room in monthly payments but maybe even keep a few people out of foreclosure.  That is supposed to be the goal yes? Not so fast. Read Teresa’s weekly Q & A column and see why that refi might not happen.

Apparently changing a two family to a four family home used to be easier (what wasn’t!) but now some master plan changes call for certain things to be in place, like lot size, for that to happen. Zoning variances make sense to me because of all the grandfathering of laws and existing structures.

What doesn’t make sense is letting people feel comfortable that they own or buy a multi family home when in fact a disaster like a fire will not allow you to rebuild and give home to the same people who lived there before the fire. Not to mention the fact your loan, in my opinion, winds up being a house of cards.

I’ve been fortunate to be involved in discussions with OCNW (since my client owns a home in Ohio City) and the city Planners. But no one seems able to resolve what I think is a very serious issue. Do you own what you really think you own? In my client’s case, he thinks (or did) he owns a four family home.  In reality he owns a two family home that is allowed to be a four family but not by everyone. Confusing? Of course lol. I was not even aware that two family zoning still existed in Cleveland. That will have to be another post: how it relates to zoning tags those of us utilize in our profession to try to make educated decisions about what we are doing. Silly us lol.

Since my client purchased his home decades ago and through a conventional lender, there were no ‘rebuild’ red flags given to him when he purchased it. Now FHA standards raised the issue for us. I suspected there might be conventional lenders who would raise that same red flag. Now I see, through Teresa Dixon Murray’s article, that is true.

Like I say, real estate is never dull, but sometimes frustrating.  I’m trying to figure out a way to resolve this issue. Any ideas?  Peace Out – 3C