Cleveland Real Estate News

InfoCision is hiring and according to the news article on WKYC’s website, this may be an indicator that the economy is getting better.  The reason they cite is that companies who had previously outsourced their telemarketing/customer service calls, are changing their minds and coming back to the U.S. for employees. 700 is a lot of job availability so get your resume primed. 

InfoCision’s website career page here.  They seem to have three categories: Career, Call Center and Work From Home.

Peace Out – 3C

This book came out in 2007, but if I had not been reading the Cleveland Design City   site, I would not have known about it.  The book is called Cleveland Goes Modern: Design for The Home 1930-1970.  Here is a book review by Cleveland Area History. They felt the addresses of the featured homes should have been included (makes sense to me).  So they provide a pdf  file  that solves this oversight.

It’s summer, no ice on the ground, perfect time for road trips to see these beautiful examples of modernism.  It’s not like you have to go to Kansas or the Hudson River, just places like Pepper Pike, Peninsula, Aurora and Shaker Heights.  They do say that some of the more rural homes would not be visible from the road.  Maybe Google mapping can help!

Peace Out – 3C

Attention All Red Line Rail Riders – West 25th Station Closed 8/11/10 – 8/18/10

From Wednesday, August 11, 2010 through Wednesday, August 18, 2010, the West 25th Rapid Station will be closed to allow for replacement of the stairway. While the Red Line will continue to travel through this location, passengers will not be able to enter or exit through this station during the stairway construction project.

Customers who need to access this area of Ohio City have several other RTA alternatives available:

• Traveling to the area of West 25th and Lorain, transfers can be made from the Red Line at Public Square/Tower City Station to the following bus routes:
  #20, #22 and #35 (board on Superior Avenue at West Roadway)
  #51, #79A/B, and #81 (board on Ontario at Superior)
• Traveling from the area of West 25th and Lorain, ride any of the following bus routes to Public Square and board the Red Line at Tower City Station:
  #20, #22, #35, #79A/B (board on Lorain and W 25)
  #51 (board on Gehring and Lorain)
  #81 (board on Abbey)

Regular rail service to West 25th Station is expected to resume at the start of service on Thursday, August 19, 2010.

(The above info is from the RTA website)

Okay, who doesn’t need the perfect brownie?  I bet I can’t get a single no out of all of you.  I sold a house to a terrific, creative young couple a few years ago.  Turns out their creativity knows no bounds.  They are a sweets confection start up called Fears Confections.  Without a doubt, the dark chocolate orange brownie I had tonight was the best brownie I’ve ever had.   Have a wedding or special event coming up? Just want to feed your sweet tooth? Check out Fears Confections, I bet you will be ordering straight away.

Second company is Tremont Electric.  You know how energy analysts tell us that things like cell phone chargers use enough energy to significantly affect our electric bills? Tremont electric has invented a kinetic charger. This means it runs on energy generated by people and not a utility company.  You can read about  Bruce Geiselman’s article  here.  It works on MP3 players, GPS devices, etc.  They employ just under ten people now but are looking to double that soon.  Sounds like a winner to me.  Read about how to order this recyclable charging cylinder on Tremont Electric’s website.

I seem to have a  never ending quest to post opinions about our area from visitors. An article on line in the Durango Herald News (Colorado), written by John Peel,  had me at the title: Peace, Love and a near riot in Cleveland.

Check it out for his perspective, both before he came and after.  Upon reading the article, it amazed me that an innkeeper (where he apparently stayed while here) was the most negative about Cleveland.  It’s dying, everyone leaving, businesses going, you know the mantra.  He says his inn is experiencing vacancy because everyone is leaving.  Possibly.  Or it could be that people just don’t want all that negativity from their innkeepers lol

John Peel was pretty balanced in his opinion, and loved the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Check it out.

Peace Out – 3C

The completion of the Towpath Trail got a bit closer this week when two parcels of land were acquired. I started surfing the Web to find out if that meant it was ready to go, and found out the answer is no. There are still parcels to be acquired.  Thanks to the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission’s Weblog, I found the Ohio Canal Corridor/Towpath Trail website.  That’s where I found out about the need to acquire a bit more land. 

The mission statement on the home page of the OCC website:
…. To create a park system that follows the route of the historic Ohio Canal from Cleveland through Zoar to Dover/New Philadelphia by promoting historic preservation and interpretation expanded recreational opportunities and sensitive economic developments.

Are you a runner?  The Towpath Trail Marathonwill be held on October 10th in Cuyahoga Valley National Park.  I’ve not run worth a darn the last few years, but when I did, I would have loved to be able to do so on the Towpath.  If you are a runner, or just someone who wants to help motivate the ‘pack,’  this would be a good way to do so and at the same time acquaint yourself with the Towpath in all it’s glory. Most of you already know about it, (the Path, not the race!) but we can never get tired of going there, can we?

Not into running but like wine? How about this event: A Toast to the Trail, a wine event to be held on August  21st.   Since tickets run from $75 to $1,000 I guess it’s a way to fundraise for the completion of the Trail?      Peace Out  3C

Not new, just go to Hawaii and see how much of Honolulu’s real estate was bought by Japanese investors. Who wouldn’t want to live in Hawaii?? lol Market Watch covers the last 12 months of real estate purchases (Nationally) and says 41 billion dollars were spent on real estate by foreign investors. I like Market Watch, so crediting them first.  However, you can go to my trade’s real estate site, Realtor.org  and read the study Market Watch is quoting.

13% of the foreign investors bought in the Midwest….a large portion of the purchases were for single family homes, and the purchases were made in 39 of our 50 states.

I had a handful of people contact me on line; two were from Canada, one from New Zealand, for example.  They had trouble (as in could not get) getting financing.  Apparently 4% were able to have everything come together.  I have no stats to back this up, but I bet a lot of these successful purchases were handled as cash deals.

Interesting?   Peace Out – 3C

We have a primary coming up in September (7th) and then the general election in November, and I feel as if the political ads have been running since before Obama and Strickland got elected (yes, I overstate but it SEEMS that way).  Most of you probably already know about Snopes.com, where you can check facts about almost anything.  It’s broad scoped and has a reputation for being accurate.  Hear a rumor? Check it on Snopes.

There is a National site called PolitiFact and now, Ohio joins with PolitiFactOhio.  According to Politifact’s website, this is an up and coming trend because there were only five or six states listed as using this fact checker benefit.  The Plain Dealer  deserves a shout out for getting Politifact into our neck of the woods.  The link takes you to Stephen Koff’s introduction of it to Ohio.  The PD got it right this time.

Our TV airwaves are full of an ad talking about Strickland losing 400,000 jobs for Ohio since he took office.  That is an oft repeated statement and it’s covered by PolitifactOhio and they say it’s a half truth. So if you have your own issues to check, check out the site! (sorry for the pun lol)  Peace Out – 3C

What if you sold your house at a substantially lower price than the market would have warranted, had you not had an out of state investor owned house next door that deteriorated so badly it hurt your property values? Judge Pianka of Cleveland’s Housing Court says you should make a claim in his court regarding the issue.

What if you had a vacant home next door to your house and you routinely mowed the lawn, swept the porch, fixed broken windows,  just to keep up the appearance of the street and your home?  Judge Pianka says, make a claim in my court.

Regarding the first issue, he has already brought claims against two investor/owners, and one of them is Fannie Mae!  You can read about it here in the PD article about victim restitution.

And here is a direct link to the Cleveland Housing Court’s website  regarding the case against a Utah investor involving the victim restitution issue.  You can read about other related court cases at that link as well.

Peace Out-3C

Old Brooklyn is huge, extending from the Cuyahoga River all the way to the Brooklyn City border.  Within it’s limits sits the Metropark Zoo  (and their new elephant habitat!), a booming new community garden effort, Big Creek Metropark Trails, a soon (we hope) to be connected stretch of the towpath trail, and tons of good food and shopping.  Homes here run the gamut from stately old Victorians to newer ranches and bungalows.  Some of our neighborhoods do not have this spectrum of housing ages…in Old Brooklyn you can find it all.

Housing trends in Old Brooklyn are no longer flat.  The foreclosure issue hit the neighborhood a bit hard, but things are rebounding.  Here is a look at what has happened with single family housing (listed by area brokerages) in 2010.

Currently, there are 231 single family homes listed for sale. That’s not a small inventory, but much better than it had been for a while. The average listing price of these homes is $84,405 or $66 a sq. ft.

My partner Melissa and I have three homes listed in this mix.  One is a deceivingly spacious bungalow  on W. 22nd Street with three times the storage you normally get in an older home of this size.  It backs to the valley, is privately fenced, and was owned for quite some time by our sellers. It’s listed for $69,900.

We also have a wonderful colonial near the City of Brooklyn but still in Cleveland.  It’s on DeLora (in fact, we are just listing it).  Amazing new kitchen with corian counters, porcelain tile, lots of storage, two sun porches on the back and a beautiful front porch. It’s listed for $85,000.

Last but definitely not least, and also close to Brooklyn City, is an arts and crafts beauty on Ardmore. Lovingly restored by the previous owner, the love and detail continued with the current seller.  He even added a funky retro lower level, beautifully, professionally done, with a second full bath.  The second floor has the last two of three bedrooms, including the master with two huge closets.  It’s listed for $119,400.

I mention the details because people bought in Old Brooklyn and stayed there.  Or family members moved into the homes after parents passed.  Whether it’s remodeled or not, so many of these homes were lovingly cared for as opposed to being left for dead.  It’s a community of homes worth considering.

Back to the stats.  In the last month or so, 31 homes went under contract.  The average listing price of these homes was $67,219 or $51 a square foot.  We won’t know sales prices until they close.  That is the average listing price, but there WERE homes above that price that went under contract.  In fact, between the prices of $80k and $120k. 

169 Old Brooklyn single family homes sold since January of 2010.  The average sale price was $62,257 or $48 a square foot.  Included in this mix is a home I sold on Oak Park Avenue (near Lowe park) for $59,000.  It needed a kitchen remodel to get it to the 21st century, but you could have eaten off the basement floor and all mechanical updates were done by the last owner.  Again, that TLC that marks the ‘hood.

Also sold was a colonial on Tate with 1395 square feet of living space, 5brs and 1 1/2 baths. It sold for $70,000.

A colonial on Saratoga sold for $80,000.  It was remodeled thoroughly enough to receive a 10 yr tax abatement (new construction gets 15 yr abatement in Cleveland, but if you  basically take a house down to the studs, do plbg, mechanicals, roofs, etc, you can get a 10 yr abatement, which usually freezes the tax rate at it’s current amount for a ten yr period).

19 homes sold in Old Brooklyn between the prices of $100k and $120k. 15 were in South Hills, but four were east of Pearl.  These four include a tudor on Northcliff that was the highest sale price of 120k.

More links:

For the skinny on Old Brooklyn from someone who loves it so, read Gloria Ferris.

James Rhodes High School

Peace Out – 3C