“….The Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, Ohio metro area followed with 20.5% quarterly and 62% yearly gains….”

I certainly saw three times the number of buyers/sellers as last year, but 62%?  Clear Capital provided the data and you can read the entire pdf report by going to NuWire and downloading it.  I’ll let you know what other stats are revealed.  Peace Out – 3C

Interest rates are still at a 70 year low…last check they were 4.7% (depending on your credit, etc) for a 30 yr fixed loan.  This means that over the course of 30 years, you can definitely make up the difference for the tax credit having expired.  Food for thought?

Four examples of homes to buy in Fairview:

1.  a 2 bedroom cottage with amazing curb appeal. Gleaming hardwood floors, a fireplace, tasteful decor and a pretty back yard deck. Priced at less than $99k, definitely could be a monthly mortgage payment that would make you smile.

2. a 3BR and 1 1/2 bath Bungalow with two downstairs bedrooms, a fireplace, eat in kitchen and a two car garage. Plus a finished lower level. Listed around $99k.

3. For $114,000 you could buy a brick cape cod with a sun room, ceiling fans, two car garage and a nice deep lot (194 feet).

4.  Or, if split level layouts are your thing, Fairview is one of the communities where you can find them and still be close enough to Downtown Cleveland.  For about $124k  you could have 1700 square feet of living space, a fireplace, a large family room, two car garage, stainless appliances in the updated kitchen.

Back to the housing health of Fairview. I found less than ten homes listed for under $90k.  There are communities with page after page of homes listed for under $90k. 

Want more information on your Fairview community home values? Check out  Home Values in Fairview  where you can do an analysis of the streets near your home.  

Peace Out – 3C

update: I forgot to add one thing!  There have been 61 home sales in Fairview since April and the average sale price was $133,000.

So far I have been frustrated in my attempts to open any of the web links I found except for a company profile for The Wall AG which is listed as German.  There is a LinkedIn presence  for a Boston branch as well.

The google excerpts for the actual company intrigued me which is what makes the broken links even more frustrating.  From what I can glean, the company does bus kiosks and more, and has a mission of working with cities – providing some of what they offer for free.  If any of you can be Sherlock Holmes along with me and find more detail, that would be great.

Back to the 390 sq ft home. Architectural style is very cool, yes? Correct me if I’m wrong though, but when they say this is a solution for refugees in Third World country camps, doesn’t $5k per house sound a bit steep? However, the Gizmodo post mentions that some countries, like Angola, have already placed orders.

What does sound wonderful is the work Wall USA does to enhance sustainability around transit lines. There are examples on their website of this being utilized in Manhattan. Very cool.

Rather than be negative about it however, I love the premise and sure like the look of the house. What do you think?  Peace Out – 3C

This time I’m only dealing with single family homes, meaning free standing homes and town homes or condos. And these stats only represent homes sold through area brokerages.

There are 224 homes for sale as of today in Westlake. There are 35 under contract, waiting for title to transfer.

313 single family homes sold in 2008; 354 in 2007 and 446 in 2006.

Our computer listing service does a quarterly breakdown. Unfortunately they haven’t done the last two quarters of 2008 yet but I’ll include the first two quarterly results, to give a better insight into how things sold over the last three years.

2008 – First quarter average sale price in Westlake was $235,100 and sellers averaged 94.2% of their ask price.

2008 – Second quarter average sale price in Westlake was $253,300 and sellers averaged 94.5% of their ask price.

2007 – First Quarter average sale price was $280,800 and sellers were getting an average of 95.1% of their ask price.

2007 – Second Quarter average sale price was $257,900 with sellers getting an average of 94.9% of their ask price.

2007 – Third Quarter average sale price was $274,900 with sellers getting average of 94.7% of their ask price.

2007 – Fourth Quarter average sale price was $283,900 and sellers got an average of 87% of their ask price.

2006 – First quarter average sale price was $280,500 and sellers got an average of 95.8% of their ask price.

2006 – Second quarter average sale price was $263,000 and sellers got an average of 95.9 % of their ask price.

2006 – Third quarter average sale price was $278,400 and sellers got 95.1 % of their ask price.

2006 – Fourth quarter average sale price was $268,600 and sellers got about 95 % of their ask price.

I’ll add the other two quarter results for 2008 to this post when it’s available.  Peace Out – 3C

University Heights saw 187 single family homes sold in 2008.  There are currently 187 of them listed for sale.

There were four two families sold in University Hts and 13 are currently for sale.

Richmond Heights has 116 homes listed for sale currently. During 2008, 109 single family homes sold.

There are four two family homes listed for sale and one two family sold in 2008.

South Euclid has 270 single family homes listed for sale as of today. During 2008, 349 single family homes sold.

There were two/two family homes sold in 2008 and there are 9 multi-family homes listed for sale (all two family).

Cleveland Heightsstill has a sizable volume of homes listed for sale now: 433 single family and 32 two family homes.

During 2008, 622 single family homes sold in Cleve Hts and 53 multi-family )52/two family and one three family).

First let me say that the sales that occurred in 44113 were all in Ohio City or Tremont, as opposed to the Warehouse District which is also included in this zip code.

44113

There are 33 multi-family homes for sale currently

There are two contingent sales, or homes waiting for loans and inspections to be finalized

There are four homes pending sale, or waiting to close; that means six under contract

Since March 1st, 26 multi-family homes have sold. The highest priced sale was for a four family (two homes on one lot) on W. 11th that sold for $210,000. The least expensive sale was for a W 30th double that sold for $10,500.  The average sale price was $84,600 or $31 a square foot. These homes were on the market an average of 84 days.

Zip Code 44111

There are 107 homes currently listed for sale

8 homes are contingent, or awaiting mortgage loans and inspections to be finalized

24 homes are pending sale or waiting to close. That means 32 multi-family homes are under contract

116 multi-family homes sold since March 1st in this zip code

The least expensive was for a W. 70th double that sold for $51,000. The highest sale price was for a West Boulevard double that sold for $135,000. The average sale price was $18,196 or (!!!) $7 a square foot

These homes were on the market for an average of 69 days. Out of the 116 homes sold, only five sold for more than $70k, and as you can see by the average price per square foot, most sold for considerably less than that.

Peace Out, and more tomorrow   3C

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

I agree with Mayor Jackson about one thing.  This is Cleveland and we don’t have to be like any other city. But I think there is a lot to take away from this idea. We don’t have to have homes that look exactly like this, but the concept would make good use of spaces that don’t fit the typical 40×120 foot yard spaces. We have a lot of areas plagued with vacant homes; the City is tearing some down.  We have more work to do on that score. But the issue in my head is, what will we put in place of these torn down homes?

The other issue is, why not encourage people to put up homes that exist near RTA transit stops on small spaces. I know there is a triangle of land or two near the W. 25th street station and supposedly condos are going there.  Okay.  What about W. 150th’s Station? Or the Puritas Station? I know the Bellaire Puritas Development Corporation staff spoke to me a while ago about plans for public art and walk ways, and that developers were being consulted about some housing there too. If you go here on the Bellaire Puritas DC site you can see plans for revitalization of the W. 150th area. There is a 4.1 million dollar investment planned and underway. It seems like a great opportunity to promote some green, money saving home building with some design interest (to me that means not more of the same), and a possibility to promote even more interest in no parking needed ‘ride the RTA’ housing.

What a fabulous concept.  No need to filter in parking for the homes because it’s near an RTA stop. This also cuts down on the expense of building a home. True, Cleveland doesn’t have as functional of a commuter line as some other cities (yet!), but we do have stations and this could work.

Linda Hales writes the article in The Wash Post featuring Jeff Speck and his house. Here is an NPR article about The Specks  and the concept and how what they are doing is “rethinking the wisdom of ’50s era parking standards.”

We also have neighborhoods that could use a boost of transit and also new urbanism design. Here is an article from WTOP on Milwaukee’s and Chicago’s take on this issue:

Milwaukee, one of a small group of cities that has eased minimum parking requirements, did so because they were impeding redevelopment of struggling neighborhoods, said John Norquist, the city’s mayor from 1988 to 2004.

Norquist, who today heads the Chicago-based Congress for the New Urbanism, described a lot that sat vacant for decades after a historic building burned down. The required parking made it unfeasible to build anything new there, he said. After officials relaxed the parking requirement, a thriving restaurant sprang up.

We have the whole issue of land bank property in Cleveland. Wouldn’t it be nice if, instead of what they have decided to do in Tremont (they required all remaining land banks be bought in twos so a driveway could be included in the middle) we were able to increase our RTA transit lines and bus lines and not require parking at all. True, at this point in time, the 81 Bus doesn’t cover every area of Tremont — but what if we could change that?

From the NPR article: “Opponents say making parking more scarce will only make the city less hospitable. Commuters like Randy Michael of Catharpin, Va., complain they are already forced to circle for hours in some neighborhoods.”  On the other hand, this is what the Specks say now (also from the NPR article):

“…. they haven’t regretted their decision to go car-free even after the birth of their son, Milo, in June. They walk to shops and parks in their neighborhood, and the baby’s pediatrician is a short bus ride away. When needed, they can rent vehicles from Zipcar, a car-sharing service….”

How much effort do you think should be put forth to promote this type of transit oriented (TOD) development?  Do you think it’s a matter of ‘if they build it buyers will come’ or do you think otherwise?     Here is a link to a slide show from the Wash Post  with more photos of the Speck House.   (photos courtesy of The Post and Troy Witcher)  Peace Out – 3C