Greater Cleveland Real Estate Blog

Cuyahoga County had its regular property assessment in 2006. Many of us homeowners in Cuyahoga County were not happy with new property taxes. The timing was not perfect, as property tax increase came along with sub-prime crisis, growth of foreclosure rate and market price adjustment of 2007. Many homeowners notice that assessed value is much higher than possible market value of their homes. There is a way to reduce your taxes if you file a complaint with Cuyahoga County before the end of the day of March 31, 2008. You may find all the forms and information about the procedure at the web site of Cuyahoga County Board of Revision http://bor.cuyahogacounty.us/.

As we get a lot of inquiries from our clients regarding the market condition in their neighborhoods, we in Local-n-Global Realty decided to offer our clients and friends free Market snapshot services. Please go to the front page of www.Local-n-Global.com and fill in the Evaluate your house form. You will receive the most up-to-date information about house listings and sales in your neighborhood. If you see that your house is over-assessed in comparison with the market value of the similar houses in your community, you may go ahead and ask the County Auditor for tax relief based on real market condition in your area. Please do not hesitate to use this service. It is accurate. It is free. We are here to help you.  We want our communities to prosper, our schools to get stronger, and our neighborhoods to be better. We are responsible tax payers. BUT - if there is any mistake in your tax assessment which may be fixed - let's try to do it.

Happy New Year!

Call anytime 877-770-5551

Please email me with any questions or suggestions: Svetlana@Local-n-Global.com

Happy Holidays to all of you!

We got used to say that homes are the biggest investments in people's lives. My point is that it's the biggest investment not only financially, but also emotionally and spiritually. Have you ever mentioned that home sellers receive the highest return of investment if they love their home, if they care about it, if they invest with love in either a fine decoration, or bright appliances, or beautiful landscaping, or something else in their house. It's not always about money. Love speaks for itself and definitely helps enjoy our homes. Love helps to sell the houses on every market. 

Reading and writing all true stories about risks and potential losses of today's homeownership, we sometimes forget to mention these very simple things. Let's talk about warm feeling of being together, let's talk about love, let's talk about care. I feel real good for my first time buyers who bought the houses in 2007. What a feeling of being home at Holiday season. Cooking at your kitchen, decorating your dining room, arranging the guest bedrooms - this is a real reward of homeownership!

Let's enjoy our homes. Let's support our communities and our school systems by being responsible homeowners and property tax payers. Let's be grateful for the greatest gift of love, peace and home.

Happy Holidays!

Call anytime 877-770-5551

Please email me: Svetlana@Local-n-Global.com

If you think you have a deal, that may be impacted by the new risk based pricing or LTV hits in declining markets. Such warnings come to us from our local reputable lenders. Do we face another wave of broken deals because of new Fannie May rules?

We had a similar situation around April of this year when sub-prime crisis hit the low-credit-score buyers and  some neighborhoods. Few cities in Cuyahoga county suffered a lot. Richmond Heights and South Euclid are among them. Sales in these areas depended a lot on sub-prime and low down payment buyers. Let's compare the statistics of single family home sales for neighborhoods belonging to Richmond Heights Schools system.

Serious decline in both sales volume and prices, huge inventory created a very unpleasant situation in this nice city which features a very convenient location and nice shopping-entertainment-medical facilities. Lack of financial programs available to leverage sales in these neighborhoods was substantial, but not the only factor which impacted decline in sales. Let me mention how Cuyahoga County just timely :) reassessed the property values and increased the property taxes in 2006. We had so many deals this year when property sold for 20-25 % lower price than assessed value!

It is sad but don't let this discourage us and our clients! The same statistics for other School districts  show much more optimistic trends:

What should we Real Estate profesdionals do:

1. Educate ourselves on availability and guidelines for available mortgage programs.

2. Work with right lenders and appraisers.

3. Qualify, qualify, qualify! Not every suspect is prospect, not every prospect may become a client. 

4. Educate our clients on risk management, on importance of maintaining a good (720+ score today!) credit, importance of savings for down payment, importance of working with right lender.

It will be another challenging year and another year of great opportunities to help people as professionally as we can.

Call anytime 877-770-5551

Please email me: Svetlana@Locla-n-Global.com

Can anyone explain what is going on at the sheriff's sales? In Greater Cleveland times when people from public could buy the houses on sheriff's sales gone. Since 2006 only banks or asset management companies buy the foreclosed houses. Public is not officially banned from these sales but never wins the bids.

The typical scenario: bank lends $280K to a risky borrower for purchase of an over-appraised house. Borrower after a while stops making payments which eventually leads to foreclosure. Bank - the note holder - purchases the house at sheriff's sale - for $250K. In a short while bank puts it on the market with the Real Estate agent for $230K(?!). After few price reductions house sales for about $205K(??!!). Where is the logic? We see this kind of activity every day in our MLS. And NORMLS has one of the biggest teriitory coverages in the US! 

Few problems arise from this practice: 1) banks artificially drop the prices in the neighborhoods. Once they put a low price tag on the house and set the example, buyers - mostly investors - strat "reverse competition" by low balling the already low prices. 2) Condition of the houses gets worse and worse due to lack of care, weather, improper winterization, and - sad, but true - growing vandalism, which makes further price reduction easier. 3) Banks do real estate today - at least, as property owners. They do dictate the rules to the buyers and their agents by offering their own contracts or addendums and by diminishing the rights of home buyers by numerous AS IS, No inspections and other similar clauses, by chosing their Title insurance companies with lousy coverage. 4) Banks claim big losses. 5) Normal buyers get confused over the prices in the neighborhoods and try to get "deals" on bank owned homes without clear understanding of mentioned above lack of rights in bank-involved-transactions. 6) Real estate professionals can not execute real due diligence to their buyer clients. List is almost endless...

Another aspect of this problem is Who is the victim here? Who needs to get help? IMHO the normal decent responsible homeowners who keep paying off their debts, who keep the houses and neighborhoods in a good pleasant condition, who support the schools, and police, and firemen, and local initiatives by paying property taxes - in another words - decent citizens should be rewarded by government. Investors who keep rehabbing and revitalising lousy neighborhoods should be rewarded. People who accumulated a good equity in their homes and accidentally fell behind their mortgage payments should be helped. NOT irresponsible borrowers. Definitely NOT the banks.

Have questions about Greater Cleveland Real Estate Market?

Need a good Real estate agent to help you sell your house in Greater Cleveland?

Ready to buy in Solon, Twinsburg, Cleveland Heights or other neighborhoods of Greater Cleveland?

Call Local-n-Global Free Real Estate Information Hotline ANYTIME 877-770-5551 or e-mail us: Realty@Local-n-Global.com

Why blame so-called Subprime mess? Stupid adventurers and fraudulent practitioners should be blamed.

Being an immigrant - first buyer, then agent and now broker - myself and helping other people, including fellow immigrants, buy and sell the houses in Greater Cleveland, OH, I founded the Local-n-Global Realty to educate fellow immigrants in American Real Estate and help them reach their homeownership goals and avoid making fatally stupid decisions. According to late publication "How the Subprime Mess Hit Poor Immigrant Groups" By Jonathan Karp and Miriam Jordan From The Wall Street Journal Online :

"Various immigrant groups have long been subject to financial scams. The subprime-mortgage boom offered new avenues for mischief -- by real-estate professionals as well as home shoppers. Potential buyers, especially those paying high rents, became embroiled in schemes to take advantage of banks' easy-money policies.Housing counselors say they have seen this type of activity across the U.S. Among the vulnerable groups: Latinos throughout California, Caribbean and African borrowers in the New York area, and Russian immigrants in Philadelphia. "Immigrants with limited English just trusted what people from their country told them," says Katrina Vizinau, a counselor at Community Housing Development Corp. of North Richmond, a nonprofit organization that educates homeowners in the East Bay area."

Few important notes.

1. No wonder that extended subprime lending caused so many less-than-legal activities in real estate and mortgage industries. I don't think that banks' easy-money policies were created to start scams or other criminal practices. However, subprime lenders specifically targeted people with low credit score, which means they sold mortgages to not really financially responsible people. And they offered a much better compensation to loan originators for selling subprime loans vs. selling conventional loans. This compensation  schedule tempted few originators along with real estate agents to: a) offer subprime loans to those who qualified for normal conventional loan; b) convince ignorant consumers to buy more expensive homes and borrow a way more money than they could ever afford; c) advertise unrealistically low re-fi interest rates without making proper disclosures for dragging people into short-term ARMs (also paid very well by banks!) out of normal fixed rate loans; d) start fraud by signing applications for consumers, making counterfeit checks, bank statements, etc.

2. Immigrant groups in different states and regions are different. San Francisco mentioned in quoted article has a very high immigrant population and high housing pricing as well. We in Cleveland have none of these factors. Probably because of this, we did not face many of such stories of fraud and disaster among immigrant groups in Cleveland like described in quoted article. However, we know about fraudulent mortgage companies who actively defrauded other minority groups whose first language was English. So, poor English language skills are not the main reason for becoming a victim of dirty practitioners, and not an excuse for being a part of fraudulent scams.

3. Real Estate companies and agents working with immigrant population should be more educated and more knowledgeable not only in Real estate, but also in specifics of legal ways to get favorable financing for immigrants. It is crucial to team with knowledgeable and credible immigration attorney when working with immigrant client, especially with one who is not naturalized US citizen yet.

4. Dear immigrant buyers! Please do your home work! You need to work with professionals, you want to trust your advisors, but NO ONE will pay your bills for you, NO ONE will be responsible for your home and your mortgage payments. There is nothing easy in home buying or home financing. There are no free money or free services. If something sounds too good to be realistic, please step back and do not let anyone ruin your dream and your life.   

P.S. Is anyone familiar with any numbers about how many of  subprime related foreclosures  were caused by fraudulent actions of RE or mortgage professionals and homebuyers? I will appreciate you sharing these numbers with me.

Svetlana Stolyarova, founder and broker of Local-n-Global Realty. 24 Hrs. Real Estate Hotline 877-770-5551.

Actively serving home buyers and home sellers in Solon, Mayfield, Willoughby, Mentor, Twinsburg, Lyndhurst and other East side and West Side suburbs of Greater Cleveland. Working for immigrant communities of Greater Cleveland. 

Immigrants guide to homeownership in America

Every buyer created equal? In today's subprime crisis and ARM-crisis-to-be environment people will laugh on this statement. Many potential buyers are suffering from new tough mortgage rules. 

Happily, nothing really changed for recent immigrants. They are created equal, they are experiencing the same problems: lack of credit history or short history, lack of funds for down payment, confusion over the mortgage and other Real Estate terms, confusion over apparent language bareer, lack of experience, abundance of so called "advisors", mostly of not-so-successful or kind-of-jealous friends and relatives. 

As an immigrant who left Russia for America 9 years ago, who earned Real Estate license 8 years ago and who started new multi-cultural, multi-lingual Real Estate company Local-n-Global Realty in Greater Cleveland, OH few months ago, I am very proud to announce that we in Local-n-Global Realty compiled a new valuable source of Real Estate related information for fellow recent or not so recent immigrants in America.

Do not be confused or scared! Immigrants are in a better position than ever. Inventory is rich, sellers are a little bit more reasonable, lenders have programs for people with no credit score or short credit history, interest rates are very decent, job market is o.k. What a chance to make your American dream come true!

Please refer to Local-n-Global Immigrants Guide to homeownership in U.S. and make a move!