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Toledo OH Real Estate Market Report Posted in July 9th, 2008 | Edit by Real Estate Manager in Neighborhoods Toledo Ohio Real Estate Market Shows Signs of Recovery! The following Toledo Ohio Real Estate Market Report by The Blade is captioned negatively, but actually carries some positive news. Specifically, it reports that:
Each of these developments should help housing prices recover in the second half of 2008. I am not sure how the headline came to be so negative for this article. Maybe we should gently encourage the Blade to use a GOOD NEWS angle on articles like this if they want to help stimulate the local economy instead of fuel consumer fear and anguish? See sections emphasized in blue for the BRIGHT SPOTS in the Toledo Real Estate Market Report: ################################### Article published Wednesday, July 9, 2008
By TED FACKLER The northwest Ohio housing market has suffered another hit, as home sales and prices slipped again in June, new figures show. Sales were down 13 percent in Lucas County and 20 percent across northwest Ohio from a year earlier, according to the Toledo Board of Realtors. Selling prices dropped to an average of $120,000 in Lucas County and $124,000 in northwest Ohio, down $6,000 and $10,000, respectively. But not everything is doom and gloom, as East Toledo home seller Jacey Duffer can attest. Her $85,000 home sold two months after it was listed, and for only $4,000 less than the initial asking price. "It's been the smoothest process," said Mrs. Duffer. "We didn't have many people go through it, but all of a sudden we had two people walk through, they made an offer, and we got out of it." She plans to move her husband and three children to Oregon and purchase a more expensive home. Pat Johnson, a sales manager at DiSalle Real Estate Co. in Maumee, said that although the housing market is down, it's not out. "Business is going to go on," she said. Through the first six months of 2008, homes under $29,999 have sold at the best pace, up 44 percent for the same months last year. Sales are up as well in the range between $30,000 to $39,999, and $400,000 to $499,999, but other sale price ranges are down, the Realtor board figures show. The market for houses under $30,000 is up because of more low-income residents, and also, former apartment renters buying homes, said several area real estate agents. Overall, 422 such houses in Lucas County have sold from January through June, up from 293 a year ago. The wave of out-of-town investors buying cheap housing also is a factor, said Mike Hayden, a Re/Max general manager in Toledo. Plus, condo sales in 2008 are down 23 percent in Lucas County and northwest Ohio from the same time last year. Total unit sales dipped to 123 from 162 in 2007. As more buyers enter the market, houses have begun selling more rapidly than they did last year. Sales of houses sold within two months of being listed were up 20 percent last month compared to last year, the realty group said. Plus, houses sold within a four-month listing period were up 28 percent. "For a while, people thought to price homes high, and see what offers come in, but it just took an awful long time to sell," said Al Green, owner of AA Realty in Bowling Green and president of the Toledo Board of Realtors. "Now, people are recognizing they need to look carefully at their listing price" and drop the figure. In June, the 7,841 homes listed for sale in Lucas County are down from 8,494 last year, perhaps a sign of stability in the housing market, said Mr. Green. Contact Ted Fackler at: ############################################### For more information about the local newspaper, visit http://www.toledoblade.com For more information about Toledo Homes for sale, visit http://www.HomeFinder100.com For Toledo Ohio Real Estate Blog, visit www.homefinder100.com/blog/
OK. Let me know If I am REALLY tracking this... FIRST: The DOJ filed a suit meant to prohibit allegedly anti competitive practices of MLS members. THIS WAS SAID TO BE IN THE INTEREST OF PROHIBITING "PRICE FIXING", AND INCREASING COMPETITION AMONG BROKERS, WITH THE INTENT OF LOWERING CONSUMER COMMISSION COSTS INCURRED DURING REAL ESTATE TRANSACTIONS. THE DOJ suit clearly supported new style online brokers or agents who apparently had lower cost business models. The DOJ suit went to war with "OLD STYLE" Brokers who actually put time and effort into "SERVING, ADVISING, and PROTECTING" CONSUMERS. These brokers establish offices and recruit agents who actually know which neighborhoods are trending which directions, and where the new highway is going next year, and which railroad or shipyard wants to annex property through emminent domain.. BUT NEVERMIND THE VALUE OF ALL THAT FIDUCIARY RESPONSIBILITY OR AWARENESS..... (This is the stuff of licensing law - with entire books and ethics committees and court docket records from actual cases.... so who needs all that - right?) AT LEAST - (AT THE VERY LEAST) THE DOJ WOULD PRESUMABLY BENEFIT CONSUMERS BY MAKING LOWER COST COMMISSION MODELS MORE AVAILABLE TO CONSUMERS. That was the plan... RIGHT? NEXT, NAR and MLS's defended themselves by pointing out that the MLS's did not want to share listings or commissions with "middlemen" who did not bring any real knowledge or service or value to the transaction other than placing listings online. It sounds like a good argument - but they may have caved in so that the DOJ would take their BIG FLASHLIGHT and go home. After all, they might find the back room of the real estate industry, where what "looks like" RESPA WORKAROUNDS might actually allow real working people to actually make a living helping consumers with a very complex legal and financial transaction.... Years passed ~ lawyers got rich.... now the parties want to settle... The proposed settlement actually works to turn more web savvy agents or brokers into middlemen who will troll the internet for referrals that can be SOLD to people already working 70 hour weeks and spending thousands of dollars a month on marketing. This adds a whole new layer to the commission sharing game that was presumably OUTLAWED by RESPA... GUESS WHAT.... IF YOU DRIVE UP COSTS FOR STARVING PRACTITIONERS, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WORST MARKET IN 50 YEARS - THEN COSTS FOR THE CONSUMER WILL RISE. Only our GOVERNMENT could imagine creating a new cost for the poor Realtor at a time like this. All this does is "TAX" the poor agent who is listing or selling homes in the trenches by actually, <GASP> spending TIME and MONEY interfacing with highly variable and indecisive human transaction units. END RESULT IS OPPOSITE THE ORIGINAL INTENT - BUT EVERYBODY IS HAPPY? Don't you think consumers may end up paying more for actual Realtor services because the agent now has to give away more of his or her commission to middlemen. Rates at street level may have to increase to allow for SOMEBODY to actually "serve, advise, and protect" the consumer. Thank God the DOJ is protecting consumers by REVERSING many of the core issues in RESPA and creating a whole new industry that will feed off the commission stream without actually providing any real fiduciary services... (now - tell me again... who put them up to this - and WHY DID NAR AGREE)? What am I missing here? *BTW - Yes, I know that NAR felt exposed on a couple other fronts that could have cost hundreds of thousands in legal bills and might have cost NAR or MLS their actual position in the economy if they managed to lose the suit... But isn't this why we pay them? To protect and serve the interest of Realtors? ONE CAVEAT: We have not even opened the can of worms about intellectual property rights of the Realtor who took the photo and wrote the marketing copy. These acts produce "works of art". Under copyright law, in the USA, there is a basic concept that nobody should be able to make money of protected works of art without paying the creator.... Hmmm... Rock solid ownership with a right to be protected and paid???? I would have thought NAR and MLS's would have focused here.... BUT I DIGRESS... SADLY... BACK TO THE CORE ISSUE.... NAR and MLS's could have asserted ownership of intellectual property, protected working agents, and actually derailed this price gouging train wreck before it brought down the whole train station..... and before it drove up transaction costs for agents and thus for consumers. COMMENTS? THOUGHTS? WHAT AM I MISSING? Many of you know I took a position last fall helping other agents sell homes. After 6 months of work, my cable channel is ready to launch... I just wanted to update my friends here. You may be seeing more services like this around the USA in the coming year. Will keep you posted as to how the public responds. In a YOUTUBE and BIGSCREEN Generation, we expect that this will go over pretty big. Check out the Channel 13 news story to see the great press we got locally! ####### Real Estate Toledo ~ HomeFinder Channel 100 ~ In the News! Participating Brokers and Agents to receive increased market visibility and market position enhancing cross channel promotion. Logos of Participating Brokerages will be featured in many ads. HomeFinder Channel 100 will be the most advertised real estate marketing platform this selling season. Launch Marketing starts this week with Television and Newspaper Ads. The first shows starts April 17th on Channel 100 and Buckeye VOD. Quick Links: Greetings in the name of the Risen Christ who lived a perfect life, died to pay the price of our wrongdoing, and then rose again to destroy the power of death and sin. Today we celebrate that there is now no condemnation for those who know the Lord. My slate was made clean by the sacrifice of one who saves us all if we only accept the gift. I approach the Master Creator with thanksgiving and joy. Instead of being defeated by our past, our shortcomings, we can live in this life as sons of the King, and sit at His right hand with Jesus our brother. Nothing can hold us in a life that is less than what we were born for! The Easter story brings a whole new meaning to "turning over a new leaf". As Spring brings new life to the earth, our faith brings new life to our heart. This new life can save the world by changing how we see things. It gives us power to give life to others. If we share the message with others, they too can be saved from a life that is held back by the evil one. They can be raised from death and live again! Grace, Peace and Joy to you. Just received the nicest email... about my free FSBO LISTING TIPS at http://www.fsbokiller.com/ The tips are free, and so is the recorded coaching session - so the spam cops can stay home ; ) ################### I have just read your page, FSBO Appointment for the first time and think it's GENIUS!!! I am going to get working on my FSBO'S today. #################### Thank you Gina for the kind words. Im not sure I want to buy into the genius part - but I did work hard on this material an used it to list over 50 FSBO homes - so I hope it helps other agents : )
Classical economic theory says markets are rational. According to the theory, we don't need to regulate markets or control them, because they always behave rationally. At risk of oversimplification, the idea is that principles of Supply and Demand take care of things. If people want it they will buy it. If they don't they won't. No need for government to interfere. You cannot legislate morality or fair prices or anything else when it comes to markets. Hmmmm........ WHEN IT COMES TO REAL ESTATE..... Was 2000 - 2005 Rational? Was 2006 - 2007 Rational? What would be rational for the market to do in 2008? Penny for your thoughts? Search Toledo Homes For Sale I am curious as to how many real estate agents use online learning to sharpen their skills. By this I mean something more formal than reading blogs, messaging other agents, or searching google for topics of interest. Do you attend or provide online learning opportunities? Have you recently participated in a web based seminar, or WEBINAR as a presenter or class member? Was it free or was there a cost? Please describe the topic you attended, who was the presenter, and whether or not you found the experience helpful. If you recall, please note the software that was used. Category leaders are webex, gotomeeting.com, and gotowebinar.com. Maybe you like another? Real Estate Toledo OH - Search Toledo OH Homes For Sale - Best Real Estate Web Search. Real Estate Market reports for Toledo Ohio will soon be found organized by neighborhood at new real estate blog site and listing search site www.HomeFinder100.com Toledo Area Home Buyers, Your Dream Home is only a Click Away! tm www.HomeFinder100.com is destined to be the most powerful real estate web search available in greater Toledo, Ohio, Including NW Ohio and SE Michigan. It features all the listings of all agents of all participating Toledo area real estate brokerages. Now you can test drive the newest real estate web site serving home buyers and sellers in Greater Toledo. Powerful new search features mean you can find the right toledo home for sale in only a few clicks. Toledo OH area Home Buyers can search thousands of listings and get a SHORT LIST of 10 or 12 homes faster and easier and with more of the features they want, Powerful real estate search engine allows you to select more options than other sites to narrow the results to only those homes you might really want to see. Other sites might return 100 or more listings, but our site will let you choose enough options to reduce the list to 10 or 12 great houses. Toledo OH area Home Sellers can search their neighborhood to see the prices that similar homes are selling for. Toledo OH area Real Estate Visitors may register an account and save their favorite homes. Toledo Area Real Estate Visitors may register their buyer agent and notify buyer agent instead of seller agent when they want more information or a showing. Toledo Area Real Estate Visitors may visit Neighborhood blogs and post articles about why they enjoy living in their neighborhood. www.HomeFinder100.com/blog Find Toledo Realtors and Toledo Real Estate agents specializing in your neighborhood. Many more features available now or coming soon. More news soon. Site is in beta testing now. Please pardon or first few steps out of development into user testing. There may be some buttons or features that do not yet work as intended. The companion Television Station will launch as a 24 hour real estate channel, HomeFinder Channel 100, in about 30 days. It's the only DUAL platform real estate marketing program of its kind. Agents recieve TRIPLE PLAY PACKAGE of benefits with TV + ONLINE + FREE LEADS when buyers want to see the houses. Please test drive the site and let me know what you think! Please report any issues or concerns or kudos to: Lonn Dugan, Real Estate Manager Real Estate Search Engine Optimization is not only for Google. Think about this if you are fighting for natural placement clicks. While the clear market leader has a 70 share in search clicks, there are signs of change. Google search clicks are down while Microsoft Search Clicks are up. This may be a sign of the times as far as the economy goes, according to the article, but it also shows that it may be harder to stay on top than to grow. See full story > http://ftp.media.radcity.com/ZSND/issues/february2008/C3210.pdf Perhaps it is the Google Sandbox effect at work in a negative way? The Sandbox process at Google is used to prevent new sites from being highly ranked. The premise is that new sites are not as valuable as long established ones. Since RELEVANCE is the buzzword in search results, then we can see that Google simply assumes that new sites are not as RELEVANT. There is no other arena in the tech world where the newest thing is automatically penalized. File under Things That Make You Say.... Hmmmm..... Maybe they should rethink their Sandbox strategy? Consider: my new Real Estate Search Site to find homes for sale in Toledo Ohio is found at http://www.homefinder100.com/. This site has been up for a few months, and is already on PAGE ONE for search terms "Toledo Real Estate" and "Toledo Homes For Sale" at Microsoft's search site http://www.live.com/. At the same time, Google has not treated us as kindly - nor has YAHOO (which is usally faster than Google to index new sites). FAST counts. At least in the tech world. I am generally not a big Micro$oft fan, but they have proven to me that they give prompt ranking to new sites with good search optimization. In fact, my newest site is getting most of it's search traffic from the Micro$oft search site at the moment. Moral of the Story: When playing KING OF THE HILL, one thing is sure. It may be easier to move forward, or to get to the top - than it is to stay at the top. What does this have to do with you? Just because other agents are currently on top of hill does not mean they will stay there. Smaller is usually faster... As they say on the show, SURVIVOR - you can OUTWIT, OUTPLAY, OUTLAST. Don't give up the SEO battle just because your site is too new to be ranked at Google. I have seen my sites ranked at msn and yahoo faster than Google before. In the end, persistence has paid off with a good Google rank. The same can be true for you! For fun, I would like to know if you have checked your site rank at http://www.live.com/ and whether or not the results are significantly different than at Yahoo or Google. Let me know! I am hopeful that we will see the housing market turn around this year at least with regard to volume if not price as well. I am also hopeful we might see signs of strength FIRST in the market areas that crashed FIRST. The Midwest, and particularly a circle that includes Detroit Michigan, SE Michigan, and NW Ohio was hit first, and was hit hardest in many ways. Overheated markets like Florida and West Coast areas, have provided some stellar examples of market balloons, and should be considered in their own merit. But the heartland of America was never over-inflated by the market dynamics that affected these balloon markets. The heartland crashed before the nationwide crash. For this important reason, the midwest may be a good bellweather state as far as predicting the nationwide real estate market recovery. Please remember that this area led the nation in foreclosures back in 2006 and early 2007. The area is now showing some signs of life according to the otherwise dismal report from the AP - quoted below. Yes, I know that the economists are saying we won't recover for another 1-3 years... but I also know that even our Ex Federal Reserve Chaiman (Greenspan) did not see the housing market crash coming, and failed to forecast it's severity with any accuracy. He was the best of the best... "The Economists" as a group also said, at the end of 2006, that the market would recover in 3rd or 4th quarter 2007. So far they are 100% WRONG. So, when they now project another 1-3 years of decline...(including current Federal Reserve Board Chairman Bernanke) I CALL THEM ON IT and predict they are wrong - again. Here is hoping, for all my agent friends - that I am right : ) ####################### Existing Home Sales Hit 9-Year Low WASHINGTON (AP) - Sales of existing homes fell to the lowest level in nearly a decade in January while the median price for a home dropped for the fifth straight month. The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales of single-family homes and condominiums dropped by 0.4 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.89 million units, the slowest sales pace on records going back to 1999. The median price of a home sold in January slid to $201,100, a drop of 4.6 percent from a year ago. The drop in sales and the fifth consecutive decline in prices underscored the continued pressure facing housing, which is struggling to emerge from its worst slump in a quarter-century. Sales were weak in all parts of the country except the Midwest, (emphasis added) where sales posted an increase of 3.4 percent. Sales dropped by 3.6 percent in the Northeast, 2.1 percent in the West and 0.5 percent in the West. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE at http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2008/02/25/1324002-existing-home-sales-hit-9-year-low See also www.HomeFinder100.com/blog |
Lonn Dugan Toledo, OH More about me… BIG Marketing Solutions Office Phone: (419) 654-5666 Cell Phone: (419) 654-5666 Email Me
Former Licensed Agent turned Marketing & SEO Coach, FSBO Listing Coach is Active Rain Group Discussion Leader - "FSBO Killers". Webmaster, Trainer, Speaker, Blogging Junkie...
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