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Ok, I realize this is a financial blog and Chris Henry, the suspended Bengals football player, has absolutely nothing to do with real estate, insurance, or investments… but I just couldn’t resist.

According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Cincinnati Bengals have applied to the City of Cincinnati requesting permission to shoot pigeons. Apparently these pesky birds are creating quite a mess in the stadium, even during games. The Bengals are requesting permission to shoot the birds to remedy the problem.

One can’t help but think this is amusing given the fact that the Bengals’ players have some legal problems off the field, notably for weapons charges (that would be you Chris Henry!!!) I guess this will give Chris something to do during his eight game suspension… hey, he needs to make a living too ya know!

May I also suggest to the Bengals that they have Deltha O’Neal and Odell Thurman serving up beer in the stadium’s concession stand while they serve their suspensions?!

Here’s an excellent story on ESPN.com citing the problems with the Cincinnati Bengals and also pokes fun of this town in general! I think it’s rather humorous and I even live here so it’s healthy to laugh at ones self every now and then. Enjoy!

The only thing fitting that I simply have to add to the ESPN article is a quote by Mark Twain: When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati. Because Cincinnati is always 20 years behind the times.

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback…

Just a reminder that the deadline to file/apply for the Homestead Exemption is October 1st, which is this coming Monday.

The Homestead Exemption is a tax break for homeowners age 65 or older or disabled. If you are not yet 65 but will turn 65 prior to the end of this year (this tax year I should say… which for the vast 99.9% of us is the same as the calendar year) and owned your home as of January 1st of this year, then you are able to apply as well. Furthermore, it is my understanding that only one of the owners (if the property is jointly owned by a husband and wife) needs to qualify in order to claim the tax credit. When in doubt, submit the application and if it’s rejected you will be notified why. The county auditor is required by law to notify owners being rejected by November 1st, so within a month of the deadline. Or you can simply call your local auditor’s office, your accountant/CPA, or tax attorney for advice.

You can download an application (in Adobe .pdf format) from the State of Ohio’s Department of Taxation website or you can get them at the county auditor’s office. You cannot file the form electronically; you must submit it to the county auditor’s office in the county that you own your home. A signature is required on the form and proof of eligibility.

Previously the Homestead Exemption was only available to those individuals that were 65 or older and made no more than $26,200. The income qualification has been removed, thus making all seniors who own their homes eligible for the tax credit. The tax credit previously only made the first $5,700 of a home’s value exempt from property tax, this has been increased to the first $25,000 of the home’s value being exempt along with the elimination of the income requirement.

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback…

The non-compassionate housing market. We hear about those people that were duped into biting off more than they could chew in a mortgage payment, often by using Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) or nonconventional loans and subprime loans.

But when the housing market pulls back there is an interesting bunch that is also affected, and you usually don’t hear much about them. These are the people who buy houses in a new community or subdivision, only to end up seeing the subdivision fizzle and be surrounded by empty lots. The Cincinnati Enquirer did an excellent job of bringing this problem to light in an article on its website: Ryan Halts Building in Some Areas

There is an added risk to being the first person to buy a home in a new subdivision. Sure, you get your choice of lots. But you also are living in your home and making payments long before the subdivision is finished. It’s not uncommon (at least in the greater Cincinnati, Ohio area) for a decent sized subdivision to take anywhere from 2 to 4 years to complete. And that was in the good times when homes were pre-sold prior to construction and they were backordered.

The Enquirer article mentions a couple that bought a home and are now one of only 4 homes in the new development. The homebuilder (Ryan) had promised a walking trail, community pool, play areas for kids, and two fishing ponds. Well, there are 4 homes out of 200 possible homesites and there are none of the ammenities that Ryan promised. To top it off, Ryan Homes pulls out of the community and says they will not be building any more homes (which of course means they won’t be adding a pool, trail, etc.)

These four buyers now live in a subdivision filled with graded lots, empty and unfinished streets, and a generally depressing looking, undeveloped neighborhood. I’m sure if you drove through the area and were not familiar with the situation you might think some kind of war took place, or a pandemic occurred.

The rest of us need to learn from this. It’s much better that we learn at others’ expense rather than our own. When you go to buy a newly constructed home, or when you plan to build a home, consider the following:

Many people go straight through the builder and the builder’s sales representative. Resist this urge. Builders are almost always happy to work with Realtors; let’s face it Realtors help them sell “spec homes” (speculative homes built without buyers to be sold on the open market) as well as sending the builder referrals for custom built homes and pre-built orders. I also don’t know of a builder that would refuse to let you hire your own real estate attorney. Considering most builders have their own pre-printed real estate contracts, having an attorney is a great idea!

Back to our Enquirer article and the people who make up 2% of the lots but 100% of the subdivision’s population. While the homebuilder promised all these cool ammenities, I am almost willing to bet there was no mention of walking trails or a pool in the contract to buy the home at whatever price they agreed to pay. Without a doubt, these homeowners have suffered a decrease in property value since the builder pulled out of the subdivision, especially without the ammenities that they were promised and were naturally taken into consideration when the buyer agreed to pay the contract’s stated amount. But without those ammenities being expressly written into the contract, are they owed such ammenities?! That would be a legal question that I as a Realtor cannot answer. This is where having an attorney that specializes in real estate would make all the difference in the world.

Remember this if you remember nothing else at all: the builder and the builder’s sales representative will ALWAYS be working in their own best interest, their own self interest, and NEVER yours. You are their CUSTOMER, not their client. They want to get the highest sale price out of you that they possibly can. And by going directly through the builder you are letting down your guard and showing them your poker hand. When you go through the builder you will never see their cards but they will see yours. That doesn’t sound like a fair handshake.

Have a pre-closing home inspection by an independent, third party certified home inspector of your choice. Construction defects can sometimes take years to discover. If the basement starts leaking 4, 5, 6 years or more down the road it will be difficult to tell whether this was a construction defect or something that happened later down the road. A good home inspector can help detect problems early on and you can have them corrected before you even close on the house.

We could go on at great length about new construction and the many ways you need to protect yourself during a deal to buy a new home. This article is just scratching the surface, and the Enquirer article helped remind us to watch out for our own best interest in these types of deals. If you’re considering buying a new home or having one custom built, you are wise to have people on your side to protect your investment.

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback…

In a follow-up to my Sept. 11th blog entry regarding my real estate license renewal, I have met the continuing education requirements for my Ohio insurance license as well now. My insurance license requires 20 hours of continuing education every two years. I hold both the property/casualty (Series 11-35) license as well as the Life/health/variable annuities (Series 11-36) license. I have been an Ohio licensed insurance agent since 2002. You can read more about my licensing and professional designations on the About the Blogger page.

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback…

Although I do have a category in my blog for Entrpreneurship here on this website, I am also a columnist for Cinventure.com. If you haven’t seen the Cinventure website and are interested in entrepreneurship, I would encourage you to visit the website and even subscribe to the feed. You can even subscribe by email.

Today I posted a new article to the Cinventure website regarding negotiating skills. Now, most of the articles you read about negotiating focus on how to actually think and act in the negotiation itself. My article takes a step back and examines the things you should do to prepare for the negotiation ahead of time.

In the future I may post my articles on both this website and the Cinventure website (as I have even done in the past for some articles), but it seems like a lot of extra work for the same article. Please take a minute to visit Cinventure.com and read the newest article about preparing for a negotiation.

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback…

Yesterday I posted some more gloom and doom news about the national picture in real estate (an expected drop of 8.6% in home sales nationwide this year). I thought it was only fitting that to put that decrease in home sales into perspective I would offer up a silver lining and keep it local. While the number of sales nationwide is down significantly, there MUST be an increase in the number of homes sold per year in the greater Cincinnati area, or at least this is true when we look at the long-term of the past 5 to 7 years instead of just this year.

Since 2000, the percentage of owner-occupied housing in the greater Cincinnati area has grown from 66.2% of homes to 69.6% of homes. This is a significant improvement over a seven year period (the figure was through the end of 2006 - not through the year to date in 2007). Ironically, in 2000, the national average was also 66.2% of homes in America being owner-occupied. So in 2000, the Cincinnati area was just a prime example of the mix of homeowners and renters, a microcosm of the nation if you will.

The national homeownership percentage also increased over that same time period, but not by as much as the greater Cincinnati area. The national average for homeownership was 67.3% at the end of 2006, well below Cincinnati’s level of 69.6%.

There is some caution to reading these numbers in such a positive light though. Within the city of Cincinnati itself, the home ownership rate did increase but remains well below the national, state, and regional levels. The city of Cincinnati increased from 38.9% in 2000 to 42.3% at the end of 2006. The state level was 70%.

Certain high growth suburbs, like Mason, Ohio in Warren county helped drive up the median home price AND the percent of homeownership in the area.

In stark contrast, a recent article in the Cincinnati Enquirer highlighted the Hamilton County Sheriff’s role in assisting Cincinnati Police in reducing the amount of crime in neighborhoods like Over the Rhine. While the article was directed at the city and county joining forces to reduce inner city crime, it did casually mention in passing that the homeownership rate in Over the Rhine was less than 10%!!! That’s right, single digits. Less than 1 in 10 people.

So now we see the two extremes tugging on the average… Mason and similar suburbs on one extreme of good examples of growth, and Over the Rhine and inner city neighborhoods struggling to compete with the suburbs.

It is still encouraging to see homeownership levels on the rise though, both locally and on the national scale. Only time will tell if or to what extend this growth in homeownership was attributed to risky mortgage products that would have otherwise forced some new home owners to continue to rent.

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback…

Numerous statistics and references were drawn from the Cincinnati Enquirer online edition. Namely, the article Homeownership at Record High by Enquirer writer Lisa Bernard-Kuhn was used as a reference in writing this blog entry.

The National Association of Realtors (hereafter referred to as NAR)released preliminary data today from its Senior Economist, Lawrence Yun, that the sale of homes nationwide would be down approximately 8.6% in 2007. This would amount to 5.9 million homes sold in 2007 compared to 6.5 million sold last year. On the bright side, the NAR expects home sales to climb to 6.3 million next year, a slight rebound but still lower than sales in 2006. The 5.9 million homes expected to be sold in 2007 is the lowest the housing market has seen since 2002 when approximately 5.6 million homes were sold.

While the fears of subprime mortgages are still a concern, there has been a reduction in the number of new homes being constructed and therefore not as much pressure is being added to the current inventory levels by builders. If the foreclosure rate increases unexpectedly, or more than expected I should say, the inventory levels could go higher and cause further price deteoration and a lingering stagnation (or glut) of properties on the market. Such a spike in foreclosures could reduce the number of units sold in 2008 and further drive down the average sale price as well. It remains to be seen how much the subprime mortgage market and the foreclosure rate will affect the market but it is something being closely watched by investors in the US and abroad.

Investors (both of real estate investment and those investing in securities) as well as homeowners, real estate practioners, and so forth would be wise to take note of the following dates when real estate industry data is released:

The 16th of every month: Number of housing starts and building permits (data released by the US Commerce Department).
Last business day of every month at approximately 10:00am EST: New Home Sales for the month prior (data released by the US Commerce Department)
Around the 25th of every month: Existing home sales for the prior month (data released by the National Association of Realtors)

All of the above economic data can be found by going through financial websites, newspapers, etc. For example, you can go to Yahoo! Finance and click on Economic Calendar and see a list of economic data being released on any given date and time. A brief explanation of the data can be found by then clicking on the name of the item once you are in the economic calendar.

Some statistics in this article were derived from a Yahoo! news story published online on September 11, 2007 by Alan Zibel, an AP Business Writer. The Yahoo! story was entitled “Realtors Predict Drop in 2007 Home Sales“

I am proud and excited to announce that I have submitted my renewal fee and application to the State of Ohio Department of Commerce, Division of Real Estate and Professional Licensing. My real estate salespersons license, which is due to renew on this month, will now be valid until this same month in 2010.

As many of you may know from reading my About the Blogger page, I have been an Ohio licensed real estate agent since 2001. This will essentially ensure that I will be a nine year seasoned professional the next time my license is due for renewal.

While it may not seem significant that I only have six years experience at this point in time, it is important to remember that I am only 26 years old. Therefore, I have been licensed to sell real estate since I was 20 - and likewise 3 years longer than I myself have been a homeowner.

I am excited about my growing tenure and experience in the real estate industry due to the notorious high turnover of newly licensed associates. It is no secret that over half of newly licensed associates leave the business within the first year, and the number that stick around after three years (the first time the license is renewed with the 30 hours of continuing education in Ohio) is even more dismal - I’ve heard upwards of 80 to 90% drop out of the business before they reach the three year anniversary.

This is also an excellent opportunity to remind the general public that there is a distinct difference between simply being a licensed real estate agent and a member of the National Association of Realtors. I have been a member Realtor since my original licensing in 2001 and firmly believe this organization helps increase the standard of care by member agents with respect to dealing with clients, fellow agents, and the general public. While it may seem trivial to ask an agent if she or he is a member of the local board of Realtors, it is important because those licensed agents have agreed to be bound by a higher code of ethics than what the Ohio Revised Code requires. I personally am a member of the Middletown Board of Realtors and likewise the Ohio Association of Realtors and the National Association of Realtors.

I look forward to serving the public for many years to come and I want to reassure my clients - both past and present - that as long as I am able to maintain my license, I will continue to be here to help in the buying and selling of real estate in Ohio.

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback…

I just posted an article about how I fought the law… well, the Ohio Administrative Code regarding open burning. It appears someone else has taken matters into their own hands when it comes to dealing with the law:

Yes, it appears that in Miami Township, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati) someone has taken it upon themselves to let the public know just how they feel about their police force… while doing so anonymously. I wish I knew why this person did this… there simply HAS to be a good story behind this. Was it a parking ticket? A speeding ticket? Or some other traffic citation?! Imagine the puzzled look on the officer’s face when the speeder grins and gladly accepts the $85 speeding ticket. The article on the Cincinnati Enquirer website said the police narrowed down the time of the incident to “between 8pm August 27th and 7am August 28th.” (Adobe .pdf version of the article). Wow. I’m going out on a limb here to say it will be hard for them to pin down a suspect on this one. I mean, even if they have a short list of people to choose from (the article states someone must’ve had a key to the backhoe and knew how to operate it), you are still facing a group of alibias where most of them consist of this:

Detective: “Sir/mam, where were you between 8pm and 7am on August 27/28th?”

Suspect: “I watched the 10:00 news and then I went to bed; woke up at my usual 5/6/7/8 or whenever”….

The point is… deep down someone is snickering and feeling vindicated. I can’t condone this kind of behavior, but I have to be impressed with the creativity and great length that someone went through to pull this off. It may seem juvenile, but what it really did was embarrass the local authorities. If you lived in Miami Township, or if you DO live in Miami Twp, how much does this make you believe in your police force?!

This should just be a reminder to people that we live in a society in which some people are not all there in the head. I can’t imagine a sane, rational person thinking this is a wise thing to do. Were there drugs involved? Was the person who did this high as a kite? We may never know. But next time someone cuts you off in traffic or lets their dog pee on your lawn, just remember they could be taking some kind of anti-depressant or on some type of illegal drug. It’s best not to instigate or fuel a volatile situation in this day and age in which we live. Ok, I will get off my soapbox, but let’s try to be respectful of one another and of course respectful of the law and those who are in power and risk their lives to enforce it.

As always I welcome your comments and feedback…

It was a draw. Stalemate. While I am preface this by saying I am NOT an attorney, I do feel that through my business law classes and experience in government regulated businesses (real estate and insurance) I think I have a good handle on how the legal system works. But recently I discovered a new part of the law that I had previously not been exposed to: the Ohio Administrative Code. Did you know… “With few exceptions, most types of open burning are prohibited in Ohio“… this is a quote directly from the pamphlet entitled Open Burning - A Guide to Open Burning Safely and Legally, published by Hamilton County [Ohio] Environmental Services with input from the US and Ohio EPA.

This past Sunday I decided it was time to get rid of the six-foot tall pile of tree branches and yard waste in my back yard. Yes, it’s been a busy summer of trimming pine trees here in Cincinnati. I did not want to send all of this to the landfill, and I did not want to pay some tree trimmer to haul it away. Why not burn it? Well, apparently this is against the law… er, administrative code… in Ohio. One of my neighbors called the police on me for having an “open burn” as the officer called it. I didn’t see what the big deal was… I had two fire extinguishers, a charged hose, and two buckets of water. Doesn’t matter, even if the fire is well-controlled I did not have a permit.

The Permit Process:

1) Call the local fire department and request application for the Open Burn. You must specify what you are burning and when you will burn it. You should schedule this at least two weeks in advance I’m told.

2) Submit application to fire department. Upon fire department approval, go to step 3.

3) Submit fire department approved permit application along with any county fee to the county’s department of environmental services division for final approval.

Either one of the two government entities (the fire department or the county environmental services division) can deny the application for a permit, for virtually any reason by the way.

So how does anyone ever get to burn yard waste with all that red tape?!

Ah ha! There are exceptions to the Ohio Administrative Code regarding open burning.

Quoting once again from the same Hamilton County Environmental Services brochure:
The following exceptions are allowed: “cooking for human consumption (e.g. barbecues), heating tar, welding torches, smudge pots, and heating for warmth for outdoor workers.”

Guess who had his 1st Annual Thomas Goodwin Labor Day Cookout this year!!! That’s right… there were hot dogs, sausages, cheddarwursts, and s’mores served up over a pile of burning pine needles. And not only did I make sure I notified the fire and police departments in advance of my legal cookout (as a courtesy of course), I went one step further and invited these two fine public servant departments to my cookout. I would love to see the neighbor’s face when he or she called to report the second fire in as many days only to see the police arrive to partake in a hotdog and Coke.

The moral of this story… wait, let’s not call it a moral. I know what I did was legal but let’s not get into morals and ethics just yet… the little nugget of wisdom I took away from this event was that sometimes you have to look for the legal way to do things even if means making the simple task more complicated. Both days I had a fire. The second one was more work and more involved as it required me to go buy hotdogs, buns, condiments, etc. It made my fire legitmate though, and it was more enjoyable, too. I got to have a cookout with some close friends and even invited (some of) the neighbors.

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback…