Carole Cohen Realtor®, ePRO

My pal Linda Davis and I banter back and forth about politics. We are rarely of the same political philosophy but good friendships survive that! Linda says I am Carole The Realtor® This tag has been blogged about on Active Rain (social network for the real estate profession) over the last few weeks but I have my own take due to public perception about agents. And it still ain't pretty. Our company, Howard Hanna, bought Realty One/Real Living over the past few days. Shaheen Samovati from the Plain Dealer has been on top of it, she's a sharp cookie and a good writer. She did a story about it here. The PD columns get a lot of strange commentary, but since this time it was about real estate, it hit home. You can go read all the comments but here is an excerpt from one:

"For the most part, Realtors are the laziest and least ethical people out there, doing everything to make a commission for themselves without regard for the homeowner. Do yourself a favor, don't list with a realtor. Whatever you think your home is worth, lower it by 10% - 15% and sell it without the hassles."

Brokers and agents like Linda Davis have written about what we really do as have a lot of you. Still, stereotypes persist. Carole The Realtor® doesn't feel like a stereotype to me. Why?

1. Greed and only working for the commission is not part of my equation. Yes I need to make a living just like Sally the Secretary and Diana The Grocery Manager. But there is no greed in wanting to pay my bills and keep up my house.

2. Unlike Joe the Plumber I could not buy a business this year for $250k nor would anyone give me a loan to do it. And this with having a steady stream of business for quite some time now.

3. I don't snark at other brokers or agents from other brokerages. I don't try to steal their clients either.

4. I don't only show my own listings and I don't only market listings to agents in my company.

5. I DO network with other agents and have great relationships with people in other brokerages.

6. I have never tried to cut another agent out of a deal, held back offers from clients so one of my clients could buy the house instead or any other strange behavior of the same ilk. And frankly in six years in this business I have only ever seen maybe two or three agents who are like this.

There are bad peaches in every bunch (and don't ya hate when that happens) but this is true whether or not you are dealing with real estate, telephone companies, grocers, or any other business! What is my career really about and what do I do all day? I learn! Agents are like investigative reporters. What do I investigate and learn?

1. The history of neighborhoods, how each one came to be. Maybe a factory is close by and therefore housing for the workers sprung up like flowers in a garden back in the day. Maybe there was an active religious institution; a school; maybe it's on the transit line. Who chose to live where and why, back in the day, is fascinating to me. I wind up at the library a lot because of some tidbit of info I've found out in the different ‘hoods.

2. I ferret out what's vibrant in each of our neighborhoods. Is there a long time hardware store or bakery? The Brothers Lounge was dormant in one of our neighborhoods for a few years. Now Cudell Edgewater residents (and people from all over the city) are ecstatic that it re-opened. Gordone Square Streetscaping is happening in Detroit Shoreway and the Capital Theatre will be open in about six months. That neighborhood is becoming more vibrant by the minute. And the tid bits go on and on.

3. Real estate nuances. Why is one street more sought after than the one right next to it? Why would a house sell more near a transit station and one on the other side of the community not?

4. Government regulations and how they play out in house sales and house market values. Do you have to have a city point of sale inspection if you sell your house? Are you going to be a landlord? Do you know you need an inspection? Did you know the city will come out and do a weatherization checklist for you to help you save on fuel costs? There is a lot to learn that is helpful to buyers of homes.

5. Through many people/clients I have learned how to refinish floors with boat paint, where the best (insert culture) restaurants are that people of that culture frequent. Where there is a leather tailor to fix my briefcases or purses or coats. Where are their neighborhood block clubs and where are the dog parks?

6. What communities have point of sale inspections and which ones don't. Which communities have land banks of vacant land and how they can be purchased and who to contact.

7. Sometimes I even find out what companies are hiring in a community, which ones aren't. What cool new business has moved into a neighborhood. (We have one person who makes ‘thingies' for guitars and has a patented way to keep strings from needing to be tuned as much. Keith Richards, among others, buys this stuff from him). Where are the best independent coffee shops? All of these things make for a vibrant neighborhood. I get to learn where they are in each community. And then I get to pass this information on to folks looking to buy a home.

8. Something different every day. This is not an exaggeration. Every single day. If you get right down to it, almost every job allows us to learn something every week, challenge ourselves. But in real estate I get to do it every single day. Being somewhat geeky that makes me feel even better about getting up and going to work every day. Probably helps keep me young too!

Agents are like matchmakers. I keep thinking about that. We help match up clients to homes. I always have ideas running around in my brain and one of them is to set up monthly meet ups for agents of every brokerage so we can talk with each other and find out who has clients that might be good for our listings and vice versa. God knows we all work hard and taking time off is difficult so why not match up a social event with some good work networking? This may sound like a digression (lol) but it's not. Because being an agent allows me to think up creative ideas.

They may or may not work, but throwing the ideas out there for sure can't hurt. We all do this, and isn't that another wonderful side benefit to our careers? This week, I look forward to welcoming, one on one, agents from Real Living who will be working under the same umbrella brokerage as I am, and celebrating the fact that I can count on thinking about or learning something new every day. And hopefully matching up a few people to homes. There really is no stereotype to our career is there? Peace Out - 3C

A couple months ago, I found myself in talks with Bryan Gillooly (Executive Dir) and Sister Linda (Board Member) at Bellaire Puritas Development Corporation (BPDC). We were interviewing each other, as to whether or not I should be on the Board. Last night's Ward 20 Neighborhood Summit made me even happier that I accepted the position. The Summit combined dinner, a chance for neighbors to meet and talk with each other, poster style presentations by groups in the area doing quite a few good things for our community, and speeches. (Politicians spoke too and as you would predict they were a tad long winded and uh, political! But even they had some good info lol)

What impressed me? First, the commitment of the BPDC staff to keep adding on programs, efforts that help the community. And get this: an ever increasing effort to talk to residents, both home owners and business owners, to find out just what the neighborhood wants. Imagine that! Everyone had forms on the table allowing them to pass on what they wanted to see in the neighborhood or to express concerns they might have. Since I'm a big believer in this kind of interaction, I was excited to see this.

Some of the highlights:

1. The Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP) helps people pay their energy bills. As you can imagine, HEAP will be needed to help even more people this year. Prior to this year, our Ward 20 residents had to get to the HEAP office located in Clark Metro. Not impossible for those who drive, but for those taking public transportation? Because of bus transfers? 2 1/2 hour trip. Not conducive to seeking help! So Bryan Gillooly and the BPDC staff worked to get a satellite HEAP office set up at the BPDC office with separate HEAP staff people. Again I say, excellent dude!

2. Cleveland Public Theatre works with our community students through the STEP program (Student Theatre Enrichment Program). Our students put on two performances with CPT's assistance, one being at Jefferson Park this summer during the annual Ward 20 Ice Cream Social. The STEP program helps build student confidence and self esteem, while being just plain fun as well.

3. There is a gardening program at RG Jones and Riverside (see photos). Students not only garden, but then help market the produce. It's a way to teach students business and marketing skills along with helping them learn to garden and see the results of their efforts. It's an ongoing, wonderful program (I would love to help out with it next season).

4. We are the only Ward with a mediation program. Mostly, we all enjoy our neighbors but you know, every now and then a dispute arises. In order to resolve issues in a respectful way that also avoids legal action, Bellaire Puritas (BPDC) offers a mediation service. The mediation is also useful when teen issues arise.

5. The Cleveland Foundation is working with us on a Youth Development Program. The idea is to identify in-school and outside projects (like some of the ones above but a much longer list) that could help our Ward 20 students thrive.

Once a stereotype gets going, it's hard to break it. But truthfully, our schools are helping students thrive. All the elementary schools in our Ward are going to be brand spanking new. And if enhancement programs can help students thrive, no one will feel the need to pull their kids out, or move out of the neighborhood, because parents will continue to see the good results.

I'd like to use the gardening analogy about all of the above. You prepare the dirt (good enhancement programs at schools and mediation services available), You plant the seeds (like the CPT/STEP theatre projects) and you get a vibrant community of neighbors helping, talking with and enjoying other neighbors. Again I say, excellent dude!

To contact Bellaire Puritas about any thing listed here or not, call 216-671-2710. h/t to Rachel Napolitano, the community organizer at BPDC for putting on a great Summit last night. Peace Out - 3C

The Election is almost over and it's going to be time to roll up our sleeves and get to prioritizing issues that need to be tackled. If you had told any of us five years ago that our Government would be willing to pump money into banks, financial institutions or anything else, we'd have all said collectively someone was pipe dreaming. HR 1424, The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act is in effect and now we can see the possibilities. One of our most important and least sexy urgent needs is infrastructure repair. You can go onto many NE Ohio blogs or forums and find people who comment about this. One of my ‘fix the infrastructure' like minded friends sent me this blog post from WIRED, written by Dave Demerjian.

His premise is a good one, that throwing money into all the green ideas (especially surrounding things like electric cars, alternative fuels and my hot button, high speed rail, won't work unless we get down and dirty and start from the ground up, fixing our roads, highways and bridges. I don't have to tell anyone this is true, but the question is, how should we do it? Demerjian likes this idea: "(Congress) should invest in the more than 3,000 ready-to-go highway projects that could be under contract within the next 30 to 90 days," says John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. "Funding these ready to go projects offers Congress a tremendous opportunity to put Americans to work and help cash-strapped states repair and replace our crumbling infrastructure."

In the days of Roosevelt there was the Works Project Administration (WPA). We keep hearing about increasing consumer spending power (we all got those IRS refunds over the last 8 yrs - and most of us wound up using that money to pay bills, not spend money on consumer goods.) Maybe a different approach is better yes? The original mission of the WPA was to put people to work doing things that absolutely needed to be done. Some of our best built and most beautiful bridges were built during this time. Again, I don't have to tell you that. A lot of us believe it's time to revisit this idea, get down to the basics, and get our Country's foundation ship shape again. One of the mission statements from WPA records:

"....the WPA-headed by Harry L. Hopkins until 1938-was designed to increase the purchasing power of persons on relief by employing them on useful projects. WPA's building program included the construction of 116,000 buildings, 78,000 bridges, and 651,000 mi (1,047,000 km) of road and the improvement of 800 airports...."

If we look at those 3k ready to go highway projects Demerjian blogs about, people can get back to work and the infrastructure work can begin. Congress is now talking about a new stimulus package. Isn't this (WPA) a better stimulus package?? Yeah, it's all going to cost money. But we can be as cost-effective and smart about how we do this as possible. Look at this from the Popular Mechanics site. It's featuring the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and the award it won from the American Society of Engineers (ASE). It's not so much the bridge itself (why I'm directing you there), as to the criteria they used to determine the winner.

Using the American Society of Engineers criteria for making this award as a basis for a new WPA set up makes sense. An explanation:

1. It came in under budget. AND ahead of schedule. Imagine that!

2. Efficient Design

3. Environmental Impact

4. (though not listed as a separate category by the ASE, it was discussed throughout) - Community Involvement.

Several designs were proposed and according to the ASE, the community voted on the winning design. A higher bridge was proposed but the community said no, make it shorter. They still only have to raise the bridge (estimate) about 65 times a year, when in the old days on the old WW Bridge, it was over 200 times. More ships and barges can get under this new bridge without it having to be raised.

They also used pieces of the old bridge to build fishing reefs etc, a good recycling and reuse of materials mission. What do you think about this 21st Century version of the WPA project instead of a new stimulus package? As usual, please weigh in. These are heady times for us but also times when, because we are all forced to take note and take stock, and shouldn't we have a say in how our money is spent? Please weigh in with your thoughts. Peace Out - 3C

Ohio Infrastructure Needs - Web Investigations:

Sherrod Brown on funding water improvements.

Progress Ohio weighs in on prioritizing National infrastructure repair.

The Columbus Dispatch on need for road repair monies.

Ohio Dept of Transportation release on Inner Belt (I-90) Bridge repairs

Update: This from Thursday's (today) WS Journal onn various ideas for a second stimulus package. Sexy or not, I still say a majority of any spending should go to infrastructure -- the candidates weighed in with McCain saying 'vetted' projects were ok as far as he's concerned (see above for highway 'stuff' already in pipeline).

Obama and others said "...Democrats depict more spending on roads, bridges and other transportation infrastructure -- an idea championed by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama -- as an investment that would create jobs in the U.S and pave the way for future economic growth...." Hopefully this link to the WSJ article works if you're not a paid subscriber.

Do we need some good news for a change or what?????

The Case Shiller Report studies 20 metropolitan regions in the U.S. The August Report shows that Cleveland and Boston were the only two regions out of twenty to show an increase. The report is here and an excerpt:

For the August/July period only 2 regions, Cleveland and Boston, had positive returns. Cleveland returned +1.1% and Boston returned +0.1%. Boston has had positive monthly returns for each of the past five months. Dallas and Denver's streaks of 4+ straight positive returning months ended in August. San Francisco was the biggest decliner for the month returning -3.5%. This worsened from its July/June return of -1.8%. From August 2007 to August 2008, Dallas and Charlotte have the best relative performance. Dallas is down 2.7% over the year and Charlotte is down 2.8%.

Boston and N. Carolina have shown positive growth albeit small for the last few Case Shiller reports; but finally Cleveland is included in the mix.

We had a very active summer as far as sales are concerned (meaning my office and my colleagues) so I'm not surprised. We'll keep our fingers crossed that the scales can keep inching up. Still not expecting major recovery but we'll take this yes? Case Shiller also reported that even though most of the markets showed a decline the rate of decline was smaller than recorded for other months this year.

The Northern Ohio Multiple Listing Service (MLS) stats for this past September are also available for viewing now.

Cuyahoga County stats show 1,109 homes transfered title last month, compared with 914 sold in September of ‘07. The highest sale price last month was $1,372,500. In September of ‘07 the highest sale price was $1,050,000. So that's an increase in sale prices - while the average sale price is down 12.5% this September from 2007 ($116,522 and last year, $133,181). Both years had identical averages for days the sold homes were on the market: 87.

In fact, three months from being listed to sales are the averages for most (not all) NE Ohio communities.

If you'd like to see the entire MLS report by County, go here. Peace Out - 3C

Peace Out - 3C

We can kvetch all we want but The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA) is now the law. It makes sense for us to follow what happens from here on out. Active Rain seems like a good place to do this. Many people who read Active Rain are not in the real estate business and frankly, maybe there are readers who can contribute to the pool of information I'm going to try to track here. I hope so! (Yes, you Rainers too!)

To start, as the NY Times' Mark Lander and Edmund Andrews explain, now EESA is law, and now Treasury begins to set up the Administrative end of this. The devil of course, is in the details.

Good points from this article:

1. It will take some time for Paulson et al to set up a staff. Supposedly, Treasury wants to outsource most of the work and is estimating what they call a small in house staff of about two dozen people.

2. The outsourcing will be to "....professionals who will oversee huge portfolios of bonds and other securities for a management fee...."

3. They do not expect this new entity to be fully operational until after the Nov. 4th election.

4. They have to work on laws that will take care of (!) conflict of interest issues. In other words, if a Goldman Sachs staffer/executive winds up working for us as an asset manager, they will have two duties: one to us, the taxpayers, to make sure we are not overspending, and one to their company shareholders to make as much as possible. Yes, the devil is in the details.

My thought: can't people who have the expertise from these private companies take a leave of absence for a year so there is not a conflict of interest? I'm asking sincerely, because 1) maybe this is too cost prohibitive for us. but 2) it could mean some of the financial peeps who have lost their jobs can take short term positions as replacements for the men and women who come to work for us. They will be working for us, won't they?? Why not a one year term for everyone from a private company who comes to work in this new wing of the government. Then they go back to their old jobs.

This idea may sound hard to make happen, but in reality (according to the Times article, there has been at least one person who was the managing director of Pimco, who offered his services for free. We could pay them (they plan to do this anyway) but at least while he/she is working for us, they won't have a conflict. (Now you can all tell me why this won't work LOL)

Now to the real estate related stuff, meaning sub prime mortgage assets (if you can call them that). Lander and Andrews point out that in order for an entire Trust to be purchased by the Feds (and apparently a lot of the sub prime assets are in the form of Trusts) they would have to have 100% agreement from the Trustees. So they plan on only purchasing half of the assets in these cases which circumvents the need for 100% approval.

Also this quote: "....Treasury officials have emphasized that the government will also be buying up whole mortgages, which have not been securitized, and that it may well buy whole mortgages through one-on-one negotiations with individualbanks. Officials said they would probably experiment with other approaches as well...."

I'm going to see if the financialservices.com site (run by Congress) is allowing visitors (they were 'down' all last week, so many people wanted to read the text of the proposed Bill....the final Bill is up to 510 pages or so....). As soon as I can find a link that works, I will link it here. (Do any of you have such a link? If so please link)

More of the 'devil in the details' to follow as we go along. Here in NE Ohio we will be particularly interested in how the mortgage foreclosure aspect of the EESA is set up and handled.

Please link anything here you think is of value!

Peace Out -3C

UPDATE: so far, this is the only place I can find what might be the full text of the EESA. It's the Sun Light Foundation's Public Mark Up site.

Finally, the financialservices.gov (US House) is finally loading so I will link it here. (Maybe people are already tired of reading it! lol)

h/t to Elaine Reese for pointing out Jim Crawford's posts on the EESA. To say the least, he's not a fan of it lol. In any event, here is a good post by him listing the 'earmarks' added into this Act. For those of you who don't want to read all 500 or so pages, these earmarks may be an eye opener.

10.05.08 - Wachovia was set to be purchased by Citi and then Wells Fargo got into the mix, most of you already know this. Here is today's update on the continuing saga, now a judge has blocked the Wells deal, for now. NYTimes article here.

Also today, good stories linked here in NYT about how Europe and the European Union is grappling with same economic/bank failure issues.

10/8/08 They put it this way: calming London in order to stablize the World economy. Britain moves closer to US Bailout sytem in stead of a 'prn' or as needed basis

Also today, Paulson says stay calm and Bernanke orders a small Federal rate cut. I'm thinking (and I'm not an economist nor do I play one on tv) one more week until The World including us can get a handle on initial steps the Feds and the World markets are taking, and I doubt the stock market will really calm down until then.

On a positive note, we had 10% more sales as a company this past month than we did in 2007. And NAR announced that there is a significant increase in the number of homes 'pending' (under contract, waiting to transfer ownership) in September. That matches what happened with us locally, especially in our office, we had a terrific volume in September.

Just wanted to point out that there are buyers realizing the interest rates are still great and prices (for them) are terrific.

OCTOBER 9th Update: Okay I knew this would wind up being a long post but I'm about to make it longer. Here is an early look at today's WSJ article on McCain's proposed home mortgage rescue idea. The reporters claim to know what he plans to do. If they are correct, they will be allowing some of the predatory lenders get rescue money too. I don't really know if this article is accurate, but I'm going to add a total cut and paste here:

OCTOBER 9, 2008 JOHN D. MCKINNON

McCain Reshuffles Rescue Deal

Proposal Could Help Homeowners but Also Reward Predatory Mortgage Lenders

By

JOHN D. MCKINNON

WASHINGTON -- Sen. John McCain's $300 billion plan to help homeowners struggling with mortgage debt carries big potential benefits for the troubled real-estate sector, but could reduce the funds available for rescuing banks.

The proposal, which Sen. McCain announced during Tuesday night's presidential debate with Sen. Barack Obama, also could make winners out of investors -- including predatory mortgage lenders -- that the Bush administration and Congress have tried to exclude from the government's largesse. And it raises knotty administrative questions about how the government would handle potentially huge numbers of mortgage refinancings. Among the challenges: screening out undeserving homeowners who might seek to qualify for help.

The McCain plan highlights the continuing struggles of Washington policy makers -- and Sen. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, in particular -- in coming up with a workable solution to the interwoven problems of the real-estate and financial sectors. Just two weeks ago, Sen. McCain threw his weight behind House conservatives who wanted to shrink the government's role in the rescue. With this week's announcement, Sen. McCain is seeking to maximize government assistance, while focusing it on homeowners.

McCain advisers believe the plan would require no new legislation and is a less-costly prescription for real-estate contagion than buying lots of risky mortgage-related securities, as the recently passed $700 billion rescue measure aims to do. But some analysts said it could drain money away from the rescue effort for banks.

The plan focuses on using much of the government's rescue powers to buy individual mortgages that homeowners are having trouble paying.

An earlier mortgage-assistance plan passed by Congress over the summer tried to do something similar, but with a key difference: It forces lenders and investors to take a loss of principal -- a "haircut" -- on the troubled mortgages, in exchange for the government's help. That program appears to be off to a slow start, partly because lenders have been reluctant to accept the large losses they now face on troubled loans, according to analysts.

Another possible reason is that some up-front funding for last summer's $300 billion program -- which was to come from fees paid by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- could be in some doubt since the two mortgage giants were taken over by the government last month.

Sen. McCain's program would effectively reinvent the homeowner program to speed up the process. The government would buy the existing troubled loans at face value -- absorbing the haircut itself -- and the Federal Housing Administration would issue a new, federally guaranteed 30-year fixed-rate loan, based on the property's present value, at a "manageable" interest rate, the McCain camp said.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said he needs "to learn more about the [McCain] plan," but that the administration is already working to help prevent foreclosures.

The McCain plan envisions combining the resources of last summer's $300 billion housing bill, the $700 billion financial-rescue plan enacted last week, and the still-considerable buying capacity of Fannie and Freddie.

If it works as planned, the initiative would help qualifying homeowners and would put a floor under declining housing prices. It also could help banks by shoring up the value of their troubled mortgage-related assets, McCain advisers said. That, in turn, could reduce the need for buying up troubled financial assets. The plan also could free up credit, lowering interest rates and further stimulating the real-estate sector.

"By starting with the homeowner and working up, you accomplish some of the [same] objectives of the financial-stabilization plans that we've seen come out of Congress," said McCain economic adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin.

The McCain plan is similar in some respects to the Depression-era Home Owners' Loan Corp., which made 1 million refinancing loans totaling $3 billion to help prevent foreclosures. In recent months, some prominent academic economists have suggested similar programs as an alternative to the Bush administration's rescue plan.

Whatever its economic effects, its focus on homeowners is likely to have considerable political appeal.

The Obama camp attacked the plan as a poorly designed giveaway to the least-deserving lenders. "It's a huge gift to the least-responsible financial institutions, some of whom have committed fraud, that leaves the taxpayers with guaranteed losses, all of the downside risk, and none of the upside," said Jason Furman, an adviser to Sen. Obama. "It's an example of John McCain being erratic and walking away from the principles that he purported to support as recently as a week ago."

It wasn't clear whether the government would share in the eventual profits homeowners might realize when they sell their homes.

By relying on existing rescue resources, the McCain plan could reduce the amount of money available for buying financial assets from institutions, said Karen Petrou, managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics.

-Deborah Solomon contributed to this article.

Write to

John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com