Don Corson

As a relocation specialist, I am always up to the task of previewing homes for my out-of-town clients. But usually they come to town at some point to see homes in person, and make a decision. Imagine my surprise when a new client last fall informed me that he would NOT be coming to Columbus, OH to finalize his search for a new home. So I got to pick out his new home. Not a problem. I wish I got to pick out all my clients homes - it might save us all lots of time. "NO, you don't want that house -- I don't like that street--too close to a busy highway..." or "You really won't like living next to those train tracks..."

To complicate matters, he had a very low price point to work with--roughly 30% of the median price in our metro market! We found a place -- a solid little home with good mechanicals, on a quiet street. We benefited from the former buyer bailing out at the last minute, and a seller anxious to move on. He closed successfully, and made arrangements to move to Central Ohio.

Now this is not my recommended method to shop for homes. In person is best. BUT, you CAN shop remotely. I employed this method when helping my father-in-law shop for Florida homes from our home in Central Ohio. He did have an agent in Florida, sending listings, but we used this method to weed out areas that might not be best, especially since he was going to be a "snow bird" (come back up north in the warmer months).

Its great when the listing agent provides 20 or more photos, but listing photos don't always tell the whole story. It's their job to market the home, not disclose its locational deficiencies.

Here is how you search for Central Ohio homes before you relocate:

1) Go to maps.bing.com. Type in the address in question. (When I send clients listings that they might be interested in, the property address will be highlighted, and when clicked, will open a new window, with the Bing map). Clicking on the "Birds Eye" option above the map will bring up an "fly over" aerial view of the property.

There are 2 views, a wider birds eye view, and a close up view. The close up view is good to see what kind of property it is (size of the backyard, orientation to the street and neighboring properties), like below:

2) Once you have explored the aerial view of the home, its a good idea to "back out" and get the more wide angle Bird's Eye view. This view is where you can identify potential neighborhood or area issues (landfills, commercial or industrial properties, train tracks, or in this case, major highways):

3) Once you like the appearance of the property from the air, its time to see what it might feel like to drive through the neighborhood, as well as what types of businesses are in the area. We used this method to rule out quite a few properties when assisting my father in law with his Florida house hunt.

For this next part of the home search, we will switch to Google Maps. Google has the ever-useful "Street View" that offers a virtual "drive by" view of many streets in populous metropolitan areas, including Columbus and much of Central Ohio.

For the first example, I'll use the former home of my sister-in-law, located just off Lane Avenue, in the desirable area of Upper Arlington, OH.

4) Plug the property address at maps.google.com. On the street map that Google delivers, you'll see many local businesses that Google places on the map for you. For this location, I already am learning some things about this area: I see a couple of coffe shops, restaurants, a toy store, a French pastry shop--I like this area already...

5) Locate the "Google Man" on the upper left area of the map, and drag him to the street on which you want your "virtual drive by". For this house, I would drag him to the house location, to see the house and the neighborhood.

6) Then I would proceed to "virtually" drive down the street, towards the retail establishments on the main roads (these are in yellow). If the main streets are taking too long, you can pick up your "Google Man", and drag him to the main thoroughfare.

7) Once on the main street (Lane Avenue) we can get a virtual view of the businesses. From the types of shops located here, we can surmise that this is probably an upscale area (Wolfgang Pucks, Bed Bath and Beyond, Talbots). In Street View, you can see a 360 degree view of the surroundings, by clicking and holding the left mouse button, and moving the mouse around.

Below is a Google Street view of another area, and you can contrast the business atmosphere there.

For someone relocating to Central Ohio from outside the area, this method can be a helpful tool in understanding the area immediately surrounding the neighborhood.

It should be noted that I am not necessarily advocating completely ruling out a neighborhood if there is not a Starbucks and Abercrombie and Fitch right around the corner. But a high number of boarded up storefronts can be an indicator of the financial health of the community, which can be a consideration for families relocating to a new area.

Way back in 2003 (ha,ha), when I was taking my real estate pre-licensing courses, part of my education touched on the standard real estate concept of "highest and best use" of properties. For most of my readers that may not be familiar with the term, here is a definition, in a parable:

John and Mary Smith build a house in 1920 on a quiet 2 lane road. This home is located at 822 Elm Street. John and Mary raise their children in the home, and they pass away in 1975. John and Mary's children have sinced moved out of town, and sell the home to Frank Jones. Now by this time, Elm street has widened to 3 lanes. Some retail outlets have sprung up nearby, and there is much more traffic on the street in the past 20 years, due to new industry that has grown up outside of town.

Thirty years pass. Elm Street is now widened to 5 lanes, and the lovely front yard that John and Mary planted has shrunk down to a line of shrubs in front of the home. There is a considerable amount of traffic coming and going on Elm Street. Some of the small mom-and-pop shops have been razed to make way for larger strip centers. New, larger retail centers have opened in either direction, so most of the small homes that went up on the "new" Elm Street from 1890-1930 have been torn down.

Frank decides he wants to move out of town, and sell his home. The problem is, almost everything else on his block is retail outlets and restaurants. The few remaining homes have been converted to small offices housing insurance agents, and health food stores. Image Credit

Here is where this concept of "highest and best use" comes in to play. Ninety years after John and Mary built their home, what would that property be "best" used for? And how would the seller of this property get the "highest" amount of money at sale? I think its obvious in this case, the highest use would be to have the property rezoned for office or retail, and market it as office space. Or another common option may be that a developer is looking to build a new small strip center or fast food restaurant on Elm Street, and has already purchased a vacant lot next door to Frank's home. Frank would get the most money by selling it to the developer.

I did a Broker Price Opinion this week on a home here in Columbus, OH that has just these "highest and best use" issues. The home was built in an area that saw its building boom from 1890-1920. It had been in the family for 80 years, and is truly a jewel of its era: all brick, 3 stories, stained glass accents, and tons (probably literally) of heavy solid oak trim.

BUT.. it just happened to be built on the main north-south urban corridor in Columbus. The street was a quiet 2 lane road in the late 1800s, but now it is a busy 5 lane road. A very busy gas station sits right next door, and the house on the opposite side has been converted to offices.

In doing my research for this property, I discovered that similar, well preserved homes in the area, but that were a few blocks over on a quiet residential street had sold for $250k-350k, with some that faced the nearby park going for $500k. I also discovered that some stately old homes on this busy street that had already been converted to offices for attorneys and doctors, that had sold for $200k.

So what was the value that I came up with for this property? $85,000. Because the valuation that I was doing was for "residential" property, I needed to "price" it at what it could bring for a residential sale. Not many people would want to be one of the only residential properties on a street full of gas stations, fast food restaurants, and doctors offices. Thus my recommendation on this valuation was that the property be marketed for office space. The sellers could get twice as much selling it that way.

The 2011 Central Ohio BIA Parade of Homes kicks off this week north of Columbus, in the Olentangy School district in southern Delaware County. A kick-off event happens tonight, Friday, June 10 with a $75 per ticket preview party, with proceeds benefiting the Nationwide Childrens Hospital Foundation.

The Parade is located this year in the Olentangy Falls subdivision. The event will run from June 11 through June 26, 2011. Tickets are $12 per person, with children 12 and under free. This year, you can purchase your 2011 Parade of Homes online here.

Some of the local builders featuring homes in this years Parade include M/I Homes, Manor Homes, Fischer Homes, New England Homes, P&D Builders, and many others. Eleven builders will be featured in the Parade this time around.

Heres a map. Located off Hyatts Road, between Route 23 and 315.

As a relocation specialist, I work with relocation buyers all over our metro area, and even into the surrounding counties. I am currently working with a buyer that is looking in Reynoldsburg, the city (an easterly suburb of Columbus) in which I have lived for nearly 20 years. I keep up on general market activity in my town, but not to the extent of reviewing a large volume of active listings and recently sold properties.

In doing research for this buyer, I am coming across a disturbing trend: listing agents are taking overpriced listings. Now I realize that OBEYING our seller clients, when it comes to pricing the property, is nothing new. The seller really thinks their house is so much better than every other house that has ever been on the market, insisting on listing their home for a price that is too high.

Here is the question that runs through my mind: How does this agent and their client think that this home can ever sell for 10-40% more than ANY HOUSE HAS SOLD IN THE AREA IN THE PAST TWO YEARS???!!!

Case in point: in my town (Reynoldsburg), the highest sale in the past 24 months has been $247,900; in the past 6 months, the highest sale was $228,00, with the average sale price over $200k coming in at $213,700 (and there were only 8 sales in the past 6 months over $200k).

Taking that data into consideration, there are currently 23 homes listed in the Reynoldsburg School District priced over $220,000. This includes 2 bank owned listings priced at $299.9k and $364.9k. BANK OWNED! Really? Who did that BPO? And the highest priced listing comes in at $419,000. Wow. Just, wow.

As a resident of my town, my greatest wish is that all of these homes will sell for list price. I really do, since it will help all homeowners in our town. But it is not helping anyone (agents/buyers/sellers/appraisers) by having all of these homes listed that almost anyone would predict will not sell for anywhere close to the list price. Below is a snapshot of recent sales statistics in Reynoldsburg for all homes sold. Its an uphill battle trying to get any home sold for a price that is more than twice the average sales price for the area, not to mention 3 or 4 times that price.

In the introductory session that our local Columbus MLS held for new agents back in 2003, the speaker, who was a real estate attorney, asked the new agents, "What is your job as an agent?". Many of the usual answers came back: "To represent our clients' interests", "To list properties", etc. Yes, but not quite. His correct answer to this question was, "To move real estate". In other words, to bring together buyers and sellers, and move them to the closing table.

Its our job to MOVE properties, not just to LIST properties. Let's keep this in mind.

Photo Credit

I lost a first time homebuyer client today. We had been searching for several months for that perfect home. I'm not resentful to this buyer, even though we spent several trips together looking at homes. She wanted to find "it"--the perfect home, in move-in condition, within the budget parameters. Today, I can confess that the perfect home for her does not exist right now, and hasn't since last summer. I don't think her expectations were completely unrealistic, but the geographic criteria were very limiting. If we searched for another few months, or maybe up to a year, it's possible that something might have come up. But not likely. She was looking in a desirable area, where value-priced homes get snapped up quickly, and "fixer-upper" properties that are priced to sell move quickly as well.

With the housing bust we have experienced over the last few years, I think that many new homebuyers watch the house hunting TV shows, and think they only have to look at three houses to find the perfect one. A little secret: those shows are NOT reality. Those buyers have probably already looked at 30 houses before the "final three". The news media do not help either. Our ears are pounded daily with all the "smoking hot" deals that buyers are finding.

In our Columbus and Central Ohio real estate market, we never saw the blinding appreciation that was witnessed on the left and right coasts, and many spots in between. As a result, even though we have seen a downward trend in prices, it is still a very stable market in most parts of our metro area. What does that mean? Well, if you are expecting sellers to slash their price on their impeccable home, it's not going to happen. I recently heard from a buyer, in regards to a home they were negotiating on, "It's the least they can do, since I'm buying their house..." No, not really. The least they can do is NOT SELL YOU THEIR HOUSE. And many sellers decide to do just that. Instead of chopping their price to where it needs to be to sell quickly, they are either just pulling the home off the market, or renting their home (plenty of takers there right now--but I'll leave that for another post).

I'm not venting here, not at all. I am just imploring all of my future Central Ohio first time buyer clients to be willing to settle for a home that might not hit all of your "hot buttons". Pick the three or four "must haves", and stick to those, and hope to be pleasantly surprised if some other wants on your list get fulfilled.