About Brecksville's Echo Hills

The annual Echo Hills Garage Sale in Brecksville Ohio is Saturday, July 17th, 2010 from 9am - 4pm.

Entrance is off Deer Run. From Interstate I-77, exit Miller Road, turn left/east. Dead end into Route 21 (Brecksville Road), turn right. 1st traffic light is Snowville Road, turn left. Turn left on Deer Run.

Dozens of homes participate and people come from all counties around due to the neighborhood-wide garage sale in Brecksville Ohio.

The Echo Hills neighborhood in Brecksville, Ohio, 44141 has lots of hidden treasures that many potential home buyers don't realize when the first drive into this wonderful neighborhood of 303 single-family homes. Imagine being able to walk out your front door, go swimming, play in the sand at the beach, fishing, go to the playground, all before lunch time, and a car isn't needed! This is Echo Hills.

The original section of Echo Hills (entrance is Echo Hill Drive off Snowville Road) was primarily built in the 1950s-60s. The second section of Echo Hills was built in the 1970s-80s. Some of these homes were built by Ryan Homes (1970s) and the other homes were built by Sherwood Construction (1980s). The newer section has entrances of Deer Run and Old Orchard Drive, both of Snowville Road.

Echo Hills is unique in that it has:

• swimming lake, complete with lifeguard, roped off, and sand,
  
• fishing lake,
  
• volleyball court,
  
• soccer nets/field,
  
• baseball/softball diamond,
• Huge wide-open spaces owned by the association for any activity imaginable
  
• huge firepit with seating,
  
• community playground with picnic tables for parties

Echo Hills also has many community events sponsored throughout the year:

• Easter Egg Hunt -- Segmented by age group. Held at the community's common playground
• End-of-school-year bonfire -- hot dogs, drinks, dessert, etc. An Echo Hills tradition that people from all over Brecksville know about, going back two decades
• Summer Adult Party -- Themed, evening, and planned very well
  
• Last Sunday of Month Impromptu -- Grill is fired up - bring your own, random games of volleyball, softball, soccer. Whoever shows up. Fun!
  
• Fall Festival -- Held at the community's common playground. Wagon/hay rides, games, Clam Bake (great food),
  
• Christmas Party at the Brecksville Community Center

Parts of Gatewood Drive and Echo Hill Drive adjoin the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. To have direct access to the nation's 3rd most visited park in the country is quite a treat. Just imagine: Walk out your front (or back) door, down the street, and go hiking, connect with the Buckeye Trail, the Towpath Trail, etc.

The Echo Hills Neighborhood within the City of Brecksville, Ohio is about three miles to downtown Brecksville. Downtown Brecksville has an old small-town look and feel. Small, independently owned stores (art galleries, candy shop, law office, hair salons, etc.).

Brecksville has Blue-Ribbon Award Winning schools and the Community Center is a great source of price in the community. The Community Center has something for everyone:

• Full size indoor olympic pool, outside pool (summer only)
• Cardiovascular machines
• Weight-lifting equipment
• Basketball court
  
• Indoor track for jogging/walking
• Game Room - pool table, air hockey, ping pong table, TV
  
• Saunas, hot tub
  
• Child care center (can't use your kids as an excuse not to exercise
  
• Human Services Center - Senior lunches, trips, therapeutic pool, events, etc.
• Event rooms to rent
• Outside: Kids Quarters -A HUGE, I said HUGE playground with everything imaginable, even an herb garden!
• Outside basketball courts, tennis courts, walking path
  
• and more...

Homes range in value from $175,000 - $400,000 on average, with most homes selling in the 200s. There are ranches with 1,200 square feet, typical colonials in the 2,00-3,000 sf range, and even a few large homes over 4,000 sf.

Feel free to preview all the Brecksville Homes For Sale or specifically in the Echo Hills neighborhood here: Echo Hills Homes For Sale.

If you would like a personal tour of the Echo Hills neighborhood and explore it's many features and amenities, feel free to contact me (216.702.0537 (Cell)), I'll be happy to arrange a guided and fun tour! :)

Please enjoy a few photos of this exceptional place to call home.

Here are the March 2010 real estate market statistics for the community of Echo Hills in the City of Brecksville, Ohio community in Northeast Ohio.

Echo Hills a unique community within the City of Brecksville.  There are 303 homes in Echo Hills, primarly built in the 1950s-60s in the original section (Echo Hill Drive entrance) and in the 1970s-80s built by Ryan Homes (1970s) and Sherwood Construction (1980s) with entrances off Deer Run and Old Orchard Drive.  Echo Hills is unique in that it has a swimming lake, complete with lifeguard and sand, a fishing lake, volleyball court, soccer nets/field, firepit, baseball/softball diamond, community playground with picnic tables for parties, and many events held throughout the year, such as the end-of-school-year bonfire, fall festival, Christmas party at the Brecksville Community Center, Easter Egg Hunt, Summer Adult Parties, and various other events.  Parts of Gatewood Drive and Echo Hill Drive adjoin the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

Absorption Rates and Months Housing Supply

These two terms are one piece of the puzzle to help real estate agents, appraisers, home sellers and buyers alike make sense out of the real estate market.

This is a little-known, but effective tool, if used in proper context, to help a home seller or buyer understand the market conditions for the home they wish to sell or buy.

The easiest way to define these two terms is with an example:

Absorption Rates (AR)- The rate at which homes are selling (ie. absorbed), over a specific time period, typically 12 months.  This is beneficial in determining supply and demand trends for the local market.

Months Housing Supply (MHS) - How long it will take, in number of months, for all the current homes for sale to be sold.

Formulas:

Monthly Absorption Rate = # of homes sold in the past twelve months  / 12 Months.

Months Housing Supply = # of currently active homes for sale / Monthly Absorption Rate

Reference Guideline:

# Months to Sell            Type of Market

              1-4                      Sellers

              5-6                      Balanced

              7+                       Buyers

Note: Six (6) months of inventory is considered a balanced market.

As is true with everything statistical, one has to really know when to apply this tool, under what circumstances is it relevant, and what are the constraints, as with everything in real estate, no individual property fits neatly into a box (no pun intended) or equation.

Here are a few examples of a few constraints:

• Seasonal fluctuations - If more homes sell in the spring and summer months, what should the sampling period be?
• Expired Listings - How should listings that have expired and been re-listed be treated?
• Selecting Active and Sold Homes - What homes should be selected?  What criteria should be used?
• Selecting the AR Time Period - Is 3 months enough?  6?  12? 
• Is there a negative or positive trend underway?  How do you compensate for the trend?
• Since these are median #s, how does my home relate?
• What can I do to make my home defy the median?
• Do watershed events (say...the October 2008 Economic/Credit/Housing meltdown) affect: time periods?  the statistics themselves, the subset of homes selected, etc.?
• Is new construction affecting the supply or demand of nearby properties?

A question that sellers typically raise after reviewing this information:

Does this mean my home will take 0-30 months (Median MHS) to sell?  While there is no easy answer here, the answer is: It depends.  Many factors go into how quickly or long a home will sell.  See my post titled "Your home is worth whatever a buyer is willing to pay for it" which talks about the many factors to consider when selling a home.  We sell homes that defy the median, and are at the low end of the statistics when sellers listen to our advice and adopt our home preparation, staging and pricing considerations. While nothing is guaranteed, it's all about maximizing your opportunities relative to your competition and constraints.

Using a concrete example below, taken from the Northeast Ohio MLS, this report was run for the community of Echo Hills in the City of Brecksville, all single-family homes, so to see what is happening in the community as a whole:

Source: NEOHREX. Information deemed reliable but is not guaranteed.

A couple of observations from looking at the above table:

• The MHS is much higher than a balanced market, so the current market (and true as well over the past year) favors buyers.
• There have been no sales in the current quarter.  That said, with the first time home buyer tax credit that expired on 11/30/09 and extended through 4/30/10, the anticipation for greater sales was expected.  The median sales price is up slightly from the prior year, but the # of homes sold is far too low to provide any statistical validity.
• There are not enough sales to create statistical validity.

Note:  This is an example at a community level.  The selection criteria would be customized to be relevant for a given property so as to make the data more meaningful.

Note:  As of 4/1/09, Fannie Mae is requiring appraisers to compile the information you see above to be used as a part of a Market Conditions Addendum for appraisals.

Olsen Ziegler Realty -- A $marter Way to buy and sell your Echo Hills home in Brecksville, Ohio

 

 

 

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It's the height of summer...nighttime not falling until 9:30...warm weather, a gentle breeze, and there is nothing, and I mean nothing, more fun than having your eight year-old son say: Dad, do you want to go play catch and hit the ball? This brings back such fond memories of when I played organized baseball as a kid as well as random pick-up games in our neighborhood, where the bigger kids made the rules, and chose who was going to be on what team, when the smaller kids were always the last picked, and we "threw the bat" and two kids hands kept getting wrapped around the bat alternately and whoever ended up on top, their team got to bat first.

The thrill of being at home plate, waiting for the pitcher to throw it, a little scared if it was going to be a fast ball or whiz by your head or hit you, if you were going hit a base hit, a home run, a double, or strike out or get walked. The thrill of playing first base and getting someone out. The thrill of winning and the disappointment with defeat.

Most of all, my son just loves to throw, bat, and have fun. We are fortunate in that we have a large and level yard and can play catch and even moderate batting right in our own yard, and can also walk to the park with vast open space to play as well. While he is beyond competitive, when it's just him and me, well...it's just one of those magical moments one will treasure for a long time, as it only comes along once in life -- or in our case, about an hour every night!!! :-)

I snapped a picture of this guy the other day and wondered if he is a frog or a toad. Because we live in Echo Hills, a fabulous neighborhood in Brecksville, OH, we see lots of nature's creatures milling about. The Cuyahoga River winds around us through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and we have numerous creek feeds from this wonderful body of water.

The natural ravines and wooded paths and glorious foliage is all around us and between the deer, the squirrels, the owls, the hawks, the coyotes, and the frogs, we have quite a time around here. Did I mention chipmunks, moles and bats, as well? I suppose when you look at it, it is all Mother Nature's territory, so all are welcome, whether some are more welcome than others!

Mind you, we also have quite a collection of dogs in the neighborhood as well. We have a black lab who loves to run the ravines and throw himself in any body of water he can find, whether it is deep or not. He also loves to meet all of his friends in the open field in the middle of our community and socialize. They usually all end up in the large fishing pond jumping in and running out as fast as they can. It is quite a treat to watch, unless you are standing in the direct path of one or more of them shaking off the pond water!

So, getting back to the frog/toad, what do you think? I will welcome any and all responses. Happy summer to all and make sure that you stop to enjoy Mother Nature's creatures at least once in awhile.

Content and photo copyrighted by Chris Olsen and protected by CopyScape.

Olsen Ziegler Realty -- A $marter Way to buy and sell your Greater Cleveland, Ohio Home