A house sits empty on a street, alone and forsaken by the voices that used to fill it’s walls with laughter, shouts, and conversation.  My friend No More Empty Fortune Cookies wrote about that house on her street and her words are almost haunting,

There’s another empty house on our street. For such a small cul-de-sack, the occupied home to empty home ratio is precariously teetering in unfavorable ways these days.  I would just shrug my shoulders and say meh, but I want our house to sell.

We live in a town with a very high foreclosure and distressed sale rate - it wavers between 30 and 40 percent.  People in our community have talked about how to stop what had been a slow spiral down into a ghetto-like area, but we are starting to feel like we’re spinning out of control.  And our officials won’t raise our property taxes or place a moratorium to stop the continued building of inexpensive, not always sturdy homes.

I fear that one day, our only choice will be to leave this town.

Oh Miami I feel your pain.  Your real estate values already plummeted almost 50 percent (47.7) over the past three years.  With new predictions out, your houses are expected to drop another 29.2 percent by this September for a total loss of value at 64 percent.  This is according to Moody’s Economy.com and reported by CNN Money.com.

Side note here … when I add 47.7 percent with 29.2 percent, my numbers come out to 76.9 percent.  As a result I’m hoping the projections don’t add up either.  Nationwide, the numbers aren’t much better,

The average home price in the United States will fall by about 6% by September 2011, according to a joint report between Fiserv and Moody’s Economy.com. And that’s after plunging more than 27% in the past three years.

Meanwhile, Miami.  I went in search of homes available in Miami and found one, two, three, fifty … all in what I would describe as terribly expensive.  Homes that cost $500,000 AFTER the market dropped?  $1.3 million?  $10.2 million?  How big was that bubble where real estate is near beautiful ocean, sand and sun?

I dug more and found listings for foreclosed condos in Miami.  The highest priced one is $2.795 million.  The least expensive is $309,900 (with taxes coming in at a jaw dropping $6,879 per year).  I did find a two bedroom, one bath single family resident in the sunny city for $319,000.

Holy cow, Miami! How do people afford to live there with these prices and those taxes? Before I completely gave up finding something affordable in this dynamic city, I went to one more source - Trulia.  At last I found homes that were nice and didn’t cost a fortune.  My favorite?

This $229,000, four bedroom, two bath, 1965 square foot home with the beautiful screened in back porch.

Now we’re talking!  If you want more information about it, contact Keyes Real Estate Company or click here.

When someone “FORKS” over some cash for the house occupied by Edward Cullen and his Twilight family, they won’t have to pay as much as the original asking price.  According to CNN Money, the house - located in Vancouver, British Columbia - was originally listed for $3.3 million.  As a reflection of the housing market adjustment, the price just dropped to $2,998,000.

The home features over 5,000 square feet, five bedrooms, two full baths and two half baths.  You might find some pretty big trees surrounding it - trees that are easy to climb if you’re a vampire!

To see more photos, visit the listing agent’s site here.

While I want to feel sorry for Cleveland because they were just named the #1 Most Miserable City in the U.S., I can’t.  Why so miserable?  According to MSNBC,

Cleveland secured the position thanks to its high unemployment, high taxes, lousy weather, corruption by public officials and crummy sports teams (Cavaliers of the NBA excepted).

But when you think of Cleveland, there is a LOT of good also.

* The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
* Popular character from Family Guy who now has his own show
* A president whose last name is the same as the city’s but whose first name is a Muppet

I remember I spent a week in Cleveland one day… only kidding.  In all seriousness, one of my happiest memories of Cleveland was when I attended a conference and a delegation from Hawaii was also in attendance.  I’ll never forget the look of joy on their faces when these Pacific islanders had their first snowball fight.  It was magical!

So Cleveland, chin up!  I still love you!

Photo by Yvonne in Willowick Ohio via Flickr Creative Commons.

Technorati Tags: Cleveland, Cleveland Ohio

In honor of Mardi Gras, I thought I’d point you to some drama happening in New Orleans right now with it’s infamous NOLA Tree House for artists.

First, it really is an amazing splash of lights and color.  I find it very visually appealing, but also emotionally awesome since I was a child of the 1960’s and 70’s… you know hippies, groovy, cool, artists.  However the surrounding community and the city don’t share the same views because of noise, sanitary, and safety issues.  As a result the city is evicting the residents and ordering the tree house to be disassembled.  From the Best of New Orleans Blog, here are links that tell the story,

Legalize the Tree House! The city sends a cease and desist order.

On the one hand, here you had this magical tree house and a great group of residents that were putting on just killer parties and we thought that treehouse organizers’ efforts deserved coverage and some exposure. On the other hand, how was the City of New Orleans going to react when they saw a tree house on the cover of Gambit with a story about all the crazy parties?

Not Cool: The Art House is Being Shut Down Completely, Residents to be Made Homeless. The marching orders came.

The residents have been giving until 4 p.m. CST to evacuate the home and have been told by the NOPD that if they don’t vacate, they will be considered squatters (an arrestable offense). The Louisiana SPCA is also there because of the dogs owned by some of the residents.

NOLA Treehouse: TREME Civic Association’s Side of the Story. (Key in complaining about the ruckus).

The first rather conspicuous violation of the HDLC rules was the address on the building that was totally not in keeping with the scale or design of the building.The neighborhood organization was not happy with this but felt in time they would be cited by the HDLC and be required to change it. And then the complaints started to come in concerning music being played until all hours on the weekends. Additionally there were complaints about trash on the street and in the neutral ground.

(Lesson learned: Don’t mess with the neighborhood association!)

NOLA Art House: The Fire Department’s Side. (This is the serious stuff.)

On the January 25, 2010, the NOFD inspected the property at 1614 Esplanade and found numerous fire code violations that would put the occupants in harms way in terms of bodily injury and property damage. The life safety and code violations are based on the change of use or occupancy, primary means of escape, electrical code infractions, and the lack of detection, alarms or communication systems to name a few. A copy of the statement explaining these violations was issued to the project property manager on January 25th. An inspection was conducted today and none of the violations were corrected.

That’s all there is, but I suspect it’ll be hard to keep a good artist down.  I think it would be amazing to see another similar structure sometime, but with proper zoning and safety features in place.  Good luck to the artists!

And let the good times roll, New Orleans!

Photo 1 by Justin Gordon from Facebook.
Photo 2 by NOLA ART House from Facebook.

A frequently asked question from my buyers - especially from single women and families - is “How safe is the neighborhood?”  As a Realtor, I grapple with a couple of issues when asked that.  First my conscience says, “High crime! Tell them!”  I’m not being unconscionable if I don’t blurt out that the gang activity is horrific, I promise.

Realtors are bound by fair housing laws to NOT steer buyers to or from neighborhoods based on nine protected classes (race, color, national origin, religion, sex disability, familial status, age, and marital status).  We also have to remember that we’re selling a HOUSE, not a neighborhood.

Plus, what if I tell you a neighborhood is safe and two weeks, two months, two years later someone breaks into a home, robs it, kills the homeowner, your neighbor turns their home into a meth lab, or whatever other seedy crime you can imagine?  My buyer may come back to me and say, “But you said it was safe!” and I’d be sued for everything.

I still owe my buyers honesty and care, so how can I address this question fairly?  I always recommend a couple of sources … check out the registered sex offender list is first.  Second, I tell buyers to call the local police and ask them how often they’re called to certain neighborhoods.  Finally, walk around and talk to the neighbors!  They’re going to tell you exactly how it is!

A few years, I showed a house once and a neighbor actually approached my buyer and said, “You don’t belong here.”   He didn’t, we left, and he never looked back.

How to find a safe neighborhood by MSNBC.com provides more tips on discovering a potential neighborhood’s safety, including the broken window theory:

Broken windows, nearly all criminologists agree, along with dilapidated buildings, abandoned lots, missing street lights, rampant graffiti, unkempt yards — basically any signs of neglect — attract crime. The reasons are both practical — dark, lonely spots sit out of view – and psychological — would-be vandals are, ironically, less apt to mess with nice stuff.

Look around when you’re shopping for a new home. Ask questions. Make some phone calls.  Be safe!

Photo by Eva Luedin through Flickr Creative Commons.

I found this post several months ago and keep coming back to it.  A woman found a place to live in San Francisco and learned that it was very close to where she grew up.  As a result, she mapped it out not just by roads, but by memories.

Fifteen map versions later, I felt nowhere near finished mapping my own experiences. Looking at the depth of my relationship to this corner of the city, the vastness of the project I had undertaken began to become clear. This place, and every place, is both a vessel for and a vital character in the lives lived within it. My experience of the neighborhood had already filled fifteen maps, but it only scratched the surface of a vast social archeology waiting to be uncovered within the blocks surrounding my house.

I think this is by far one of the coolest projects I’ve seen.  I wonder if there’s some kind of software program that can be shared for an online community that would allow people to tell the story of a neighborhood.  It would be amazing to find out the social archeology of a place!  Reminds me of the expression “if these walls could talk” for an entire community.

I attended a meeting this morning in which the speaker reviewed industry trends and provided a market forecast for 2010.  All real estate continues to be local and markets designed around blue collar workers (where the blue collar jobs remain steady) will recover most quickly.

The speaker also urged all the real estate consultants in the room to take off work the next few weeks.  Come in to the office and do what needs to be done, of course, but he suggested we take the time to be with family and friends so we can LISTEN.  It is the consumer who will predict what will happen next in the real estate industry and this is the perfect time of year to hear what the consumer is saying.

What are your plans for 2010?  Are you planning to buy or sell?  If you’re a Realtor, are you still going to be in business this coming year?

Originally valued at $185,000, the land became a victim of bankruptcy.  My friend negotiated directly with the bankruptcy court and is closing tomorrow on 2.5 acres on top of a mountain … for significantly less.  Significantly.  $110,000 less.  That’s what I call negotiation skills!

He and his wife plan to build their retirement home overlooking this marvelous vista.  I am envious!

When someone writes about a city or town and it fills me with a sense of longing to live there, well … what do you think?

I love so many things about New York. I love the dichotomy of being anonymous among millions of people. I love the diversity. Different food, different people speaking different languages, different architecture, different neighborhoods. Different everything. I love the crazy mad pace and that I can escape to my room and sleep the sleep of someone who is perfectly content to be where she is while the city that never sleeps keeps on going outside my first floor windows.

There’s so much more to read if you go visit Finn - the jackhammers, the subway encounter, and her own desire to remain.  Maybe if Finn talks the Accountant into moving there, she’ll let me come visit!  New York at this time of year is nothing short of fabulous!