Shouting Youngstown real estate
Youngstown — Posted on October 6, 2009 at 8:58 amShout Youngstown has a cool post from last night showcasing excitement over home ownership in Youngstown.
A trend has been popping up online – people writing about their decision to purchase a home in the city of youngstown.
The most recent example comes from today’s edition of RustWire,featuring a female in her late 20s who works downtown and purchased a 1927 craftsman-style home on the south side.
she wrote:
“I began my search in Youngstown, focusing on both the north and south sides of the city. I first moved to the north side of Youngstown in 1999, stayed mostly in the city for the majority of my time in college, and then found an amazing job in downtown Youngstown.
Being familiar with living in the city, especially the north side, I had no apprehensions about moving back.”
It’s a great post and includes a few pics. Check it out!
On a related note, we’ve been hearing from people who have tried to get Youngstown real estate, but they’ve gotten almost no help from area realtors. I might speculate that realtors aren’t particularly excited about selling a house for $40,000 or $50,000, and from a purely economical sense I can appreciate that.
There’s a bigger issue at play, though, which is the trend of new residents taking up residence on the periphery and not in the urban core. For us to move ahead, there must be a concerted rededication to a healthy urban core, with overflow distributed throughout the surrounding communities, rather than a continued population shift into unsustainable suburban sprawl.
I met some new YSU faculty at a recent reception. Without exception, every new faculty member I spoke with had a place in Boardman. Was this by choice? Or were they all told by realtors it was the place to be? Many of them are single or childless, so schools were not the issue.
Here’s the question: who are the realtors who are committed to selling properties in the city–not necessarily at the exclusion of suburban properties in which the homebuyer has expressed an interest, but certainly giving equal consideration to the exciting and unique opportunities offered by Youngstown’s historic housing stock? I would love to develop a list from your referrals that we can share with those who contact bloggers for recommendations.
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Tags: economy, realEstate
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18 Comments
It has to do with safety. Almost all the faculty I know or see on a daily basis lives outside the city. Boardman, Canfield, Poland, even PA. It was talked about all the time how Youngstown is not a safe place to live, so everyone has that stuck in their heads. Is it true? Well, I don’t know for certain but my views have changed slightly since I started attending YSU. I now see downtown and the YSU area to be relatively safe, but I still hear of more crime happening outside of the downtown area. As I near the end of my time at YSU (at least, as a student) I wonder where I am going to live. I would like to live nearby to save on gas and even jog to work in the morning, but the only apartments nearby are outside of downtown. When you venture into the surrounding area it is all to often you see nothing but run-down and abandoned homes and buildings. It certainly does not look safe. The image needs to change before the potential residents’ minds do.
The housing market in Youngstown is mostly controlled not by realtors but rather banks (REO’s,real estate owned), outside “bundle” investors and property owners. Multiple listings thru realtors are mostly considered retail prices and overlooked by astute purchasers. Thus, many realtors do not concentrate on YTown listings, knowing that property can and is had at lower prices.
Best way to find a domicile is to pinpoint several houses that you are interested in and appear vacant, do research and approach the owner. Be sure to have a good real estate lawyer.
I’ll start it off by saying that our realtor when we moved was Gayle Gillespie, who was very helpful on northside homes. My only complaint was that she wasn’t an e-mail person, though her colleague at First Place did the e-mailing.
Donna Buzulencia is also a respected area realtor who cares about Youngstown a great deal, from my experience with her.
Another method to purchase is unique in Mahoning county and not in many parts of the country, is finding property that has a “negotiated tax cert. sale” in the tax window of the auditor site. If it does, the approach can be to secure the property by purchasing the tax cert. at a discount of the face value. This would open up an avenue to foreclose on the parcel and if done right, end up with a dwelling at a fraction of it’s market value. Obviously, this can be complex for someone who is not adept in RE investing, so one may simply have to buy retail thru a realtor and pay the fees.
I know a lot of people prefer a realtor, but I would personally recommend the sheriff’s sale. You can expect to get a home at at least 40% off market price. Then, hire a contractor. Put someone to work. Check his references. Homes in Youngstown need rehabilitation, a lot of them, so their sale prices are depressed. But it can be a fun project and you can have it done just for you like new.
Advice for do-it-yourself buyers is appreciated, too, thanks. I do want to ensure we’re also providing support to more casual home buyers from out of town who are moving here and need someone to contact who will lead them through the process.
I did work through an agent- Jack Pearce from Remax. I would say some of the issues with finding a home in Ytown, through a realtor include: 1- Majority of hte homes are either Bank owned properties, going through foreclosure, or are held up by many of the landlords in town who own tons of these old homes but let them sit…
2- Resale value and the ever present school-district issue. Realtors are geared to mention these things because we all know in real estate, it’s the location location location that matters. Unfortunately the city is painted in a poor light in this context. The values are either going to remain as is (break even and you’re lucky) or have the possibility of declining. I for one, could care less about the resale value. I wanted a home, not a fixer-upper to resell. Others, this is not the case.
I have always questioned the determining factors of whether a neighborhood is “on a decline” or not. Who makes the call?
3- What Angie said is a great point. Many times, I believe in Youngstown especially, you will probably have better luck going the do-it-yourself route.
The bottom line is this-I don’t believe there are enough homes in the proper condition for a valuable purchase. Many of the homes sit vacant, while court is holding up the process, without the proper care (i.e. weatherizing the property so the pipes don’t burst) and then by the time they reach the market a conventional loan is out the window- the homes are dire need of a rehab prior to reaching the market to even be attractive for a qualified buyer. I think programs that take on these homes, fix them up and then resell them- are needed.
I thought we had the Northside Coalition? Are they still around? Maybe start one on the Southside too?
Megan, thanks for your comments. The Northside Coalition is in need of a reboot. Hope to have more news on that front before year’s end.
Two local Realtors committed to selling in the city and returning people’s phone calls are John Burgan (330)783-0055 and Gerri D’Amico (330) 719-2601
Thanks, Tony
Since we are conversing about RE and its problems in Youngstown, I’m going to bring up a proven solution to at least the historic structures in Youngstown which will elevate their values, which is needed.
When I lived in Hampton, Virginia after college, all the historic homes have all held their value and in fact were highly sought after and traded robustly. The reason being was that all dwellings listed on the national historic register were exempt from property taxes. Yes, historic homes no matter where they were, were maintained and invested in. They rarely stayed on the market for long with this incentive to purchase.
Youngstown has homes that can never be reproduced anywhere due to wealth that once was here. The Glen and the Northside have many of these homes left but sadly, many have seen the trackhoe too. If this approach is applied, the residual effect will be sparked.
An interesting idea, though I’m not sure I would support it. Youngstown needs the tax revenues to clear the snow from these historic streets and fill the potholes.
Tyler, I know you are much more informed than most, but this statement smacks what local leaders use as an excuse. The generation of tax revenue to keep the streets clean and provide municipal services cannot be sustained by historic homes alone.
Property tax revenue has been deminishing from the actions of our leaders and community, penalizing investment into RE. I have been decrying this for a long time, citizenry will only service property taxes to protect value. As with Youngstown, if the community collectively devalues its RE, revenue will not be forthcoming, this is free enterprise.
Let me give you an example, the county had a lightbulb go on several years ago and generated revenue by selling majority of tax cert. to a large Florida firm. This firm makes money by reselling the taxes to investors with the intentions of making the property generate taxes again. The facts are that majority of these properties once again sit dormant. Why? , because they have no value to investors or the citizens. In Youngstown, we have done what many in the world never dreamed possible, that dirt and housing have no value at all.
The only way out of this phenomenon is to MAKE OUR RE have value. This diatribe is not to provoke argument, the facts are the state of Youngstown itself. What we need is innovation, actual projects with results. We can start by eliminating policy in city government, but I tried and it is a formidable task.
I’ll be more than willing to outline policy which devalue RE, if there is genuine interest, right now I’ll continue to make vacant land in YTown valuable again by growing shrimp.
“The generation of tax revenue to keep the streets clean and provide municipal services cannot be sustained by historic homes alone.”
Where did I say that?
Spurring investment is important, and we should consider options. Tax base is critical, and credits or exemptions should only be applied where there is clear evidence the revenues will be supplanted by the investments.
With the idea of placing the homes on the register- there are many in Youngstown that are on the register. I worked with Dr. Donna DeBlasio at YSU in the History department to place many areas on the register. We were successful in this process, however it has not done the same for homes in places such as Hampton VA.
An example may be found by visiting Blackburn Plat, located in Campbell (East side) and also the Loveland farms developments near by in Struthers. We worked to place these areas on the register under the designation industrial-housing- (forgive me here for not remembering exactly what we put the homes under, but the historic reason is due to these neighborhoods being developed for the workers at Youngstown Sheet and Tube, and yes they were divided in these neighborhoods based upon ethnicity- look it up, it’s fascinating!). The YSU Historic Preservation group has also worked to place 50 additional properties on the North Side/Wick Avenue district on the register.
Again,majority of these home are empty. The homes, although historic, were not saved in time to prevent the death of the home by falling into the hands of absentee landlords, neglect, abuse and also not having the proper demographic with the needed funds to keep up a 3,000 sq ft historic property. I know the register very well, it’s a great idea and the tax credit alone is a wonderful reason to work with a historic property. But Youngstown does not have the concentration of population who can afford to keep up these homes, or even work to get them back to their past state.
I agree with Tyler, we just don’t have the population and when Youngstown is lacking in funds for their own police officers (who are understaffed) street department and well all the other needed maintenance… it’s just not feasible.
Tyler- I also want to mention- I worked again with Jack Pearce from Remax http://ourvalleyhomes.com/remax_realtor/pearce_j_leonard_a.htm
And also through Lefty Hazmahlis at Creekside Mortgage Company in Boardman. Both great guys to work with, they worked to have my closing within 30 days!
The incentive is property tax exemption for national historic homes, not just the designation.
With due respect, I think you guys are missing the point. Hampton, Williamsburg and Yorktown exempted their historic property to spur investment wherein surrounding houses began to renovate. This phenomenon is often noticed when one home gets rehabed, neighbors take notice and follow suit. Most historic structures are maintenance heavy and need an incentive. If we really want to evaluate this approach, we need to study it and become knowledgeable and then act or not.
Here’s a case study locally, I live in a registered historic home in Youngstown and I constantly work on it, that is just the nature of older construction. We also have an older historic structure in Poland and I struggle with it in paying the taxes and keeping it up. However, most of us who own these structures are still young and able, but there will come a time when we will not be able to subsidize them. This happened to the former owner, she turned 92 and said she couldn’t fund them anymore. Remember, economics is the reason why many of the historic structures fall to the wayside.
As an outsider I would like to jump in with my two cents worth. You will never ever ever get any kind of sustained renaissance or gentrification unless you get crime under control. It is far easier to sell a bad house in a good neighborhood, than a good house in a bad neighborhood. My wife and I are planning a little road trip to Youngstown soon, to see what it’s like.
*jimmy