It will soon cost Sellers TWICE as much

to sell their home in Franklin County.

Beginning January 12th, 2006, the Franklin County Conveyance fee will increase to $2.00 per $1,000 of home.
This will double cost of conveyance for sellers. One Franklin County commissioner was hopping mad about it and spoke publicly about how full the coffers are at the county and why this is an unnecessary tax. Realtors like myself rallied against it but the tax remains and goes into effect soon.

It hurts the sellers bottom line but the State of Ohio says that each of its 88 counties can charge whatever they like for this fee up to $4.00 per $1,000. Many counties, such as Delaware County, already have this fee set at $4.00/$1,000 so Franklin County residents planning to sell their home next year can at least feel good that they don't live in Delaware County.

Downtown and Midtown Columbus Condos

As I begin to focus more and more on the midtown condo market, I have to wonder what we will all find went wrong twenty years from now in some of the units. Not the new build units, but all the reclaimed condo spaces around downtown.
Many of these buildings were erected as offices, warehouses and commercial buildings not intended to house people. Will the normal wear and tear of living have any effect on these wondrous transformations? They weren't supposed to be airtight, they weren't supposed to have so much plumbing running through them, so much humidity. I think it will be interesting to see if, somewhere way down the line, anything happens to any of these retro-fitted buildings that no one has currently thought of or considered.
In the meantime, I can't get enough of them and I truly enjoy helping people find the right living space for them, be it an historic home in one of Columbus' urban neighborhoods or a downtown condominium.

Is your Offer to Purchase Info confidential?

Well, yes and no.
If you are a buyer who, through your Realtor representing you and only you exclusively, makes an offer on a property, do you have the expectation of confidentiality?
--From your Realtor, yes, absolutely. Your Realtor owes you the duty of confidentiality and she may not tell others in her office or neighbors any information about your transaction without your permission.
--From the Listing (the one selling the house who works exclusively for the seller) Realtor, no not really. This Realtor owes you (the buyer) nothing, no duty of confidentiality, no accountability, no obedience. He represents the seller and it is his duty to look out for the seller's best interests.
Therefore, and only with the seller's permission, he can tell another competing Buyer Representive Realtor the terms and conditions of your offer at his discretion--thereby setting off a bidding war among two interested parties.
Many people make the mistake of thinking anything that has to do with a contract must be kept confidential and won't be made available to competing buyers. A good Realtor will counsel their clients effectively and tell them this information. In fact, the Ohio Association of Realtors will make it mandatory to tell their clients that there is no expectation of privacy beginning January 1, 2006.
It gets murkier though.
What if the Realtor exclusively representing the seller is also the Realtor representing the buyer and there is a competitive situation? Let's say it's a hot property and everyone and their brother wants to buy it --- a great part of town, it'd been undervalued to move quickly, it's a foreclosure, etc.
With the seller's permission, and that is very important, the Listing Realtor can reveal the terms and conditions to other parties. If that same Realtor is representing a potential buyer, he can tell that buyer all the terms and conditions of the competing offers, thus fulfilling his fiduciary duties to both the seller and buyer and making it glaringly apparent that he owes no such duties to the competing potential buyers. In this scenario, the Listing/Selling Realtor's buyer gets the property every time if he/she is willing to beat the competitive terms and conditions which they are now privy too.
I was that dual agent recently and it felt like I was doing something not quite right but I was benefiting both my clients at the same time. I firmly believe in karma of real estate transactions and I do strive to treat all fellow Realtors like I would like to be treated. I've been on the other side of transaction too and it's no fun when your buyer loses out after making a good offer and you later find out that the eventual buyer was represented by the listing agent. It doesn't seem logical, but it's all right there in the Ohio Law governing real estate transactions. For more information, you can read about it at: http://www.ohiorealtors.org/news/ohiorealtor/2005/december/sto6.html

Ohio Lofts building on e Main st - The Columbus Dispatch

The Columbus Dispatch - Business

The 99-year-old building has been nearly gutted and by spring, the first of 16 condos ranging from 750 square feet to 3,500 square feet will be completed.
--The beauty of this project is that so much first floor retail has been pre-leased even before construction really begins. That is exactly the kind of thing that needs to happen all over downtown, the near east and the near south and west where available. It's the retail and office space at ground level with residences above that will bring back Downtown Columbus and our urban neighborhoods.
I've always loved this building for no particular reason and when it sold for only $185,000 in '99 (albeit in pretty rough shape) I was surprised. The Eastern edge of downtown from the so called warehouse district close to Columbus State to the areas south of the Market District have an extreme amount of potential so this is really exciting news for Columbus.