$7500 First Time Buyer Credit May be the key to Jumpstarting the Cincinnati Market

Local Realtors and home builders believe a $7,500 tax credit available to first-time homebuyers is the one prong of President Bush’s Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 that could provide the biggest stimulus to Cincinnati’s housing market.

The federal legislation, approved Aug. 6, includes a series of measures to stimulate home sales, prevent foreclosures and neutralize the weak economy’s effect on the housing market.
First-time buyers, or those that haven’t owned a home in three years or longer, may qualify for up to a $7,500 tax credit on their 2008 income taxes. They’ll have to pay the credit back over a 15-year term, with no interest.

But the key is in raising the confidence of buyers who might have doubted their ability to qualify for a loan without the attractive zero-percent-down offers of the last few years, said Karen Schlosser, president of the Cincinnati Area Board of Realtors and sales manager at Re/Max Unlimited. The tax credit will be retroactive back to April.

Industry groups, brokerage firms and home builders are desperate to spread news like this to the Cincinnati market, said Dan Hendricks, president of the Home Builders Association of Greater Cincinnati. Building permits have dropped from 7,000 per year to 3,600, he said.
Inventory levels have spiked. A Cincinnati home, on average, sits on the market 8.5 months, according to the Cincinnati Area Board of Realtors’ June 2008 report.

In a stable market, homes sell within five or six months, said Schlosser.

“We need first-time buyers to come in and take a layer of housing out so those people selling can move up,” she said.

Schlosser added that buyers purchasing a home for the first time represent 40 percent of all sales.

A new marketing tool
Couple the tax credit with measures to encourage use of Federal Housing Administration loans, and builders have a new tool to use in marketing their homes, said Terry Sievers, Midwest region president for Drees Homes.

The legislation ups the maximum loan government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks can provide to $625,500.

It also increases the maximum FHA-insured loan to 115 percent of an area’s median home price to a maximum of $625,500 with a minimum down payment of 3.5 percent, up from 3 percent.

“They are appealing to a lot of buyers that would not have used FHA financing a couple years ago,” Sievers said. “In the ’70s, it was all about financing. People would walk in to buy a home and the first thing you’d discuss is what the interest rate and payments would be, not the features of the home. In many cases, it’s a return to that.”
Schlosser’s Re/Max Unlimited group will host an information session for its Realtors next week to provide tips on marketing the legislation to past, present and potential clients.

They’ll also discuss Ohio Housing Finance Agency measures, like low interest loans for first-time buyers in Ohio and the Ohio Heroes Program, in which full-time police and fire officers, paramedics, health care workers and teachers can qualify for a rate that is one quarter lower through the agency.

“We need people to be confident to come into the market and buy a home,” Schlosser said.

“Getting information out to as many people as we can is so important.”
Group Realtors is contacting its clients who have purchased homes over the past few months to encourage them to pursue the credit and spread the word to others, said the firm’s owner Marilou Butcher Roth.

Fischer Homes hopes the act stimulates sales in its Maple Street Homes division, in which 50 percent of buyers are purchasing for the first time.

“Do I think that it’s the miracle cure for the housing industry? Absolutely not. But it’s a lot about what’s going in people’s ears versus the facts,” said Fischer Director of Marketing Brian Fannin.

Fischer will advertise parts of the bill through direct mail and e-mail blasts to customers.

“We’re just trying to say, ‘you owe it to yourself to look at the window of opportunity,’” Fannin said.

Mariemont’s "Jordan Park" - Built using plans from 1921

Friday, August 15, 2008
Mariemont’s new units align with 1921 plan
Business Courier of Cincinnati - by Melissa Haller Courier Contributor

As a resident of Mariemont, David Arends is deferential to the historic character and small-town feel of his community. But as president and CEO of downtown-based Cole + Russell Architects, Arends clearly recognizes the importance of designing to meet the needs of today’s market.

To him, the $10 million, 29-unit Jordan Park condominium project under way on Miami Avenue, just off Mariemont Square, fits both requirements: It’s sensitive to the Tudor Revival architecture style of Mariemont’s environs, yet still serves the needs of residents who want to downsize their living space and upsize amenities and convenience. Proof is in the sales: Only six of the 29 units – which have a price tag starting at $425,000 – remain unsold, even though the project won’t be done until October. Many buyers are empty-nesters seeking single-story residences and safe parking.

“He definitely hit the right button relative to the product type and location and understanding what that buyer wants,” Arends said of Rick Greiwe, whose Greiwe Development Group is the project’s developer.

Cole + Russell played a part in that, too, since it’s the architectural firm that designed the Jordan Park project. The building is 3.5 stories, with one-story units on the first and second floors, and one-story units with lofts on the third floor. They all have nine-foot ceilings and are about 2,000 square feet. The building has elevators that travel to an enclosed garage below.

The location near the square will allow residents to walk to banks, restaurants, entertainment and, of course, Jordan Park, the project’s namesake.

The project is nearing completion, but Greiwe largely credits history for its blueprint. Arends said he heard of the project idea directly from Greiwe as the two sat at a restaurant on the square and looked at the nearby spot.

But Greiwe wasn’t starting from scratch. The project is closely aligned with the plans created in 1921 by John Nolan, the original planner of Mariemont. Nolan was hired by Mary Emery, a Cincinnati philanthropist, to create a community that resembled an English garden. His result was a village with English Tudor-style architecture, large trees, and several small parks that are reachable on foot.

“Nolan was hired to design Mariemont, which is still a national model,” Greiwe said. “Planners from around the world come to look at this plan. I looked at some of the sketches, and they were the real impetus for the development.”

Cole + Russell used both that 1921 plan and Greiwe’s ideas to design Jordan Park with a traditional Tudor style outside and open, contemporary floor plans inside. The Tudor style includes a masonry base and accents, or “overbuilds” of heavy timber. The Jordan Park building also has heavy corner boards and diagonals, with pitched roofs and a façade that changes dimensions. For instance, looking down the block, some of the front porches step back from the street while other accents are forward-reaching. “That undulation of the façade helps change the scale,” Arends said. “It is a very big building, but it fits in with the area and is respectful of the street and street edge.”

The building also provides a transition for the commercial and residential buildings on the street. This transition, Arends points out, is a subtle way to keep the buildings in visual scale along the roadway.

Tudor Style
Project: Jordan Park
Cost: $10 million
Developer: NAP Miami Road LLC
General Contractor: Griewe Development Group
Architect: Cole + Russell
Description: 29 Tudor-style condominiums in Mariemont

Red Bank location attracts more tenants

Friday, August 15, 2008
Business Courier of Cincinnati - by Jon Newberry Staff Reporter

Two mixed-use office and retail developments along the busy Red Bank Road corridor have picked up key occupants in recent months. Reisenfeld & Associates, a law firm currently located on Reading Road just north of downtown Cincinnati, is building a two-story, 38,000-square-foot building at Miller-Valentine Group’s Red Bank Village in Fairfax.

It will be the second office building at the site and is expected to be completed by the end of the year. The first office building at the complex, adjacent to Reisenfeld’s, was recently completed.

Reisenfeld has tripled in size over the past three years and also acquired the Sojourners Title agency. The agency will also be relocating to Red Bank Village. Brad Reisenfeld said the firm will own the building and conducted an employee survey before settling on the site.

“It’s the perfect location for us. It’s a very central location and an up-and-coming area,” he said, citing easy highway access and a desire to work with Miller-Valentine as key factors.

The office buildings are part of a larger project anchored by a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter that’s being developed by Regency Centers Corp. The Wal-Mart was announced in 2006, but its opening was pushed back to 2009. Construction likewise has yet to get under way on a planned 30,000-square-foot retail strip center and on three available retail outlots along Red Bank Road.
Red Bank Village is at the southern end of Red Bank, about nine miles from downtown via Columbia Parkway.

Neyer Properties also has been adding buildings and tenants at Red Bank Crossing. A Goddard School day-care center recently opened in a single-story, 10,000-square-foot building that lies to the south of a two-story, 30,000-square-foot office building that’s just been completed. The first, 40,000-square-foot office building on the site was completed a couple years ago and is fully leased to medical and health-related tenants.

Jeff Chamot, project manager for Neyer, said the newest office building is a LEED-certified “green” building and, as such, affords tenants a 100 percent tax abatement for 12 years from the city of Cincinnati.

The environmental design also reduces utility costs by about 20 percent, he said, and studies indicate that people who work in green buildings are more productive, use fewer sick days and are happier at their jobs.

All the monetary benefits flow directly to the tenants since they’re responsible for property taxes and operating expenses, Chamot said.

Tenants have been attracted to the project because of the location and the 30,000 cars a day that use the Red Bank Expressway, he said. Red Bank runs between Wooster Pike/Columbia Parkway on the south end, to Interstate 71 on the north, with major intersections at Erie and Madison Road in between.

“I’ve always thought of it as the East-North connector,” Chamot said.

Red Bank Ready
Projects: Red Bank Village, Red Bank Crossing
Costs: More than $15 million
Developers: Red Bank Village Office LLC, Neyer Properties
CMs: MV Construction, NPI and Reece-Campbell
Architects: McGill Smith Punshon, PSA