Cleveland’s Housing Squeeze – Cleveland.com article by Justice B Hill

CLEVELAND, Ohio — First, let me confess this: Mike Ferrante sold my home.

Mike also sold my sister’s home; Mike sold a home to one of my first cousins. He’d be my realtor again, if I were in the market to buy a home. I trust Mike and his Century 21 HomeStar team.

Now, he doesn’t need me to do his PR. He does that quite well with a newsletter he sends to clients, former clients and potential clients. One of his recent newsletters offered insights into what the housing market here looks like.

His central message on median prices was unhopeful:

I suppose that tells you all you’ll need to know about Greater Cleveland. The region’s shortage of affordable housing is similar to the rest of the United States.

Trying to buy now?

Had that home been closer to University Circle, it would have fetched — a guess here — far more than $150,000. Its proximity to Case Western Reserve University pushes the price tag higher than it used to be.

In a city that used to have plenty of houses and a much larger population, both have dwindled. Vacant lots pockmark street after street on the East Side, which I blame city fathers for. They’ve kept their eyes too focused on downtown and allowed houses on streets like mine to fall into disrepair.

But prices of those homes are the great decider, and the shortage of supply drives up prices beyond what people who have rented in the neighborhood and those next to it can afford.

Unless inventory goes upward and interest rates downward, homebuyers will confront a seller’s market, Mike predicted in his newsletter.

I’m not sure Mike can make that prediction. Heck, not even billionaire Warren Buffett, investment sage he is, can do such crystal-ball stuff. Besides, what does Buffett know about Cleveland that Mike doesn’t know?

Justice B. Hill grew up and still lives in the Glenville neighborhood. He wrote and edited for several newspapers in his more than 25 years in daily journalism before settling into teaching at Ohio University. He quit May 15, 2019, to write and globetrot. He’s doing both.