I thought this was a good article. I  like the last part:

 

Starting in the 1990s, Cleveland began turning around its reputation with the opening of new sports stadiums and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum downtown. The area's financial services industry also grew and attained national prominence with firms such as National City, KeyCorp and insurer Progressive Corp. Manufacturing also rebounded as the weak dollar boosted demand for products produced in the area, DeKaser said.

 

Real Revival

 

George and Bridget Richard are first-time buyers who want to stay in the Cleveland area and are being enticed by newly affordable prices. After looking for more than a year, they're now considering placing an offer on a three-bedroom, three-bath house in North Ridgeville, a suburb of Cleveland.

 

A few months ago the asking price for the light-blue house, built in 1986, was $213,000. Now it's $189,000. The couple, who are high-school sweethearts, are expecting their first child.

 

``I'd like to take advantage of the market while it's low, go in, buy a house and just watch the market rise over the next number of years,'' Bridget Richard, 34, a child psychotherapist, said in an interview in the couple's apartment in Strongsville, Ohio.

 

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aguztSyYWfCg&refer=home

Can you post the full article? It doesn't make any sense without it.  :-) Thanks.

I thought it was good, too.

 

However, I think that if anyone ever refers to Cleveland as the "Mistake on the Lake" one more time, we should be allowed to hunt them down and shoot them in the face.

^ LOL

 

The unemployment rate in the Cleveland area is 10.1 percent

 

Is it really this high? :-o

According to the Forbes article about dying cities, for June 2008 it's 7.1%.

According to the Forbes article about dying cities, for June 2008 it's 7.1%.

 

Actually, it was 7.7%, which is the worst number since at least 2000 (probably since the 80s as the 90s were a pretty good decade or Cleveland).  The May 2008 figure for Cleveland MSA was 7.2%... a 0.5% increase in a month is pretty scary.  Hopefully the July numbers won't show a similar increase.

 

http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/04/economy-ohio-michigan-biz_cx_jz_0805dying_slide_7.html?thisSpeed=15000

 

Maybe the 10.1% represents City of Cleveland or Cuyahoga County.. or was just pulled out of thin air. 

CITY RATE JUNE 2008

 

Hamilton  6.6 

Springfield  7.2 

Cleveland 10.1

Cleveland Hts. 6.4 

Euclid 8.1 

Lakewood  7.0 

Parma  7.8 

Columbus  5.7 

Cincinnati  6.4 

Mentor 6.2 

Elyria 7.8

Lorain 9.3 

Toledo 8.5

Youngstown  8.6 

Dayton 8.4 

Kettering 6.0 

Mansfield 7.3 

Canton 8.1 

Akron  6.8 

Cuyahoga Falls  5.7

 

http://www.10tv.com/live/content/onnnews/stories/2008/07/22/unemployement_rates.html?sid=102

 

ok, city rate... good find, Florida Guy... these media outlets can never seem to get municipalities versus metro areas straight

Right...that's the city rate. If you include Akron (Summit and Portgage) the unemployment rate is somewhat lower. We have to realize, though that unemployment spikes occur during the summer months as teenagers enter the workforce. I would expect this to go down in the coming months.

Right...that's the city rate. If you include Akron (Summit and Portgage) the unemployment rate is somewhat lower. We have to realize, though that unemployment spikes occur during the summer months as teenagers enter the workforce. I would expect this to go down in the coming months.

 

No, not really, unemployment will drastically rise in November with construction seasonal layoffs.

Gotribe...historical, that's not the case. There is not nearly the jump in November as in the Summer...but that's neither here nor there. I think the article touched on some important points. One thing I find interesting is that when Cleveland, Minneapolis, Detroit, Pittsburgh, etc. were experiencing the foreclosure crisis 3 years ago, nobody really cared. Now all of a sudden, everyone needs a bailout.

On a brighter note:

 

Still, the number of houses in the foreclosure process was down 35 percent from a year earlier, one of only four cities to register a drop among the top 50 metropolitan areas in the U.S., according to RealtyTrac data. Cleveland ranked No. 47 on the list in July, after being at No. 6 for all of 2007.

 

 

I don't quite get what is bad news about this for the U.S.  Just that it indicates that other cities may have a ways more to fall?  We knew that already.  Why make it sound like Cleveland is somehow at fault?

I didn't read it that way. I think Cleveland is being used as a "measure" because it experienced the foreclosure crisis before most of the country. I came away with "what can we learn from Cleveland" vs. Cleveland is at fault.

 

Yes, bad news for the rest of the country, it will get worse before it gets better.

I read it the same way.

I guess I can't read that title as written to get the meaning you are getting, although I agree that is what the article is about.

X, I'm with you on the article's central point not making total sense.

 

I understand the point the article is making (Cleveland bottomed out at price levels that the rest of the country hasn't dropped to yet; more room to fall), but I would think that it would still be a positive sign that ANYBODY is putting in a housing bottom.  That would seem to indicate that now we can set our expectations for the rest of the country, and the horizon is in sight.  It's no longer a bottomless pit.

 

Right?

I realized this after posting...I guess if you perceived us to be at a nationwide bottom in housing, than this info could be bad news.  I just assumed most people have their eyes open and realize that prices have plenty of room more to fall in many markets.

I don't understand why this is necessarily bad news for the national housing situation - why do we assume that because Cleveland prices dropped 37% that ALL cities will drop by that much? This is a much more local phenomenon than a national one - prices went up in Florida, Arizona and Nevada (for example) in part because of population pressure there on limited resources, or at least the expectation of such. The falling populations of Ohio, Michigan and PA, for example, do not suggest that a similar situation. If all else were equal, we would see people fleeing San Francisco and other high priced cities for Cleveland and Detroit, where property can be had for a song.

Most cities have actually declined more then the 13.82% for the overall market in Cleveland, but the percentage isn't what really counts anyway since they gained more to lose more, but the end seems very similar in many cities. While Cleveland's Market has reverted back to 02/03 levels many other cities have already gone back to 04/05 levels and are not close to being stabilized yet.

 

The 37% was the rate for Entry level homes, which had the biggest declines, but now is starting to reverse that trend.

The overall Cleveland Markets biggest decline was 13.82% and now the overall all decline since its peak in 06' is 11.89%.

 

Las Vegas decline since 06' for Entry level homes so far is at 31.36% and still shows no signs of even stabilizing.

The overall Las Vegas market since its peak has seen a decline of 31.41% and no signs of stabilizing and the rate of decline has increased in the last 6 months.

 

Phoenix decline for Entry Level homes since their peak is at 32.9% and still on the decline.

Phoenix overall decline to date is 30.82% and still declining

 

Los Angeles decline for Entry Level homes since their peak in 06' stands at 36.5% and continues to decline.

Los Angeles overall market decline since 06' is 27.5% and continues to decline.

 

The declining trend is fore casted to continue for another couple years, and at the rate of these declines it will be much worse off then the decline in Cleveland, which is reversing now. Some markets such as Miami, while have reverted back to 04/05 levels continue to see 3-5 percent declines each month in the last 6 months with the trends showing no sign of stabilizing yet.

 

I know I wouldn't want to buy a house in a market where my house might decline another 15-30% because that wouldn't make much economic sense.

 

For all the data, click on the tiered prices pdf from this website

http://www.macromarkets.com/csi_housing/data_download.asp