Example of a Rental Property Occupancy Permit
 A Rental Property Occupancy Permit Brice Banctel, Kyle Mooney, Leila Sanii, Shuyi Wang of Case Western Reserve University, documented the pros and cons of a Rental Occupancy Permit Program in their study titled, Chagrin Falls, Ohio-A Study on the Impact of High Percentage of Rental Units on the Community.
Pros of Rental Property Occupancy Permit
Having a database of rental units within the community would give the city a snapshot at any point in time of the renters who have to this date not been tracked. The city will know how many renters exist, where they are living, and how they can be contacted. If the city wants to contact the renters for any reason, they have the ability to do so.
Cons of Rental Property Occupancy Permit
There will likely be some resistant property owners who reject the idea of an additional fee per unit → continue reading Solon Ohio Rental Real Estate Properties Occupancy Permit Discussed
 Homeownership in a transient society Owning a home or renting a home is fundamentally a major financial decision. A home is a immovable liability in any area of that does not have an increasing population and job opportunities. The psychological and cultural importance of owning a home is exaggerated, knowingly and unknowingly. The cliche is that you can’t put a price on it; the fact is that homeowners do place a price on home ownership through the home mortgage.
Real estate agents ridicule renters by saying that “they are throwing away money”, this notion from overpaid sales professionals should to be taken with a truck load of salt. Renting is analogous to the modular design concept, the important advantage is flexibility. Non-modular design is analogous to homeownership, it ties into obsoletism.
→ continue reading Homeownership is a ball and chain in a transient nation
Basements are constructed with perimeter walls made with
- hollow cement blocks, or
- poured cement concrete.
The blocks are brought to the site and laid by a mason with staggered joints. If the joints are not staggered, the basement wall will have lower strength and it is a sign of very poor workmanship. After the blocks are laid, the hollows may be reinforced with steel bars and filled with a cement concrete to increase its strength and durability. I am not certain if there is an easy method, for a typical home buyer or the second and the subsequent home owners to verify if the hollow block basement walls were reinforced or not. If unreinforced, a hollow cement block basement wall is clearly inferior to a poured concrete basement wall. The hollow cavities will provide a reservoir space for water which will eventually seep into the basement. The unreinforced hollow block basement wall will have lower strength, durability and fire resistance. The purposes and advantages of using hollow cement blocks is the speed and the cost savings using the the large sized blocks. To meet the construction time parameter, a crafty home builder may decide that it is indeed desirable but not essential to reinforce the hollow blocks of the basement wall, particularly, if the applicable building codes do not explicitly require this reinforcement.
So, should a home buyer consider buying a home that has basement walls constructed with unreinforced hollow cinder blocks? These basement walls which also act as retaining walls, will be weak in tension and are highly likely to develop cracks. A poorly constructed basement is trouble and it is prudent to walk away from that home.
 Hollow cement mortar cinder blocks used for basement construction  Concrete and steel reinforced block wall basement Many homes in the Cleveland area of Cuyahoga County in Ohio have basements that are made of these hollow cement blocks. → continue reading The wet hollow block wall basements of Cleveland, Ohio
 We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children-Native American proverb Kermit Baker, Chief Economist of The American Institute of Architecture confirms that the fat McMansion lady has indeed started singing. → continue reading McMansions, Starter Castles, Garage Mahals are dead
Chagrin Highlands Estates is a subdivision located north of Route 422 in northeast Solon. It is near the picturesque Chagrin River. During a visit to Chagrin Highlands, I saw this colonial home that was located almost entirely below the street level. A sloping driveway lead to the home on a quiet, private and treed sloping lot.
 Mat Foundation Credit: Pacific Housing Systems-Click to enlarge  Potential issues at Chagrin Highlands-Click to enlarge → continue reading Unstable slopes of Chagrin Highlands Estates of Solon Ohio
 The closed loop “For decades, the real estate industry has operated under the principle that the less information buyers and sellers have, the better it is for agents, lenders, title companies, and all the other folks who eat from the trough. But the real estate tide seems to be turning, as the housing and credit crises of 2008 have heightened awareness in Washington, D.C., and on Wall Street about the catastrophic consequences of a closed information loop – Michelle Singletary of Washington Post quotes Ilyce Glink in “Buy, Close, Move In.”
Urban Institute’s publication titled, Reforming the Mortgage Interest Deduction by Eric Toder, Margery Austin Turner, Katherine Lim, Liza Getsinger suggests that
Only individuals who itemize deductions can benefit from the Mortgage Interest Deduction (MID), and the value of the deduction increases with the marginal tax rate. If the government wishes to promote home ownership, a refundable tax credit available to all taxpayers would be more effective.
Henry Paulson, former US Treasury Secretary, recommends that → continue reading Reduced Mortgage Interest Deduction (MID) coming?
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About  I am a Civil Engineer from Louisiana State University. The compound word, Americaneer, is a combination of the words, American and Engineer. |
