Bill James, Jr.

by Bill James, CMC
Residential Bancorp
Canton, Ohio

August 2006

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AUGUST 2007

POTPOURRI  by W H James, Jr., CMC, Board Chairman-Residential Bancorp, Canton, Ohio,  July 6, 2007.

I was talking . . . to Mary Ellen Addessi, Executive Director of OAMB a few days ago and I asked her to check on the date Potpourri first appeared in Ohio Mortgage Press (then know as Journal).  She checked records and said the column evidently started in March 1996!  Twelve (12) years, five (5) months.  Time really does fly when you’re having fun, and Potpourri has really been fun . . . met a lot of interesting readers, many with great “sense of humor”.  As I have said many times, I am astounded at the coverage a “STATE” newspaper seems to get “NATIONWIDE” . . . the calls and emails come from many other states as well as Ohio.  The MORTGAGE PRESS people do a phenomenal job . . . must deliver a great bang for the advertising buck!  In addition to the “Press”, Potpourri appears on the OAMB WEBSITE.  We can see where each person/company is from (city & state) that reads Potpourri on our website.  Often the name of the reader will be shown.  Some of the recent places that plugged in that I am not familiar with were:  Powell Ohio, Pico Rivera CA, Proctorville, OH, Springboro OH, Grandyville PA . . . we have a very diligent and faithful reader from Plano Texas and in June we once again were visited by . . . US Senate/Sergeant at Arms, the Federal Reserve Board and a visit from our leader, NAMB.  Over the past years we have had two (2) visits from U.S. Government/IRS.  Over a week or so in June we were read by people outside Ohio from . . . Washington DC, Seattle WA, Palo Alto CA, South El Monte, CA, Fairfax VA, Littleton CO, Sacramento CA, Boynton Beach, FL, Burlington NY, and Tokyo Japan, just to name a few.  Technology in communication is truly incredible.

THE NEWS on the housing/Real Estate industry continues to erode.  I am constantly looking for something positive happening within our industry . . . right now it’s kind of tough to come up with something substantial. I did come across a report naming some real estate markets that were actually prospering such as:  Cumberland MD prices on homes increased 17% year over year, Beaumont TX up 16%, Salem OR up 15%, Bismark ND up 14%, Seattle WA up 12%, Albuquerque, NM up 12%, Oklahoma City up 12% . . . notice anything that jumps out at you in his list? Except for Cumberland, MD, they’re all West of the Mississippi!  Another thing I picked up was the fact virtually all these communities are not huge cities and also real estate values had not risen drastically over the last 10 years.  The median price range in most of these cities was considerably under $200K . . . Looking at all possibilities of investing money in the U.S. today including the stock market, I would be gearing up to invest selectively in real estate (single family) property in the southeast and Northeast beginning in late winter.  Real Estate will always lead a sick economy in recovery.  We are in a business that will have peaks and valleys.  We have been leaping from peak to peak all through the 90s and we fell off one of these a couple of years ago.  I can feel the terrain just starting to rise again.  We probably have a ten (10) to fourteen (14) month walk in the valley but the peaks start coming into view. 

Sometimes I wonder about the accuracy of things reaching the news . . . a recent article read:  Cuyahoga County Ohio, “the hardest hit county in the hardest hit state” (foreclosures) in the nation will see a 25% increase in foreclosures from last year (2006).  Nearly 1700 foreclosures are predicted for the Cleveland area in 2007.  Ohio foreclosure rate in the 1^st quarter of 2007 was 3.5%, triple the national average.

The CAVS were great in their quest.  San Antonia has a team that might rival the LA and BOSTON TEAMS OF OLD . . . The Cavs are a class act and within 2 to 3 years they will be champions.

The Browns . . . within 2 to 3 years they will have played between 32 and 48 games and still wondering why they can’t win with a QB from Akron U . . .  

Bill James is Board Chairman of Residential Bancorp in Canton, Ohio and can be reached @ 330-495-6041.  Want to comment on Potpourri?  Email me Bill James, Jr.

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