Cleveland Suburb POS Violations Must Be Removed!!

[Sawyer Dina]

Hey Cleveland Investors,

Who has dealt with the massive turd that POS violation escrow amounts has put on your potential deals? I know I have and there is nothing worse than having an awesome deal get shut down because of a 5 digit POS violation escrow amount!

All the suburban Cleveland cities that participate in this practice make it insanely hard for us investors to put in fair offers on these houses and because of that aspect these houses will continue sit vacant for months and months (of course lowering the market values) because no one wants to deal with the hassle of these absurd and arbitrary escrow amounts set in place.

City inspectors walk through the houses and point out every little thing they can possibly find wrong with a house and report it to the city. The city then places an amount based off a list of ridiculous codes that have the estimate numbers for each violation to be discovered by the inspector. The investor or owner-occupant purchaser has to put in this amount set by the city (with no contest of course) into an escrow account upon purchase and cannot touch these funds UNTIL the necessary violations are brought up to code, then and only then will you get your money back. How insane is that?? You can't even use the money they estimate for the repairs to make the freakin' repairs!!

Overall, I would just like to hear your thoughts and experiences dealing with this matter and hope we can all come together to finally put an end to this backwards and nonsensical regulation!

All my best,

Sawyer

[Steven Aviram]

One of the benefits of investing in Cleveland proper, along with lower property taxes, is no POS.  I especially steer clear of Cleveland Heights as an investor, due to their strict POS, relatively low values in many areas, and high taxes.  If you can find the right neighborhood of Cleveland proper to invest in, the local government will mostly stay off your back, and your life will be a lot easier.  I'm particularly fond of North Collinwood.

Some cities that have POS are more investor friendly than others.  Some will go out of their way to make your life difficult.  Here's how I'd rank them from least to most investor friendly:

1. Cleveland Heights

2. Shaker Heights

3. South Euclid

4. Bedford Heights

5. Maple Heights

6. Euclid

7. Garfield Heights

8. Willowick (dye test)

9. Eastlake (dye test) 

10. Wickliffe (dye test)

11. Lakewood

12. Parma

13. Berea

By the way, Brook Park has no POS, but avoid at all cost as an investor.  The building commissioner and building department are awful to deal with.