Erie Real Estate

Lead Abatement Grants

Available for the City of Erie

City of Erie residents and landlords can apply for assistance in removing lead from their homes.  The City recently received a $3 million grant.

Jorge Alvear, the city's lead hazard control program manager, said the grant will allow the abatement of lead in 128 owner-occupied homes and in 78 rental units over 3 years.  For more information contact Jorge Alvear at 870-1262.

Sheriff Sales

Upcoming sales...

The Sheriff's office has been very busy.  No sales are held in December, therefor the list for January is lengthy. 

The next scheduled sale is February 15th.  Followed by March 14th.  These sales are at 10:00AM at the Erie County Courthouse.

Some good opportunities are usually available.  If you go and plan to bid you should have an attorney do the title work in advance.   

Rental Units Inspection

If you own Rental units in the City of Erie

You better make sure that you have them registered as the City willing be looking for you - Erie to crack down .  There about 1,200 units that still have not been registered.

There has been much talk about a possible amnesty for illegally zoned rental units within the City.  The idea was to give owners a one time amnesty.  The issue is apartment buildings that have been illegally converted into more units than are permitted under zoning regulations.  No this isn't going to happen.  It's  only been on the agenda and talked about (wasting a lot of time) since last summer.  Now it is pulled from agenda .

The good news is that the City is talking about lowering fee for the variance process.  This, I'd like to see.  The City  lowering a fee.

How's the Market?

Is the Question I continually get asked

The market is doing much better than most people think.  Allow me it explain.

In spite of the national doom and gloom stories, locally things are pretty good .  The average sale price is up.  The total number of sales is down from 2006.  However there were less listings available.  By my records The Greater Erie Board of REALTORS MLS shows 211 less residential sales in 2007 -vs- 2006.  More importantly 2007 had 457 less listings available than 2006.  It only makes sense that sales would be down when the inventory is down.

Within the last 2 weeks, my office has been involved in 4 multiple offer situations.  That's not typical when the market is terrible.