Gloria Ferris

Our friend Roger Bundy has begun to blog this month as the Cleveland Equanimous Philosopher at http://www.fsgf.blogspot.com/

I’m sure you’ll find him as charming and as interesting as we do. Note his measured comments on the “Poor Richard” issue.

Also, note his challenge on finding/guessing/discerning/divining the origins of fsgf, and the monetary reward.

Roger is one of our Ward 15 neighbors–lives here, and just moved his business here–local production for local consumption.

Yesterday, we were wondering about the Realtors’ “Historic Real Estate Specialist designation”–it seemed like a great idea when we were talking with Jim Robinson the other day–so we emailed Kathleen Crowther over at the Cleveland Restoration Society (CRS) who in turn put us in contact with Jennifer Sandy at the National Trust’s (NTHP’s) Chicago office, who told us the following:

The National Trust in partnership with ERA Franchise Systems Inc. runs architecture courses for real estate professionals periodically throughout the nation. You can find out more about this course at the ERA website–
http://www.era.com/eraabout/nationaltrust.html

This site also allows you to search for a Historic Real Estate Specialist by state. You can also find out more about the National Trust’s other corporate partners at our website–
http://www.nationaltrust.org/corporate_partners/our_partners.asp#era

I hope this information is helpful, thank you for your interest.

Poking around still more, we found the NTHP has opened the dialogue we’re looking for and speaks to what we should be doing out here on the street with older properties: http://www.nationaltrust.org/historic_homeowner/buying_selling/

However, a search for Realtors with the designation current through ERA turned up, for all of Ohio, one lady in Westerville–
http://www.era.com/nationaltrust/historic.php

It seems to us that the designation needs to be promoted regardless of the Realtor’s current affiliation with ERA, or however it was that the list was truncated so that only one popped up in Ohio. The National Trust has the designation in place, and we think it makes a significant distinction to help people select a real-estate professional to handle property in an historic context.

Now, I’m beginning to be curious how the CRS and CABOR (Cleveland Area Board of Realtors)–and perhaps even the OAR, the Ohio Association of Realtors, might further promote this designation/certification locally. Based on our contacts over the past few years with Realtors in the Archwood-Denison area, we see a marked need for more sensitivity to issues of the intrinsic value of vintage real estate. Many of them we have talked to (Jim Robinson excepted, of course) seem to have no idea what historicity can add to the bottom line.