In a short time, SBAR Holdings LLC purchased about 160 homes in the Cleveland area, selling most of them to investors with ties to Sweden. Since then, most of the homes have been resold. In a few cases they were sold to new investors who fixed them up, but many ended up in worse condition. Two burned down and others were condemned. One home owned by Danish investors is currently slated to be demolished by the city. 

Here’s a look at the details of some of the sales and what’s happening with the homes now. 

3565 E. 135th St.

Neighborhood: Mount Pleasant

What we know: SBAR Holdings LLC bought this home in 2017 for $30,000. Before that it was owned for at least 40 years by a woman who retired from Stouffer Foods and was a longtime usher at Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church. She died at age 87 the year after the sale.

The day after SBAR Holdings bought the home, it was sold for $55,700 to a company called Kling Investments LLC, owned by a Swedish investor.

Talesha Weaver was a tenant in the home in 2018 but deposited her rent with the Cleveland Housing Court after a leak damaged her apartment and she could not reach the landlord. After a little more than three years, the Swedish investor sold the home to a company named Anti-Cleveland LLC. 

The current picture: The home has sold twice more, including in 2022 for $100,000. In this case, the new owner lives in Cuyahoga County and extensively renovated the home. 

7901 Dorver Ave.

Neighborhood: Slavic Village 

What we know: A married couple owned this house from 2003 to 2016, when Wells Fargo foreclosed. A company bought it at sheriff’s sale and sold it to SBAR Holdings the following year. 

A Swedish investor bought the house in July of 2017. Two months later, police found drugs and guns during a raid on the house. A man who lived at the house was later convicted of drug trafficking. 

The Swedish investor then sold the house to another Swedish investor, Maria Areskoug, for $57,000 in 2018. 

From 2017 through 2019, neighbors complained to the city’s Department of Building and Housing and Council Member Kevin Bishop’s office multiple times. Areskoug accumulated fines in housing court, which she later paid. 

Areskoug sold the house in 2020 for $5,500. 

The current picture: The house sold a second time in 2020 for $60,000 to another limited liability company that owns it today.

3541 E. 147th St.

Neighborhood: Mount Pleasant

What we know: This house has had several owners in the last 20 years. 

A married couple bought it at a sheriff’s sale in 2002. In 2017, Deutsche Bank foreclosed on a years-old loan from Long Beach Mortgage Company. 

The bank later withdrew its foreclosure complaint and the owners transferred the house to the Cuyahoga Land Bank. The land bank gave the house to Union Miles Development Corporation in 2018, records show. 

Union Miles sold the house to a property wholesaler for $1,700 in July 2018. That same day, the wholesaler sold it to SBAR Holdings for $8,000, the deed record shows. The following year, SBAR sold the property to Danish investors for $58,000. 

Roshawn Sample, the executive director of Union Miles Development Corporation, told Signal Cleveland in an email that the deal with the wholesaler turned out to be a disappointment.

“It was a very bad experience,” she wrote – one that prompted Union Miles to revise its real estate agreements.

The current picture: The property is in bad shape. The porch floorboards are broken. Paint is chipping off the side of the house, and an above-ground pool sits empty in the backyard. There is a large hole in the front yard, just across the street from a school. 

A building inspector took note of these problems last October, filing a set of photos with Cleveland Housing Court. The property owes delinquent taxes dating back to 2020. City officials say it is slated to be demolished. 

1407 E. 61st St.

Neighborhood: Hough 

What we know: This is one of five Cleveland properties purchased by Swedish investor Lena Jelke-Fehrm in 2017 and 2018 from SBAR Holdings. Jelke-Fehrm learned about the investment opportunity through Solid Capital Group, a Swedish company. She paid $271,500 for the five properties. 

Two dozen firefighters responded to a blaze at the East 61st Street house in March 2020. It was vacant at the time. EMS took one firefighter to MetroHealth with a shoulder injury, according to the Cleveland fire report. The fire report listed the cause as “under investigation.” 

Another of Jalke-Fehrm’s houses also caught fire. In June 2020, her house on East 71st Street in Slavic Village went up in smoke. Tenants escaped without injury, and firefighters determined the cause to be electrical, the fire report said.

Jalke-Fehrm told Signal Cleveland she used insurance money to pay for the demolitions. But there was a catch at East 61st. Her demolition contractor visited the property only to discover that the City of Cleveland had knocked it down first, according to emails she shared with Signal Cleveland. 

The current picture: Jalke-Fehrm transferred ownership of her company to her local property manager. The property manager sold three of the properties to other investors, including a company registered to retired NFL player Manti Te’o.  

The property manager still owns the vacant lots, which are tax delinquent, records show. 

5516 Mound Ave. 

Neighborhood: Broadway-Slavic Village

What we know: A Swedish investor bought this home from SBAR Holdings in 2018. It was one of four – three in Cleveland and one in East Cleveland.

This home was first purchased by SBAR Holdings in 2018 for just under $50,000 and sold to Swedish investor JCK Capital Group three months later at a small markup. JCK Capital Group sold it nearly four years later at almost twice the price.

The current picture: That sale turned out to be problematic for JCK Capital Group. 

The company was serving a two-year community control sentence stemming from a slate of violations in Cleveland Housing Court, records show. One requirement of the sentence: not to sell the houses without court approval.

JCK Capital Group sold the house to another investor in August 2022. Days later, Judge W. Moná Scott found the company in violation of her order. 

Although the investor showed up for earlier court hearings, he didn’t appear for one last year, according to a docket entry. The investor’s attorney told the court that he hadn’t communicated with his client since September 2022, the entry said.  

Neither the investor nor his attorney responded to Signal Cleveland’s requests for comment. 

3342 E. 125th St.

Neighborhood: Mount Pleasant

What we know: A Swedish investor bought this home from SBAR Holdings. Before that, the home was sold at a state forfeiture sale in 2017 for $6,000. SBAR Holdings bought the house a little less than four months later for $27,500.

The Swedish investor bought the East 125th Street  home from SBAR a month later for $56,000. 

The investor was connected to SBAR by Solid Capital Group. He told Signal Cleveland in an email that he had a “terrible experience” and lost about $150,000 on two homes he purchased, including what he put into renovations. The second home was on East 104th Street in the Union-Miles neighborhood. (That home was slated to be demolished as far back as 2006.)

In January 2019, the Swedish investor sold the East 125th Street home again for $58,000 – to another Swedish investor. That next investor sold it the same year at a loss. 

The current picture: The East 125th Street property is now owned by another investor. The East 104th Street home was also resold. Cleveland officials placed an affidavit on the title in 2020 noting the home is condemned.