I seem to recall a Twighlight Zone episode where a bigot wakes up one morning and is transformed into the ethnicity that he has been persecuting. That was the first thing I thought of when I read that the law firm of Steven J Baum is closing and laying off 89 employees. The closure comes […]

Quick preface:  In 1997, the brokerage flavor of the month was pre-recorded property hotlines with voice mail. Instead of dealing with a salesperson to get information on  a property, consumers could call a recorded hotline and get the details on the listing pressure-free. They had the choice of hanging up or leaving a message. I […]

There is nothing we like more than an enthusiastic, gung -ho buyer in this market.  There is nothing we like less than a stressed out buyer who makes life hell for all involved.  So, when that gung-ho buyer locks their rate in for 30 days and we haven’t even signed contracts yet, it doesn’t take […]

Any REALTOR association will have the inevitable news on our web page on the passing of a current or former member with some frequency. It is never a happy thing to read, and today’s announcement was particularly significant for me- not because we were very close (we weren’t), but because I knew firsthand what a […]

Like anyone else, I love it when I get a cash offer on one of my listings. That is rare, but it is also nice when we get an offer that has terms including a healthy 20-30% or larger down payment. That doesn’t happen all the time either. What is keeping the lights on in […]

If one were to do a heat map of population density for Westchester, Putnam and the Hudson Valley, they would discover an amazing fact about Philipstown- of all the river communities from Westchester to Poughkeepsie, Philipstown -including Cold Spring and Garrison- is the least populated and perhaps most pastoral river town for 60 miles.  That’s […]

The October real estate closing statistics in the Ossining School district indicate a drop from October of the prior year.  In October 2011, 7 single family homes sold at a median sale price of $410,000.  In the same period last year, 11 single family homes sold at a median sale price of $535,000.  Obviously, this […]

In the current economic climate where deals die so often that we sometimes have to “sell” a listing twice or three times just to get to the closing table, more due diligence and evaluation of buyer qualifications is a serious mandate. Twice in the past month I have seen instances where a pre approval was […]

Late last week, a short obituary ran for Joan McGovern. She was 86 years old and a 50-year resident of White Plains. The Westchester-Putnam Association of Realtors also also ran a short tribute to her, as she was a former licensee with Century 21 Wolff in White Plains. A mother to 13 children, that her […]

In Westchester and the surrounding counties of New York, quite a bit can happen between the acceptance of an offer and contracts being signed. Once an offer is accepted, the buyers still have to do their home inspection and settle those matters before memos go out and contracts are drawn. Even then, there is still […]

Last month I posted on the shrinking disparity in transaction totals in Westchester County comparing 2010 to 2011. This year has been playing “catch up” with last year’s totals, and each month 2011 has been closing the gap. It was my theory that 2010 started out hot due to the stimulus but that 2011 would catch […]

In light of recent events, such as Market Leader’s newest investment in Active Rain Corp. and other developments in Seattle, there has been one area of the company’s operations that has been been conveniently ignored, and it is for the reader to decide if this is oversight or clever obfuscation. But those of us who […]

This morning in New Windsor, New York, I had the privilege of witnessing the Orange County Association of Realtors overwhelming vote in favor of merging their association with WPAR (Westchester-Putnam) and ROCBOR (Rockland) to form the new Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors. This was the third and final “yea” vote between the three boards, and paves the […]

I like nice people. You probably like nice people too. Nice people are…nice. Given the choice, I prefer to do business with nice folks. Especially here in rushed, rude, New York and occasionally aristocratic Westchester County, nice people are such a breath of fresh air. Of course, in business, being nice isn’t enough. People want […]

48 powerless hours and two chilly nights where the temperature in our home hit the 40’s can affect a guy. Like many people who lost power in the worst October snowstorm ever to hit Westchester County, we had to “camp” a little in our home, getting acclimated with flashlights, candles, sleeping bags and fireplaces. Two […]

This will be my first-ever blog post written by candlelight, courtesy of my Verizon 3G hotspot and a generous battery life on the laptop. When you mix a severe combination of snow and ice to trees that still have all of their leaves, you get downed fallen branches by the thousands and power outages all […]

The best use of an agent’s time is to be in front of someone who wants to buy or sell real estate. That is what we work for- we advertise, blog, do mailings, answer the phone, and some even knock on doors to be belly to belly with someone who want to buy or sell […]

Bizarro World continues in the real estate industry as our government and business leaders raise tanking consumer confidence in the market to a fine art.  Take today’s exchange I had with a fellow agent for example. I have a very aggressively priced southern Westchester County listing in a beautiful area that has been on the market […]

People are hurting in this economy. Many good folks who did nothing wrong are caught in the undertow of the recession and can’t find a soft spot to land. Upon occasion, I run into people in those circumstance. If they had been born at any other time in history, they wouldn’t face foreclosure. They’d have […]

This afternoon at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Suffern, the membership of the Rockland County Board of Realtors voted overwhelmingly to merge their organization with the Westchester-Putnam and Orange Associations. This was the second thumbs up in three days, as Westchester-Putnam had a similar yes-vote on Monday. Orange will vote on Tuesday.  You might ask […]