Today was the annual meeting of the Westchester-Putnam Association of Realtors (WPAR), and it was not your typical annual meeting. Elections were held for both the Association and the Empire Access MLS, and Yours Truly was confirmed for a 3rd term as MLS Vice President. Among my duties in the past few months was to […]

What can you get for $540,000 in Tuckahoe, New York? I’m so glad you asked! $540,000 can get you a pretty, pre-war tudor on a quiet residential street in the Tuckahoe school district just a hop skip and a jump from New Rochelle and Bronxville. If you are like our client, you’ll get an 1840 […]

I have often said that a good real estate broker is more valuable for what we know than what we do. This evening, for example, my meeting with some nice people in Yonkers brought this to light.  I met with some prospective home sellers who were looking into selling a home that was built in […]

Almost exactly 2 years ago, on October 14, 2009, we closed on my in-laws’ co op in Queens. It was the end of an era, as my wife had grown up in that apartment; it had been in her family for decades. That day, we had a babysitting challenge, and we were forced to bring […]

(Consumers will find the following post either very boring or an interesting look inside baseball. My point of view is less of a selling broker and more of a manager of 20+ licensees.)  Chris Smith, AKA Tech Savvy Agent, has authored a gutsy article on Inman entitled You Need to Delete Your Facebook Business Pages […]

Perhaps you’ve had the pleasure of meeting Joe Sasquatch and his lovely wife, Nessie. I never have, but a former client of mine knows someone who either knows a mutual friend or knows OF Joe, but the details are not important.  Joe, if you haven’t heard, is the guy who bought that $700,000 bank owned […]

Let me preface this by saying I have no beef with the folks at DocuSign. They have an excellent product. This may not even be their doing,  But it is now day III of “what are you thinking?” and I have yet to even get a response to an email I wrote them on the […]

The 3rd quarter of 2011 was better in volume for single family home sales than the 3rd quarter of 2010 from a volume perspective, according to the data I found on the Empire Access MLS. And in comparing the years to date,  2011 is still “catching up” to 2010 and may indeed do so by […]

Update: The Meetup is set for Tusday, December 6 at 6pm at Toga Bar, Caesar’s Atlantic City! For those of you in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the annual Triple Play convention will be held this December 6-8 in Atlantic City. I have gone to the last two and just registered for this year’s […]

What can you buy in Ardsley for $250,000? How about a nice condo at Ashford Court? The building was once a school that was converted to condominiums in the 80’s with splendid results- the old school yard is now a huge parking lot with 2 spaces per unit, and the structure has mad character and […]

Buyers in this real estate market enjoy many more liberties and advantages with sellers than I have ever seen since I was first licensed in 1996. Not only do they have the lowest rates in half a century, they have far more bargaining power, and in Westchester County, where a starter home can cost $500,000, […]

One of the risks a real estate broker like myself incurs when commenting on the market is the perception that we as licensees puff things up to make the climate seem better than it really is. Given that we are entitled to our own opinion but not our own facts, I’ll lead with the numbers […]

Here are a few useful tips for all agents, both new and old, in the proper care and feeding of the guy who owns and runs the brokerage where you ply your trade.  I will be quick to add that many of the things I suggest here are things my team already does well, and […]

Our team is growing, which is good, but the quality of people we are adding to our family of producers is very high, and that is great. Anton Gromov has joined our team, and he’s not your average story. Anton is from Russia, and is therefore fluent in Russian. He’s a new licensee, and when […]

                                   “How to succeed in the real estate business without even trying…” How to succeed in the real estate business without even trying. Yeah. You let me know if there is a way to succeed in the real estate […]

The numbers are in for September real estate closings in the Ossining School district, and they show a significant improvement over the prior September. All information is for single family homes and is sourced by the Empire Access MLS, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Westchester Putnam Association of Realtors.  In September 2011, 17 single […]

Redfin has laid their Scouting Report program to rest after less than a week. CEO Glenn Kelman posted a poignant announcement today on why he pulled the plug on the program, and among his statements, which I agree with, was the following:  But I still think the folks most violently opposed to Scouting Report didn’t […]

Redfin is now offering scouting reports (“Complete performance metrics”) on 1 million real estate agents! This is causing quite a kerfuffle in the real estate world, but I have to say that I don’t mind my numbers being published by Redfin or anyone else.  That is, so long as they are accurate. If you click […]