Active Rain Grandma’s Pies: Westchester’s Best Pie I posted a photo of a pie I got at Grandma’s earlier this week and got over a dozen comments that gave me a collective sense of cyber salivation. With good reason: Grandma’s makes the best pies around. They have been in business for decades and have quite a following.  I first learned of Grandma’s last year […]
Active Rain My Appearance in NY Times Article is Online It won’t go to print until this Sunday’s paper, but the article that I blogged about expecting is now live online. Entitled “A For Sale Sign with Brains,” the piece discusses how real estate brokers are embracing technology to sell property. The story behind the article is actually not one of the reporter finding my […]
Active Rain Friday’s Fotos: Not Your Average Welcome Wagon
Active Rain You Can’t be Under Contract and Not Disclose That Fact I got a call today from an agent who claimed to have an interested buyer in one of my short sale listings. I informed him that all offers, per the instructions of my seller, would only be considered if they were in writing and accompanied by a pre approval letter or proof of funds. He […]
Active Rain Wordless Wednesday: Grandma’s Pies of Yorktown
Active Rain Singing in the Shower Google is a funny thing.  If I am logged in certain websites, that content will show up in my google search results. If I am on a different computer, it shows different results. If I google “Westchester Realtor” on my own computer, I am something like the 4th or 5th organic hit. If I go […]
Active Rain Client Confidentiality is Not All Reaching One of the joys of being a broker-owner is helping my newer agents develop their client base. New agents that get a listing or a buyer in their first few weeks typically have a good outlook for success in my experience, even if that listing doesn’t sell or that buyer never closes. One of my […]
Active Rain Westchester Foreclosure Filings Down 50% According to the Journal News, the number of foreclosure filings in Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam County is down quite a bit. Westchester is down 50% from October 2010 through January 2011 compared to the same period from 2009 to 2010. The numbers are equally impressive in Rockland (39%) and Putnam (51%).  Does this mean we […]
Don't Miss Our Next Post
Subscribe Now
Active Rain How to Tell When the Brunette in Accounting is Sleeping With the Owner It is a fact that every male broker/owner has a little Lee Iacocca or Ross Perot in him. He wants to be the despot, the alpha male, and the quarterback who gets no back talk in the huddle. And, by and large, team members comply with that little illusion. My agents hang on my every […]
Active Rain Speechless Sundays: Guess Which Town?
Active Rain 374 Quaker Rd, Chappaqua Walking Tour This is the walking tour I filmed today while the New York Times photographer took pictures.  This is not glitzy, but it does give answers and a good feel for the home. After the tour was uploaded, I printed fact sheets that included a QR code linking to the walking tour for people that drive […]
Active Rain NY Times Photo Shoot Tomorrow I was contacted by a reporter from the New York Times this past week who is working on a story on how technology is being utlized by real estate professionals. I guess I did OK in the interview, because she called back and asked if they could take some photos of me in action with […]
Active Rain Friday’s Fotos- Open House Sign I held a listing open this past Sunday and it went quite well. One interesting scenario I never dealt with before was the issue of putting open house signs on the street corners nearby the property, because we were still so buried under snow that the edge of the road was pushed out several feel. […]
Active Rain Two Great Chappaqua Starter Homes We have just listed two very nice starter homes in beautiful Chappaqua, NY.  173 Birchwood Close, Chappaqua 10514. Old Farm Lake complex. 2 bedroom, 2 bath townhome style condo, fireplace, formal dining room, updated kitchen, deck, and great complex aminities-pool, clubhouse, tennis. $399,900. Short sale.     374 Quaker Rd, Chappaqua 10514. Terrific 3 bedroom, 2 […]
Active Rain Baseball Junkies: It is that time of Year Again Surfing on Active Rain this morning has yielded a neat discovery: There is a baseball junkies group here. I happen to be a huge baseball guy. When I was in Brooklyn, I took photos of the apartment complex that sits where Ebbets Field once was. I have been to an apartment in  Harlem that is […]
Active Rain Steak and the sizzle Buyers buy the sizzle
Active Rain Would Sellers Trade Paying a Commission for Billable Hours? Rob Hahn has written an extremely thought provoking piece on the role that broker commissions play in the pricing of real estate. It isn’t what I originally thought when I read the title- I was expecting a “commission is just a markup” but it wasn’t about that at all. It did get me to wonder […]
Active Rain Wordless Wednesday: The Fancy New Way We Sit in School
Active Rain Thinking of a Career in Real Estate? The company has grown over the years and in the first quarter of 2011 we’ll pass 20 salespersons and associate brokers. I am not an overt recruiter; our growth has been organic, but in looking at the good folks we’ve attracted I do see some patterns. Chiefly, we have drawn 2 types of people: new […]
Active Rain SPEAK UP. ANNUNCIATE. GEEZ. It is a well deserved fact that one of the knocks on real estate agents is that they don’t return phone calls. I have been there, & bought the picture they took of me walking in. Really, I have.  It is a little discussed fact that some members of the public don’t have the same […]