This market report is for single family homes in the Croton-Harmon school district. All data is from the Empire Access (formerly Westchester-Putnam) MLS. Contract and asking prices are list prices, as contractual prices are not disclosed until closing.  Croton had 5 closings in October at a median price of $400,000, considerably lower than the $679,000 […]

I got the following email today:  we are withdrawing our offer of purchase on XX Rd.  The reason is the mold problem.  He is hearing that the mold goes right through to the studs and even the beams and he doesn’t want to subject his family to that. I thought this was a good buy and […]

After putting a short sale into contract just a few weeks ago, I was pleased to get a call for the broker price opinion just yesterday. For the uninitiated, a broker price opinion is part of the short sale approval process and I have waited months in some cases for one to be ordered. It is […]

This is for single family home activity in the Briarcliff Manor school district for October of 2010. All information is derived from the Empire Access (formerly Westchester-Putnam) Multiple Listing Service.  Compared to October 2009, Briarcliff Manor sales crushed in terms of transaction totals: 6 to 1. Median price is way down, but for a traditionally light […]

  This market report is for single family home activity in the Ossining school district for October of 2010. All information is derived from the Empire Access (formerly Westchester-Putnam) Multiple Listing Service.  After a poor September, Ossining rebounded nicely with 11 closed sales at a swollen median price of $535,000. Volume was actually down from October 2009, […]

Governor-elect Cuomo, Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, Representative Lowey, State Senator Oppenheimer, and Assemblywoman Galef: Congratulations on your election and re-elections today. I didn’t vote for any of you. With the exception of Mr. Cuomo, it was on your watch that I have watched this great republic brought to its knees. I voted for Jimmy McMillan for governor, […]

Yet again, I find myself nodding in agreement with the latest New York Times editorial on the mortgage mess. This has me wondering if I am becoming like so many other NY Times readers, some sort of limousine liberal, anti-business, anti-free market, pro government intervention, lefty. I was always a laissez fair kind of entrepreneur, […]

Well, it’s Halloween, so why not a report on Sleepy Hollow? Yes, there is a Sleepy Hollow, and yes, Washington Irving is buried here. There is an Old Dutch Church, a Sleepy Hollow Bridge, and the high school’s mascot is the Headless Horsemen. Old Sleepy Hollow road is VERY spooky at night, winding along covered […]

On this Halloween 2010, I’ll depart from the typical scary stuff (lawyers, in-laws) and expound on a few lesser spoken of scary things in my beloved industry.  Measurer terror (AKA Time Vampires). The folks who ask to walk through a place two weeks before closing so they can measure every room as I wait for […]

Ossining has always had its share of problems through the years, and among them, since I was young, was always the blighted downtown area. The story goes that Ossining always had a vibrant, prosperous downtown until the early 1960’s, when Arcadian Gardens shopping center was opened on the south side of the village, and all the commerce abandoned Main Street. […]

 Apparently I have missed the latest celebrity news about Charlie Sheen’s recent drug-induced binge where he was found in his hotel room with a porn actress and cocaine, but not his clothes. While the guy on the radio wondered aloud about Sheen’s crazed excesses, it was brought up that he paid the porn chick $12,000 […]

Contrary to what some may think, an owner is not obligated to submit every offer to the lender for approval in order to do a short sale. As a matter of fact, there are offers that an owner should never submit to the lender. That is the owner’s right, as they still hold title and […]

<phone rings> This is Phil Faranda, can I help you?  Yes. I am looking at a house.  OK. How can I help you?  I want to know more about the house.  Are you in front of the house now? Are you at a computer?  Computer. It doesn’t give an address.  What web page are you […]

Rather than post a REALLY long comment on Broker Bryant’s post on the subject, I thought I’d write my own post on Flat Fee MLS listings. Ann and I ran a flat fee MLS company for 4 years in tandem with our company, and I know a ton about the Flat Fee niche. Essentially, for […]

I posted this on Facebook a day or two ago:  Let’s review: Link to me on Linked In, solicit me, then count backwards from 20 while I de-link us. I got a few comments and “likes.” There are two recent examples of annoying behavior which are the cyber equivelant of stuffing your business card into […]

I read two quotes that resonated with me on the danger of banks if given too much deference and power.  I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity […]

Does this happen to you?  I swore that today was Saturday. Ann had to show me a calender to prove it was Sunday. Given all the weekends we work in this business, the days sort of blend together. If you are working 12 hours, does it really matter if it’s a weekend? I think not. The only difference […]

What does $168,000 buy in White Plains these days? That will get a very nice 900 square foot unit at the Gaylord cooperative in White Plains, such as the one we just closed this past week. This apartment  is a very spacious Junior 4 with brand new kitchen, granite breakfast area & windows. The Gaylord […]

Effective tomorrow, October 25, 2010, the Westchester-Putnam MLS will officially be known as the Empire Access MLS. Nothing else changes but the name. The entity, leadership, rules, members, phone numbers, staff and service will remain unchanged. The intention of the name change is to better reflect our serving 4 counties (Bronx, Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess) and not just […]