Russell Shaw of AgentGenius passes on a powerful email being sent to agents on how to deal with Bank of America’s difficulty with short sales- don’t send them any new mortgage business. My comment was as follows: Well, it isn’t surprising that this letter is being distributed. I haven’t gotten one but you reap what you […]

Are you, like me, just a little burned out on networking websites?  I Tweet, do Facebook, and LinkedIn ; there are dozens of others. I’ve been hyperactive on on Active Rain lately.  I have a YouTube channel. A Technocrati profile. Digg. Reddit. In real estate I’m on Zillow and Trulia, and that is just the tip of the iceburg. We don’t do this because it’s […]

If you’ve ever driven on any of the Westchester County Parkways, perhaps you’ve seen a quasi-official looking blue and white truck with the initials H.E.L.P. on the side. That stands for Highway Emergency Local Patrol, and they go around aiding people with car trouble. I have no idea what the cost is the the taxpayer; […]

One of the most common questions I get from buyers about an area they are considering is the following: How good are the schools?  It is a fair question. It factors in to their quality of life, the future welfare of their children, and resale value of the home they are considering. I also can’t […]

I have a deal going on one of my listings. December deals are special, and there are a lot of moving parts on my clients’ part, so I thought I’d reach out to the buyer agent to check status. She’s been good about contact, so I wondered why we hadn’t spoken in a few days. […]

Ossining Christmas Vigil: Lighting the Way for Santa One of the really cool local traditions in my old neighborhood on Osage Drive and Susquehanna Rd was to put rows of candles out along the street to light the way for St Nicholas. As I was driving to my office on an elf errand around 11:30pm, I drove […]

It can be confusing to understand the health of the economy from the media. As the screen shot from my news feed shows, there are seemingly completely contradictory stories on the U.S. real estate market. I’ve put red next to the “bad” news and a green mark next to the good news. One headline has […]

I remember finding a letter from 1945, written by my father from the South Pacific at the end of the 2nd World War. Japan had surrendered, and he was sharing with his parents that he and his fellow soldiers were not so much jubilant as they were exhausted. He wondered aloud about the future of […]

Thanks to Matt Goyer for starting this group. Here are links to my two Redfin Posts: Why Redfin Won’t be Redflop Redfin Redux There have been a number of posts on Redfin, and they even have a channel on Active rain now. I hope this group will foster civil discussion on the company and how it […]

I had two accepted offers today, one on a listing I am selling and another for a buyer I am representing. Here’s a coincidence: They are on the same street in New Rochelle, less than a mile apart. They are completely unrelated deals.  Another offer was presented on behalf of my buyer but we havn’t had […]

I completed the old 2 weekend Forum in Philadelphia in December of 1989. I then did the 6 Day in the summer of 1990. I don’t know how many seminars. 20? I suppose in a community that is pushing 170,000 with such diverse groups as Autistic Spectrum Disorders ,  Dog Lovers Group and my personal favorite, 40 Somethings , that I’d come across […]

Now that Greg Nino and Bob Haywood have blogged recently about Redfin I thought I’d add my own 2 cents. Why not? I’m a Redfin Partner Agent. I blogged a earlier this year about the firm when I wrote Why Redfin Won’t be Redflop.  I was contacted by Redfin’s area manager, Michael Daly, earlier this year around […]

While going through some old archives to rebut some gnu who feels agents are overpaid, I found the following passage, which I authored on May 1, 2006, on another blog. This was over a year prior to the sub prime collapse of 2007 and the Fannie/Freddie crisis of 2008.  The sales statistics for homes sold […]

There is an article in today’s NY Times asking the old question of whether using a broker is right for some home sellers. The piece invited comments, and I shared my thoughts. I’ll adapt them for this post.  I am a broker who does business in Nyack, where the first two homes in the report […]

Given the number of blogs on the difficulties agents experience on short sales, I thought I’d take another shot at a canard that banks are now using to justify more delays, and that is the following: “The investor is reviewing the file.” This is typically followed by 60 days of nothing.  Now, I don’t argue […]

Today is the 5th birthday of Gregory, our 3rd Treasure. Gregory is on the spectrum for Autism, and attends a special school with an extensive ABA (applied behavioral analysis) program. It has help him enormously. He is great with eye contact, affection, and being “there.” We are still working on boundaries, executive functions, and meaningful speech.  Gregory […]

When I graduated college in 1989 (ouch), I decided that I wanted to follow my older brother in sales. So, I interviewed insurance companies and financial planning firms, only to find that I was ill-suited to that industry. I was advised to make a list of my 100 closest friends and relatives and tell them I was […]

One of the great neighborhoods in Ossining is known as the Indian Village. All of the streets have tribal names, such as Mohawk and Seneca Roads. I happened to grow up on Osage Drive. Although most of the streets are pre war, the majority of the homes are baby-boom era housing. In that respect the […]

I’ve got Croton on Hudson on the mind lately. It isn’t because my older brother has lived there for 30 years or because I camped at Croton Point Park as a young scout dozens of times. It could be because the only Bed and Breakfast in all of Westchester County is here, or maybe the […]