The adage goes that in real estate, Spring starts January 2. The holidays are behind us, and in order to be in a new home by the summer, prospective buyers need some time just to find the right place and then 2-3 months more to close. Home shoppers are out as I type this, making […]

I always want my firm to be chosen, and that doesn’t just go for consumers. It also goes for licensees who are looking for the right brokerage at which to build their practice. So you can imagine my happiness when a past client joins us as an agent. That’s exactly what happened when Geraldine Bien […]

As a kid growing up in Ossining in the 1970s and the long shadow of Urban renewal, I had a first row seat to the decline of Downtown Ossining. The stately old buildings that punctuated centuries of progress, commerce and history were reduced to a crumbling, blighted row of vacant shells. Sadly, in the clearing […]

I was interviewed on News 12 this past Sunday on the “mansion tax,” a 1989 law that adds a 1% tax on properties sold for $1 million or more. In 1989, one million dollars probably did but an actual mansion, but in 2018, in a county with a median home value pushing $700,000, it doesn’t. […]

 [Note: This is a draft from 2015 but I thought it worth publishing. Some think a buyer’s letter to a seller is a smart move, others don’t. I think it has everything to do with what’s in that letter. This is an example of perhaps what not to write, borrowed slightly from one that was […]

Some “welcome” posts are more fun than others. This is one of those, because I have known this person for a number of years and have always like her.  Please join me in welcoming Shaun Manning to J. Philip Real Estate! Shaun is part of the “Class of ’83” group I referred to in my […]

Every December 31 since I have journaled the firm’s progress, I have summarized the prior year and chronicled growth, in both numbers and maturity of the brand. 2017 was, in almost every metric, not just the company’s best year, but it also saw an advance in the caliber of people behind the numbers.  First, the […]

J. Philip Real Estate is proud to announce that Eric Lebenson has joined our family of professional achievers as an associate broker. I have known Eric since only a few weeks after founding the company (2005!), and I’ve been the president of his admiration society ever since. A local expert through and through, Eric is […]

I am delighted to (belatedly) announce that as of December 1, 2017, Gloria Hernandez has added the J. Philip Real Estate Briarcliff office to her existing managerial responsibilities. Gloria is already managing our Pelham Center, and it was a no-brainer to have her take the helm in Briarcliff. This raises the number of agents that […]

Recently, I got an email from networking associate introducing me to a licensed agent who was looking for a brokerage to call home. In our emails and chats, I learned that some other people had also suggested that she should speak to me, which is a gratifying thing to hear. When we first met in person, […]

This may be a longer “welcome” post than typical. David Lewis joined the firm earlier this year and I invited him to train under Jenn Maher’s team in our Putnam office, and, not surprisingly, in his short time here he has impressed. He recorded his first closing this past week and has another scheduled for […]

One of the jobs of a real estate manager is that of a recruiter. Sadly, recruiting often devolves into poaching. Hiring managers pour over programs and stats for hundreds of hours to see who they can pitch, what they can offer, and how to woo them to consider leaving their firm. They look for small […]

If you missed the radio show today here’s a link to the live broadcast: https://www.facebook.com/jphilipfaranda/posts/10155590299171702 Guest Paul Oster was brilliant and informative, and I have some takeaways. But first, you should know that while we were broadcasting live, Equifax was hacked AGAIN. My observations: Equifax was warned that there was a vulnerability. They didn’t take the […]

For the past two years, I have been a co-host on a radio program now based out of WOR AM710 called Real Estate Talk. The host, Victoria Rivadeneira, invited me onto the program back in 2015 and I began to share the mic with her not long afterward. The show grew from a tiny studio […]

One of the fun things about writing a welcome piece for people like Tana McGuire is that you can’t keep up; YES, she’s new to the firm, but I could just as easily congratulate her on getting her first listing, engaging her first builder, and getting hired by her first buyer, because all of those […]

These are, respectively, the number of closed single family homes for the second quarter (April 1-June 30)  in Westchester County along with the median price for the years 2011 through 2017. All data is courtesy of the Hudson Gateway MLS.  Year       Closings   Median Price 2011         994   […]

The following post is a reprint from this day in 2010 and is as fitting today as the day I wrote it.  One of the biggest ironies of government solutions to housing problems is how heavily regulated the foot soldiers (agents, loan officers) have become while the executives in the glass tower can build billion […]

We have three offices that are storefront-type locations: sidewalks, ground level, pedestrian-friendly, coffee brewing, friendly staff on hand, and everything you might expect of a retail setup. If someone were to walk in off the street to engage us, we’d be ready. There is a reception area, a board table, Internet access, and, sometimes, doughnuts. Doughnuts […]

This past Tuesday I was wrapping up a team meeting with 5 agents. The question came up on how to list “For Sale by Owner” properties. Before I continue, let me state that it’s fairly established that most “FSBOs” eventually list with a broker. There is a learning curve to the process, and these home […]

Westchester and the surrounding counties are seeing a peculiar phenomenon causing no small amount of consternation to home buyers. There simply aren’t many homes for sale. This is especially the case for homes one might consider in the starter home category; we have buyers who are seeing very little for sale, and what they do find is […]