“Are you busy?” I get asked rather often this spring, and I am indeed busy. How busy? Well, I watched the “Wizard of Oz” earlier in an attempt to relax. A few observations which depart from my childhood memories of the film:   Upon seeing a munchkin emerge from a manhole cover, I note that […]

Imagine you are selling something-anything-on the open market. If we broke down the walls of time and space and put everyone who might be interested in what you are selling into one big room, it is obvious that the more people there are in that room, the better chance you have of not just selling, […]

Paul Krugman is a lauded economist, but he leverages that credential to preach to the echo chamber that is the New York Times readership. In today’s screed, Krugman makes a big fat lie in his assertion that Ronald Reagan is to blame for our current economic problems. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion; they […]

Imagine that you are meeting a prospective client for the first time. You set everything up, leave early to meet them, have the address in the GPS, and set out. For some reason, however, the GPS fails you. An urban street ends due to a new pedestrian walkway. A new townhouse community stands in the […]

I have been contacted by an investment group that showed interest in a short sale listing. They claim to be cash buyers, but have not shown proof of funds. They also want an incredible amount of information on the property and sellers so they can “evaluate” whether or not to go forward. I probably should […]

ABC World News spoke with me not long ago, and it was aired tonight on Charlie Gibson’s 6:30 pm national broadcast. The subject was the housing market and the uptick in sales, and the producers contacted me to speak about the state of housing sales. I was interviewed by Betsy Stark in New Rochelle, NY […]

“We’ll be paying in cash.” “We won’t require a mortgage. We have the funds.” The perception that cash buyers are afforded courtesies, discounts and red carpet treatment has caused some out there to represent themselves as such. The only problem is that they are not cash buyers. Some are just confident that they can get a mortgage, […]

Dear <agent> Here is my feedback on my showing of your listing.  Please instruct the sellers of <address> that selling a $675,000 house is far easier when more is done to restrain a rather powerful looking (and sounding) German Shepherd than having a little girl hold a breezeway door ajar while the dog barks it’s […]

An appraiser in nearby Rockland County has done an analysis on the price changes to a typical raised ranch in his town from 1965-2008. You can see the results here on the board’s online newsletter. Once you hit the link, scroll down to page 5. The results are very instructive. In the last bust (1987 […]

I saw today that a listing that expired and did not renew with me has re-listed with another broker for $50,000 less. Now, as a guy who specializes in expired listings, I have to admit that I usually am on the other side of this; by the time people get me as their agent, they […]

I won’t say when or where this happened; suffice to say somewhere in New York. A buyer contacted me to show what appeared to be a short sale listing that had already been approved. The approval was for a previous buyer that walked away from the deal, so the window of time was narrow. It […]

Zillow used to be on my last nerve. It seemed that no matter how compelling my rationale was for pricing, a seller would claim that Zillow had their house at $50,000 higher or a buyer would lament that the value of the home they were buying was $50,000 lower. It was maddening. Zillow seemed arrogantly […]

No, not my brother Tom Faranda, but the Tom Faranda he was named after.  Whatever you are doing right now, you are doing it free from fear and confident in your future. You have much to look forward to. And for that, you owe a debt of gratitude to a US soldier.  Tom Faranda was […]

Withheld.  This is what sometimes appears as the name when sellers of a home instruct their agent that they wish to remain anonymous. I can understand the sentiment, but in this age of information, home owners should think long and hard before engaging in this practice. Other markets outside of New York may be different, […]

The fact pattern: Total time on market: 18 Months. Time with my company: 120 days Original Price with prior broker: $629,000 Original means of pricing home: oldest son’s date of birth (6/29) Current price: $489,000 Number of offers before yesterday: 0 Current offer: $420,000 Number of competing home for sale: 40 Number of comparable sales: […]

I have blogged previously on things a buyer should know before they buy a bank-owned foreclosure. Home values in Westchester have come down quite a bit since the “Great Correction,” which has brought out many people who wouldn’t have been candidates for ownership when prices in New York were unsustainably high. Foreclosures contribute to that […]

Listening to NPR the other day, the commentators were wondering what to call the current economic crisis. It isn’t a garden variety recession; it isn’t just the Credit Crisis, the Sub-prime Meltdown, or the failure of Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae. They mentioned that people are now texting the letters “ITE” to shorten “in this economy” the […]

According to the NY Times, minority homeowners are three times as likely to be foreclosed on than the norm. The NAACP is actually suing lenders over what they perceive as a new kind of redlining- giving minorities inferior and unsustainable loans. I made the following comment on the article on the Time’s website:   2009 […]

The government has moved to increase the incentive for lenders to allow short sales on their defaulted loans. I welcome this, although there is nothing specified as to how they’ll hold banks accountable for streamlining the process, which is rife with red tape, bureaucracy and long waits. If they truly want to make short sales […]