The $8,000 first-time home buyers tax credit is going to go away after December 1, 2009. This means that if you are in New York and want to take advantage, you don’t have much more than 60 days.  “How can that be?” you might ask, since December 1 is almost 120 days away.  Note that […]

I was caught up in the traffic jam resulting from that horrific wrong-direction accident on the Taconic Parkway that took the lives of 8 people last weekend. I was driving northbound myself, and I found it peculiar that northbound traffic would be so backed up at that time. When I saw that all the cars […]

Do you really need an attorney to buy or sell real estate in Westchester County? I was posed this very question by a first-time buyer recently. I asked Lisa Fantino, attorney, author, and friend, for her perspective. I cringe each time a realtor tells me the seller or buyer is going to represent themselves in the […]

Abbreviate! Abbrvte! This is especially useful when you have the room to write more in your remarks but you still feel the need to call a living room an LR and a master suite a mstr ste. It really makes for easy reading when each sntce has mltple abbrvtns.  “Buyer agent to verify.” Why should you […]

Most of my postings on short sales have a happy ending. This is not one of those postings.  In late 2008 my office brought in an offer on a distressed, vacant property I had listed as a short sale in Mount Vernon. We did yeoman’s work. I listed it and one of my agents brought […]

Jennifer Allan has written a blog post entitled Any Idiot Can Give Their House Away…If Price is All that Matters – What do they need us for?   Her point is that price alone isn’t the only thing we can do to get a listing sold, which is true enough, but it has inspired me to list […]

One of the lowest things an agent can do in this day and age is to blame the agent on the other side when he or she screws up. Here’s one recent event.  I listed a single family home for lease earlier this month. The date of availability was August 1 due to the current […]

 

I was contacted by an Associated Press reporter who was writing a story on the housing market in the Northeast, and the story ran yesterday. This is the 2nd time in a month I have been contacted by a national news outlet with a subsequently appearance in their venue. Last month it was ABC World […]

According REALIST, to the public data provider for the Westchester -Putnam Multiple Listing Service, the median price for a single family home in April of 2009 was $491,250. After peaking at over $700,000 in 2005, this is the first time in a long time the median price has fallen below half a million dollars.  Sales […]

I was contacted by someone out of the blue asking me to show them a home for sale in Eastchester. They found it on Zillow, which isn’t uncommon. I looked up the address on the MLS and it came back with “no properties found.” Checking Zillow revealed that the home was for sale by owner. […]

I have blogged before about the difficulties Zillow has caused. Typically, their “Zestimate” has caused people to 2nd guess the more accurate evidence on the ground and either over or undervalue a home, killing a possible transaction. The galling thing about it is that the more compelling evidence is right under their nose from the […]

According to Inman News, Wisconsin’s largest real estate brokerage has adopted a policy of excluding the listings of non-traditional brokers from appearing on it’s site in home searches. This is not good in my view, for several reasons.    After a long battle with the Department of Justice is finally over for the NAR, one […]

The words jumped off the page:  “It troubles me that I am not identified as the listing agent. The way this listing is displayed it looks like you are. I feel taken advantage of.” This was an email sent to one of my agents from a competing agent in our MLS who googled the address […]

As Westchester County area home sellers are finding out, there are more buyers out there; that doesn’t equate to happy endings. Here is an unscientific example of the pattern I am seeing: The house is listed for a price the sellers feel good about. Not great, good. Shwings the first few weeks, then nothing. The […]

For my 200th blog posting (!!) -I was prompted to write this after someone pointed out a mistake I made but did so without being nasty. This occurred early in my career when I worked in Rochester with my old college rommate Kevin and his father Paul at their company. Both trained me in the […]

I had a choice Tuesday night after wrapping up my last co op showing in Kew Gardens, Queens. I could go home and help put my children to bed, or I could attend the tail end of a small get together in Manhattan. I was invited by Michael Daly, who is my main contact at […]

“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, […]