Active Rain

Forbes.com has published one of those silly For Sale By Owner glorifying articles we sometimes see and the advice in it is so poor it borders on comedy. I’ve blogged before on the trainwrecks I saw when I ran a flat fee MLS for sale by owner assistance business, and I feel quite qualified to […]

I have stopped doing monthly market reports in favor of quarterly version in the hope of smoothing out the data and minimizing anomalies. Even so, the results of this quarter’s data for Croton-Harmon schools are impressive. All data is taken from the Empire Access Multiple Listing Service.  In the 2nd quarter of 2010, 17 single […]

They did a fireworks show on the Hudson River this evening right on the Ossining, NY waterfront. The kids lobbied hard to go, and even though I was kind of tired and we can sort of see it from our upstairs rear window, I gave in. Up close was much better. I’m glad we went.  […]

There are some periods of the market cycle that don’t appear for everyone. For example, if you’re in Florida, you don’t blog about the time of year when the ground gets frozen and you have to break out the hammer and chisel to install a yard sign. This week is also an annual milestone for […]

I seldom reblog, but Ruthmarie Hicks has written an excellent piece on the importance of buyers needing to do their homework before just gallivanting all over the county looking at homes they might never buy if they knew better.  Ruthmarie then goes the extra mile in giving resources where buyers can go online to get […]

A quick perusal of my inbox confirms the fetish-like obsession that lenders have with paperwork. They just love it when a tree dies.  Case 1: An active short sale file with a 2nd lender is about to go under contract with a buyer, thank goodness. For the past few weeks, a lady at that lender […]

$350,000 just bought a beautiful 3 bedroom, 2 updated bath dutch colonial with an newer stainless steel kitchen in Lakeland schools on a level acre of land. It also boasted a sun room with sliding doors to a deck, central air conditioning, and a full basement.  What is really great about this closing was that […]

Interesting day of showing homes to a buyer client.  Of the 5 homes we saw, 3 were an instant “NO.” And they all had something in common: Poor upkeep and, shall we say, optimistic asking prices.  Home #1: Lots of updating was needed, but the deal killer was, if you can believe it, drop ceilings […]

Yesterday was the last day of school, and as the two oldest got on the bus, Ann said “Goodbye first and third grades, hello second and fourth!” This really struck me, because it seems like a few weeks ago that Luke and Catherine were little toddlers. One of the very sweet things Catherine does is […]

In December of 2008 I posted a blog article articulating my support of gay marriage, and why the real estate industry should support marriage equality. Tonight, by a margin of 33-29 with four Republicans crossing over, the State Senate of New York agreed with me, paving the way for the bill to be signed into […]

Some towns have notable native sons who leave us and make us proud. My hometown of Ossining, NY has a special one-Peter Falk.  “Just One More Thing” is not just the title of the late Peter Falk’s autobiography, it was his classic tagline in his signature role of Detective Columbo. Sadly, the world said goodbye to […]

Straight talk for home sellers who really want to sell.  One of the misconceptions among consumers about real estate is that when they hire an agent to sell their home that the agent isn’t doing their job unless they are in “motion.” Most people can’t relate to the idea that we are paid for something […]

In my travels, I have run across a number of home sellers who price their home based on sentiment. Market activity, comparable sales and competing listings don’t influence their price as much as “their number.” “Their number” is not justified by empirical fact, market data, or realism, and they believe that their buyer will be […]

I got a call from a producer at CBS this afternoon asking if I had a client willing to go on the national news broadcast this evening and speak about the proposed QRM rules for home loans. I did. Evidently, the producer found my Active Rain profile in a Google search. Not bad.   The […]

This is a “driveway.” I call it a “lawn.” The “garage.” I call it a “shed under a deck” or “a garage for a lawnmower.” This is a “3-year-old furnace.” I call it a “furnace the agent never saw and took the owners word that the new reconditioned gizmo= new furnace.” This is a Christmas […]

I just got off the phone with the listing agent of a home I showed a buyer client this past weekend. Wow. I feel like I got mugged.  After the initial salutations and memory jogging of who the agent was and the address of the property in question, she went into this rapid fire, question-answer-rebuttal […]

I hope all you dads out there had a great Father’s Day. Mine was, by design, uneventful, spending the morning watching Star Wars on the iPad with Luke and Catherine draped on me, then pretty much being a couch potato the rest of the day. Ann gave me a hall pass from lifting a finger, […]

I’ll be happy to show you the listing.  Do you have an agent? Do you have an agent? Do you have an agent? Do you have an agent?Do you have an agent? Do you have an agent? Do you have an agent? Do you have an agent?Do you have an agent? Do you have an agent? Do […]