Active Rain

Active Rain Speechless Sundays: Back Yard
Active Rain OK To Trash Other Business Models? One of the no-no’s of our industry, I thought, was the practice of knocking a business model that differs from our own. It doesn’t edify the industry, it certainly doesn’t make us look very good to consumers, and it often backfires anyway. Moreover, the criticisms are often unfounded. We recently dealt with an agency that […]
Active Rain Meet Ethyl Broomhandle Perhaps you know Ethyl. She’s been around a while, and takes every opportunity to tell you so. The details of her background are a little murky, as she was originally licensed in the real estate Mesozoic Era, but she just prefers the term “35 years in the business” which she repeats a minimum of 1.2 […]
Active Rain Do You Want a $30,000 Problem or a $350,000 Problem? Part 2   I have blogged before that not all short sales get a seller 100% absolved of their debt. New York is not  a non- recourse state.  Sometimes, the bank wants cash at closing or proposes a small installement note after closing. It is rare, but it happens, and it is often linked to the seller’s […]
Active Rain Friday’s Fotos- Stone Overpass I think that only the Northeast has highways that could almost be classified as “pre war.” Here in Westchester County, many of our highways are passenger cars only parkways, with old stone overpasses that do now allow commercial vehicles enough clearance to pass through. They aren’t interstates by a long shot, but they are busy […]
Active Rain Should REALTOR Sales Statistics be Public? This post was inspired by the recent Agent Genius article entitled “Realtor matching Ends- Are Agents Just Insecure Posers?” The article examines the circumstances around the Houston Association of Realtors program that (shutter) disclosed how many homes member agents sold in a given locale. Very transparent move if you ask me. But the program was ended. But […]
Active Rain Wordless Wednesday-George Washington Bridge, From the Roof
Active Rain If You Have To Ask if You Need a Professional Stager, You Probably Do When I was first licensed in 1996, the idea of a professional stager to prepare a home for sale was about a foreign as trying to sell a house on “The Internet.” In other words, a good place to waste money. Everyone knew that you sold houses on the MLS, the Sunday supplement, and the […]
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Active Rain 5 Cool Things About Briarcliff Manor, NY 5 Cool Things About Briarcliff Manor, NY Our fire trucks are white. No, the Dalmatians are not red.  Downtown was in the first episode of Saturday Night Live in one of the videos. You can see the Briarcliff Hardware Store on Pleasantville Road clearly.  Howard Stern’s first job out of college was at WRNW-FM, which was in […]
Active Rain Croton on Hudson, NY Real Estate Market July 2010 Croton on Hudson’s real estate market appears solid and on the upward trend compared to one year ago. The transaction total is up, the median sales price is up $15,000 to just over half a million, and there are 11 homes under contract, up from 9 last month in this beautiful village on the scenic […]
Active Rain Lurkers, Lookers, and Other People Mom Never Warned Me About Chances are that if you are selling a home that has been on the market any length of time, you’ve had your share of showings. If you haven’t sold yet, you might wonder what all those people who passed on your home eventually bought. I’ve got news for you: a huge percentage of them aren’t […]
Active Rain Photo Essay: The Churches of Ossining One of the neat things about the old river towns like Ossining is the pre war architecture, the likes of which we’ll never see replicated. Nothing demonstrates that more than the churches in the village, many of which are located downtown off Main Street on South Highland Avenue. It is a menagerie of steeples as you drive through. […]
Active Rain Speechless Sundays: Hurray!
Active Rain Open House: Bank Owned Foreclosure 6 Marble Pl Ossining 8/8 12-2pm We just reduced the price of this bank-owned foreclosure  to $450,000. It is a different sort of home- built in 2006, it was never sold. The builder was the first and only owner prior to the bank taking it back. It was rented briefly, and is in near mint and new condition. The home is just […]
Active Rain Briarcliff Manor Real Estate Market July 2010 This is for single family home activity in the Briarcliff Manor school district for June of 2010. All information is derived from the Westchester-Putnam Multiple Listing Service.  Compared to June 2009, Briarcliff Manor sales volume is about even. Transactions are down one, but the median price is up almost $200,000. 15 Homes are under contract, which […]
Active Rain Ossining Real Estate Market July 2010 This is for single family home activity in the Ossining school district for July of 2010. All information is derived from the Westchester-Putnam Multiple Listing Service.  The numbers are mixed. The number of transactions is up slightly from July of 2009 but the dollar value is down considerably. This is not a source of concern, because the median […]
Active Rain What You Must Know if You Are Buying a Westchester Home Given Westchester’s close proximity to Manhattan, we have many people moving up from New York City as well as a high number of folks who arrive due to a job change or transfer. Whether you are arriving from California, Manhattan, or Europe, there is a degree of culture shock. Consider the following:        In […]
Active Rain “We Have Many Unfulfilled Buyers and Sellers” A local company here sends out a recruiting email upon occasion, which I typically delete, since I already work for the best boss in the world. The owner is a good guy and I respect his efforts to grow his enterprise. I can relate. I’m just not a candidate. Yesterday, I decided to unsubscribe to […]
Active Rain The Story of the Closet I’m going to indulge in one of my real estate pet peeves. Thanks in advance for your patience.  Imagine you are buying a car. You sit in the driver’s seat, smell that indelible new car smell, and the sales associate dangles the keys in front of you as you prepare for a test drive. Then, […]
Active Rain Joe Ferrara: God Takes His Best Work Back Early Have you ever known, perhaps when there is a death in the family, the kind of kind soul who steps up and generously gives of themselves? Dinner, picking people up at the airport, a shoulder to cry on, they just seem like an angel in a time of need. Those people have our gratitude. Now…have […]