Commentary

  Since 1996 I have belonged to Multiple Listing Services from Long Island to Rochester. In full disclosure, I am about to start my 4th term as Vice President of what I believe to now be New York State’s second largest MLS. I have used over a dozen different platforms, and I  know, all too […]

We do things a little different in New York from the rest of the country, so a Westchester real estate  transaction will have the home inspection prior to contract  as opposed to being a contingency of the contract in most other markets. But the basics of what I am about to share probably apply to […]

Last week I read in Agent Genius about a homeowner that was suing their real estate broker after the theft of $162,000 worth of jewelry from their home during an open house. The homeowners claim that they are entitled to damages because the crime basically occurred on the agent’s watch, and that the agent was […]

Note: It has been a solid month since I last wrote a blog entry. We endured 8 days with no power after hurricane Sandy, then another week with no phone or Internet. The disconnection and subsequent mad rush to catch up on lost work forced me to put many of my writing efforts on hold. […]

All things being equal, I think most people would prefer to not have nuclear fission occur in their own back yard. I have often stated that if Indian Point were to cease operations, the property values in Verplanck would skyrocket. The debate about the renewal of Indian Point’s license rages while I believe that most […]

The Powers That Be must have had a different attitude about prime waterfront land in centuries past, at least in Westchester County. Just in our northern River Towns alone, we have had a nuclear power plant, a landfill, a maximum security prison, and an automobile factory on the banks of the Hudson. Those aren’t very […]

I just discovered Sulia, a this cool, channel based social media platform that allows people to follow subjects instead of people. It is a phenomenal idea. Clicking on the real estate channel, I found the same social media fail by my esteemed colleagues that plagues every other platform: spam. They think people will want to […]

I was raised by a very strong woman. She was not simply a high spirited person, she changed things. My mother had her own quite distinguished career, spearheaded changing the school’s then “mothers guild” to the Parent’s Guild in the 60s, and became a leader in most of the things she devoted her energies to. […]

One of the more unflattering stereotypes of real estate agents is that of a passive, uncommunicative person who does not carry their own weight in the transaction. It is, sadly, rooted in actual events, and I have head my share of these folks in my own deals all too often. You probably know the type. […]

For the 100th time, I read a  real estate write up that fell well short of the space limit, but was filled with acronyms and abbreviations that you’d need a Berlitz book to decode. I think it fair to say, after more than 4 months on market and no buyer, that this would be called a marketing fail. The […]

As I read the discussions online regarding hydrofracking upstate, I find the resulting polarization and pigeonholing to undermine the dialogue. I do not believe that people who are against fracking to be only tree-hugging left wingers, and I hold myself up as the counter point. My street cred as a free market capitalist is not […]

About 2 years ago, I wrote a post entitled “You Aren’t in the Real Estate Business” about things that eventually happen to us in the industry that aren’t terribly happy rites of passage. It was a long list, and had the usual pitfalls of our industry- losing deals, foibles of dealing with the public, and […]

It might seem a tad out of place for a platform centered on Westchester County, NY to even mention municipalities in another state. However, a question about landlord-tenant issues in another forum, and perhaps the early hour of this writing (5:48am, although this won’t be published until later today) have wiped away a few cobwebs and caused […]

Today was one of those non-stop days from 9am until I got home at 9pm, and in retrospect I had damn few of these sorts of days in 2009. “Busy” in real estate is “good.” Not busy, as you might imagine, is the precursor to “not in real estate anymore.” I won’t bore you with […]

May continued the strong spring in the Westchester real estate market with the highest total of closings in 5 years. Overall, the data for single family home sales from the Hudson Gateway (formerly Westchester-Putnam) MLS saw not only an improvement in total closings from last year, but also an increase in median price. The improvement did […]

My home is assessed for $32,000. Last week, we closed on a listing where the buyer paid $364,000. The home’s assessed value was $11,400. I have a listing in Croton on the market for $599,000 with an assessed value of $10,350. All over Westchester County, municipalities have their properties assessed at numbers reflective of market […]

According to Gene Kranz in his book, Failure Is Not an Option, “When reporters asked (astronaut Alan) Shepard what he thought about as he sat atop the Redstone rocket, waiting for liftoff, he had replied, ‘The fact that every part of this ship was built by the low bidder.'” I received a blank email this […]

We recieved two voicemails from an agent who had called to show one of our listings. They were so over the top nasty that my Queens-native wife and I looked at each other stunned that a licensee would leave a permanent record of such hostility. I recorded the messages and sent them as an attachment […]

<phone rings> ME: J. Philip Real Estate, this is Phil, how may I help you? Telemarketer: Is this Mr. Philips? ME: *sigh* Yes, this is Phil. Telemarketer: Hi, This is <Whatever> with <Company>, and I am calling to see if you’d like to do business with the 20,000 people who shop at the Briarcliff Manor […]

In all real estate transactions involving a mortgage-which is most of them-all details of the transaction are recorded on a government form known as a HUD-1. A purchase can have more than one mortgage- the bank can loan a second (subordinate) mortgage, or in some cases, the seller can hold a second mortgage as well. In Westchester […]