Commentary

Commentary

The Rite of Passage

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 […]
Commentary, Uncategorized

A Retroactive Rebuke of Lower Merion and Radnor, PA Townships

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 […]
Commentary, Market

A Sign of Progress with Pepperoni

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 […]
Commentary, Market

Wow! May 2012 Was Our Best May Since 2007!!

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 […]

Commentary The Rite of Passage 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 […]

Commentary A Retroactive Rebuke of Lower Merion and Radnor, PA Townships 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 […]

Commentary A Sign of Progress with Pepperoni 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 […]

Commentary Wow! May 2012 Was Our Best May Since 2007!! 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 […]

Commentary Westchester Homes Should be Assessed at Full Market Value 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 […]

Commentary “What is Your Commission Fee?” 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 […]

Commentary Regarding Agents Returning From Hibernation 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 […]

Commentary 60 Seconds of My Life I’ll Never Get Back Again <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 […]

Buying What is a Silent Second Mortgage? 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 […]

Commentary Name Recognition Means Nothing to Home Buyers If you are searching for homes online, do you care who the listing broker is? I’ll go out on a limb and say that unless you have had a specific negative experience with an agent or broker, if a house fits your needs you could care less if it were listed by Attila the Hun, Rasputin, Herbie […]

Commentary Tappan Zee Greenway: Great in Theory, Bad in Practical Application This past week I had the privilege of attending a Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors Luncheon with Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino. Among the topics often discussed when Mr Astorino is in the room is the proposed Tappan Zee Bridge Greenway project. The idea is to convert the existing structure from a carrying I-287 over the Hudson […]

Commentary Should Zillow Suspend the Zestimate for an Active Listing? Imagine that you can put a home for sale on a really stupendous, popular medium that would give it incredible exposure. In putting the home on the medium (and it could be a website, TV program or print publication- it doesn’t matter), you are told that in addition to your content on the home, the […]

Commentary My Friend is an Agent and She Says the Market is Great Some of my colleagues are funny bunch. They decry a Zillow Zestimate for being inaccurate. They shake their heads when an agent licensed in Illinois gives real estate advice in Trulia Voices to a consumer in Florida, where the laws are different. They shake their head disapprovingly if you mistakenly mark a home as having […]

Commentary No Officer, Despite What Zillow Says, it is Not My Listing Full disclosure: I am a Zillow customer, as well as a paying customer to Trulia and Realtor.com. Our office received a phone call from the town of Kent Police yesterday to inform us that there was some undesirable activity at my listing. Of course, the only problem with that- aside from youths partying at a […]

Commentary On the End of Encyclopaedia Britannica in Print Encyclopaedia Britannica announced yesterday that they would no longer print their reference library, opting instead to have it be available in online digital form only. Just a week or so ago, I wrote a post on my past life in the educational publishing industry, albeit nothing about the books and selling them. But I feel that my […]

Commentary What is it About Real Estate Agents and Dogs? This is one of those topics I have been meaning to write about for a dog’s age (sorry) and I finally have the time and inspiration to do just that. It is my view that an inordinate percentage of real estate agents are dog lovers. Canine devotees. Poochophiles. And they aren’t just dog owners, they […]

Commentary QRM, Skin in the Game, and the Abdication of Conventional Wisdom If everyone put 20% down on their home that the housing market would probably be healthier. And in other news, if I french kiss a skunk, I won’t be the most popular guy in an elevator. It’s all theory. Not everyone can put 20% down. In practical application it is a terrible idea. And we’ve […]

Commentary The Ultimate Answer to the Zillow Zestimate Perhaps no phenomenon in real estate is as much of a lightning rod for strong opinions as the Zillow Zestimate. Most agents I speak with hate it; I have had instances where looking it up has helped a deal and I have had clients walk from a deal because of it. The Zillow Zestimate has […]

Commentary Giving Zillow Agent Reviews Credit Last month when Sara Bonert wrote about Zillow’s new agent review system, I voiced my skepticism. I don’t have a beef with the idea per se, I’ve just had my ups and downs with Zillow, as many of us have. Sara, to her credit, answered me both online and in person when we met at […]

Active Rain You Aren’t in the Real Estate Business Paul Crego, my original broker and mentor, called costly mistakes “tuition in life.” Maybe he knew that spin was far more empowering than my own on my goofs. He had another turn of the phrase when not such good things happened, and that was “now you are in the real estate business,” as if those occurrence were […]