Gregory turned 5 this past December, and the bulk of his words are parroting what he might hear rather than sourcing his own communication. To us, an actual conversation with him has been elusive. Lately, we’ve been having some breakthroughs. Today was his best day ever, and in a world where progress is measured in inches, Gregory ran a mile. 

I’ve been prompting Gregory to say “I love you Daddy.” He’ll parrot it, but never say it when it would fit. 

Until today. 

This morning, as I luxuriated in a few free hours prior to my Sunday appointments, G-man walked right up to me, put his hands up for a hug, looked me in the eye, and said “I Love You Daddy!” There was nothing unconscious or robotic about it- total presence. He did it several times during the day as well, in equally appropriate ways. This was on the shoulders of him saying “I’ll come” the other morning when I woke him up and he wanted me to know he didn’t need to be carried. Later in the day, he played catch with his sister, which was another first. I had to work a chunk of the day, but Ann saw progress as well, and she chronicled it here.

Big stuff. We are grateful that in the midst of the hard stuff that we’ve had such a burst of progress.   

All agents have stories of a first time home buyer who brings a relative to see the property, only to have the them kill the sale via skepticism, negativity or just sowing the seeds of doubt. It is part of the business. I’ve never enjoyed it, obviously, but today something happened that made me smile in spite of myself. 

A nice young lady looking for her first co op asked me to schedule a 2nd showing on a unit in the same complex where her friend bought. The place needed work, but we thought it might be worth it for the right price. When we met up this morning, she told me her father would be along soon. I didn’t give it much thought one way or the other. 

When he arrived, we shook hands and she started to show him around. 

He hated the place. 

But here’s the thing: he wasn’t a jerk about it. As a matter of fact, the guy struck me as as incredibly sincere and authentic. He actually made me think of how I’d see a place my own daughter might consider buying, and how I’d evaluate it myself. He was concerned for her safety, first and foremost, with a sliders to a patio facing a busy street on the ground level. He was also concerned about her experience of ownership with the layout and repairs needed.

I couldn’t find fault with anything he said. He doesn’t owe me a fast commission, he owes his daughter his best judgment. We chatted a bit about his 5 children, all grown, 3 of whom are daughters. There was no pretense about this man. The job was to watch out for his kid, period. 

When we were done, she asked me about another complex. Nothing was really lost, and as a matter of fact I’m richer for the experience. I hope she brings him the next time.  

Wow.  All I can say is that the new Droid is going to make me money. My office is now at my fingertips. I can check my email far more easily, access the MLS, check Google maps, use Google documents, and surf the web effortlessly on this thing from anywhere at any time. Typically, my days are spent calling Ann from the field, having her check my calender, pull listings, read messages to me, and other things just to get my job done. It works for me but interrupts her day a dozen times, taking her away from important things on her end.

Today, we barely talked. I could do it all myself. A client wanted to know how far the train station was- we knew in 30 seconds from the Google Map application. I needed to reach a listing agent, and instead of calling home I looked the guy up on Active Rain. 

For me, this is a game changer. My right hand admin just had a bunch of distractions taken off her plate so she can focus on more productive things, and I can literally blog or check the company intranet at a diner over coffee. This means that people can get a response from me in real time instead of having Ann tell them I’ll get back to them when I return. 

Technology is pretty amazing when you can make money in the supermarket checkout line. 

Lester Kravitz is a broker based in Pelham, NY and a respected colleague. He’s also an attorney, but I don’t hold it against him. Ann likes him because they are both Stuyvesant High alums. This is a video of a brief talk Lester gave on the home buyer tax credit that I feel is informative and worthwhile. This NOT centered on the $8,000 first time buyer credit, but rather the $6500 move up credit for people who already own. This part of the law stimulus is under discussed in my view. In both cases, I am seeing buyers clearly motivated by the finite window of time they have to take advantage. Just yesterday, a co op buyer shared with me that the tax credit was a large part of her motivation to find and close on something as soon as possible. 

This is a crucial distinction in my view; skeptics say that buyers will buy anyway. It isn’t about them buying eventually, it is about getting them to buy NOW, to get the market going again this year. 

Lat night was the installation party at the Whitby Castle in Rye for the Westchester Putnam Association of Realtors and the WPMLS officers and directors. I was installed as Vice President for North Westchester.

This means that Ann and I had a “date.” Consecutive children and business-free hours of food and dancing. 

It was black tie optional, so I rented a tux and we arranged for a babysitter. My jacket was not ready when I picked the tuxedo up, so it would have to be picked up on the way. Without that jacket, I looked like a waiter. When I walked out with it on, I looked like a waiter with a jacket better. Ann approved. 

We needed one small thing at another store across the street and then we were off. The clerk in the store was not used to a guy in a tux with a lady in a full length evening gown to be sure, and did his best not to stare. It was a slow night, and we just walk in dressed to the nines. I’ll bet that doesn’t happen very often. 

I told him we were spies.   

A few photos:

I had never been to Whitby Castle and it was very elegant. It took an hour just to decompress and get out of work mode. Ann even overlooked the few times I checked my email. The food was good, and the band was better. The rug was cut- we danced quite a bit, and the band mercifully played some slow stuff toward the end. I am in pain this morning  but I don’t care. 

So we got dressed up, ate and danced the night away, and spent a few carefree hours together for the first time in who knows how long. We had fun. With consecutive weeks and months in the pressure cooker of running our own brokerage, 4 small children and oh, I don’t know, a few issues in the industry, it was long overdue, and did us well. We spend much of our time diffusing client stress. You absorb that over the long haul. Things like this rejuvenate. We won’t wait so long next time. To a large degree, we are the product, and we need to keep making these capital investments in our own selves. 

We still clean up pretty well, so why not? 

An economist is saying that we need more compassion. When those who individually need aid, they ought not be vilified when they seek help, nor should they fear retribution. It isn’t fair to the 7 million people who have lost their jobs. 

Refreshing sentiments! How true! But you won’t believe who John Connaughton of UNC Charlotte is referring to. He’s not talking about you or me. He’s talking about the banks! While Connaughton offers the “olive leaf” of not justifying the bad things lenders have done, he says that if a lender, individually, finds itself in a tight spot, it ought not fear retribution should it need to go to the Fed to borrow more. 

Is he afraid we are going to storm the Bastille? Because other than a few editors and politicians wagging their fingers, more people went to jail for Enron’s collapse than the economy’s. 

We need to be nice to the banks. They are having a rough time. Their feelings are hurt. If we vilify them they might not do what they are supposed to do. Never mind the poor guy who lost his job and spent Christmas at the Motel 6 with his wife and kids because the sensitive, vulnerable lender foreclosed on his home. The banks can’t do their job if we hurt their feelings. 

How times have changed. In 1945’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” George Bailey fears scandal and ruin when his uncle misplaces $5000. Now, you can gamble trillions of collective wealth down the tubes and what you really need is a hug. 

Hogwash. 

I’ve indulged myself a bit, but here’s the bottom line. Any suggestion that a bank will not do what it needs to do to ameliorate a capitalization issue because of PR concerns is beyond dubious. Just a few weeks ago, when the “name and shame” debate arose, it was pretty clear that banks don’t care what you and I think. They never have. Anyone who has done a short sale, let alone dispute a mistaken fee on their checking account statement, knows this all too well. 

Since my Giants stunk up the joint yesterday, the only think left to do was accompany friends to Molly Spillane’s in Mamaroneck to watch the Jets beat the Bengals. Another guy we were with apologized to bring up work but had a real estate question (I actually don’t mind. I bring the stuff up myself). He was relocating to Manhattan, and had found an apartment he liked, but was afraid that his rental application would be denied due to his low credit score. He had a guarantor, but their credit was good, not great, and he asked me if there was anything he could do to strengthen his case with this apartment or make a stronger case if he had to apply elsewhere.  

I’m no expert in Manhattan rentals, but I am a landlord. I think most landlords agree with me when I say that a vacant unit is not good, but is better than a bad tenant. I asked him what his rental application included, and it was the application form, bank statements, and either his credit report or an authorization to run it. His agent suggested that he offer to pay extra rent in advance, but he wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. Lots of questions. 

Here is what I told him:

• Cash is king. Extra rent in advance would be a good thing, because it showed that he had money and he offered good faith. If you could pay 3 months rent in advance, it might be a huge compensating factor. I would not, however, put more than 2 months rent as a security deposit. 
• When I was active in mortgages a letter of explanation was often required with files where credit was dinged. A good letter of explanation can show the landlord that you aren’t an irresponsible deadbeat, but a good person who had some bad circumstances. If anything, just being conscious enough to acknowledge the lower score and be smart enough to try and explain it might do the trick. 
• The application did not ask for his current landlord as a reference. This perplexed him. I explained that current landlords are not always good references. I’ve seen spiteful landlords lie about good tenants because they were angry that they did not renew their lease; I have seen landlords eager to get rid of crummy tenants give them glowing reviews. 12 months of cancelled checks are a far better thing to include. Cancelled checks are hard to argue with. 
• If his application is denied before he can submit these things, the world wouldn’t end if he re-applied with that documentation included, with a humble request for them to reconsider. 

Paul Krugman is a columnist at the New York Times who is known for his academic laurels and his liberal politics. He’s also a lightning rod for controversy, because he extrapolates his economist credentials to other subjects, drawing the ire of conservative critics and creating a cottage industry of Internet rebuttals. I’m no fan of Dr Krugman, but with Obama in office he has, predictably, refrained from politicizing everything. The net result is that Paul Krugman, economist, has actually begun to devote his column to economics, and the results border on the refreshing. 

His latest column warns of a repeat of 1937, when FDR thought that the Depression had ended, with the results that the economy took a nosedive. Whether you agree with Krugman or not, at the very least the column talks about something he knows about, economics, and his reasoning therefore is not hard to follow. In considering the problems with the market, it seems to me that the problem has reached Rubik’s Cube proportions, and it is hard to figure out exactly what policy should be taken. There are pros and cons to both the liberal and conservative approaches. 

I wrote the following comment:

While sitting on a short sale panel of the Westchester Putnam Board of Realtors at our annual meeting 2 months ago, we were asked if we saw an increase or decrease in short sales for 2010. Bucking the “yes” answer trend from my colleagues, a Bank of America official on the panel said “No.” At first we were shocked at what appeared to be optimism from a bank executive, until he explained why.

To paraphrase what he said: There will be fewer short sales in 2010 because they will be surpassed by bank foreclosures. Lots of them. B of A, he explained, currently owned 100,000 repossessed homes. In 18 months, that figure projected to be 300,000. That amount of REO properties flooding the inventory will have a terrible domino effect on the market. This is especially so when considering that most other major lenders (Chase, Wells, Citi etc) having similar numbers.

ANY blip up should be considered a “dead cat bounce” by those in leadership, and caution should be the rule of the decade. In post Great Depression America, we have never had 3 negative years in real estate in a row; 2010 will be the 5th consecutive down year, and the foreclosure rate promises more problems. It is so bad that pinning down a policy for recovery is virtually a Rubik’s cube. We are almost damned if we do and damned if we don’t. God help us if the government takes their eye off the ball.

It makes no broker any money to say this, but any ownership of real estate that is projected to be under 5 years is highly ill advised, especially if the property is highly leveraged (ie, low down payment). Is now still a good time to buy? Of course, but only for the long term. Since there is no appreciation curve to erase mistakes, buy and hold, because we still have a storm to endure for the next few years.

I wish I knew the answers. The recession that Bill Clinton inherited in 1993 was born of similar circumstances- the Savings and Loan failures of the late 1980s, a real estate crash, and a stock market crash all precipitated the Bush I recession. By and large, we grew out of that decline without massive government manipulation or spending. 

We have not grown out of this by a long shot, and as I said, the decline in real estate is unprecedented since the Depression. We all need to keep our eye on the ball, because this isn’t going to fix itself. Krugman doesn’t have the answer either, but he makes the problem far more understandable when he’s not grinding a partisan axe. 

This post is inspired by Carla Muss-Jacobs outstanding reply to what appeared to be smartypants buyers sending her an “interview email” a while back that made a senate confirmation hearing look like a walk in the park. You really should read the post. I’m all for interviewing agents prior to hiring them; more people should do that, and I have argued in the past that people spend more time choosing a blue tooth or refrigerator than their agent. Carla’s people were over the top, however, and speak to a catch-22 that exists in real estate all too often between licensees and prospective clients. 

Here’s the catch-22: Some buyers don’t want to be committed to a lame agent and agents don’t want to work with disloyal buyers. The buyers “play the field” with  different agents, and agents are reticent to jump headfirst for a buyer who may be two (or three) timing them and have all that effort gone to waste. It’s like a staring contest, or a game of chicken- who’ll break first? And will they break bad or break good and stick as a loyal client? 

There is no easy answer except for being excellent. We’ll always get screwed once in a while, but overall, if a buyer sees that you are a cut above, they’ll stick with you. It helps to educate them about how we are paid, the importance of loyalty, and the benefits of a buyer brokerage agreement if need be, but that falls on deaf ears if you aren’t good. Like the adage that says “dance like no one is watching and love like you’ve never been hurt”, I’d add “Treat the client like they never knew another agent.”

Briarcliff Manor, about 30 miles north of New York City on the Metro North Hudson line (Scarborough stop if you are keeping score) is a village of stately, bucolic neighborhoods. It boasts one of the most charming main streets you’ll see on Pleasantville Road, and if you wander a bit you’ll find Pace University on the old Briarcliff College campus, Trump National Golf Course, and Holly Hill, the late Brooke Astor’s estate (on sale now for $10.5 million). It has an award winning school district, wonderful amenities, and a quality of life that is top shelf. Ann and I moved our family here in 2007 from the next neighborhood over in Ossining, and we love it here. I consider it one of the most underrated places in Westchester County.

Howard Stern got his start here at a small radio station (WRNW) which, as I recall, was operating out of a small house in the 70’s. My office on North State Road is walking distance from that place. 

46 single family homes were sold in the village in 2009, and the median price was just over $654,000. 

At the peak of the market in 2005, the median price was 865,000. That puts the correction at just under 25%, which basically wipes out the inflated spike from 2004-2005.  

There are 38 homes for sale currently, ranging in price from $419,000 to $4.65 million, excluding the Astor Estate. This means that there is just under a year’s worth of available inventory. 13 homes are priced below $700,000, and there is no telling how many more will be listed for sale in the coming weeks as the holidays get small in  the rear view mirror. If you do come to Briarcliff, park downtown on Pleasantville road and do a little window shopping. You’ll like what you see, and you’ll understand why we who live here love it.