I got a call today regarding one of my listings from the lender on the property. The person was in the collections department, and it was one of those calls lenders sometimes make on a distress property. However, I think somewhere someone lost the memo that common sense would be a good idea, as I journeyed into bizarro bank land with this rube. 

After informing me that this was an attempt to collect and debt and all information collected would be used for that purpose, I reminded her that I was the broker, not the debtor. She was undeterred. She then asked me what the address was of the property, and I told her she gave me the address when I first answered the phone.  She was clearly following a script. She asked me to fax the listing agreement, which was hilarious- it had been faxed so many times I had them on speed dial. When I asked to whose attention it should be faxed, she said just fax it, it will get here. That went back and forth a few times too, but I finally got from her that the account number would go on the cover letter. Again. 

Then we really went into orbit. She wasked me at what number I could be reached. I reminded her that she had just called me. She again asked for the number. I said “the number you just called.” No, she needed a number. 

We went around in circles, on half a dozen other details that were either self evident or information already volunteered by this person. What made it so peculiar was the arrogant attitude. SHE was the bank. SHE was the boss. This is a switchboard grunt, clearly, a low level collector at best, and not a negotiator. 

This is the caliber of person dealing with the public at the big box bank. If she worked at a restaurant or office she’d have been sacked her first day if she conducted herself like this. Anywhere else (like for example, J. Philip Real Estate), such obtuse, arrogant robotic ineptitude would never be tolerated. We have MBAs out of work while this one collects a check for…what?  Something is wrong with this picture. Is it too much to ask that the people reaching out to the public from the banks at least know how to deal with the public? 

If you haven’t heard of LuAnn Lavine, I’ll tell you why she matters. She was mentioned by Maureen Dowd in her last NY Times column, and has one of the most emailed stories on industry news site Inman News. Last week, Ms Lavine, a real estate broker, got up at a town hall meeting and told President Obama how rough it is out there in the housing market. When he gave a rather vanilla, political answer, she challenged him, respectfully, but told him that short sales and loan modifications were a disaster and that lenders wanted perfection, which seldom occurs in humanity. She spoke her mind. 

I have often thought of what I’d like to say to the President if I had a chance to break bread with him. Here is what I’d tell him:

You will not fix the economy, Mr President, until you fix housing. Fix housing, and the economy will follow organically. 

The facts on the ground clearly tell me that the housing market remains broken. 
The facts on the ground clearly tell me that the current policy, or lack of a policy, do not work.

The proposed “fixes” by lawmakers make me wonder if they have a clue. The chatter about raising downpayments, lowering conforming loan limits, eradicating the mortgage interest deduction, and other blows to the backbone of housing, which were never causes of the economic downturn to begin with, perplex me. I wonder if lawmakers reside in the same world as I do.

But what do I know? I’m just a real estate broker.

Four years after the sub prime crisis, the government got around to suing the big box banks this week. Their stocks will suffer, and pension funds will drop yet again. This is not the fix. I want a the task force. I want a summit. Nothing symbolic. I want people in whom I have confidence, whose pedigree is results, not politics. I want a housing NASA, which will do what is hard, and do it well. I want an authoritative answer to an earnest real estate broker’s simple question.

This is not a chicken or the egg thing. Employment, consumer spending, and commerce all flow from a healthy housing market. People will not feel confident in their job or see retail business pick up in a vacuum while housing remains stagnant. Fix housing. Think about it when you are in the shower. Talk about it. Take back the dialog from the congressional pablum purveyors and let us know you care. Give us some passion for pete’s sake. Get mad, dammit. 

The president needs to immediately get moving on housing, as JFK would say, with vigor. I want to wake up in the morning and go to bed each night knowing that the president is standing up to the housing challenge the way I knew Reagan and JFK stood up to the Soviets. It’s time to wake up from this 4 year old case of amnesia and pick up the ball again. I’m sick of China this and recession that.

We are better than this. Much, much better.  And I want the Chief Executive to carry himself that way. Let’s go forward, from this time and place, like the resourceful, productive, tail-kicking society we are and say that September 2, 2011 was when housing started its turnaround. We can do this. We can do anything. 

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:

‘Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!’ “

-WH Murray

I had the good fortune to be asked  by the Ossining-Croton Patch.com site to blog for them regularly, and this past week I was featured in one of their videos on the challenges of the housing market. We met at one of my firm’s listings in Ossining, and filmed interview style on the state of the market, what sellers can do to get their homes sold, and where I saw the market going. 

If you want to see me in a talkie and hear my nasal, best suited to be writing voice, feel free to click on the link. My editor said we would be doing it again, but maybe he was just being nice. I was proud that I refrained from drooling. Articulate talk will be in the ear of the beholder. 

By the way, the house we are filmed at is Tom Ricapito’s listing at 14 Hillcrest Ave in Ossining, a really great 4 bedroom 2 bath starter home with a 2-car garage that is only $349,900. It is 2100 square feet, a great rear patio and landscaping, and even has a bar in the basement. And yes, it has a waterfall in the back yard. Call Tom at (914) 804-3048 if you’d like to see the place. 

Ask any foodie about New York and you’ll know that we have the best bread they’ve ever had. Local restaurants often boast that they have bread baked from Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, and with good reason. I myself have lived in New Orleans, Austin, Rochester, Philadelphia, Boston and Maryland and appreciated the local offerings (New Orleans has some of the best food in the world!) but always measured bread against the bread from home.  While Arthur Avenue bread and rolls are the world standard in my view, Ossining bakery is right up there. 

Among my fondest childhood memories is when I would go with my father to Ossining Bakery after Sunday mass. He’d stand at the counter with his fedora hat and horn rimmed glasses, smile at the counter person, and order 12 hard rolls as we called them. Delicious crust, soft savory inside. If he was in a good mood we might get some doughnuts, and then we’d go home, Mom would cook hard boiled eggs, and we’d watch Abbott and Costello or the Bowery Boys on channel 11. I can’t eat a good roll and not go back in time. 

Ossining Bakery is a regular guy place- nothing fancy, baking is done on premesis, and the interior is exactly the same as it was when I was a kid- devoid of pretense, glass counter with the baked goods, a few tables, and self serve coffee. If it were a restaurant, it ould have red and white table coths and folding chairs but always be crowded. Anthony, the current owner, bought it 12 years ago from the folks who ran it for the prior 30 years, and the continuity in both presentation and quality remain. 

Rolls and basic pastries are their pride and joy- you can expect about half a dozen differen types of doughnuts along with crullers, turnovers, and cookies. And the rolls are the best in Westchester, period. They go great with butter, tomato sauce, or soup. They make everything taste better. I eat them alone- they are that good.

Don’t expect flowery cakes that looked like they were made by a confectionary Rembrandt. It’s not that kind of place. They do the basics, they do it well, and that’s why it has been an instuitution for decades. I hope they never change. 

I’ve actually met with people for coffee here, and, and will again just for the aroma of the next batch of greatness wafting from the ovens. 

Ossining Bakery
50 North Highland Avenue
Ossining, NY 10562
(914) 941-2654 

We have a unique listing that might be of interest for someone looking for a home they can renovate without having to pay cash or getting a rehabilitation mortgage. It is a 2172 square foot tudor in the heart of the village adjacent to St Ann’s school yard on Eastern Avenue. It was used for years as a single family, but is zoned as a two-unit and still could be converted. 

The home has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, a stucco exterior, with a 1-car garage and a flat rectangular lot. It is a few blocks from shopping and public transportation. The owner will hold a mortgage with a 20% downpayment for the right buyer, with negotiable terms. Owner-financed home are rare, so this is a unique opportunity. 

The home is a true renovation job. It has been gutted to the studs and needs a new heating system and other mechanical updates, but as they say it has good bones. The list price is $250,000 with taxes of approximately $10,600. The median price of homes in a half mile radius from here is $365,000. If you are interested or know someone who might be, feel free to call or email me. 

40 Elizabeth Street, Ossining, NY 10562. $250,000, owner financing available. 

Note: This was written from a very New York Point of view, with local sentiment on how Mike Bloomberg  and our local media handled the run up to the arrival of the storm. Please read this comment on the NY Times and this one from my fellow New Yorkers to get some perspective. I would never, ever, downplay or minimize the loss of others, and Ann and I send thoughts and prayers out to those who lost loved ones, property, and power. 

If you are in Westchester County reading this, then you survived Hurricane Tropical Storm Irene. We are not in a post apocolyptic disaster. We aren’t subsisting on water we saved in the bathtub. And the 20 extra D batteries we bought a few days ago are still in their wrappers. I share concern and sympathy for the folks elsewhere who sustained destruction, lost property, and in some cases, loved ones. That is a tragedy that can’t be measured.

Our area was fortunate to just have the isolated flooding and a handful of fallen trees that I’ve seen today. But those things are not terribly unusual for a heavy rain storm, and one wonders if the warnings and fear running up to Irene’s arrival weren’t just a tad hyperbolic, to our future detriment. 

I have never seen supermarket shelves emptied. I have never seen a run on bottled water and batteries. And I have never heard the use of the word “hunker” with such regularity as the past 72 hours. When I went to the Chilmark A & P Friday, I half expected to see Charlton Heston pushing 2 carts loaded with Soilent Green out the exit the way people were behaving. Elderly folks were loading up on rations. Complete strangers talking in line about how to tape windows and cook with Sterno. Bread, eggs and milk were cleaned out (is it customary to eat french toast during a natural disaster?). It was eerie, and the foreboding was palpable. 

And the media…news people somber, and weather people were excited to the point of being salacious. Why do weather guys get so excited about severe weather? This guy felt that reportage required that he expose himself to seafoam that probably contained raw sewage.

We went to bed concerned about blackouts, a tree falling through our ceiling or car, and our basement flooding. We woke up to a lot of rain, which is not the end of mankind, and that was it. No hurricane. No eye of the storm. CVS in Arcadian shopping center flooded but was just soggy when I went there today. And why did I go there? To get Benedryl for my wife, who got a nasty case of poison ivy preparing our yard for a hurricane that never happened. The worst thing about Irene for my family, literally, is the itching. We are very, very lucky, in light of the news elsewhere, which is destruction and tragedy. 

I am all for erring on the side of caution, but to my way of thinking, the most dangerous thing about this storm for our New York area this far inland is that many people won’t take warnings so seriously next time. We didn’t need to retreat to the fallout shelter. All those extra batteries will be good for Christmas, but that’s it. We’re lucky this time, but many people may not be as careful next storm- and that is not a good thing. 

Warning to consumers: this may be boring, as this post is written to my colleagues and not for the public. 

It’s raining here in Westchester County, and Hurricane Irene has brought a rare thing: some time off. My phone has barely rung all weekend, and in between battening down the hatches for the storm, I have been able to take a breather from a schedule that has been frantic for the lion’s share of August. I missed the hubbub about market reports on Active Rain, and since none other than Bob Stewart has praised me for my own market reports, I thought I would add my two cents to the dialog. 

First, market reports are a good thing for any real estate blogger who wants to be seen by their local public as a go-to person for information. They are also good for SEO, and another little fringe benefit is that they make you more knowledgeable about your market. They seldom get many clicks or comments and almost never appear on the feature dashboard, but that is not their purpose. Market reports build your business. I know this firsthand. So here is how I write a market report:

• Be specific. Choose a clear area and time period, such as a school district, town or city, and make the report for a month, quarter, or week. And differentiate what property type you are covering, because in my area a 2-bedroom co-op apartment can cost $150,000 and a 2-bedroom house can be $400,000. They deserve separate coverage. 
• With regard to charts and graphs, less is more. People glaze over after more than one graph. At least, I do. The good folks at Altos Research, as well as many MLS systems, can give you the means to do some excellent graphics, it just isn’t necessary to post a statistical Sistine Chapel to make your point. 
• Add some commentary. Don’t just post data and leave people to interpret it. That’s work, and I have enough of it on my own. What’s the bottom line? What should we conclude? Are we up from last year or are we down? I always compare my time period to that of the prior year at the same time, and I let my readers know if volume is up or down, and how median price is faring as well. This makes the mundane report actually readable. 
• Sell the area. Post a photo of downtown or a nice neighborhood. Talk about a listing you sold there recently, or how popular the place is for foodies, dog lovers or movie buffs. Great restaurants, parks and cultural attractions matter as much as median price. One village near me, Pleasantville, NY, has all of the above and a centrally located metro north train station right in the heart of the village, making it a great commuter community. Don’t keep these facts a secret in market reports. 
• Keep it simple. Facts, overall message, and a pretty photo are three calling cards of my own reports. Median price, number of sales, how we fared compared to last year and what the outlook is for buyers and sellers are the elements I use. You aren’t figuring out the efficacy of bringing in a Home Depot to a boardroom of suits, you are telling a local owner if the time is right to sell or a buyer 30 minutes away if this is where they might see opportunity. 
• Link to your prior posts on the area. This shows people all your commentary on the place, and if they are interested in the area they’ll spend a good deal of time reading you. This is where tags are crucial.  
• Wrap it up with a call to action. If you have an IDX solution, link to it. THIS IS THE POINT. 
• Syndicate. Tweet it with the town hashmark (#Scarsdale), link to it on your Facebook business page, and submit it to other media. Email it to clients or prospects. 

Right on the tail of HAMP, HAFA, HVCC, MARS, and MAP, our acronym loving government has unveiled a new initiative to address the depressed housing market. Since 3 and 4 letter acronyms haven’t worked thus far, a bi-partisan initiative is getting final approval in both houses- The Federal Universal Big Acronym Regulation, or FUBAR. 

FUBAR has had some components since the early 1970s, but it has been streamlined and updated to address the housing market of 2011. “Our goal,” according to congressman Barney Frank “is to implement FUBAR before the end of the year and make the whole economy FUBAR, once we FUBAR the housing market.” Even Republicans have grudgingly admitted that FUBAR is what they do best, and what makes the most sense. 

Some of the elements of FUBAR Include:

• The marginalizing of the FHA program, the backbone of the housing industry since the 1930’s, which must make it bad;
• The eradication of the Federally chartered entities such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have become the scapegoats for the downturn;
• The end of the mortgage interest deduction, because Lithuania has a higher ownership rate than we do, and they don’t have it. And we have so much in common with Lithuania. Or Latvia, but it doesn’t matter. 
• The phasing out of the 30-year fixed mortgage, which gave the USA a false sense of being “special.”
• Old carry over rules will continue the draconian regulation of field agents in lending and real estate, making them shit their pants anytime they are asked about schools, crime statistics, nearby houses of worship and other irrelevant matters on choosing a home. 
• Loan officers will be paid “something,” according to Congress insiders, and that number will be made public once they figure out how to splice the decimal. However, they won’t be able to quote borrowers a rate or a payment and face genital branding with a hot iron if their good faith estimate is more than $75 different from the HUD-1. 
• Executives and policy makers will continue their exemption from just about any regulation or consequence of their actions, a holdover from the days of prosperity, according to those close to the committee. 
• Closing attorneys will still be allowed to have their wife walk into the closing room and introduce her as the “title company.” If Real estate agents or loan officers are related without the informed consent and endorsement of the lender, title, buyer, seller, local rabbi, and dog catcher they face being dipped in molasses and fed to red ants. 
• All federal incentives for ownership will instead be applied to renters, which is intended to stimulate this oppressed, yet growing, group. “Have you ever been in a ‘cat house?’ boomed Eric Cantor (R) when asked about rental subsidies. “I’ve been in my share of cat houses. And those ladies own. They don’t rent. We have enough cat houses, I’ve checked. It’s time to help renters.”

Also deemed the Federal Undertaking for Big Advance of Renting, FUBAR is embraced by Vice President Biden as well. “FUBAR, man. FUBAR. Can ya dig it?” The Vice president then stuffed the rest of his roast beef sandwich in his mouth and booked a 2 week vacation to the south of France before drinking some Johnny Walker Blue straight from the bottle. 

This past Wednesday I attended an event put on by JP Morgan Chase at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in Midtown Manhattan. There were over 300 employees from Chase present, along with what seemed like at least 1000 brokers and agents. Chase’s national REO manager, former NFL football player Brian Stablein was a speaker, as was Jed Smith, a managing director at NAR. The evening was educational in nature, centering on the market outlook as well as Chase’s initiative to expand their REO agent base for the sale of their assets. I have never seen a lender be so forthcoming about how to become an REO agent for them, ever. 

After the presentations, the floor was opened for a question and answer session, with a lively exchange between licensees in the audience and the panelists on the stage, all managers with JP Morgan Chase. It was quite unrehearsed. The agents really let the Chase people know just what they thought of the practice of their use of “out of town” BPO agents and appraisers, as well as the damage that was often caused by their use, and didn’t let the VP off the hook when her answer didn’t tackle the issue to their satisfaction. Candid, hard-hitting stuff. I had to give Chase credit for the apolitical, spin-free format. 

Toward the end, the audience was told that we had two more questions before some complimentary food and drink. One of those final questions got up and said that she didn’t know what an REO even was, and that the presenters should have explained it at the start. 

At an REO event. 

I had to ask the people next to me if that really happened, and I didn’t doze off and dream it. No, we were all quite awake. 

Now, I hate to pile on a well-meaning agent who is confused, and frankly I’d attend a baseket weaving exposition at the Waldorf Astoria just to drink the water, so the agent had every right to be there. And I don’t even fault her for not knowing what an REO is I suppose, because you don’t know what you know until you know it. But criticizing the panel for it seemed like one of those “only in New York” moments that only happen in the Big Apple. Sometimes a little humility is in order, you know? 

Just in case you are wondering, “REO” stands for “real estate owned” by a lender after they foreclose on it. If you ever get a chance to do anything at the Waldorf-Astoria, by all means do so. There is no place like it in the world. 

 By the way, moments after I took this picture, I ran into Barb Altieri! 

No shows are a part of the business. I often keep repeating the phrase “yes, I went to college” as I stand in the driveway of a home, staring at it, wondering if I can do some sort of Schopenhaur exercise to manifest a human being, preferably the owner, to answer the door or the phone. And the guy from this morning’s no show did indeed call me back,  a half hour after I drove away, to let me know he was in fact home, but didn’t hear the door, phone or whimpering broker in the yard because…

…wait for it…

He was in the shower. At 11am on Tuesday, August 16, 2011, the man was inspired to pursue his hygiene at the very moment we were supposed to talk about the possible sale of his home. This is not the first person I have inspired to get soaked at the time they were scheduled to meet with me. It is somewhat common. I don’t know why. I really don’t. I remember back in college I had a strange talent for inspiring co-eds to empty their bladder at social events. 

“Hi, I’m Phil”
“Hi Phil, dying to pee. I’ll be RIGHT BACK.”

Damn I was good.  I never figured out how to monetize the Gift. 

Is there something about me that makes people want to shower (my poor self esteem!)? Or, conversely, are people so honored to meet with me that they must anoint themselves with cleansers and bath oils in anticipation of our meeting, even to the exclusion of punctuality? And why is the likelihood of a no-show, shower-related or otherwise, so bloody proportional to the distance I travelled and the hoops I jumped through to fit them in my schedule to start with? 

I hate no shows. I would rather meet with a person overdue for their daily shower than not meet with them at all. Is it possible that they are fibbing to cover that they were asleep, otherwise occupied, or forgot? Is it me? 

Much has been written about the “code” licensees employ in describing their listings. For example, “cozy” is Agentspeak for “cramped.” “Potential” means that nothing has been updated since 1980. You get the picture. There are hundreds more, and I don’t blame consumers for taking agents’ descriptions with a grain of salt. 

However, consumers are people too, and from my vantage, I have often seen the some propensity for being, shall we say, creatively interpretive in turns of the phrase from them as well. So, in the interest of a little fun, I shall offer a few examples of consumer terms needing translation I have heard over the years. 

Consumer Real Estate Glossary

Outdated (buyer)- over 5 years of age
Updated (seller)- We changed a fixture or appliance
Musty– anything that doesn’t smell like laundry detergent
Moldy– Humid
Buyer’s market-I want to offer the same price for  for this 4 bedroom colonial as the 2 bedroom bungalow down the street.
Falling down– I see a drywall seam
They are crazy– I disagree
Slobs– The people with 4 kids who just let us into their home on 30 minutes notice.
My lawyer– God
Their lawyer– Satan 
Overpriced– We prefer to lose the house in a bidding ar after they whack the price next month.
We were thinking– We changed our minds
I’m paying Cash– I have an equity line on another property and I will remove my mortgage contingency 
Comps (seller)- Inferior garbage to my place
Comps (buyer)- Anything that sold for 15% less
I will use my union lawyer– The transaction will now enter the 7th ring of Dante’s Inferno
We are using an Internet lender– The deal will die 2 weeks before closing when Brad in Utah disappears into the cosmos 
I’d like to bring my parent to see the home– NO deal.
Sorry for not getting back with you– We were seeing homes with another agent who didn’t work out.
Pre-approved– I had coffee with a bank teller last April
Legal deck/bathroom etc– My brother in law knew what he was doing just fine.  

Feel free to add your own. And do remember that we are all people, and that this is meant to be a little fun at all our foibles in what is an otherwise uncommon period of life-buying or selling a home. 

Water created the Grand Canyon. Anyone who has ever seen a house with a leaky roof or basement appreciates this. And sewage is mostly water. It erodes. While sewage didn’t cause the recent leaks (really massive spills) in Harlem and now Ossining, it is clear that external damage, such as a fire or tree falling, will cause massive destruction to the corroding, crumbling conduits through which we have managed our waste the past century. And we don’t have the money to fix it. All that has been done is repair the damage to stop the spill and dump bleach in the waterways to manage the bacteria. Does that make you rest easy? 

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and at a time when we should be investing in shoring up and updating infrastructure throughout New York, we instead fix problems as they occur and put off the inevitable. Today it is the sewers, which is kind of icky. But tomorrow it might be the roads, which if you haven’t noticed are often in deplorable condition around Westchester. By roads I am also including our nearby Tappan Zee Bridge, which is past its life expectancy and in poor shape. With the volume of traffic that travels over the bridge each day, a catastrophic failure of tragic, epic proportions becomes more likely each day. 

Like a house or a car, municipal infrastructure requires maintenance and at some intervals, wholesale replacement. Our local roads, waste management, drinking water, recycling, and energy systems are decades and in some cases approaching centuries old and there is no plan in place to do the big ticket work that is inevitable. Worse than no plan, there are no funds. 

Part of managing a business, a family, and a community has to involve a capital fund or savings of some sort so that there is a rainy day fund to handle and pay for the next crisis. Borrowing is no longer an answer, as we are right now under crushing debt at almost all levels of government, and we can’t sustain the current liabilities. Something has to give. 

While I don’t have an answer, the first step is to acknowledge the facts and live in the question. Our infrastructure is aging and in some cases failing, and we don’t have the plan, logistical or financial, to address the problem. Think about that next time you swerve to avoid a pothole. 

I got word tonight that my client’s offer on a home in Tuckahoe was accepted. She is very happy. What is unusual about this particular deal is that the sellers actually interviewed me before they first went on the market but elected to list with someone else. I respect the agent, so I was happy for them. He and I are pals, and we are excited to be doing our first deal together. Ironically enough, the home is being sold for the exact price I predicted back in February, which was also probably the reason I didn’t get hired. 

The real pleasure about the negotations was that even though we started somewhat far apart, my colleague and I kept cooler heads and affected a meeting of the minds fairly quickly and solidly. It was very cool, and a far departure from the mini dramas I have seen playing out lately where the agents, who should be stablizing figures, have let their emotions get the better of them and inject unneeded drama into a process that calls for calm and sanity. 

Among the sillier tactics I have seen is the petty nonsense some sellers and their agents pull when comparable sales are cited as justification for the price offered. 

• Oh THAT dump? Our place is way better
• Number 122 up the street? Are you kidding? Have you seen how it backs up to the highway?
• Obviously you’ve never seen the inside of of this one. It is a fetid relic.  
• That is in no way shape or form a comparable. Please. How insulting. 

Inspired by the Facebook group. 

You know you are in the real estate business when

• You dial a phone number on the calculator app. 
• Your daughter brings home straight A’s and you worry that the report card won’t comp out.
• You walk up to your own front door and look for a lockbox. 
• You put your ATM code into the microwave.
• You answer the phone at 10pm and are surprised the person calling is surprised. 
• A friend brags about a rebate they got on a car trade in/purchase and you wonder how they put it on the HUD-1.
• Someone asks how your kid is doing in school and you initially cringe at discussing a school district in any way shape or form.
• Your insert your Sentrilock card into the supermarket self checkout. 
• You cram an entire day off into 4 consecutive non working hours. 
• You briefly consider faxing a landscaping estimate to an attorney for approval.
• You can’t find your Bluetooth- because it’s in your ear.
• You leave the house for a gallon of milk without your cell phone and you feel naked.
• You bring a lawn sign car shopping to make sure the trunk will allow it to fit. 
• You ponder the square footage of the Church during a boring sermon. 
• When you pick up your son at a play date you notice if the house has a buried oil tank or an old roof. 
• After running into an old friend you check out what their home is assessed for when you get home. 
• There is at least one neighborhood or town in your market area that completely pisses you off because you’ve lost more than one deal there. 
• There is a banker or lawyer somewhere over whose head you’d love to pour spoiled gravy. 
• Your heart races when you see a For Sale By Owner. 
• You are authentically astonished and grateful when a client picks up the lunch check. 
• Nothing good ever happens when they say “we were thinking about it last night, and________”
• You’ve screamed into a pillow because someone you knew bought or sold a house without telling you. 
• You’ve hung up the phone after a solicitation utters the words “all you need is one sale to pay for it.”
• Catch-22: will calling be too pushy? Will not calling be poor follow up? 
• You get home and wish someone else would make the decision for a change.
• You cringe when you recognize certain phone numbers or email addresses. 
• There is a certain house in town you’ll never ever forget, ever, because_________
• When everyone else screams at the TV during a game, you scream at the TV during the news. 
• You ponder an idea that will transform your business as you drift off to sleep, and can’t remember what the hell it was when you wake up. 
• You want to ask someone why they use a photo that is almost unrecognizable with how they look today. But you don’t. 
• You hate meetings.
• You’ve been asked to move a mountain in the next hour by someone who hasn’t returned your calls in 2 weeks, and they are completely serious. 
• You wish you handled that appointment differently. 
• You live in the question. 
• Upon getting voicemail, you chide yourself for believing they might actually answer the phone.
• You’ve wrung your hands over your URL.
• You know what a hoarder’s home smells like. 
• You wish that negative guy would spend just one day watching you work, because that would teach them. 
• Knowing what you know, you wonder aloud how that other person can do what they do. 
• Nothing surprises you anymore. Until you get surprised again. 
• You exhale when their parents tell them they should buy the house. 
• You have thought or said “This isn’t 1983. It isn’t even 2007.”
• You have been a grief counselor after showing them the comps. 
• If that person can do it, dammit, you can do it. 

I could go on, but I think you get the point! 

This morning I read a brief tribute online from Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino to Joseph Acocella, the town clerk of nearby Harrison, NY who had passed away. I get notices on the loss of Realtors and public officials with some regularity, so I just assumed Mr. Acocella was someone who was older. Who would expect otherwise.  

In logging onto the Journal News, however, I found out that Joe was just 30, and had battled health challenges his whole life. This hits close to home for me– my older brother Paul also died young-too young- after a lifetime of fighting, battling, and overcoming diabetes, kidney failure, a temporarily successful kidney/pancreas transplant, and many other issues, one setback after another. The story had a picture of a wheelchair bound Acocella – a double amputee- on his job as clerk, looking forward. 

Only 30. He was the youngest New Yorker ever elected to a town clerk position in 2007, and he distinguished himself by modernising the town system and putting town records online (something people like me really appreciate). And he did all this despite being on dialysis 3 days per week, which if you are unfamiliar, is utterly exhausting. My brother sometimes needed a day to recover from dialysis, and he wasn’t much older than Mr. Acocella.

To distinguish onceself in such a public position despite such physical challenges is really heroic. It takes a very special person. And in a time when we are confronted by bad news all around, it is a reminder that we have good, good people in our midst, and we should appreciate their contribution more than we do. According to the local Patch.com, he was a Fordham guy as well who was a leader going all the way back to high school despite the percieved roadblocks. What an inspiring person. I really wish I knew this guy. I have said it before and I’ll say it again: sometimes God takes his best work back early. 

I have blogged before on how some buyer agents approach the listing agent with questions that are best addressed by other sources. For example, a  few years ago I had a buyer’s agent assistant ask me a battery of questions on the legality of a hypothetical addition to a home I had listed. I was, in essence, being asked to answer questions best answered by the building department. 

This is wrong. Buyer agents should, whenever possible, verify listing information from primary sources, such as town hall or the homeowner association. The listing agent should not do their job for them. It’s like getting a second opinion from the first opinion. 

This is not to say that buyer agents are dissuaded from asking questions; quite the contrary. Buyers can ask whatever they wish, and we in the sales industry love questions because they have long been held as a sign of interest. The buyer agent simply needs to distinguish what question is best posed to the listing agent and what question should be answered from other, more primary sources. The litmus test is simply whether or not the listing agent will know the answer right off, or if they have to go to a 3rd party. If a 3rd party is needed, the buyer agent needs to go there on behalf of their client. 

Today, for example, an agent emailed me 2 questions about a condo I have listed in Chappaqua: the first was the date of the furnace installation, and the second was as to what the homeowner association fees covered. Obviously, the furnace is best answered by the seller client. I can handle that just fine. The HOA fees are another matter. That agent needs to ask the management company for that information because that is where I would go for the very same answer. 

I work with buyers to this day. And I know personally that when a buyer asks a question, they don’t want me to simply be a carrier pigeon and ask the listing agent when I could get the answer from the horse’s mouth at the town hall, county records, homeowner association or even a lender (FHA eligible anyone?). Buyer agents cannot simply unlock doors and parrot inquiries. Their job as the buyers advocate is not to get answers- it is to get accurate answers. And from my position as a listing agent, it is wrong to ask someone else to do your homework for you. That is back door due diligence, and it is not the best advocacy for people about to make the biggest purchase of their life. 

If the question is best answered by someone other than the seller or listing agent, then the buyer agent needs to walk into the front door of that other source on behalf of their client.