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First, some backstory: When I joined Howard Hanna Rand, I had been based in Briarcliff Manor for almost 20 years. My company had other office locations in Pelham and Carmel, but I hung my hat near my home. This past December, I was asked to move a bit north and manage the Yorktown and Carmel offices. So far it’s been a wonderful experience. The agents are committed professionals, eager to learn and up their game, and they’ve made me feel warmly welcomed.
One of the plans I inherited was a short relocation to a storefront down the block, and we will be cutting the ribbon on that next month. There were a number of reasons for the move, but one fringe benefit is that we will be next door to the Bagel Emporium and all its delicious goodness.
Yorktown is a wonderful community. The business scene is vibrant, the neighborhoods are almost all idyllic, and it’s got a great proximity to anything you might like in northern Westchester. It’s got a 55 and over community, a newly-refurbished Jefferson Valley Mall, and one of the county’s largest parks at FDR Park. The town also has farms of many types, including equestrian venues. One of my very favorite things about this place is that Yorktown is the home of Guiding Eyes, the wonderful folks who train seeing eye dogs. I see them walking the fur babies in this neighborhood all the time.
I’ve done business here since opening my doors in 2005, and while my drive to the office is slightly longer (15 minutes! Oh my!), I drive all over the place anyway, and it’s closer to Carmel. I checked my stats and I’ve actually brokered 150 transactions here over the years. I had some input into the layout, and I’m excited that the setup will be optimized for training of the agents, which is a big priority for me. The move to a shiny new location with an upgraded physical plant is a clear commitment to build our brand in this community, and I’m honored to lead the charge.
I get an apologetic phone call from clients now and then, and I think its kind of sweet. They don’t want to transact but have a question they know I can answer, and feel like they are imposing. Post sale service is a legitimate thing to me, and I always tell them that their call is a welcome one. Every agent wants to stay top of mind with their past client if they have half a brain, and these “impositions” are anything but.
You can still buy a nice 3 bedroom home in Putnam County for under $350,000 like the one our buyer client closed on last week. It is a fully renovated 1100 square foot 3 bedroom, 2 bath bungalow on a level lot with parking for at least 4 cars. The siding, roof, HVAC, walls, kitchen, and baths are all new. It is in the Putnam Lake community, so the property has lake rights- as a matter of fact the water is only about 500 feet from the front door. Putnam Lake (or “Put Lake,” as the locals and agents affectionately refer to it) is a woodsy, sleepy community of tidy homes that tend to be on the smaller side, so it is a great place for starter homes for anyone who likes lake living. There is shopping and food nearby, and the area is served by the Brewster school district.
Decades ago when I was tending bar, we always knew to avoid any discussion of politics or religion because it was a powder keg. In real estate, that would also include any discussion involving Zillow, dual agency, and square footage.
Escalation clauses are sometimes included in offers that essentially state that if the offer being presented is outbid by another competing offer that the buyer will raise their number by a set amount over the higher competing bid. Sometimes they are clever due to the confidential nature of closed bids in New York real estate, but they are not the cure all that some agents think they are.
The term “in law apartment” or “in-law space” has become misunderstood lately by both agents and consumers, so I’d like to clear up what should be fairly straightforward.
NIMBYs and the Damage They do to Communities
It is a pejorative term, and, as I will explain, that is for a good reason. Real estate professionals with any involvement in their community will inevitably get exposure to NIMBYs, and, in my view this should be viewed as an opportunity to show some backbone.
Resisting change is a natural human behavior. Skepticism about proposed additions to the community is not only understandable, but a vital check and balance to progress and the democratic process. Once the process is followed, however, in some instances the opposition to the proposed development or addition dig in their heels. The outcome is in those cases is not the best side of humanity in my experience.
I’ll preface the rest of my thoughts with a few facts:
Some years ago I was asked to speak at a town hall meeting on behalf of a proposed group home for men in recovery from addiction. The facility would require a special use permit, variance, or some other type of approval from the town, and the hearing was to give the public an opportunity to make comments.
There was a vocal opposition to the project. People are entitled to support or oppose matters like this; the issue I witnessed was the lengths some will go to have their opinion dictate the town’s decision. I heard quite a bit of ugliness in that meeting, and when I spoke in support of the project I had a few hecklers ask how much I was being paid to speak. The answer was zero; many real estate agents will steer clear of discussions lie these because taking sides will alienate potential clients in their community. But I felt that I had to speak up, because the data is pretty clear- group homes neither adversely affect property values.
Moreover, the safety concern is also overblown. As I stated above, the vast majority of crimes against children are committed by people they know, not strangers jumping out from behind the hedges. Of the thousands of child abductions occurring every year in the USA, only a few hundred are committed by strangers.
I wrote recently about another NIMBY situation, that time about the expansion of a children’s hospital. At that time, assertions that property values would plummet were refuted by the fact that values actually doubled, along with a higher sales volume.
NIMBYs are for some agents a touchy subject but not for me. 99% of the time I think they kind of suck. I understand the resistance to change, and a healthy dose of skepticism applied to new projects is healthy. But once the facts are on the table, doubling down on misinformation, baseless assertions, or hijacking the legitimate concerns about the safety of nearby residents and environmental concerns undermines legitimate cases where exploring alternatives should occur.
Recently, an acquaintance expressed to me a concern about the possibility of building a new school in their neighborhood. They said, and with solid evidence backing them up, that the roads were insufficient to service the two nearby schools that were there already. In that instance, I think they had a point. Moreover, their plan was simply to move away if the initiative passed. That is a far cry from scorching the earth at town planning meetings.
No community can be just cute neighborhoods and a quaint downtown commercial center to the expulsion of other societal needs. Communities needs sewage treatment facilities, school bus parking, recycling plants, public works and garbage trucks, storage for asphalt, salt & sand, hospitals, industrial areas, and yes-affordable/subsidized housing and facilities like group homes and halfway houses for the people who can’t live in picket fence suburbia.
The protests that granting permission for some of these facilities is social engineering seem to miss the point that municipalities that only zone for single family homes on acre lots is in itself a form of social engineering.
Some of the damage caused by the pushback is as follows:
I totally understand the resistance to change many have, and I relate to skepticism about new plans for change in a community. But once the facts are presented, all parties need to know that while they are entitled to their own opinions, they are not entitled to their own facts.