Buyers in this real estate market enjoy many more liberties and advantages with sellers than I have ever seen since I was first licensed in 1996. Not only do they have the lowest rates in half a century, they have far more bargaining power, and in Westchester County, where a starter home can cost $500,000, that is huge. It is a great time to be on the purchasing side. The one thing they don’t get to do, however, is consider themselves exempt from reasonable scrutiny regarding their qualifications to buy. Simply put, I as the listing agent have to verify things, and no amount of annoyance or insistence to the contrary can change that. 

I have written previously how cash buyers simply have to show proof of funds if they want to be truly taken seriously. Today, I will reiterate that fact for buyers getting a mortgage. If you are going to submit a pre approval, or in today’s case, a prequalification, it is part of my job to verify things, and that goes beyond your agent’s “cross my heart” reassurances. It means in many cases calling the loan officer on the pre qualification letter and asking questions. Here are some that I would ask:

• Have you verified the borrower’s credit?
• Have you verified income and employment? 
• Have you run  the borrower through your underwriting software (an industry standard)? 

Today, we had an offer where it was disclosed that they were in the process of selling their current home, it was submitted with a pre-qualification from a mortgage broker, not a direct lender, and the amount on the letter was less than the offer. My question to the buyer agent was shrugged off with a reassurance that all would be fine because they had extra money. Perhaps that is all true, but my job is to verify, not take assurances blindly. Like I said, in Westchester, with the competing number of homes for sale, real estate mistakes can be very expensive. Having a deal die can cost my clients tens of thousands of dollars. 

SO…I called the listing agent on the property they were selling (under contract, strong buyer) and I also spoke with the loan officer. I heard what I needed to hear from those I needed to speak with. Without getting into too many details, this did not sit well with the buyer, who actually called me directly. 

Sorry, but that is how it is today. I have to verify the qualification of buyers before I can advise my client to accept an offer. Spending months off the market under contract with a buyer who cannot close is not acceptable. Buyers are the belle of the ball now more than ever, but they don’t get a mulligan on basic due diligence from the listing agent. It is my job to verify, and the notion that I am invading their privacy is fallacious. It is absolutely our business to ascertain that the buyer can perform. If I wanted to take some perverse pleasure in sticking my nose in someone’s personal business, I’d watch reality TV. This is business, and should never be taken personally. 

One of the risks a real estate broker like myself incurs when commenting on the market is the perception that we as licensees puff things up to make the climate seem better than it really is. Given that we are entitled to our own opinion but not our own facts, I’ll lead with the numbers on Croton’s 3rd quarter real estate market.  

For the 3rd quarter of 2010, the Croton-Harmon school district had 15 single family home closings at a median sale price of $425,000.

For the 3rd quarter of 2011 which just ended September 30th, Croton had 18 single family home closings at a median sale price of $492,500.

Transaction totals are up, and median sale price has improved by almost 16%. It is an improvement. However, before we all jump for joy, consider that in the 3rd quarter of 2005, Croton had 36 sales with a median price of $600,000. We are a long way from recovered. We can take some measure of encouragement that we are headed in the right direction. This is especially the case when you consider that the housing stimulus closing deadline was over at the end of September 2010.

Looking ahead, Croton has 13 homes under contract or pending sale at a median asking price of $375,000. 54 homes remain active and for sale at a median asking price of $587,450. What this says to me is that the higher cost properties are not selling at the rate that less expensive homes are. While this does not mean that everyone should necessarily lower their price, we should note that the average days on market statistic for the homes currently for sale is 164 days, or 5 1/2 months. 5 months is a long time, especially when you consider that some of these homes are not on the market with their first listing contract.

All real estate is local, and while we are fortunate in Westchester to be relatively insulated from the catastrophic declines in the sunbelt and mid west, we are still a price sensitive market with low consumer confidence. Therefore, some homes will have to reduce their price in order to sell in the next 90 days in Croton. Failing that, inventory will bloat this coming spring and oversupply could supress prices again.

To find a home in Croton, register for a free Listingbook account. 

Previous posts on Croton. 

Here are a few useful tips for all agents, both new and old, in the proper care and feeding of the guy who owns and runs the brokerage where you ply your trade. 

I will be quick to add that many of the things I suggest here are things my team already does well, and it is rare when I have to practice tough love. But I certainly talk with my share of fellow brokers, owners and managers, and premature gray or the odd eye twitch are certainly a problem for the ones who care. 

So consider this a  guideline for keeping your broker, be it myself or anyone else, a little happier, a little saner, and a lot less stressed. 

• When you are emailed a customer or client inquiry, acknowledge getting it. A quick email back that says “got it” or “thanks” or even “got it, thanks” will do. 
• Check your email. There may be an opportunity waiting. 
• Check your voicemail. There may be an opportunity waiting. 
• When you go out of town, get someone to cover for you. 
• We’re probably friends on Facebook. HINT HINT 
• When you screw up, tell me. It is better for me to hear it from you than another broker, another agent, or the nice folks at the board (which has never happened to my guys). 
• Learn the paperwork and fill it in completely. 
• When you need help, ask for it. 
• If there is an accounting issue, do your best to resolve it quickly. Never let that sort of thing hang in the air for days or weeks. 
• If another agent, customer or client mistreats you, tell me immediately so we can address the issue. Otherwise, it defines matters the rest of the time you deal with them. 
• Kidding us about what we did to earn our split is as gauche as members of the public who tease you about yours. Moreover, you might not get how hard we work behind the scenes. 
• Nothing happens automatically. You have to make it happen. And NEVER shrug your shoulders and say “let the lawyers work it out.” Lawyers don’t work things out. Their solution is to have the brokerages throw money at a problem.  

Our team is growing, which is good, but the quality of people we are adding to our family of producers is very high, and that is great.

Anton Gromov has joined our team, and he’s not your average story. Anton is from Russia, and is therefore fluent in Russian. He’s a new licensee, and when he was researching firms to join, came to conclude that he should talk to me about our brokerage. We clicked. Anton is a family man with two young ones, and cut his teeth in Manhattan property managment for the past decade. It is not surprising that he’d gravitate toward the investment property niche, an area that is near and dear to my own heart as well.

Husband, father with youngters, investment properties…yeah, I’d say we could relate to each other.

Anton will cover Westchester County residential real estate and is a great resource for anyone seeking a Russian speaking real estate agent. We look forward to watching him grow a book of happy buyers, sellers and investors.

To reach Anton, call him directly on his cell at (212) 300-5115 or email him at anton@jphilip.com.

 “How to succeed in the real estate business without even trying…”
How to succeed in the real estate business without even trying. Yeah. You let me know if there is a way to succeed in the real estate business without even trying and I’ll be your best friend. There is no easy way to succeed, you have to work hard and long to get big, especially if you want happy, satisfied clients who will refer more business your way. 

The numbers are in for September real estate closings in the Ossining School district, and they show a significant improvement over the prior September. All information is for single family homes and is sourced by the Empire Access MLS, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Westchester Putnam Association of Realtors. 

In September 2011, 17 single family homes sold at a median sale price of $395,000. 

In the same period last year, 9 single family homes sold at a median sale price of $345,000. 

That is almost a 90% jump in transaction totals and a 14% rise in median sale price. It is also the best September transaction total enjoyed by the Ossining market since 2006. Median price is still down almost 20% off the peak of 2005, however, and we are a long way from a full recovery off the high water marks of the last decade. 

There are currently 19 homes under contract with a buyer at this point in time, at a median list price of $429,500. This is a good sign that the trend of improvement is contunuing into the Autumn market. 

136 homes remain on the market as active and available at a similar median list price of $425,000. Buyers still have ample choices from the available inventory, and the asking prices are not far from those that are making it to the closing table. 

As a broker, my interpretation of the data is that the sellers are adapting to the new reality of lower prices. If the median asking price were higher, perhaps $475,000, we would likely have far fewer homes under contract, and of course fewer closings. So long as home sellers continue to price their homes to reflect the sensiblities of the buying public, we are likely to see an organic, sustainable recovery going forward. 

Prior posts on Ossining.

Find a home in Ossining with the Listingbook Home Search!

Redfin has laid their Scouting Report program to rest after less than a week. CEO Glenn Kelman posted a poignant announcement today on why he pulled the plug on the program, and among his statements, which I agree with, was the following: 

But I still think the folks most violently opposed to Scouting Report didn’t hate it because it was wrong but because it was right. 

I was not among those who was opposed to scouting reports philosophically. I just wanted reliable data. Because I belong to multiple MLS systems, my own report was incomplete, and this presented a problem for me. Of the 40+ deals that I brokered in the past 12 months, Redfin’s report had only 2. I felt forced to post my own report just a day ago: Redfin Can’t Get my Full Scouting Report Right. So I’ll Give it to You Here.

We can argue all we want about whether or not a broker has the right to publish the production of another brokerage’s sales data. What we as licensees need to understand, and I have said this before, is that this was a long time coming, and it will not go away. With information technology progressing, consumers will soon know who did what where and when, and for how much. Why shouldn’t they? It would certainly weed out the obfuscators who mislead consumers with false claims about their production, which, in my view, is a collosal problem today. 

Unfortunately, the program was poorly executed. No broker can expect an IDX feed meant for a consumer home search to tell them, for example, when an agent with both sides of a transaction was a dual agent, or that 120 days on market in one MLS is worse than 90 days on market in another, when one counts days under contract and one doesn’t. Someone else is bound to pick up the ball. 

But at the end of the day, whoever does this has to get the data right, period. If you can’t, don’t do it. I learned a long time ago that the best thing a brokerage-any brokerage- can do is play its position. In 2007 I elected to never originate a loan again because the industry had changed too much for me to add value. And Redfin should stick to being a kickass home search site that gives consumers an option they didn’t have before. 

If Redfin is truly the *answer” to the real estate industry they claim is broken, then their model will gain traction and grow organically. My company never grew because I antagonized the competition. It grew because I worked hard and did the right thing. Redfin will grow or not depending on how well they broker real estate. 

Redfin is now offering scouting reports (“Complete performance metrics”) on 1 million real estate agents! This is causing quite a kerfuffle in the real estate world, but I have to say that I don’t mind my numbers being published by Redfin or anyone else. 

That is, so long as they are accurate. If you click on my scouting report, it is missing over 90% of my data, and a curious regular guy who searches for me will not find a top-10 producer in Westchester, but rather two lonely transactions in Queens and Nassau county. They’ll also see a banner ad for two Redfin agents, with curiously higher sales figures right next to their names, and a statement on the bottom of the page that says the following: 

So, a regular guy will conclude that my transactions for the MLS of Long Island (MLSLI) and my local Empire Access MLS (EAMLS, highlighted) are included, and that I have sold 2 houses in the last 12 months. That sure makes the Redfin agents in the banner ad look far better than I look. 

NOW…IF that regular guy were to log in to Redfin (I am not sure how many people register and log in every time), he’d see another disclaimer saying the following: 

This scouting report is missing some data.

IF you log in, you’ll see that. If you don’t, you’ll conclude from the first disclaimer that the statistics have my EAMLS sales. It does not. 

So, I’ll publish my EAMLS data right here, with my sales and rental statistics for the last 12 months. Here it is:

That paints a different picture, doesn’t it? I think that’s more than two sales. My broker code is JPHILI. My agent ID is 15689. Even this data is not complete, as several of the transactions only credit me with 50% of the dollar volume because I co-listed or co-sold the property with one of my company’s agents. For example, on the last transaction, 28 Waterview Drive, the actual sale price was $741,000. EAMLS credits me with half the dollar volume because Leslie Miller was my co-listing agent.  On 178 North Regent a few rows up, the sale was actually $375,000, and I co-sold the house with Stephanie Solano, also known as agent 26482.

This also does not include sales I made that were not on EAMLS that I sold in other MLS systems. If you were to account for the full dollar volume and deals outside the EAMLS, the dollar volume is probably closer to $15,000,000 and another half dozen transactions. I am no stranger to high dollar, 7 figure transactions, and I proudly broker rentals. I am all about putting a roof over your head regardless of your checking account balance. So are my 20+ agents. 

On at least 4 transactions, I am both the listing and selling/renting agent, but in none of those deals was I a dual agent, as Redfin’s metrics would claim. This is important to clarify. Redfin doesn’t have access to my confidential files, and even though they say they can report deals where I was supposedly a dual agent, they can’t unless they saw my files and signed agency disclosures. They have not. 

If Redfin wants to publish my data, I have no issue with that whatsoever. Like they like to say all the time, I am all for transparency. However, if they are going to publish the data, they ought to get it right, and it might even be wise to hold off on ill-advised tweets like CEO Glenn Kelman’s “Live by the sword, die by the sword” line from September 29 until they can publish credible data. That goes for dual agency as well. I have met Glenn and like him, but he’s wrong here. 

So there you have it. Redfin says they have my data, but they don’t. But I’ll give it to you anyway, because I have nothing to hide, and I stand by my numbers.