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. 

The corporation, or village of Ossining, will be 200 years old in 2013, and our fair municipality was the first village to incorporate in the State of New York. The bicentennial will rightly observe a long, rich history as well as cultural significance from being the cradle of the “up the river” line from old gangster movies to Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and most recently, prominent mention in the hit TV series Mad Men. 

So have we outgrown the “village ” moniker? The dictionary defines a city as an inhabited place of greater size, population, or importance than a town or village. Indeed, according to the 2010 census, of Westchester County’s six cities, Ossining is larger than Rye and an eyelash smaller than Peekskill. Of the county’s 23 villages, only Port Chester is has a greater population. Moreover, if you go outside the county to many other cities in New York State, Ossining is larger and arguably more significant than a bunch of them. 

Would there be an advantage to acknowledging the facts on the ground and declaring ourselves a city officially? Would there be a revenue advantage in terms of federal or state aid for our infrastructure or school system? These questions might be worth exploring. If the answers are in the affirmative, it would make sense to approach the idea more earnestly. 

Perhaps the symbolism of the move would make a bigger impact on  our civic psyche then the mere utility. Our waterfront remains undeveloped outside of arguments over the on again, off again Harbor Square project. Downtown Ossining, blighted and derelict for decades, has nearly completed its turnaround and is reaching critical mass in terms of vitality. Westchester magazine loves us. Should we strike while the iron is hot? Would it be a smart move? Have we graduated? Is 200 years as a village long enough? 

I think the idea of an Active Rain meetup is a capital idea, and I would like to propose one for Westchester and surrounding RainFolk on Tuesday, September 6 at 7pm at the Brazen Fox in White Plains NY. If you can drive to White Plains from wherever you are, you are welcome. The full address is 175 Mamaroneck Avenue, White Plains, NY 10601. Parking is best behind the building in the municipal lot on the corner of Maple and Waller. Brazen Fox does have a rear entrance from the lot.

This would be a natural for people in Westchester, Rockland, Putnam and the Bronx. 1500 points for all attendees. Event will be sponsored by your wallet until we get a sponsor. Typically, we go dutch at the meetups I have attended. It should be fun to tilt a few with the folks we have rubbed cyber elbows with for so long.

Please RSVP in the comments or email me at jphilip@jphilip.com

It is hard to believe that it was almost a year ago that fellow blogger Elyse Berman referred a listing client to me here in New York. A terrific lady, the client had recently lost her husband and relocated to Florida. She had expired unsold with another broker, and I met her last September. There were circumstances around the file that made it no cookie cutter sale, but by December we had an interested buyer. Due to our lovely attorney state here in New York, fully executed contracts would not be completed until February. 

Like many other transactions, this was a short sale, so getting a buyer was just the beginning. The approval process took us every bit of the last 7 months- no picnic. It never helps to have a slow, unresponsive bank in a workout. But it does help to have a strong buyer agent and a motivated buyer on the other side and a skilled attorney on our side. Those assets we had in spades. Moreover, the seller was a person you like to fight for- decent, supportive, and cooperative. 

Finally, in late July the unconditional approval came through, and the closing was today. It was a long time coming.

That’s not the end of the story. There will be a part 2, as the client has listed her late mother’s home with me very recently as well. I can’t imagine dealing with the death of both a spouse and a parent in such a short period, and my heart goes out to this dear woman. 

When I met her to see the second house, I also met her nephew, who happens to be on the spectrum for autism. This hits very close to home for me- Gregory, our 6 year old, is also on the spectrum. My client didn’t know this, and we had a discussion about how autism had affected us personally.

She told me one thing that was remarkable: a Catholic school teacher by profession, she had dealt with students on the spectrum in her work. And once not too long ago, some students humiliated a student with autism (just hearing that makes my blood boil), making that poor kid very upset and distressed. My client, a meek woman in appearance and demeanor, then told me how she handled the bullies. 

And I still get chills. 

Her whole demeanor changed. She was Mama bear, and those boys were NEVER to harass that other student again, ever, and if she ever heard otherwise, GOD HELP THEM. Their job going forward was to watch out for him. Period. This was no grieving widow recounting the events- it was a mother, a teacher and an aunt looking out for the lost sheep. I wanted to hug her. 

It goes without saying that I won’t take the second listing for granted. And I will go to the mat for this lady, because I love people who fight for the right thing. I just eat that up. I really do. 

Anyone who says we just broker homes is nuts. We deal in humanity. We affect lives profoundly. That’s what we do. I am grateful to Elyse for the referral and support, and I look forward to hitting a home run for a great, great client. 

The Wall Street Journal has reported that ForSaleBYOwner.com founder Colby Sambrotto has sold his Manhattan condo with a broker after failing for 6 months as a For Sale by Owner. 

Here’s the best part: The broker got him $150,000 more than he was asking when he was selling on his own. So much for saving on commission- he netted more even after the commission! 

The story is that Sambrotto went for 6 months selling “By owner” on the Internet, online ads, and the rest of the FSBO gig at an asking price of $2 million for his Chelsea condominium. He then gave up (as 90% of FSBOs will) and listed with Jesse Buckler of Bond New York, who took the unusual strategy of advising Sambrotto to raise his price by $150,000. Clearly, this is a move that only works if you know your market. The home is now closed for $2.15 million after going under contract in May.  

Some have said that the brokers control the market in Manhattan so much that buyers seldom look online, and that is why FSBO failed and the broker succeeded.

Bull.

Manhattan buyers are as savvy as they get, and sites like StreetEasy, Trulia and ResidentialNYC get huge traffic for Manhattan. The truth is that a good broker knows how to sell real estate better, faster, for more money and with fewer headaches than a website developer. 

It all goes to the old story about the plumber who is called in to fix a furnace and after tapping a few times on a specific pipe and getting the thing humming again, mails the owner a bill for $1000. Aghast, the owner objects, saying that he only tapped a pipe. He then got an itemized bill, $1 for tapping the pipe, $999 for knowing what pipe to tap. We are paid for what we know- not just what we do. 

If you want a do it yourself project, build a go cart. For the largest transaction of your life, hire a good professional broker. 

I got a call from an agent today and the conversation turned to a deal one of my team members tried to make on her listing which never went together. It wasn’t that they didn’t like our price, she explained. It was the seller concession. While the net to seller was quite acceptable, their attorney “didn’t like” the proposed concession. 

My jaw dropped as she shared with me that the same thing happened twice before on that property. The seller and their attorney rebuffed what sounded like (certainly in our case) qualified, pre approved offers with good net to her seller over a seller concession. Instead of selling months ago, the house languishes on the market, no doubt having the price lowered as time passes. 

Such lost opportunties over a prefectly fine, if misunderstood, term of sale reminded me of the old joke where the guy throws out an old baseball because it was from 1927, had people’s names all over it, and one of them, Ruth, was a girl anyway. How tragic.

There is an unflattering ethic among some older practitioners of both law and real estate in Westchester County that money not delivered in a Tiffany case is not money. Seller concessions, to some attorneys, aren’t what we do in Westchester County. No matter that they are perfectly legitimate. No matter that they turn otherwise non prospects into able buyers. No matter that it is good for the seller client to achieve their objective, which is to sell for as much as possible in a timely way. No matter that 15 minutes away in Rockland County or the Bronx that they are done with no issue, skin rash, or damage to the esophagus.

No, here in Westchester the ground water is different. We rest on a different tectonic plate. The acidity of the soil does not allow buyers to finance part of their closing costs and get homes sold in this recession. It is more than an absurdity borne of ignorance of the current market, it is a tragedy that a client is so poorly represented. These people had their house sold three times. And they have nothing to show for it. 

Seller concessions, or givebacks as they are called in some places, are just fine and not uncommon in first time home buyers. Anyone who says otherwise has not done much in this market lately, and may in fact be incredibly out of touch with events of the last 3 years. I see them all over the place, and while we’d all love for buyers to plop 50% down or pay in cash, that isn’t possible. And of the deals I have seen not close, the concession was virtually never a cause.

Allowing buyers to essentially finance a tiny (3%) portion of the sale price to cover their closing costs is absolutely OK in almost every case I have ever seen. And in a slow market where able buyers are rare, it is unconscionable to rebuff an offer, essentially subordinating the well being of the client to a tired, snooty principle.  And it is intellectually dishonest to invoke the client’s best interest over rejecting an offer so structured when killing a deal is in fact contrary to the client’s best interests. I’ve seen this cost sellers big money over time as they reduced in price. 

Time on market is not the seller’s friend. 
Rejecting an offer over a seller concession legitimately arranged by their lender is foolish.
This market is not 2005 where buyers are waiting in line, and squandering an able buyer is nuts.

Seller’s concessions, my friends, are perfectly OK despite what this attorney thinks. I have closed hundreds of them. That is why I get the results I get, while this home sadly sits unsold after 3 viable offers. 

As Yogi Berra says, you can see an awful lot by watching. And as a broker who oversees 20+ agents, 50+ listings and who still works in the field with select buyers, I do see both sides of an issue that sellers often bring up in the discussion of listing and selling their house. 

Many of the people who list their home for sale with me already experienced failure with a prior broker. They often tell me in our preliminary interview that they were frustrated with the lack of “selling” they witnessed with the agents who showed their home when they came by. Why they were even home to see this in the first place is a post for another day-suffice to say the folks aren’t free to speak with the owner 2 feet away. The question itself speaks to the need consumers have for education and understanding as to how homes are chosen and bought. 

“The agents who show the home just walk through and hardly say anything about the house. Don’t they want to make a sale? Why aren’t they pushing for a sale?”

To understand the fallacious underpinnings of the question, you first have to understand the process a 2011 buyer goes through in the selection of a home. They don’t want to be “sold.” This isn’t a home-o-matic that comes with free steak knives if you act now. This is a six figure decision in an unreliable economy that will house their family. And owners or agents who follow them around the home tour peppering them with data about the storage under the stairs, an anecdote about the wall oven, and dozens of other well meaning tidbits are viewed as a distraction and nuisance. 

Buyer agents who are not talkative are not ignorant about the house. They aren’t talkative because they do know their buyer clients. Rather than seeing a home tour as a sales pitch, it is better to view it as a dressing room or a library. They are studying it. They are taking it in. They are soaking in it. They are seeing if it fits them. They are assessing how they look in it. And that’s hard to do with someone in your space the whole time.

If it feels like home, they’ll ask questions or gladly take a data sheet with a list of all those improvements and enhancements the owner wanted to ram down their throat in the first 15.8 seconds they walked in. If it doesn’t feel like home, no list will matter– it is off the list. Just imagine how little clothing a store would sell if the sales staff followed you into the dressing room and yapped about the pleats. How intrusive and unsettling would that be? 

A smart buyer agent therefore lets the buyer client go through the very personal process of understanding the house in as pressure free a manner as possible, selecting what to say carefully tailored to their clients needs as they see them apply through the home. They aren’t not trying to sell. Quite the contrary. They know that doing what a biased, emotional un-trained homeowner does will foil a sale. 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Homeowners are wise to not be present for showings. And mandating that a listing agent accompany showings as their proxy is a bad idea in most cases also. Let the buyer agent do their job. If you are an owner and you have a pitch you feel works for the house, write it up and print it for the buyer to take with them so they can reference it quietly, at their own pace, and without pressure on their own terms. Homes are bought, not sold. If it doesn’t feel like home in the first place, you’ll never talk them into buying. 

Let the buyer try it on and see how it fits in peace. Let them study it without noise. Stay out of the way. My results say this is the way to go.