Interesting day of showing homes to a buyer client. 

Of the 5 homes we saw, 3 were an instant “NO.” And they all had something in common: Poor upkeep and, shall we say, optimistic asking prices. 

• Home #1: Lots of updating was needed, but the deal killer was, if you can believe it, drop ceilings in two rooms on the first floor. Sadly, a 3rd room gave the reason- there was water damage at one point which was never completely repaired. It wouldn’t take a 2nd mortgage to fix this, just a long weekend and maybe -maybe- as much as $2,000. The buyer perceived that if the seller had such low standards that the rest of the house might have other defects. At the asking price, the interior should have been pristine. It wasn’t. Pass. 
• Home #2: As I opened the lockbox, the seller flew over from the barbecue next door and explained she wasn’t aware of the showing and to please excuse that the house wasn’t prepped. Understandable. What we didn’t understand was how the teenager playing video games in the living room in his gym shorts couldn’t get up and pick up his underwear off the floor of his bedroom. There were other issues, but this shed them in the worst light. Few want to do business with people with poor common sense. Pass. 
• Home #3 (the coup de grâce ): As we pull up to the home, we see a stone retaining wall bowing and deteriorating. We’ve had tons of rain, so they get a pass because this might be a new development. Then, the walk up to the front door is an obsacle course of crumbling slate. As we opened the screen door to access the lockbox, it scraped the ceiling of the porch. Inside, it appeared as if the sellers left the house in haste and did  nothing to prepare for a showing. It was cluttered and there was a distinct cooking odor. When a home looks as if the occupants were abducted as opposed to tidying up and leaving on their own terms, it is a distraction. We didn’t make it upstairs- it was probably $50,000 over priced. Pass. 

If you think buyers are just too picky, think again. If a seller wants to get what the Jeffersons down the road got for their house, the sellers have to make sure that their house is as maintained and updated as the Jefferson’s place was, or they’ll sit. Buyers have too many options to look past foibles. Jury rigged maintenance, sloppy housekeeping and lackadaisical upkeep will just have them moving on to the next home on the ever-growing list. 

Yesterday was the last day of school, and as the two oldest got on the bus, Ann said “Goodbye first and third grades, hello second and fourth!” This really struck me, because it seems like a few weeks ago that Luke and Catherine were little toddlers. One of the very sweet things Catherine does is just sit next to me when I come home exhausted. It is nice to just sit with her next to me, typically not saying much, as I decompress with my little sweetheart’s head on my shoulder. 

What I love about this picture is that we’re sitting together alright, just ignoring each other as we both play Angry Birds! The kids have gotten a little too addicted to the game, probably because of me, so it is now rationed. But beyond that it reminds me that I don’t sell land or wood or kitchens, I sell homes. Homes are places where we spend our time with family, where we make memories, and where we spend tons of forgotten moments with loved ones. 

This candid snapshot in time just spoke to me. I am sure I spent a million moments like this with my own Mom and Dad, but I don’t have many photos. We have hundreds with our pups. I love that part about technology.  

And that’s what my clients do also, in their homes, that I hopefully got them a good deal on, comfortable that the roof over their heads is secure, safe, and permanent. 

In December of 2008 I posted a blog article articulating my support of gay marriage, and why the real estate industry should support marriage equality.

Tonight, by a margin of 33-29 with four Republicans crossing over, the State Senate of New York agreed with me, paving the way for the bill to be signed into law by Governor Cuomo. This is a very, very good development for the State of New York and for all of us as human beings. For the first time in my memory, New York is actually ahead of the curve in something, and that something, Liberty, is no trivial thing. 

In 1998, while selling real estate in Rochester, NY I was approached to buy an ad in what was then known as the Rainbow pages, sort of like a directory of gay and gay friendly enterprises. It seemed like a smart business move. My broker at the time, good man that he still is, simply said that everyone’s money was green. And I remember like yesterday how my first client from that ad explained to me that before he made an offer on a home he loved that he wanted to show it to his daughter. 

His daughter? 

Yes, I learned, he came out when he was married and couldn’t continue to live a lie to please family and society. He had to be him. It was no short discussion, but in the dozens of transactions I have closed since with LGBT clients I have heard so many stories from good, wonderful people about how it simply is not easy to be gay, and sometimes it is hell. For a guy who hates bullies, this has always broken my heart. 

When I started my firm in 2005, one of the first niches I spought was to put the company on every gay-friendly business directory I could find. And thanks in part to dozens of fantastic clients from the gay and lesbian community, it has helped sustain and grow my company through one hell of a crappy market cycle. But beyond that I have always felt like I was making a difference, lighting my own candle in a way in a society that still snickers and kvetches about treating good people with dignity. 

For our part, it hasn’t always been easy either. A few years ago I moved my office from my home in no small part to some anonymous harassment for working with my chosen clientele. It wasn’t the only reason, but it was a consideration. Someday, I hope that a gay friendly business of any kind is as necessary as a buggy whip. But for now, with the stakes as high as they in in a matter as important as housing, I continue to do what I do. I am proud that my state, not known for being too swift lately, is ahead of the curve as my professional trade organization is with regard to equality. 

I hope the new law brings more people to our state, which has lost almost 900,000 people since the 2000 census. I hope more marriages mean more homes bought, more lawnmowers, more refrigerators, and more energy to our state. I sincerely believe that I am on the right side of history, and that tonight’s news is not a legislative anomaly. I am happy for all my friends and clients that a little more sun can shine on their face. And I am ready to go to work with more people, gay and straight, who value liberty for all, no matter who they choose to spend their lives with. 

Straight talk for home sellers who really want to sell. 

One of the misconceptions among consumers about real estate is that when they hire an agent to sell their home that the agent isn’t doing their job unless they are in “motion.” Most people can’t relate to the idea that we are paid for something that is somewhat intangible, and that the tools for our trade reside in a different realm than the conventional image of work, effort or labor. In a very real way, like a doctor, lawyer, teacher or architect, we get paid for what we know more than what we do. 

This isn’t to say that agents make money by lounging around, playing golf, and surfing on Facebook all day once they load the house onto the MLS. Far from it. We still have to execute, but getting your home sold will be hindered if we spend our time pacifying an uneducated taskmaster. Here are some dead ends that sellers often insist on their agents driving into that should be understood and avoided.

• Chasing feedback. Virtually worthless. What a buyer will tell you about your home that you don’t already know after years in the place is beyond me. You didn’t know that you lived on a busy street or backed up to high tension wires? On rare occasions a buyer agent will shed insight on something, but you know what? Those agents will tell the listing broker agent right away! Buyer agents don’t want to disclose their client’s thoughts any more than your agent does yours, and buyers’ reasons for buying are intensely personal- It didn’t feel like home. That shouldn’t be an epiphany. Having yor agent de-brief showing agents or attempting to overcome their objections is time management suicide. No one has ever bought a house because their buyer agent lost an argument with the listing agent. 
• Open House centered marketing. In some markets such as Manhattan, this is actually a good idea. Westchester County isn’t Manhattan. Sellers don’t understand the futility of open houses, but they at least see their agent spending money on ads and sitting in their living room “working on it.” They don’t understand how buyers buy in 2011. But you will give your neighbors lots of opportunities to see how you live. Open houses should be used like perfume- sparingly, or overuse will repel. 
• Print advertising. Again, this is where the seller sees the agent writing a check and doing something. Westchester home buyers are pretty connected and sophisticated. They aren’t looking through the home magazines or newspaper, they are online where they can see pictures and get instant answers. The theory on print is that someone who who wasn’t looking will stumble upon your house and fall in love. That’s now how people buy real estate. It’s how we meet our spouses. And my wife has way better gams than your living room. Trust me. 
• Honorable mention: Spam emailing other agents about your listing, calling other agents cold to “get the word out,” and other forms of un-targeted, time intensive, low-return throw-mud-on-the-wall efforts. 

In my travels, I have run across a number of home sellers who price their home based on sentiment. Market activity, comparable sales and competing listings don’t influence their price as much as “their number.”

“Their number” is not justified by empirical fact, market data, or realism, and they believe that their buyer will be that one special person who loves the place the way they do. The challenge is that their bias is borne of years-sometimes decades- of living in the home, and buyers come in cold. One such client a few years ago were the original owners, so they always lived in what was a newer kitchen to their sensibilities. The only problem was that 23 years later, it wasn’t a new kitchen anymore. 

Still, they hold out a belief that they’ll catch lightning in a bottle. Someone will come along who is that one special buyer and pay a premium for their home. 

The problem is, this person doesn’t exist most of the time, and when they do, their lender won’t agree to the price either. 

That one special buyer is not a business plan. It isn’t a marketing strategy. It is hope packaged in a dream. Depending on that one special buyer to buy rather than having a sensible marketing plan that takes the reality on the ground into consideration is like having your retirement plan be a winning lottery ticket. It depends on odds-defying luck, and that is no way to do business. 

For some people, it is hard to admit to bias or to divorce themselves from sentiment. But bias and sentiment are personal; they aren’t business. This is as price-sensitive a market as we have seen since the depression. Westchester County buyers are self interested and skeptical, and typically avoid listings that don’t appear to have a motivated seller. They are also savvy and well informed. Moreover, sellers today are competing with foreclosures and short sales, which suppresses prices and offers a huge inventory to choose from.

A smart marketing plan can’t rely on chance, nor can it hope for unlikely events. A smart marketing plan is based on facts and real events, and the sooner a biased seller understands this the sooner they can start packing. Smart marketing is objective. Catching lightning in a bottle is great for finding a spouse, but in real estate it is a slow death. 

I got a call from a producer at CBS this afternoon asking if I had a client willing to go on the national news broadcast this evening and speak about the proposed QRM rules for home loans. I did. Evidently, the producer found my Active Rain profile in a Google search. Not bad.  

The piece ran on the CBS Evening News (the national broadcast) with Scott Pelley, and I embedded it below. The cool thing about it is that Michael was the company’s first closing back in December of 2005! I sold him and Robb their first home and we recently closed on their second- both homes were shown on the report! They were also featured in a NY Post story on real estate right after they closed on their new house. 

Michael is a good man- he is active in the community and started the Peekskill Dog Park not long after moving up from Manhattan. While I disagree with the editorial slant of the report (I believe QRM is a bad idea and overkill), I think Michael did a great job in the brief time he was on the air.

I can’t promise to make all of my clients TV personalities, but I do aspire to treat them all like stars. I love my agents, and I love past clients! 

This is a “driveway.” I call it a “lawn.”

The “garage.” I call it a “shed under a deck” or “a garage for a lawnmower.”

This is a “3-year-old furnace.” I call it a “furnace the agent never saw and took the owners word that the new reconditioned gizmo= new furnace.”

This is a Christmas creche that was in someone’s dining room in mid June. Must be the new thing. 

No comment is needed.

And this is clearly the best maintained commode with an open floor plan I have ever seen. It truly sparkles. And privacy is overrated.  

And every one of these pictures is from the past 7 days. 

I just got off the phone with the listing agent of a home I showed a buyer client this past weekend.

Wow. I feel like I got mugged. 

After the initial salutations and memory jogging of who the agent was and the address of the property in question, she went into this rapid fire, question-answer-rebuttal exchange with me where I was rendered speechless, a rarity for me. Apparently, no objection as to why the house does not feel like home for my buyer stopped her from batting back answers like a 1975 encyclopedia salesman. 

My client needs a yard for her dog, and the house was on a hill with a huge deck out back and almost no lawn. “He’ll take the deck down. He’ll plant a lawn.”

The kitchen needs updating for my buyer’s taste. “He’s a contractor, he’ll put in a new kitchen at his cost.” 

OH-Kay…..

Overall, it is just too much work for her… “He’s willing to update whatever she wants. Is this her price range?”

Of course it’s her price range, she – “Because I have one for <lots more$$>”

Well, that’s a little beyond what she wanted to- “She can make an offer, everything is negotiable.” 

Well come on. How desperate is this person to make a sale? Aside from making me bizzarely uncomfortable, she also throws the more expensive seller she represents under a bus! 

Feedback should not be a debate or a de-briefing. I have said before that the whole concept is overrated. Occasionally the showing agent will have a helpful insight, but not too often. The best feedback is an offer. If there is no offer coming, no snappy rhetorical comeback from an agent will make a house feel like a home.