I worked the deli counter at a small market a block from Sing Sing Prison for much of my youth. The place was open from 5:30am until after midnight, specifically to serve the 3 shifts of prison guards from the Big House. They came in tired and burned after 8-12 hours or more with inmates, and we had them leave happy. I worked the night shift, and after a huge rush of dozens of sandwiches and hot dinners, I had to completely break down and clean the counter & steam table and close up shop before leaving at 1am. I seldom stayed more than 15 minutes past closing. My best friend’s father owned the place, and it was one of the best working experiences I ever had. 

Recently, dutiful husband that I am, I called my wife en route home to ask if she wanted me to pick anything up before returning home. “YES,” came the reply. “I’ve had a day. Luke has tons of homework, Catherine is being difficult, Gregory…wa wa wa …” You get the picture. Dinner, if I wanted it, would not come from the skilled hands of my bride. 

LICENSE TO SPEND MONEY! I could get anything I wanted, but the trick is waiting. The answer: a deli. Substantial, quick, relatively inexpensive. And off to the main drag went I, where there was a sidewalk fair to mark the summer season. Live music, tables with goods outside, and a festive atmosphere. I love his town. 

I walked in at 6:40pm, and gave my order: A nice Italian combo. 

No. 

The cold cuts were closed. 

I checked my watch and glanced back at the cold cuts. Twenty minutes until closing, and the cold cuts were open in the meat case. 

“I already cleaned the meat cutter.”

Stunned silence. 

Seriously? 

The cold cuts were closed TWENTY MINUTES before closing in a delicatessen? In New York? 

I flashed back to large, hulking prison guards from Sing Sing knocking on the glass door at Southside Market and asking me to open up after locking the door and sheepishly asking me to get them something before their 40 minute commute home after working a double shift with felons and murderers. I opened the doors and cleaned my counter a second time. It was my job, and I was making $3.50 and hour (it was 1985). Wedge, coffee, chips, napkin, soda, straw. 

I came back to my counter friend in 2011, and paused for a moment, and decided that I’d prefer not to argue. I couldn’t explain my thoughts to this guy and still eat before putting my kids to bed. So I said “OK,” and turned to find another place where they wanted to feed me. 

Seeing I was leaving, he said “wait” and offered me something which wouldn’t require the meat slicer. And I went home with a chicken cutlet. After which I went on Yelp and posted the following two-star review:

Great food. Well prepared. Huge selection. 

Unbelievable.

In this counter worker’s mind he may have saved a customer, but he didn’t. He saved a $6 sale because I was hungry and food was 3 feet away. I have worked in hospitality and food services plenty in my life and that may be why real estate does not seem as hurculean as it does to some. I understand that kitchens close at a certain hour and I know that if you don’t run a business like a business you won’t remain in business. This is not one of those times. If you really want to give good service in any industry, you may have to clean your metaphorical meat slicer twice. 

On Friday morning I checked my email and found an online inquiry from about 11pm the prior evening asking to see one of my listings in what amounted to a few short hours. There are two offers on that property, contracts are out, and the homeowner could not possibly confirm the showing on such short notice, so I asked one of my better buyer agents to reach out to the person and offer to show the property at another time as a backup. 

Today, I got an email from the person. It wasn’t terribly happy in tone, and told me to straighten out my office politics. The guy only wanted to speak with the listing agent, not a showing agent, because the listing agent would know more about the property. 

My response was as follows:

Hi,

Phil Faranda

The person wrote back and insisted that the “agent never saw the property.” Obviously, he wants me only or no go. So be it.

I have a few thoughts on this. 

• I have never seen most of the properties I show buyers. We seldom preview in this market. 
• If the person does have questions, the agent can get answers from the listing agent (who, in this case, is me). We do this all the time. 
• If the buyer insists on dealing directly with the listing agent, he will be unrepresented. He will have no advocate. I work for the seller. 
• If the buyer is not interested in the property, they’ll just move onto the next property and the next listing agent. We won’t acquire him as a client unless he loves our bubbly charm or good looks.
• The person seems cut from the cloth of thought that thinks that dealing with a listing agent directly is the best way to get a good deal. This is a huge fallacy. It is hard to get a true bargain without an advocate.  

May 2011 marks the anniversary of the first month after the stimulus ended. That’s right, it has been a solid year since the mad rush to get a house purchase under contract by April 30. And as many of us in the industry remember, the market stalled after that. Closings in May 2010 were stimulus closings (the deadline for closing was eventually extended to September), so the comparison to May 2011 is skewed some, but the year look back gives useful perspective. 

For the period of May 1, 2011 through May 31, 2011, Ossining had 5 single family homes close at a median sale price of $382,000. 

In the same period, May of 2010, 12 homes closed at a median price of $445,000. 

Clearly, volume and values are down, but the further we go out from the stimulus period of 2010 the more organic and less stimulus-influenced the results become. Interpreting the results is not straight forward- was 2011 that bad? Actually, no, nor was May 2010 that “good.” One would wonder aloud why, if the median price fell $63,000 why more homes didn’t sell in 2011, but think this way: in 2010, sellers had leverage on the buyers. If the buyer wanted to get the seller to sign the contract by the tax deadline, they had to accommodate the seller. And many did. 

Here’s the silver lining, and reason for optimism for Ossining’s market looking forward to June: a whopping 33 homes are currently under contract, and if only half of them close by the 30th, that is one very strong month. 

If you’d like to find a nice home in Ossining, get yourself a free Listingbook account and search Ossining listings like a pro. 

Prior posts on Ossining can be found here. 

All information is from the Empire Access MLS and reflects all reported data by participating companies. 

A client forwarded me the link on Inman News to this broker in Nevada who blames short sale agents and sellers for the mess. 

Prices keep falling because the short-sale agents are listing at 5 to 10 percent below comps in order to try to get an offer, and often are accepting offers at even less. The banks come back at a higher price, and then the buyer walks. The downward momentum has been coming from the short sales, not from the REO listings.

All real estate is local, and perhaps there are many under-priced short sales in Nevada, but isn’t Nevada also one of the highest foreclosure states in the USA? It most certainly is. As a matter of fact, it is the NUMBER ONE ranked state for foreclosures, with 1 out of 97 households with filings, a staggering number when you consider that 2nd-ranked Arizona is at 1 out of 205. 

I commented as follows:

I can only speak for my local market and not the author’s marketplace, but if the claim is true, then all those bank owned REO listings that have undercut the market have taken their queue from short sales.

I find that hard to believe.

Since lenders render a decision based on market activity, I wonder what sort of agent would ever responsibly list a short sale at such a fantasy price as 10-15 % below comparable sales.

What may be closer to the truth is that the author sees short sales selling 10-15% below unrealistic asking prices, which sit and rot while losing the war of attrition with buyers who won’t bite, while short sales are listed and sold at a number in line with actual sales.

“Market value” is what buyers are willing to pay, not what some sellers wish they could get.

Short sales reflect the market. They do not set it.   

I know of no empirical data that suggests that the problem started with short sales. Banks only approve short sales based on market sales. Not asking prices. A short sale could very well be listed 10-15% below the competition. But the competing listings are probably overpriced, because guess what? They aren’t selling! To price a home to sell, you have to look at the sales, not the asking prices. Some of these unsold homes are on their 4th brokerage and are still chasing the market (and not running very fast either). 

I do agree that banks often counter at higher prices, and that is because the historical comparables are from the last 6 months, and when the market is falling, historical look-backs are at a time when prices are higher. Short sales reflect falling prices. They don’t cause it. You can’t sell a house for “below” market value, because guess what? If it were underpriced, the buying public would bid it up. Where do we see that most often? Yup, you guessed it- bank owned foreclosures. Not short sales. 

Market value is only what people are willing to pay. NOT what sellers or their brokers wish they could get. 

With apologies for the political and foreboding overtones of a silent majority lurking, the term applied to the real estate market is quite accurate. Having read Richard Willard’s excellent post on the reaction of people to the “disappearance” of a listing when he and his client strategically allowed to liasting to “expire and air out,” I am moved to share my thoughts and expriences. To understand why people would call only after a listing disappears from the open market, one first has to understand the players involved. 

Lurking is an Internet term for people who read and observe online articles and various media such as blogs and social networks, but do not submit comments or participate. They just read. There is nothing sinister about it, as the term is rather ironic, because the vast majority of any blog post’s readers (like this one) are lurking, as in reading without commenting. 

Real Estate Lurking occurs too. I have clients who do it, and there are legions of others who aren’t even with an agent yet, but just watching. Essentially, they find a house or two that they like and they watch it, almost daily. They are watching for price dops, new photos, and, um, price drops. If a price goes low enough, they may act. They are, essenitally, in a war of attrition with home sellers, because they won’t go forward until prices reduce more. 

Upon occasion, I get a call from a consumer when a house goes under contract or sells, because it disappears from the active listings. This is when the lurker reveals themself. 

The chart below shows the number of unique hits a sample listing get in a week on Realtor.com. Over the course of 2 months, about 200 unique clicks are recorded on the property each week. That is 200 people that actually view the property, not just have it show up in the search results. It might not actually be 200 different people, it could be 65 people viewing it four times each week. But either way, over the same period we averaged about a showing per week. The rest watch and wait. And they represent the majority of people looking at the real estate market online these days. 

The moral of the story is that the lion’s share of would-be home buyers are patiently-and quietly- waiting and watching on the sidelines, waiting for prices to go down even further. They are even willing to risk losing a nice house if it mitgates the risk of overpaying for one. The degree to which they stop lurking and start buying is the metric by which we’ll measure a true recovery. 

The opportunity to hear me expel hot air in front of a crowded room is something that I KNOW some fellow agents are dying to attend. Just the sound of my whiny, nasal voice and suspect diction are a delight to trainwreck aficionados. So, if you are a masochist or considering penance for past sins, you’ll have two chances to hear me blather this month. Both events are geared toward fellow agents. 

On June 2nd, I will be on a panel moderated by Derek Overbay entitled “Getting Real About Online Marketing” at the Monmouth County Womens Council of REALTORS. Other panelists include Nicole Beauchamp and Walter Burns. The event starts with breakfast at 8am and speaking begins at 9am. The location is 123 Long Monmouth Rd, West Long Branch, NJ. 

On June 15, I will be on a Mastermind Panel entitled “Will You Still Be in Business in 2012?” with Heather Harrison, Mark Seiden, and Michael Shappot. It will begin at 8:30 am and be held at the Elmwood Country club at, 850 Dobbs Ferry Rd in White Plains, NY. 

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and I am, in all seriousness,  very honored to be speaking at these events with such distinguished colleagues. 

In case you wonder, I do practice my schpiel for these events. I sometimes use video to perfect my craft, but upon occasion the practice gets interrupted before I can start, such as the example below. 

It seems that the older I get, the more meaningful each Memorial Day becomes.

When I was 23, it was a day off, and the marker for wearing summer clothes.
When I was 33, it made me a little nostalgic for my father, who passed away when I was 25. 
Now that I’m 43, Memorial Day is a day of reflection and gratitude.

This might have to do with my own growing awareness of my mortality, but it is deeper than that. Life experience teaches you things, and among the lessons I have learned is that even veterans who make it home uninjured physically still have things to deal with. It could be lost time, trauma, or the death of a close friend. They can’t pretend what they went through never happened. 

My own father, who served in two wars, couldn’t wake up the way you and I do. He woke up violently, as if he were having a nightmare or expecting a bayonet in his face. I hated waking him up from a nap or on early mornings. I never understood as a youth what it meant. After he passed, we found out, quite by accident, that he won a Bronze Star at Inchon. He never spoke of it to us, and explained the events once to his brother. That was it. 

I’ve thought quite a bit about the 60 Minutes story Sunday of Sal Giunta, a 26 year old Medal of Honor recipient, who is still adjusting to life after combat. He is is the first live MOH recipient since Vietnam, is uncomfortable with his fame, doesn’t consider himself a hero, and would trade it all to have his two friends back who perished the night he won the medal. 

Honestly, I wish I could give the guy a hug. I wish I could give my dad a hug. I wish I could express my gratitude to the men and women in uniform who sacrificed so much so that I could live in this free society. We read so many stories of our returning vets who have lost houses, had issues with the VA or not been treated as they should. It is heartbreaking. We should be thanking them, not subjecting them to more hardship. 

There is one thing I am going to do in my little corner of the world to make a difference to a veteran in the next 12 months. I will list and sell one veteran’s house in the next year pro bono. They have to have a special need of some sort (it can be financial) because it is a waste to do it for a vet who is flush with cash or in a short sale, but so long as there is a DD-214 and the possibility of an equity advantage I’ll get it done for this veteran gratis as my way of giving back. I can do this for one veteran (or their survivors), and it can be in any of the following counties: Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Dutchess, Fairfield (CT), Bronx, Queens, or Orange. There is minimal small print to the offer, because I can’t guarantee that a buyer brokerage will be cool with forgoing their end, but there will be no listing commission. 

If you know of a veteran who needs to sell and a pro bono arrangement would make a difference between hardship or not, please let me know via phone or email. 

If you are a fellow broker-owner, you feel like following suit and such an arrangement would not be an undue burden to the sustainability to your business, I encourage you to join me. 

Seth Godin’s 61 word post from 10 days ago is, in my view, the greatest economy of words on a deep throught I have read in quite a long while. You should really read it, print it, and tape it to your monitor or mirror. No blanket statement covers 100% of reality, but I concur with his observation; all worthwhile things have their price. 

While we all expound and trade ideas on how to work our businesses smarter, more efficiently, and with ever greater return on effort and investment, there is one thing that gets oblique reference but is seldom discussed head-on: 

Hard work. 

The best planned military operations presuppose sacrifice on the part of the personnel. 

The best play in football presupposes almost superhuman effort, incredible athleticism, and execution in the face of strong opposition. 

Maps don’t take into account rough topography, inclement weather, and random accidents and breakdowns, but you know they are a reality. 

Doctors and lawyers labor through years of education, testing and training to earn their position in life. 

And, just like getting through college or reaching the apex of any endeavor, nobody succeeds in real estate without hard work and the mundane, day by day grind of consistent effort. You have to work hard in this business if you want to make it. Some short term success can occur with events that look like luck or ease of effort, but long term success doesn’t. Hard work and success are Siamese twins in this business. 

Many of us work hard, but in an anecdotal sense. We’ll take time away from our family on a Sunday night to show a listing, or stay late on the phone babysitting a client. Planned hard work is another matter. I’ll give an example: since August, 2005, no home in Westchester County has ever expired off the market that has not gotten something in the mail from me. That’s my niche. And either myself, Ann, or our admin have hand addressed our expired mailer virtually daily for 5 years and 9 months- it is our way of shoveling coal into the company engine. And as I approach my thousandth blogpost on this platform, I know that I have more than one shovel in the coal.

Are expired mailers mundane? Good God yes! Blogging isn’t always easy, or nor is biting my lip with clients or the hours I log. And most championships are won in practice. As I was reminded of my old high school wrestling coach’s words of 25 years ago, it isn’t the will to win, it is the will to prepare to win. 

Plan your work. Work that plan and work smart, by all means. But work hard, daily. Do the same thing for 365 days in a row religiously as if your children’s food and clothing depend on excellence in that one, daily event, difficult as it may be. You won’t recognize your business in a year. 

I recieved a call on a listing from someone who wanted to see one of my listings this weekend. I am booked, and with a holiday weekend, I didn’t have an available agent in the firm on short notice. Being the mensch that I am (and keenly aware that I work for the seller, not myself), I dutifully researched a local agent with another firm and asked her to take the referral. 

The same buyer called me today, asking about the house, and he did confirm that he got a call from the referred agent. He asked if she was with my firm. I explained she wasn’t, but that was better for him in terms of representation. Then he explained that he had an agent, but she wasn’t available today, and that’s why he called me. 

Shame on me for forgetting to ask if he was working with an agent. It amazes me how often the bread lands on the buttered side down with this issue-invariably, if I forget to ask if a consumer has an agent, they do in fact have representation already. 

Inasmuch as I appreciate that his logic was that as lister I have an interest in showing him the property, I explained that if he needed an alternate person to unlock the door of the place, his call should be to his agent’s office, not mine. I have no problem with helping, but I am not going to deal with another agent’s client directly unless that brokerage authorizes me to do so. Moreover, there has to be someone else on that agen’t team who can help. They have to do some of the heavy lifting. As a matter of fact, finding out that a buyer already has an agent when you meet them at a showing is not good, not good at all. 

Consumers need to know that if they have an agent, they should use their agent. They have to schedule through them, and they have to use them for the whole process. A buyer agent fee is not a royalty paid because the buyer signed a piece of paper with you, it is earned by doing one’s job from opening the door onward. 

Some firms have a reduced commission if they showed the buyer a property and the buyer agent shows up on the scene later. I am reticent to go there; but if these buyer agents felt it in their wallet, they might do a better job of educating their clients.