Just in case you’re up late and licking your chops about the market change toward equilibrium I just blogged about, I did a comparision of the first 6 weeks of 2010 compared to the first 6 weeks this year. 

In 2010, the first 6 weeks had 377 closings for single family homes at a median sales price of $605,000.

In 2011, the first 6 weeks this year we have had 321 closings at a median sales price of $560,000. 

Should we panic? 

No, we shouldn’t panic. And we shouldn’t blame the weather, because anything that closed in January went under contract long before the severe winter hit. If anything, the weather will affect things next month. We just aren’t out of the woods yet. Six weeks is a valid sample and should not be dismissed as an anomaly, but we can make up that 56 sale deficit in the next 46 weeks. 

I’m not worried about the median price; Westchester values are so huge that a slight shift in the high dollar sector can skew things there. To me, the metric of progress is the number of closings. In 2005, for example, the first 6 weeks had 545 closings. In 2006, it was 477, and in 2007 we closed 489 in the same period. 

What I am encouraged about is the number of buyers I am seeing. Showings are way up, and even if they are mostly lookers, more showings equals more buyers. 

I modestly predict that by the end of 2011 we’ll surpass 2010’s numbers. However, we won’t pass 2010 until after at least mid year, because 2010’s numbers are skewed by the stimulus, which had that year start out stronger and end weakly.The distribution of demand was uneven because transactions went way down after it ended April 30. Look for a more  even distribution this year. And keep your fingers crossed that the economy is in a sustainable recovery. 

Upon occasion, I meet an agent for the first time and they look nothing like their picture on their website or card. Let’s face it…real estate agents are notorious for having absurdly old photos of themselves for way too long. It’s hard to tell someone that they look like the grandmother of the person on their marketing pieces, so for those of you out there that we’ve been too polite to say it to bluntly, here are a few indications that you might want to get a new photo of yourself. 

                          

• If you call to get a reprint and are told the glass plates broke. 
• The watermark is actually from, you know, water. 
• You recall the news of the day it was taken mentioned the Suez Canal, Neil Armstrong, or Watergate.
• You are wearing a small lapel pin of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
• When you meet an agent of the opposite sex in person they are far less flirtatious than they were on the phone. 
• When you meet an agent for the first time they do a double take. 
• When you see your own photo, you start to hum something from the Carpenters. 
• You have a rotary phone up to your ear.
• Your jacket is sky blue.
• There is something made of macrame behind you
• You have big hair.
• You distinctly remember driving home from the photographer in an AMC Gremlin.
• It was taken on film and scanned later. 

Seriously…update that photo! You aren’t fooling anyone! 

                        

I used to joke that if you needed my advice or to borrow money from me that you were doomed. That may still be so; we’ll have to see. One place to look on the advice side is Keller Williams Realty Group in Scarsdale, NY where team leader and Active Rainer Jennifer Maher took a chance on having me give a presentation to her office on creating an online presence.

We had a very good multi media session in their training room on social media, blogging, and online tools that went about an hour in change with a very enoyable, engaged group soaking up my, um, wisdom. We had a lot of laughs and covered quite a bit of what I consider valuable material on integrating a strong online presence for one’s real estate practice, including Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, and even leveraging big sites such as Zillow and Trulia.

Questions and answers followed, and after that Ms Maher, super agent Luis Fernandez and OP Jamal Hadi had a delicious lunch, which was my yummy recompense for sharing my, um, wisdom.

I enjoyed myself. Also present was Michael Brown, whom I closed a deal with in Ossining recently. I have to say that is gives me a smile to walk into a group of colleagues and see someone I am doing a deal with or have had a closing with recently.  Michael was front and center and participated. 

You might ask why I would give a presentation to a comepting office on what I do to attract business. I’ll tell you: Lunch- I mean, it is important to me that we as colleagues raise the bar together. Anyone who has ever picked up a listing sheet and frowned when they saw the listing agent knows what I mean. In our business, we cooperate with our competition (“coopatition”).  Building bridges, helping those with whom I am likely to close a deal with down the road, and being generous of spirit pay dividends.

And I also like Italian food. Did I say that out loud? 

“Please remove shoes.”

These are reasonable instructions, especially in New York, where we have folks of many cultures who don’t wear street shoes in the house. My own home is a shoes off house by and large, as Ann is of Korean descent and the kids are heavily into the rug rat years. My kids’ rolling around the floor doesn’t mix with shoes that were just on a subway platform or in a mens room. Nasty. 

In most cases it isn’t a big deal to remove one’s shoes when touring a home. But if you are a home seller with this type of restriction, you should make an effort to meet buyers halfway on a few things. If you want the shoes off, consider the following:

• Provide shoe coverings. That way, some folks who cannot easily remove their shoes (or don’t have socks) can cover their shoes and not have to take them off. 
• Turn the heat up. Westchester County has a huge percentage of older homes that are not insulated like a new build, so many people sort of cope by wearing a sweater. But when people walk through your home you want them comfortable, and ice cubes at the end of one’s legs isn’t a warm fuzzy. 
• Consider area rugs. Same principle as heat. Hardwood and tile floors are cold. And uncomfortable for those not used to it or who don’t have those nice house slippers you have. 
• ABSOLUTELY get a cheap throw rug for your basement if it isn’t finished. This is a pet peeve of mine. I’m OK in the house and then I get numbness in my extremities in the basement. Not cool. And it doesn’t help sell. 
• Clean up! Legos and Lincoln Logs hurt. And if the bottom of my socks change color because your floor is filthy then what was the point of removing my shoes? Clutter and dirt are a nuisance and deter people from buying. 
• Conversely, if you mopped, dry the floor!!! Wet feet are bad enough but in this cold it is a killer! If all people remember about your house is that yours is the kitchen where their feet got wet, wave goodbye to any potential offer. 

About three weeks ago I wrote a rather forgettable blog post about what $335,000 will buy you in Peekskill, New York. I really like to post these sorts of pieces because they are informative and sneakily self promotional (and I kind of lack any shame about promoting myself), but I have to admit that they aren’t exactly cutting edge commentary. 

Not long after the post went live I got a call from a reporter working on a story on Westchester real estate, and I put her in touch with my clients to help with the story. The report was published in today’s New York Post, and my clients were front and center with two photos and a healthy-sized quote. 

I love that. This has to be the 6th or 7th time I’ve gotten a client into the media, and I have to say that it I something I relish. Not everyone wants to discuss their home purchase with a reporter, but my clients saw the big picture (they started the local dog park, after all) and the opportunity to sell their community. They capitalized. 

I was quoted at the end of the piece also, and a reference was also made to my blog, which I believe was how the reporter found me to begin with. It is a nice feeling to know my efforts can occasionally yield these kind of results. I remain very bullish on Peekskill, by the way. Lots of great housing in this wonderful community on the banks of the Hudson. 

Tonight, the Ossining school board will vote on putting a $69,000,000 bond for school expansions and renovations up for referendum. 

$69,000,000.00.

The issue the district is facing is how to house the growing population of students they serve, which is a good thing. The solution, to spend almost $70 million, strikes me as not such a good thing. A few hundred extra students should not cost $70 million. Not too long ago, the high school was renovated extensively when the baby boom addition was found to have structural problems. The building was expanded later as well. Park school has had a recent addition. Presumably, all of the schools have been responsibly maintained. The superintendent of schools has characterized the initiative as “counterintuitive.” I love the salesmanship. But the price tag worries me terribly.

The breakdown is a follows:

• $30.6 million for the high school
• $24.6 million for the middle school
• $500,000 for Roosevelt, which currently houses 5th grade
• $13 million for Claremont school, including 9 new classrooms

When was this: Every week you’d hear about a bank failing. Real estate crashed. Wall Street crashed. We had a doozy of a recession follow.

2007-2009? 

No. 1987-1989.

History repeats itself. 

The last time we had a three-headed economic monster of a recession, housing collapse, and financial crisis was the late 80s. The parallels with our current problems are uncanny. We have the Sub Prime Meltdown and Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac problems; back then it was the Savings and Loan crisis. Are there lesson we can learn from that period that apply to now? I believe there are, mainly because the pattern of the aftermath is also eerily similar. 

In Westchester and Rockland County, the price of homes decreased every year from 1987 until 1991. That was followed by another 5 years of flat performance, until, by about 1995, values had returned to roughly 1986 levels. We are experiencing the same pattern by and large, and I believe the slide to be about over. I think we are now entering a flat period, which means we are past the worst, and the bottom point is in the rear view mirror.

In 2010, both transaction totals and the median price of single family homes both rose from 2009 in Westchester County. The median rising should not be construed that your house rose in value. It simply reflected more activity in $ million homes, which was paltry in 2009. And as we know, just because more $1 million homes sold doesn’t mean a $500,000 home is now worth more. However, the buyer activity thus far since the holidays ended is better now than any year since 2007 according to my observations. Moreover, buyers’ skepticism about competing offers on homes is now at their own peril. Buyers should be aware that for the first time in a long time that they are not alone on competitively priced homes. 

What does this mean to people selling their home? Price it right and you’ll be in better shape now than any time in recent memory. It isn’t a gravy train; it is stability. 

For buyers, this means that if the home you like is an aggressively priced place in great shape, you may not be the only interested party. You probably won’t be able to bend the seller backwards like 18 months ago, but reasonable offers will get you a home. And you may lose if you don’t act on the really mint properties. 

Overall, consumers have had cabin fever for the past 3-4 years and there are too many people who want to have babies, backyards and barbecues for the malaise to last forever. We are nowhere near a hot market, but the tidal change is coming, and the door to progress has opened for the first time in a long, long time. 

One of the things that can make a closing a nightmare (or not occur) is finding out that the house is not in compliance with municipal code. It could be a deck, finished basement, extra bathroom, or any other improvement that the current owners have done or that they inherited from a previous owner. With the number of older homes we have in Westchester, this is not a rare issue. 

In past years, illegal improvements haven’t been a huge deal 100% of the time. Most of the time they had to be corrected or made legal, but upon occasion a few slip through and the home changes title without proper certificates of occupancy. This leaves the current owner with a problem if they want to sell, because they can’t get anything to “slip through” like when they originally bought. In the current paranoid lending environment, it is pretty much impossible to close a sale with outstanding permits or illegal improvements. 

When we list a home, we go to the town or city building department and pull the “property card,” which has the record of all improvements made to the home. If the deck is missing or the bathrooms don’t add up, we have work to do. I can’t market a home as a 3 bathroom home if only two baths are legal. But worse, with an illegal bathroom for example, the title company will not insure the buyer’s mortgage without full code compliance. 

Most of the time, the remedy is simple: the code inspector comes out, signs off on the improvement, and everything is fine. Other times, work must be done to undo poor, sub code workmanship. In severe cases, I have seen entire sheds, bathrooms and other improvements have to be ripped out to get the closing to happen. Worse yet, many of these problems have shown up at the 11th hour, delaying and sometimes cancelling a closing. And that is awful! 

If you are considering selling, make sure the home is up to code. Violations, open permits, and illegal improvements won’t go away if you ignore them. Buyers and title companies want homes with clear title and no compliance issues. Don’t worry about raising the taxes or value. The buyers have the best evidence to grieve taxes going, which is a recent closing. But take care of things early so that closing can be made a reality. 

We have just listed a very rare short sale in Chappaqua, NY. It is a 2 bedroom, 2 bath townhome in Old Farm Lake with a fireplace, formal dining room, hardwood floors, sliding doors to deck, and a renovated granite kitchen. It has a great master bedroom with a walk in closet and master bath. It is over 1700 square feet and in excellent condition. Complex amenities include a pool, clubhouse, and tennis courts.

The price is $399,900 and it will go fast! Call me for a tour.