I don’t have any issues with For Sale By Owners. It is a free market. I equally have no issue with FSBOs who pay a fee to enter their home on the MLS and then try and act as their own listing agent. What I do have a problem with is people who distrust agents because they paint us with a broad brush in the lack of integrity department but then turn around and misrepresent themselves. That wastes my time. 

Today I walked through a home which was billed as a “totally renovated home.” It was not. It was an incomplete, sloppy, half finished do it yourself job of dubious quality. What I observed was a patchwork of poor workmanship, probably illegal (which is to say, no permits) “improvements” and a desk in the basement covered with indications that the owners were unskilled weekend warriors. 

We saw:  

• Exposed wiring everywhere
• Missing molding and sloppy finishing where it wasn’t missing
• An incomplete kitchen with a CURTAIN for a sink cabinet door
• An incomplete master bath
• A finished basement with a 6-foot ceiling -which couldn’t be legal in their wildest dreams
• An HVAC unit in a basement closet with hanging wires and ductwork that was separated and leaning

Every so often, I have a nice comment or email from someone who read my blog. Sometimes they stick around and visit often, other times we are like two ships that passed in the rain. Sometimes, it is the other way around. When I first started on Active Rain, I would often “bookmark” a post I liked or found interesting, but sometimes I didn’t read that author again for a long while. If they appeared on the feature dashboard I’d get reminded, but early on the experience was random- not by choice, but because I didn’t have all the tools.

The “Blog” tab at the top right of the header is there so you can start your day with your faves whenever they update. Just block on the tab circled in the picture, and you’ll be taken to your “blog home.”

On the column to the right is your subscriptions. To Subscribe to a blog, simply check that blogger’s top right sidebar where you’ll see a “subscribe” button right underneath their contact information (hint: if the button says “unsubscribe,” you already subscribed to them!). Anytime they update their blog, their smiling face goes to the top of your subscription dashboard.

On the left of the blog home page is the stream of all blog posts, which can be filtered. You can filter the blog stream based on a number of criteria shown here. You can read posts by type, such as those geared toward consumers only, or professional focus only, or even read the blog most recently commented on. It is very customizable.

The best part of the whole design is that you have the perfect marriage of your regular subscriptions on the right and complete and utter random serendipity on the left. Just in writing this post I got sidetracked on three different postings which caught my eye.

As you might notice from my subscriptions, I love to read intellectual hotties, people I feel that, if brain power were a body, they’d resemble Jayne Mansfield. Or The Rock (Ok, I’m better with the chick metaphor). You might like people who gear their content more toward consumers, your local market area, humor, or war stories. There are thousands of flavors. Regardless of what your bag is, understanding the value of that little blog link will never let you lose a good one again and enrich your experience here. 

Perhaps because we speak with so many people in the course of a day, the odds of something memorable happening are far higher for brokers and agents than someone stuck in a cubicle all week. For example, a few months ago in Manhattan I walked out of a deli and saw a guy being arrested. 

On my car.

Arrested I see every so often. Frisked and cuffed on my car? That was a first. 

Today was another (happier) first. I was walking through a new listing that was tenant occupied. They actually weren’t staying in the house. It was filled to the gills with all kinds of filming equipment- cameras, screens, chairs, and props. One of the tenants was present, and he filled me in on the unique goings on. 

He asked if I was aware of what he was doing, and exoplained he was a filmmaker. Well, it turns out that the cottage is sort of command central for on location filming for an upcoming suspense thriller. I joked that I’d make a good man on park bench. He laughed, and said if I really was game, he needed an extra for a scene. I was invited back to the location where they were filming, and met the director and producer. It turns out that the director is on the faculty of the Lee Strasburg Institute and NYU- not too shabby. I met the other extras, they set up a little lounge for us with food and refreshments, and we wrapped after about 3 hours- good thing I had a light Friday planned. 

Maybe this is my big break! 

Hollywood doesn’t have enough nasal voiced leading men with glasses who are shorter than the leading lady. 

Three real estate brokers were chatting after an association meeting about how slow business was. The subject of walk in business came up, and the first two expressed how long it had been since they last had a deal result from someone “walking in” off the street into their office. 

The third broker however, said he just had a “walk in” and proceeded to tell how fast the transaction went. “The guy just walked in off the street, told me exactly what he wanted, and I was able to find it for him almost immediately, right at my desk. Fastest transaction of the year.” 

Curious as to how this could be, the other brokers were puzzled. “What did he want?”

“The rent.”

Inman had news yesterday of REALTOR association mergers, and posed the question of the value of such moves. Given my involvement in a large territory spanning half a dozen MLS systems and many more boards, I feel that I should weigh in on the matter. 

I am a big fan of large MLS systems, but not terribly jazzed about big boards. Ths state of Connecticut aparently agrees with me- aside from Fairfield County, they have a statewide MLS but have retained local boards, often on a town level. More on that later. Big MLSes are good, but so are smaller boards.

If you didn’t click on the link, I favor large MLS systems because it is silly to have to pay separate fees to cross county lines or, in some cases, town lines. I could drive 35 miles and pass through 4 MLS areas. That is madness. It is data, and even if you don’t have my business model why should you have to have 2 different sets of overhead because you straddle a boundary? 

Large Realtor Associations, however, have different problems. Associations exist, in large degree, to oversee the membership and enforce the Code of Ethics. Small boards have the resources to oversee their town or county. Big boards simply do not have the resources to enforce member conduct. LIBOR, or the Long Island Board of Realtors, has the government intervening on both ends of their territory: In Queens, the state has issued a cease and desist order in a large area because of agent misconduct. On the East End, the Department of Justice is examining anti-trust practices, where brokers flaunt their antipathy about the MLS. My own experience confirms the problems of oversight in Queens. I have blogged about my frustration with agent conduct in the boroughs in the past. In some parts, it is the wild west, and the board is not effective in reigning in misconduct. Where the board fails, the government intervenes. 

Connecticut, on the other hand, is a different universe from Long Island and the Boroughs. By and large, Connecticut agents and firms are as professional as I have found, and there is almost never an issue with cooperation, fair play, professional standards, or collegiality. It is no coincidence that they have small boards. My own board recently consolidated with another county’s association, but have retained a regional office in each area. I am on the board for the MLS, which is growing, but I hope the association does not absorb any other boards. 

The arguments for large boards include buying power and bulk discounts for membership, and I suppose that is nice. However, we have to choose our priorities, and in my view professional standards and oversight have to supersede getting a good deal on a rental car. 

By now the whole country is talking about the over 25% drop in sales this past July in the wake of the stimulus. Here in the state of New York the sales were down 34.9% overall. Locally, Rockland County was down about 27% and Putnam was down 30.6%. But Westchester County was up, a surprisingly strong 8.7%, with a median sales price of $799,000 (source: Journal News). It just goes to show that all real estate is local. 

But why would Westchester buck the trend? How can a county next to other counties with declining numbers have such healthy results? In my opinion, Westchester benefited at the expense of the neighboring counties. In the past, people were often priced out of Westchester and saw a move across the river or north to Putnam or Dutchess as their most affordable option- a Westchester lifestyle if only with a longer commute. With home prices down 20-25% since the peak of 2005, those home buyers are no longer forced to leave the county; why move 45 minutes north or across the bridge to Rockland if Westchester home prices are within reach?

Why indeed. Proximity to friends, family, work, and yes, that big Apple just below is economically feasible again. So, many stuck around and bought locally instead of moving out of county the way they might have over the past 5-10 years, and the money stayed in Westchester.  It remains to be seen if that trend continues, but I don’t see conditions changing from where I sit. The outlying counties will recover organically, but only when they adjust their prices even more than they already have. Call it shrinking pains.