Labor Day Weekend is upon us – and the Westchester events calendar is once again up for your convenience. I keep adding on as time goes on. As the seasons are changing – so is the calendar. Right now we are in transition. There are plenty of Westchester County events to pick from. Why travel to Manhattan when all of this is in your back yard?
Friday, Sept 3
New Rochelle Farmers’ Market
Huguenot Street and Lawton Street
FRIDAYS 8:00 AM TO 3:00 PM
Stone Barns Farmer’s Market
Seasonal Farmer’s Market
2-4 PM for the general public.
630 Bedford Rd – Tarrytown, NY 10591
Westchester Broadway Theater
“Rent” has had rave reviews – for details including pricing call 914-592-2222
Playland’s famous fireworks display - Season Finale
Friday 9:15 p.m. – Parking $5
Playland Parkway
– Rye, NY 10580
(914) 813-7010
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Late last week, I logged onto the MLS and received quite a surprise. No less than 10 new listings at Trump Tower and an additional 3 new listings at the Ritz Carlton. Some were at very competitive prices.
So what gives?
Did 10 families living at Trump suddenly say “I’m outta here?” No. All save one of these listings trace back to Mr. Cappelli’s headquarters in Valhalla. The last units that have not been sold are on the market now. Most of these units were on the market at various times over the past four years. This time, the asking price has been reduced significantly. They range from $565k – $1.449 million.
The Downtown White Plains Condo Market:
Added to the 10 listings already on the market at Trump (most of them resales) this doubles the number of listings currently on the market. Since only five units have sold so far this year – with two currently under contract, these new listings create an inventory overhang of about 26 months at Trump. Taking the downtown collectively, including Trump Tower the Lofts and the listings at the Ritz Carlton – the high end downtown condo market in general has about 19 months of inventory overhang.
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The Westchester events calendar is once again up for your convenience. I keep adding on as time goes on. Although this is a relatively quiet weekend – the weekend before Labor day, there are plenty of Westchester County events to pick from. Why travel to Manhattan when all of this is in your back yard?
Friday, August 27
New Rochelle Farmers’ Market
Huguenot Street and Lawton Street
FRIDAYS 8:00 AM TO 3:00 PM
Stone Barns Farmer’s Market
Seasonal Farmer’s Market
2-4 PM for the general public.
630 Bedford Rd – Tarrytown, NY 10591
Sleepy Hollow Jazz Concerts
Vanderlei Pereira & Blindfold Test – Free
Rick Stone Quartet- 6:30-8 PM
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Just the other day I was pulling comps for a seller in a specific neighborhood. Normally, this shouldn’t be like pulling teeth, but a trend that I have been noticing has been accelerating. Half of the listings in this neighborhood failed to mention the name neighborhood in either agent remarks or pubic description. This forced me to search by zip code. Since the neighborhood in question straddled two zip codes – I ended up digging through mountains of actives and solds – not to mention contracts/pendings as well as expireds.
Since the neighborhood I was researching straddled two zip codes – I had to go through a mountain of actives, contracts, pendings and solds, expireds and cancelled listings to fish out the relevant information.
So I have to ask the moronic question – Whatever happened to including the name of the neighborhood on the listing?
I don’t mean to sound snarky – but this is NOT rocket science. HEY! LISTING AGENTS!!!! Include the $#%!ing neighborhood in the listing!! This is quite literally the LEAST you can do. How hard can that possibly be?
Not local? It’s your job to find out for God’s sake. If you don’t have enough knowledge of the area you are listing in to find this information – then you have no business listing there. Do yourself and the seller a favor and decline the listing.
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White Plains New York homes have been following patterns seen throughout county with Westchester county homes for sale continuing to drop in value. Sales volume was up during the period that the tax credit was in place. But like much of the county, sales volume has has dropped across the board to 2009 levels since after the expiration of that stimulus.
For Q2 2010 prices for White Plains NY homes for sale were down from the previous year. Single family homes – which took the brunt of the housing decline last year – had less of a correction this year. The good news here is that as far as single family homes in White Plains goes – we may be still trending down, but the steep declines apparent between 2008-2009 are not present. The story is different and more discouraging for condos and coops.
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Many of you reading this are buyers or sellers and some of you are agents. For those who are searching for or selling a single family home, this post may have a tad of mystery surrounding it. However – all you have to do is picture yourself at a condominum complex with an agent. The agent is facing a series of 10 seemingly identical lockboxes and needs to fish out three sets of keys in order to show you – the buyer – three units in the same building. The agent finds the keys – and then takes you on your tour. Now the rubber hits the road..the agent must return the keys to the proper lock box – does anyone else see the potential for confusion here? A few weeks ago I had a showing for a unit in a complex where the tangle of lockboxes was quite a challenge. Sure enough – an agent contacted me stating that an agent had called her stating that the keys had been accidently “switched” and I could hunt through all the lockboxes to find the right keys, but that she didn’t have “time” to deal with the situation. This is something that shouldn’t be allowed to happen and happily, I have vound I relatively simple solution…
Recently, I got a listing in a cooperative where there were nine lockboxes. This time I decided to think outside the box (no pun intended.) In the past, I’ve put little tags on the keys, ribbons on the box and on the keys. But all of these things can – and DO – fall off. So – I decided to spend a couple of extra $$ for “designer keys.” Now, if an agent puts the keys to my listing in the wrong box, I can easily find them and “fix” the problem. No tags or ribbons to fall off – and none of the other keys are going to look like mine. It’s a colorful and even “fun” solution to a dreary problem.
© 2010 Ruthmarie G. Hicks – http://thewestchesterview.com – All rights reserved.
The Westchester events calendar is once again up for your convenience. I’ve added a few new sources. As this list continues to grow – I hope to make this list an even more valuable resource. Once again, there are plenty of Westchester County events to pick from. Sure, the city is just a train ride away – but there is plenty to do in your own back yard.
Friday, August 20
New Rochelle Farmers’ Market
Huguenot Street and Lawton Street
FRIDAYS 8:00 AM TO 3:00 PM
Stone Barns Farmer’s Market
Seasonal Farmer’s Market
2-4 PM for the general public.
630 Bedford Rd – Tarrytown, NY 10591
Tarrytown’s Third Friday
Features Specials and Raffles every 3rd Firday of every month
Main Street & Broadway – Tarrytown NY
This Friday is Tarrytown’s first big screen outdoor movie – “Back to the Future.”
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This was initially meant for real estate professionals that run their own sites. But I am putting it out here on a public forum in case it is of interest to anyone casually stopping by. It certainly is a topic of great importance.
What if your web site suddenly slowed to a crawl – permanently? How loyal would your readers be?
Remember all the proxy errors we went through on Active Rain last year? Remember how it impacted your business and how your readership suffered? What if this sort of “slow lane” became permanent?
While the bloggers and tweets of the world have been sleepwalking, taking for granted that what they have will always be there, the big telecom companies have been poised to make a big power play that could spell the end of the ability for small businesses to compete with the big boys on line.
What have we been taking for granted you ask?
It can be summed up in two words: net neutrality. That’s what we have right now and we are taking for granted that it will always be there. the telecom companies have been plotting and planning. They want the END to net neutrality and the first nails are already in the coffin. They want to be able to charge for “preferential service” So those who have deep pockets get the fast lane – and since the bandwidth is finite – everyone else Sssssllllllllloooooooowwwwws down.
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The Scarsdale housing market is mirroring other markets with lower Westchester NY. Real Estate Scarsdale NY represents two separate markets. One that is improving and the other that is either declining or hold steady:
A Tale of Two Markets
Single family Homes for sale Scarsdale NY – are doing well. Volume is up, inventory is down and prices are higher over Q2 2009. Edgemont (which is part of the town of Greenburgh with a Scarsdale P.O. – confirms that pattern. Cooperatives reflect another market altogether. Although sales volume is up – prices are flat. Even units on the famous Garth Road are not moving rapidly.
Single Family Homes – Scarsdale NY & Edgemont NY
Prices of Scarsdale Homes for sale were up 16% from Q2 of the previous year. The median sales price was $1,295,000 with a range between $540,000 and $3,975,000. Sales volume was up 22% over the previous year with 44 homes sold in Q2. These numbers encompass all of the elementary school zones including Edgewood Scarsdale, Fox MeadowScarsdale, Quaker Ridge Scarsdale Heathcoate Scarsdale and Greenacres Scarsdale. Inventories are low with about 4.5 months of inventory on the market when you look at current contracts and pendings.
The Homes in Edgemont showed dramatic improvement in both pricing and sales volume. Sales prices are up 57% to $1,120,000. Sales volume is up over 300% with 19 homes sold in Q2 2010. Inventories are still on the high sit with about 7.5 months of overhang on the market.
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I was in Tarrytown NY last night enjoying a late latte at Coffee Labs and wandering around enjoying one of the nicest evenings this summer has had to offer up. Suddenly – right in front of me is this tree. It’s an ordinary tree like all the others on Main Street. It’s around 11 PM and I was tired. But there was something different about the tree…It had a bunch of paper notes hung on it like ornaments on a Christmas tree. I looked at the pieces of paper and they all had writing scribbled on them. Each note began with “I wish.” Then on the trunk of the tree was a little box which held the paper pieces and a pen – and on the box it said “Wish Tree.”
I looked at the notes and to my delight very few of them were trivial. I saw nothing like “I wish I had a nicer car” or “I wish I could afford a bigger house.” Instead many of them were wishes made on behalf of others. Truth be told, we seem to have precious little of this these days. In a world that leans more and more towards the “I’ve got mine” or “Let them eat cake” mindset – it was so refreshing to see this tree with all these wishes – many of the totally unselfish.
Although I do business in many villges in Westchster NY – Tarrytown is on of my favorite locations. Truth be told, this is one of the reasons I like Tarrytown so much. It’s vibrant – at 11 PM the streets were packed – no sleepy village feel here. They don’t roll up the streets at 6 PM. People were still dining – coming out of the Tarrytown Music Hall and walking the downtown. But it is also a community with a heart and soul of its own.
I apologize for the quality of the photos – but I didn’t have my large camera with me – these were taking from my “older” iPhone – not the newer fancy model with better pixel density.
One of the tags on the collage below in the collage states simply “I wish all these wishes could come true!” I do too!
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