Archive for the 'For Home Buyers' Category
There is a lot of hype circulating in the real estate industry about local experts. A recent post about the topic was posted by an agent on Long Island…Paula Hathaway “Chaff….Schmaff! A bad attitude or just a better way of doing business.” With all due respect to the author – I felt that the emphasis on being a “local expert” implied that agents who were not already established in the area were merely chaff – while the established area agents were actually the “wheat.” We all start out as chaff – and chaff has no opportunity to become wheat if they aren’t given a chance. That appears to be a bit too convenient for the very local agents in any area. Because it implies that they are the only game in town…
Real Estate is Surprisingly Competitive:
There is a saying within our industry that you can’t swing a cat without hitting a real estate agent. It is also paired with “you can’t throw a rock without hitting a real estate agent”….Well you get the idea. There are a lot of agents out there. Many good, many not so good and separating the wheat from the chaff is a tough task for the average consumer. Many think we are all created equal and anyone who can stick a sign in the ground or unlock a door will do.
That is as far from the truth as it gets – but it gets to the heart of this blog – and that is that the real estate industry manufactures agents on a conveyor belt with little regard to quality. Its all about quantity. As a result – the confused public that is supposed to do the wheat vs. chaff determination is totally confused and disappointed in the quality of agent they encounter. Agents, for their part, try to separate themselves from the crowd by indicating that they are “special.”
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Westchester Homes have always been expensive. They are expensive to buy and expensive to maintain. Taxes are high here and any home that is less than an hour to midtown Manhattan by Metro-North is going to be expensive. As I say to buyers, who think the housing recession means that they can buy a palace for pennies – there is no free lunch. But for those would-be sellers who have been hunkering down – hoping that the housing recession would pass and the market would roar back to 2006 levels – it may be time to consider downsizing.
In the past couple of weeks, I’ve had a couple of prospective sellers come to me with the question – should I consider downsizing?
For Many the Westchester housing market has made quite a recovery:
If you are lucky enough to live in one the more affluent areas of our county – you may be very much in luck. Prices have been recouping much of their lost ground. We aren’t back to 2006 levels – but these markets are sturdy and very resistant to recession.
Meanwhile, while prices have recovered the cost of living in these communities is quite high. So for those for whom living on a fixed income or those whose job has been downsized or are unemployed, now might be a good time to consider a move. The condo and cooperative markets have seen a major adjustment over the past year. So, on the buying side you can get a great deal and on the selling side, you will still do well.
Other communities are flat or still trending down:
For those not fortunate enough to live in a community where prices are recouping lost ground, the issue is more complex. For people who want to downsize from a house to something more modest – you will find that your home is worth a whole lot less than you would like. You may need to make upgrades to your property in order for it to sell. So all of this has to be calculated against the cost of living and the lifestyle changes in order to come up with a solution that makes sense for you. On the bright side, the condo and coop market has gone down significantly over the past year, so if you are downsizing from a house to a condo you will do better this year than in previous years.
There is no right or wrong answer:
This is not a one-size-fits-all situation. The answers will be as different as each client’s lifestyle and tolerance for risk. I will say that if you are waking up in a cold sweat every night wondering how you will pay your bills, that the time has probably come to move on – no matter how painful the decision may be. If you have lost a job and it looks as though you will be unemployed for some time to come, then again, a move is likely to be in order. If you see your overhead soaring with no end in sight – it might be time to downsize before it gets beyond you. If things are going well, but you are worried about a falling knife – unless you are in one of those municipalities that is going up in value, I don’t know that downsizing makes sense. Prices appear to be bouncing a long the bottom in many communities – and prices are more likely to rise than fall over the next five years. But for those who have a high overhead – I’m not expecting the market to boom over that period – so selling and downsizing may well be the better decision.
Bottom Line – You need to crunch the numbers:
Look at where you might go after you sell and take a careful look at what the cost of living will be in your new home. Think mortgage, taxes, maintenance fees (if you are buying a condo) energy costs, parking fees, transportation to work. Put all the numbers together and compare it to what you’ve got now. Open your mind to several locations and homes and crunch the numbers for each of them. Different living situations can have dramatically different costs. Some homes may cost more but have a much lower overhead. Your real estate agent can help you think through the different scenarios.
If you want to talk about your options feel free to contact me by phone (914-374-5529) or email – ([email protected]) or you can simply fill out the form below – whichever method you prefer. Don’t worry – I do not sell, spam, or otherwise abuse your information!
© 2011 Ruthmarie G. Hicks – http://thewestchesterview.com – All rights reserved.
Waiting to buy a home could be an expensive mistake….
That’s what! Plain and simple. Ever since the knife dropped in on real estate – buyers have been alternately flooding into the market and holding back. Don’t get me wrong…these are difficult times. I understand the hesitancy – however, for those who have a stable job and a stable income with good credit, I have to think that a little green monster called greed is entering the picture. We all see the little green monster in ourselves from time to time – but we need to watch that monster and to tame it. For as Jim Crammer of “Mad Money” fame often says – “Bulls make money, bears make money, but hogs get slaughtered.”
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Real estate sales is a very funny thing. Often – when judging the quality of the agent or broker – only one metric is used: Sales volume. And by sales volume most people are specifically referring to how how much money was exchanged in gross sales. For example – If an agent that specializes in homes worth over $1 million has $7 million in gross sales – they may have done as few as 7 transactions while the poor schumck that specializes in cooperatives has done 25 transactions and only $6 million in gross sales. Does that really mean that the agent with the $7 million in sales is somehow “better”?
Is Sales Volume the best way to measure how “good” an agent is?
Granted this is one way to measure success – by how much you made as a agent and it is kind of perverse reflection on our mindset as a society. But is this what really matters to the consumer? SHOULD this be the way the consumer measures an agent? How about overall customer service? What about the listing agent that supervises two renovations holds 10 open houses, markets the home to the hilt, thinks outside the box in getting home “out there” to the public. Then negotiates the best possible terms for their client and closes the transaction with as little drama and turmoil as is possible in this challenging market. Isn’t that worth some brownie points? Why do we just look at raw dollars like they are the crown jewel of legitimacy in real estate?
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Home buyers are often surprised to find that their real estate agent is less than enthusiastic when they insist on an endless series of showings before they will entertain any decisions. They think that its our job to show them as many homes as they could ever want to see – even if that takes 6 months of Saturdays. This has always been a major issue for agents, but the problem has reached epidemic proportions in a market where buyers have no urgency and think nothing of taking their agent on a 700 mile wild goose chase even when they are not committed to a purchase.
However, there are signs of push-back. Buyers who are “working the system” by insisting on seeing literally every home under the sun are finding that they are wearing out their welcome as their agents are no longer enabling their addiction to to an endless search.
Of course some agents will not fire a client directly…If your agent has made themselves scarce or is inexplicably unavailable because they they are suddenly having root canal every day for the next three weeks – you may have been dumped. Here are some reasons why you may have been given your walking papers.
1. You told your agent that you were “in no hurry to buy”.
Some buyers think this “motivates” their agent to work harder. Freely translated this says “I’m going to be very demanding, I’m going to take tons of your time, I’m totally unmotivated, but someday – 3-5 years from now I might buy…and if you jump through all my hoops – you might be lucky enough to close with me.” Please explain to me what is “motivating” about that?
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This is probably an issue that resonates throughout the real estate community throughout the United States. In this current market many buyers just can’t seem to accept a “good deal” when they have one. They always seem to want to push the envelope just a bit more…and if they get that…the push it again, and again, and again…until finally they finally hit a brick wall and walk away – or until the fed up seller finally pulls the plug.
Lately I have given several buyer clients offers so sweet they are literally dripping and sticky sweet with goo – only to have them turn up their noses and walk away OR come back with extra demands that have left absurd behind and are now bordering on surreal. Sure, if you don’t ask, you don’t get, but there comes a point where, like Alice – we pass through the looking glass into an alternative reality.
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When Westchester NY home buyers start thinking about high end cooperatives in a walkable neighborhood with easy access to Metro-North – they think almost reflexively of Garth Road in Scarsdale P.O. And with good reason. The train is a mere 5- 10 minute walk as is the village of Scarsdale. You have tree-lined streets, lots of parking (admittedly mostly street parking) and numerous complexes, many of which pre-war charmers with high ceilings and high ceilings and wonderful layouts.
But just a little to the east you have virtually the same thing in Larchmont NY - though this area remains a bit under most buyers radar. Nevertheless there are a cluster of wonderful cooperatives and condos located on North Chatsworth Ave., Washington Square and New Jefferson. The complexes along this one square block are just steps from the train and about 2 blocks from the heart of the village. You can easily leave the car behind for most shopping and fine dining. NYC is 35 minutes away on the New Haven Line. Larchmont is also an express stop during peak hours which is an added bonus.
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First some bad news – rents in our area are headed north – in a big way:
In recent years, renting has become the new thing to do. Sort of a post-modern version of “shabby chic” that was so popular in the 80s that I remember in high school and college. Since the beginning of the recession in 2008, rents have been low which has been a wonderful gift to former home owners who had sold their homes by doing the unthinkable….bringing money to the closing table. They needed a break – and ironically, just about the only break this terrible recession gave anyone was in the form cheap rent.
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When home buyers engage an agent they often expect us to be the repository of any and all neighborhood information. They often don’t see the need to do their own research because they can just pick the brains of their buyers agent. But the truth is far more complicated than that. Steering Laws prevent me from divulging anything about following:
- Demographics – for example – I can not answer a questions like “Does this neighborhood have a lot of young families?”
- Schools - for example – I can not address whether a school district is good, bad or anything in between.
- Crime Stats – I can’t answer your questions about whether or not an area is “safe.” In truth you could be walking into a neighborhood rife with gang warfare – but I’m not allowed to discuss it.
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A few days ago I “stole” some time to indulge in a walk and photo-session at the Rockefeller Preserve. Fortunately, I brought my telephoto lens…and as luck would have it – I was able to capture several shots of this new mom and her brood of ducklings. Seriously, I could almost just see her “smiling” with pride! The ducklings were all over the place floating around on the water like tiny corks. They were bobbing their heads in the water – with their tail feathers in the air – as Mom looked on watchfully.
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