It was nice to see that the rain that was literally drenching the area had come to an end. Friday – was a blustery March day with both clouds and sun. Luckily, I was able to enjoy a bit of a walk with my camera in tow. I had an errand at Hudson Harbor and decided to take a walk on the new portion of the Westchester River Walk in Tarrytown NY. The River Walk is an ambitious plan to create a linear park and walking trail along the Hudson River that extends from the northern tip of the county in Peekskill to Yonkers at the border of the Bronx. This portion has just been constructed. I was there a couple of years ago before the plan had come to life.
I was lucky enough to get the New York City Skyline with the base of the Tappan Zee Bridge serving as a “frame. Looking north I got a nice photo of the Lighthouse and then the picture of the pathway that will eventually span the county.
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Over the past year or so, I have set up numerous web pages for the convenience of buyers and sellers a like. This information takes time and energy to compile and it is my pleasure to do so. HOWEVER, a girl has got to eat and pay the bills. I’m finding that although my readership has gone way up over the past year (people seem to be gobbling up the data) registrations to the site have actually declined significantly. When I found agents were using the site as a source for their clients, I realized I had to call a halt to giving it all away. So I have very reluctantly decided that with the exception of city-wide or town-wide stats – I will have to require registration for all updates after June 2010.
There will still be gobs of free information for people. I am starting a mapping feature for those who are not strictly local but are thinking of moving here. This will be absolutely free and will help consumers understand where the towns, villages and cities are located with respect to each other as well as what major roadways run through each area. There will be a new school section and I will also be adding a lender, contractors and stagers to the mix. The registration requirement will be limited to specific market reports that cover highly local market conditions.
I’m sorry I had to take this step – I was very much in the “paying it forward and I will reap the rewards with loyal clients and happy home buyers and home sellers a plenty!” But it is not working out that way. So the price for the latest information from now on will be YOUR information. And yes, I will – gently- try to coax you in to using me as your agent when the time comes for you to pull the trigger. There will be several sign in sheets going up throughout the site. If you don’t want to sign in – feel free to call or email me – or – just use the site as it sits, but you will not be getting the advantage of the valuable updates that I have at my fingertips. Sign in and you get all that great information – and a great agent besides. (No false modesty here!)
I do not spam your email – and I never, ever sell your information to any other vendor – so you can sign up with complete confidence that your information will remain private.
At the outset – I would like to stress that this is unusual for downtown White Plains. It may be a sign of the times. Certainly many cities have reported an uptick in crime although White Plains NY has not really had any spikes in the crime rate that I am aware of . Desperation makes people do desperate things.
Sunday started out as a day that is somewhat typical of my weekend. I had two sets of showings with two buyer clients. My last client was a referral from someone I had sold a home to a few years ago and we were combining business with pleasure as I found myself enjoying a lovely party in his unit after the showings.
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To all of those who have been logging on to this site, I have just become aware of a problem with my graphics. One of the issues of running a web site or blog is that how your site appears to you may not be how it appears to those using another browser.
Being an Apple person from day-one – I do not spend a lot of time on Windows and Internet Explorer. When I have been, it has been to examine more recent postings and not those formatted and written some time ago. Over the past three to four months I had changed the way I embedded some figures and photos. The new method appears to work on Firefox, Safari and Explorer. So I was shocked that on closer inspection – some of the pages that have been up and running for some time had graphics that were not working at all. This was particularly true of charts and graphs .
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The aftermath of the tax credit had varying effects on Larchmont homes for sale.
In many ways – it was a story of two completely separate markets. Single family homes for sale in Larchmont were strong with prices heading upwards and sales volume virtually unchanged from 2009. But the cooperative market had slowed down significantly. Prices have stalled, but an underlying weakness in that market indicates further declines in store.
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Many sellers who are barely breaking even or are under water are desperate for every penny they can get out of their home. For many their home was their nest egg and now rising taxes and financial hardship are forcing them to sell at the depths of the biggest housing recession since the Great Depression.
The question goes something like this:
“We need to get “X” out of our home in order to move on with our lives. You say it is worth 20% less. Why can’t we try it at the price we need and if it doesn’t sell, lower the price in a couple of months?”
Right now, this is still a brutal market for many sellers. Some areas have bottomed out – most are bottoming out – but quite a few markets aren’t there yet and buyers know this and are driving a hard bargain.
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This is an issue that is brought up by sellers all the time. Usually the question is asked far more politely…and goes something like this:
“I know you work hard at what you do, but these are hard times and I am barely breaking even. Is there anything you can do about the commission?”
Sometimes there is no room!
Now, a great deal depends on the price range of the home involved. There are cooperatives and condos in our area where there really is no wiggle room with respect to commission. Gone are the days when an agent can take a couple photos, slap it on the MLS and sit back. Marketing is necessary and it is not inexpensive. So at the entry level I can easily find myself working nearly pro bono and sometimes find myself with a net loss. Read the rest of this entry »
After my not so minor accident of last week – I am glad to be back. This week – the Westchester calendar of events revolves around Valentines day. Thank goodness we are expecting a slightly warmer weekend as well as sunny skies. Today when I saw the bright sunshine – I was almost in shock!
For those who want to enjoy a bit of outdoor exercise – there are many romantic places to walk and enjoy the winter wonderland.
My suggestions would include -
1. The ever amazing Rockefeller Preserve – The Preserve is open daily until dusk and the walking the trails is wonderful no matter what time of year it is.
2. Kingsland Point Park in Sleepy Hollow and Pierson Park in Tarrytown. The Hudson River gets the sunsets – so going near dusk will assure you of nature serving up a colorful display.
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When buyers first come to me they have a lot of criteria on their wish list. Very often the hype in the market about homes being available for pennies on the dollar sets them up for disappointment. It is not unusual for me to hear the following…
We love this house! It has all the amenities we want – but that neighborhood! Why can’t we find this in the school district (or insert other criteria) that we want?
This is a question asked by many buyers who are frustrated that they are not able to find exactly what they are looking for at their price point. Lenn Harley wrote a tremendous post on this topic and kind of beat me to the punch on this topic. “I’ll send you my criteria….” In that blog – Lenn aptly describes a situation very familiar to Westchester NY agents. A buyer who is perfectly capable of buying has created criteria that is so tight it prices them out of the market. It happens all the time and the way I answer that question depends on the circumstances.
Often the buyer has has selected an area exclusively based on the school district (as in Lenn’s blog) I recognize and understand everyone’s desire to give their children every advantage, but unfortunately everyone likes that town (zip code) for the same reason. Since pricing is determined by supply and demand, how much you can buy often depends more on where you are looking. Some areas are highly competitive while others have plenty of inventory.
This is a question that was put to me recently in an email. In fact I get variations on this question often on my web site “just ask me” area.
Why do I need a buyers agent when I can run around to open houses and find the property myself?
Implicit in this question is the thought that they will somehow save a big fat 3% by dealing directly with the listing agent. And why not? It sounds like a great way to save money. After all – the only thing agents do is open doors and fill out a few forms. The listing agent should be thrilled to just sell the home, surely he/she can afford to fork over the other side’s commission to seal the deal!
Where to even begin on this one – except to say -not so fast!
The commission offered the buyer is determined by a contract between the seller and the listing agent:
1. The agreement is between the listing agent and the seller. You do not know the details. What on earth makes anyone think the buyers agent is being offered 3%? Coops (the commission offered to the buyers agent by the seller) are all over the map around here. As a buyer, you have no idea what the seller offered to pay the buyers agent. That is between the seller and the listing agent.
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