The housing market in White Plains has taken a drubbing since the stock market crash of 2008. Although some adjacent areas are showing small signs of stabilization, the same can not be said for the city of White Plains. This is ironic because White Plains was at the epicenter of the housing boom for Westchester County.
White Plains NY Cooperatives:
Cooperative prices were actually up slightly over the same period in 2008. However, this slight uptick might be do to an increase in the proportion of 2 BR units in the sales statistics. The previous quarter showed a grim 17% price reduction and recent sales in specific complexes indicates that this downward trend is continuing. Since 2 BR units are suddenly far more affordable, buyers are finding that they can afford a larger unit. Sales volume is down 17% over the previous year and the current inventory of 9 months indicates a buyer’s market undergoing a price correction bordering on double digits.
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It is very interesting that just as consumers are demanding ever more hyper-local content and knowledge from agents that we are also seeing another distinct trend in the opposite direction: the tendency to list and sell to larger and larger geographic areas.
The contrast between old-school hyper-local agents and the newer nomad agnet was driven home to me while I was working with two listing agents who still work exclusively in small niche markets. I was at a closing with one of them and she implied that since I had the entire city of White Plains to cover, why didn’t I simply refer out the client who finally bought in Scarsdale?
Can a real estate agent be too local?
I knew that the attitude about staying hyper-local is alive and well though it appears to be a staple of old-school real estate. Still, I was more than a tad surprised. Scarsdale is not the moon. It is the town directly adjacent to the west side of White Plains and about a whopping six miles from my front door to the center of the village. If we followed this line of thinking to its most extreme would mean that a buyer potentially moving from New York City to Westchester NY would have to have as many as five or six agents to explore all the possibilities open to them that were within about 30 minute commute. For the consumer this seems most unwieldy if not highly impractical. Could you imagine the mountain of agents all crawling over each other for the buyer’s attention? What a mess. Not to mention a monster of coordination.
From the agent’s perspective, there could also be a danger to being too local. What if something happens to that small segment of the market you represent? If your geography/price range are razor thin – you are setting yourself up for trouble. This was clearly seen this year when agents who specialized in small high-end markets got creamed because jumbo loan issues bit them in the backside. Another listing agent I encountered was used to selling about 10 major properties a year – but this year had only managed a single sale.
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Over the past couple of years, I’ve written several blogs about local businesses. One of my favorite haunts has been Coffee Labs of Tarrytown NY. Coffee Labs was established in 2002 and for seven years has roasted and served wonderful coffee drinks and freshly roasted coffee to brew at home. Coffee Labs was named for the owner’s chocolate Labrador Retrievers. During tht time, Mike and Alicia have established Coffee Labs as a eco-friendly and pet-friendly coffee shop. Since they don’t prepare food on-site, they had an arrangement with the health department that allowed patrons to bring their dogs into the shop. The dogs had to be properly leashed and be well-behaved. I even wrote a blog about how Jade and I often spent mornings at Coffee Labs while I completed correspondence and some work realted activities – including market reports and blog articles.
But it only takes one complaint to ruin something that has worked well for years. Apparently one person complained to the health department and that has put the entire pet-friendly nature of the coffee shop “on hold.” The coffee shop is applying for a variance so that the patrons can bring their pets back. But positive public opinion on this matter can only be helpful. So I ask all pet-owners everywhere to feel free to comment on this blog and add your support by joining the discussion on Facebook. As one dog-owner and patron said to me last evening – “If you don’t like the fact that dogs area allowed – go somewhere else! There are plenty of coffee shops in Westchester if you don’t like dogs.”
© 2010 Ruthmarie G. Hicks – http://thewestchesterview.com. All rights reserved.
This is a story about selling your home during a housing recession.
Sellers with homes listed today will be able to identify with some of the antics that buyers in a bear market will pull. But this is about a listing that was active 14 years ago in 1996 – during another deep housing recession. I wasn’t a real estate agent at the time, I was a seller. My mother had just died after a prolonged illness and I was listing her house for sale. The house in question was a beautiful 1932 Tudor sitting on prime property with sweeping golf course views in wonderful residential area in White Plains. There was a good deal of emotion involved since the home in question had been designed by my Grandmother and built by my Grandfather.
Although I wasn’t an agent I was smart enough to read the newspapers and so I know it was a crummy market. The house would have been worth roughly $600k just a few short years ago – but in 1996-1997 I was hoping for about $550k – but knew I would probably only see a litte more than $500k. Gut instinct told me to rent the place, but my co-executor was adamant that the house had to be sold.
Nothing prepared me for the crazy home buyers that came through looking for a “deal.”
90% of them were bottom-feeders looking to steal a house – and looking for ANY excuse to chisel the price to the bone. My beleaguered broker came to me with all sorts of concession requests – some of which made sense. But more often than not, the requests bordered on the absurd. Some of the more hilarious issues are worth noting because when we see frustrated sellers – we need to be aware that their pain is real and that some of the crazy concessions being asked by buyers can be truly ridiculous.
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Happy New Year Everyone…
Westchester is one of those places where there is a New Years celebration to fit any mood. To prove the point, during the course of the day and evening I decided to keep a photo journal of sorts of my New Year’s Eve. I pulled my favorites for posting. For those who prefer a more contemplative mood, there was plenty to do and see in lower Westchester. You could walk the trails, take a drive, wonder around the towns and villages. For those who prefer to party – downtown White Plains had its annual ball drop and New Year’s party. My personal preference leans towards the more quite and reflective celebration. But that didn’t stop me from attending the annual ball drop and fire works in downtown White Plains. Unfortunately, my camera didn’t catch the fireworks – let’s just say my camera picked the wrong time to need a change of batteries. Too bad too, because the show lit up the sky to the point where it was almost like daylight for a moment. Hopefully, you will find a picture to suit your mood….
© 2010 – Ruthmarie G. Hicks – http://thewestchesterview.com. All rights reserved.
We had our first snow yesterday. As usual we were told to expect the storm of the century, so I did what everyone else in Westchester was doing…got groceries, hoarded salt, made sure I had a good shovel and hunkered down. Seriously, the way we treat snow storms around here one would think that no one had ever heard of snow plows and other modern marvels that actually make it possible for you to be back in the real world within 24 hours. Nevertheless, the storm and subsequent dig-out gave me some quiet time with my canine family. I have two Siberain Huskies and a husky mix who for obvious reasons LOVE the snow. The colder the better and the heavier the snow fall, the happier they are. So after spending quality time with my shovel and salt, I spent some time outside with Buddy, Jade & Tundra. They had a great time tearing up the yard. To get good pictures however they had to stand still…I got a few shots of them running, but most of that passed by my camera in a blur!
For the stills here is a link to Siberians in the Snow on Flickr.
Enjoy the video and Happy Holidays.
Scarsdale NY housing has been in the cross hairs of the housing recession for a while now. Initially, it was resistant to the correction taking place in other parts of the country. Eventually the forces that had hit other parts of the country so dramatically, came home to roost even in the most resilient areas of Westchester. Real estate values in Scarsdale NY came under prssure as inventories swelled. The drop was severe. However, some of the numbers show signs of a bottom being at hand.
Cooperatives:
The number of co-ops sold are down 15% over the previous year. This is a trend that has been seen in other parts of the county and reflects the difficulties in obtaining financing. Currently there is a nearly 8 month inventory on the market. However, prices remain slightly higher than the previous year, (5.4%) indicating a market that is stabilizing. There are some mixed signals here. the inventory is still high however, the pricing is surprisingly robust.
Single Family Homes – Scarsdale:
After a “pop” during the 2nd quarter prices have once again fallen and are down 27% over the 3rd quarter of 2008. Swollen inventories are going down. Right now inventories are approaching th 6 month mark.
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White Plains is synonymous with shopping. It is know for its shops particularly along Mamaroneck Ave, Post Rd. and Main St. As a result, White Plains shops in the downtown area really comes to life during the Holiday Season. Shopping and fine dining are part of the downtown White Plains lifestyle. Tuesday night I decided that it was time to “get serious” about Christmas and do some real shopping. I decided to start at the City Center Mall and go to one of my favorite haunts – the Barnes & Noble. I was meandering around in my usual catatonic shopping state of mind when I ran smack into a security guard who had the audacity to be blocking my progress. He was very polite, since I was obviously not paying any attention whatsoever. “Are you here for the book signing?” he inquired. The question jolted me awake. I was standing smack in the middle of an area that was roped off and I was clearly in the way. I asked who was coming and he replied “Jim Cramer.”
You never know when you are going to be surprised. I was thrilled. My father is a HUGE fan and as many of regular readers know, he is not at all well. I quickly bought his latest book to autograph for my Dad and waited patiently for him to arrive.
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In surfing the net, I discovered an on-line version of an article by Ben Brody and Laura Gurfein that appeared in last months Westchester Magazine about the county’s “top” Realtors. The subtitle declared “In good times or bad, whether buying or selling, these are the agents you want on your side.”
Now, I have nothing against the Realtors who were chosen as the finest agents in Westchester NY real estate. None at all. it was fascinating to see how the authors chose to define “success.” They used a simple unbiased metric – the bottom line. They defined success in terms of .sales volume in dollars. The theory being – the bigger the sales volume the better the “track record.” This kind of boggles my tiny mind. In a twisted way it reflects the public antipathy to Realtors in general because it emphasizes that “success” is defined in dollar signs.
This got me thinking – how exactly should one define success in real estate? How should these bottom line numbers like sales production and number of listings held factor into a home owners decision about who to sign a listing contract with?
Well, realistically, an agent has to achieve two goals. Certainly, over time, the agent must be able to turn a profit or they will go out of business. This is much harder to do than most people outside our industry think. I have to make a living this way and turning a profit is absolutely essential or my bills don’t get paid. But for all the delusions of real estate agents being “rich” without any effort, the failure rate is enormously high – north of 80% in most of the country (over 90% locally.) So posting sales volume is a major component of success.
But, what does this do for the client? The home seller or home buyer? The article indicated that whether selling or buying – these agents were the best. But by looking at sales volume only, the article missed the mark altogether.
1. Is this agent primarily a listing agent or a buyer’s agent? If they have an even number of sales in both categories – fine. But I looked at the sales history of a couple of these superstars. They were primarily listing agents and did relatively few sales as a buyer’s agent.
2. On the listing side, what is their success rate? After all, an agent can make a bundle listing in volume. The percent of listings that actually sell is another matter.To that end I took a look a closer look at a “top agents” sales record for 2009. I picked an agent on the list at random and found the following.
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Part 1 of “This Brokerage Has 750 Listings…..So they must be the best! ” was prompted by the fact that the Westchester NY real estate market had changed and as a result, I was getting more and more questions about what a brokerage brought to the table in terms of marketing. I emphasized the importance of choosing the right agent and that the brokerage itself was of less importance. I also indicated that there was a lot of smoke and mirrors regarding brokerage brands and what that means to the seller in terms of marketing the home. Also, for those consumers who would like to see broker/agent input on Part 1 of this post…you can go to my blog on ActiveRain where I re-posted the blog. It got a good deal of attention and much commentary from real estate professionals.
In the end, I promised a sequel that got into more specifics. So here it is – six major myths about listing a property and marketing a property that are often trumpeted by our own industry. Its been said that if you repeat something often enough it becomes “fact” in the eyes of the consumer. So let’s put some of these “facts” to rest.
Myth #1 – “We have 12 billion to the 10th power active listings, so our reputation speaks for itself!”
Really? How on earth does anyone come to that conclusion? You can have all the listings in the world, but if you can’t sell them, what’s the point? The percentage of sold listings is a bit more pertinant. However, even that number does not discriminate between individual agent performance.
The housing market in White Plains has taken a drubbing since the stock market crash of 2008. Although some adjacent areas are showing small signs of stabilization, the same can not be said for the city of White Plains. This is ironic because White Plains was at the epicenter of the housing boom for Westchester County.
