The details were unimportant except to point out that Centralized Showings, the company we use to set appointments for our listings, had the gall to ask this associate broker for her license number to verify her identity. She balked at this, and a big part of her message to me was that her license was not something she typically carried around with her. In looking her up on the MLS, the bulk of her career has apparently occurred prior to the real estate decline. She has not become acclimated with the New Normal like the rest of us who have been working in this environment since 2007 when the sub prime domino was the first to fall.

Some agents are not primary bread winners. They can go into hibernation when the market goes pear-shaped and return when the coast seems clear. The problem in 2012 is that when your experience is all with low-hanging fruit and not the current, more difficult climate, the return is not easy. And yes, that even reaches something as seemingly simple and mundane as setting up a showing. In January of this year, three boards merged to form our current Hudson Gateway Association. This caused some difficulty with 3rd party vendors who rely on membership databases, but the remedy, taking 3 minutes to verify your identity, is simple and harmless. Unless of course you are out of practice and you are still operating like it is 2005.

But the details are unimportant. The next thing that those of us in the industry have to be mindful of is that as the market levels off and improves in some areas, that part time and inactive agents will be returning to the fold with a frame of reference that is completely unfamiliar with the current landscape. And they will be neophytes about new mortgage requirements, short sales, and all the other obstacles that are another day at the office for those of us who have been around. They will get their sea legs under them at the expense of clients who are unaware that they have been primarily on the sidelines for years, as well as those of us who will be on the other sides of transactions with them.

Forewarned is forearmed. Beware the agent returning from hibernation if you are a consumer or an agent who may close a deal with one. As I tell prospective clients all the time, the operative question to ask an agent you are considering doing business with is what they have done the past 12 months. If they make a vague reference to Tommy John surgery or a pilgrimage to a Tibetan monastery, ask about the past 24 months. I wouldn’t want to undergo surgery with a doctor who hasn’t held a scalpel since 2009, nor would I want my life defended in court by an attorney who just returned from 3 years in a cabin. Real Estate transactions can have life changing consequences. There are some agents who have not been very active since 2007 or 2008, and they should be upfront about it.

In total, for April, 2012, there were 283 single family homes sales closed in Westchester at a median price of $550,000.
In the same period of 2011, there were 249 closings at a median of $535,000.

That is just under a 14% improvement in transaction totals and a 2.8% rise in median price.

Year to date, the numbers are almost as encouraging.

In the first 5 months of 2012, Westchester had 1014 closings at a median price of $521,250.
In the first 5 months of 2011, the county had only 971 closings at a median price of $550,000.

Median price is down slightly overall, but the public is buying more.

More good news: The number of homes under contract has spiked to 1239 properties under contract or pending sale, and the median asking price is $659,000. That makes sense; once the lower priced homes sell, “move up” buyers purchase more expensive homes. And that is what we are seeing. But even if we put the median price aside, the number of homes under contract is almost 300 deals more than last month. That tells me that April’s numbers were no anomaly, and that May could end up being an even stronger month.

Lastly, there are 4224 homes available in inventory, giving buyers a plethora of choices. That is still roughly 15 months of inventory. It remains a market slanted toward buyers, but a healthier market at that, and in rare cases, the sellers are starting to gain leverage. Time will tell if this strong Spring ushers in a recovery or is a temporary bump. Given the changes I see in buyer attitudes, we may see an uptick in consumer confidence and the seeds of a recovery.

Check out the available homes for yourself. Conditions may have finally hit the sweet spot where prices and buyer sensibilities have made a match.

ME: J. Philip Real Estate, this is Phil, how may I help you?
Telemarketer: Is this Mr. Philips?

ME: *sigh* Yes, this is Phil.
Telemarketer: Hi, This is <Whatever> with <Company>, and I am calling to see if you’d like to do business with the 20,000 people who shop at the Briarcliff Manor  A & P supermarket in every month? Are you familiar with the Briarcliff Manor A & P?

ME: I know the A & P, but I am not going to buy print advertising  on supermarket carriages and walls. We have had more success with our Internet marketing.
Telemarketer: So if someone called and said they found you at A & P you would tell them you didn’t want to sell them a house?

ME: I would never do something that illogical. We are happy to do business with anyone no matter how they find us. I simply don’t think it fair to my clients to devote resources to a marketing effort that is not as finely tuned as my Internet efforts.
Telemarketer:  Don’t you think your clients would appreciate you getting your name out in front of the 20,000 people who shop at the A & P every month?

ME: My clients appreciate that I built my company through marketing  targeted at people who are specifically seeking real estate online, not people seeking milk and eggs.
Telemarketer: OK. Have a nice day.

No matter how many times we preach to buyers of the imprtance of being pre approved, there are still those who insist they’ll get one only after they find a house, and there are still to many enabling agents who are willing to show them properties. It is living dangerously of course, because if you don’t know of a mistake on your credit, identity theft or an old debt, you could be in for weeks or months of work you don’t know about until it is too late.

In the sellers’  case, no home owner is going to tie their home under contract with a buyer until that buyer has been rigorously checked out. To not do so would incur the risk of missing out on all those May and June buyers and face going back on the market later in the summer. That is costly, and can easily be avoided in most cases by simply calling a loan officer to verify the buyer’s ability to perform.

In a best case scenario, a well qualified buyer without a pre approval letter can miss a weekend and be outbid by someone with their act together. In those cases, they lose the house. Even if they are comfortably bankable, the house is gone, because they didn’t prove so soon enough and someone else did.

I am seeing two cases where the buyers are out in the cold in the past week. There are competing offers, the other offer has similar price and terms, and guess what? A good solid letter from a lending institution with a loan officer’s signature and direct number for any questions come from their competition. Contrast that with a wink and a promise, and the seller’s decision is easy.

Spring comes but once a year. We are seeing a tenuous balance between the old buyer’s market of the past few years and what we hope is the seed of a recovery, but at the very least a busy cycle of the season. Given the amount of money changing hands in a home sale and purchase, it seems simple enough to spend 10 minutes on the phone with a loan officer to make sure you aren’t wasting your time. Caution is still the operative word on both sides, and it behooves buyers to make sure their house is in order before they find a house they love.

In the first quarter of 2012, there were 3 sales in Philipstown and Cold Spring at a median sale price of $392,500
In the first quarter of 2011, there were 8 sales at a median price of $520,000.

To be sure, it is a slow start.

Currently, there are 7 homes under contract pending sale at a median list price of $299,000. Clearly, the buyer activity is on the lower end of the spectrum.

Buyers do have a unique opportunity: There are 64 homes active and available on the market right now in Philiptown at a median price of $549,450. Does this mean that the available inventory is overpriced? No! It just means that the first quarter trended toward lower cost properties. What is available is an awesome opportunity for buyers to choose from a huge inventory of some great homes in a spectacular area.

The villages of Cold Spring and Nelsonville are charming and filled with convenience and beautiful architecture. The Cold Spring train station is right on the Hudson, down the hill from a beautiful downtown filled with shops, art and eateries. It is a well regarded destination for Manhattan weekenders.

In Philipstown outside the villages, you have bucolic beauty, privacy and lots of room to roam. We have a beautiful sprawling ranch on 8 acres listed that even has its own pond! $474,900 buys it and it is worth it. Click here for more information on this great example of Philipstown real estate.

It is a good law. Americans facing a foreclosure or short sale already face hardship and financial difficulty, to say nothing of stress. To have a tax bill for money you’ve never seen helps no one.

The law is set to end at the end of 2012. Unlike the tax stimulus of 2009 and 2010, which had to end sometime, the MFDRA should not have to end, certainly not anytime soon. The times we are in right now are actually worse than when the law was put into effect, and while it has helped untold scores of people, there are still more who would benefit from extending the law. Almost 30 million homes remain underwater and short sales remain a huge chunk of the market in many parts of the country.

Right here in Westchester County where a starter home can be over half a million dollars, a short sale can involve clients who are often underwater by six figures. To be destitute and forced from  ownership with the accompanying credit consequences is bad enough; but to owe Uncle Same tens of thousands of dollars on top of that is unfathomable. The citizenry benefits from a capital gain exemption on their primary residence up to a quarter million for  single person and half a million dollars for a married couple. If it simply isn’t the American way to tax people on a capital gain, why should those facing a more substantive hardship on a paper gain?

What will end up happening if it runs out is that more people facing an upside down mortgage (no equity) will instead elect to deed their house back to the bank or hunker down until foreclosure because they fear a massive IRS debt, pushing more foreclosures on the market than we already have to face. Foreclosures have already caused us here in Westchester to lose an average of 25% of property values since the peak, dramatically more in some places. We don’t need a single extra foreclosure. Owner occupant sales, short or not, are a superior alternative. If you complain that a neighbor did a short sale on their house, consider how you’d feel if the place were sold by the bank instead.

There is another consequence to allowing the law to run out, and that is the borrowers who start living off the societal grid out of fear of a ruinous IRS bill. We are starting to see people return to buying again after a short sale now. Would they do so if they had a big tax bill 4-5 years ago when they had a short sale? I doubt it. They’ll hide behind rented curtains the rest of their days. How does that help anyone?

We should extend the law another few years at least if we cannot make it permanent. The millions of people it was passed to help still need that help, and we should not witness them losing protection over something as unfortunate as timing.

Our home course was the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, one of the more notable venues in the USA, and there was a regatta (race) virtually every weekend of the spring. To this day, 23 years since my last race, the words “Etes-vous pret? Partez!” get my adrenaline going like few others. The term means “Are you ready? Row!” and those were the words used to start every race. Once those words were spoken, the die was cast for me as a coxswain; The boat needed to be pointed perfectly toward my mark, my rowers needed to be sitting ready with their oars set right in the drink, and their minds needed to be ready to check into The Racing Zone for the next 6 minutes of hell until we crossed the line 2000 meters downstream, hopefully in first place.

In short, once the referee got on the bullhorn and was finished asking “Temple? Set. Penn? Set. Villanova? Set… etes vous pret?…” we knew there was no turning back, no mulligan or do-over, and we had to execute. Like I said, few words get my attention like those to this day.  All our practice, training, missed parties, burning lungs, sore legs, calloused hands and wet socks were meant for that moment. It was go time. Batter up. Hike. Go. There was a moment of time standing still after the question, and when we heard the “P-” of the “partez!,” my guys pulled in synchronized fury.

Every endeavor has that moment when it is time to execute. Stop talking, start doing. In real estate, there are times like that as well, and few embody that go moment like the Spring when there are multiple bids on a well appointed, well priced home and the seller asks for all parties to submit their highest and best. Even in a down market like ours, the circumstance does arise on some special homes. They could have a view of the Hudson that no contractor save God could add. The kitchen could be superior to those of even more expensive homes. Whatever it it, when the listing agent calls for highest and best, the buyer agents know that there will be no second chances, no do overs, and no turning back. It is now or never.

For any buyer who is involved in such a transaction, I have two things to advise:

1. Suspend your disbelief. Not every house is one where the seller can’t exert leverage. Multiple offers do happen, especially in the Spring.
2. Your highest and best is your highest, and your best. Bid a number that if you don’t win, you are at peace that you gave it 100%. Don’t offer something that is so high you’d regret acceptance or so low that you wished you had another chance. You probably don’t get a second chance.

To the buyer agents out there, the same advice applies. Sharpen that pencil and advise the client to give their highest and best such that they are at peace with any outcome. It is indeed go time, and there is no turning back. Don’t get bogged down in what happens in a few steps because those you are competing with are going to get their clients prepped and revved.  Our best outcome in college crew was a first place finish, and I as coxswain would be tossed off the dock into the water to celebrate. The best real estate outcome is a happy long term home.

While I am a member, I have never been one to parrot the NAR ad slogans in the media, and I would warn those of you who think that we have turned the corner to exercise a measure of caution. Consider a restaurant that is busy on a Saturday night. There is a line at the bar, all the tables are filled, and the waitstaff is hustling to fill orders. You might conclude that this is a successful place. However, check back on a Monday lunch or Tuesday dinner. They may not be doing so well then, and you can pay your bills from one or two good days.

The same lesson goes for the real estate market. We can’t judge a year based on two or three busy months. We are supposed to be busy in the spring. There should be multiple offers on select, well appointed and aggressively priced properties. But it remains to be seen if a busy April translates into closings in June.

Understanding this will help people avoid mistakes borne of irrational exuberance. Assuming it will always be this way, thinking that our problems are behind us or making plans based on optimistic projections are the very types of mistakes that contributed to our housing collapse. I am seeing sellers resist sensible price adjustments or rebuff buyers because they think another is right behind them. And all too often, when a home remains unsold in the late summer, they wish they could get a mulligan for the buyer they rejected back in the Spring.

I think it is great that we are busy now. I think it is wonderful that people are making offers and contracts are going out on properties that I have listed. But before we start raising prices or strong arming well meaning buyers, let’s do what smart businesspeople do and plan for the worst while we hope for the best. If we are in the early stages of a recovery then it is a fragile time that will not grow from hubris or overconfidence.

A silent second mortgage is mortgage that is not recorded on the HUD-1. It is considered a “side deal” and is typically a violation of RESPA (Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act). In other words, a silent second mortgage, or any other side deal that is not recorded on the HUD-1 for that matter, is often mortgage fraud.

The temptation to do a silent second mortgage occurs when there is a roadblock in closing a transaction and the parties are trying to avoid the pain of adapting to the circumstances. For example, suppose a house is priced at $400,000 and the seller agrees to a $385,000 sale price with a $10,000 seller concession back to the buyer to help defray closing costs. That would be a $395,000 contract price and the HUD-1 would reflect $10,000 back to the buyer and $385,000 net to the seller.

However, the house does not appraise for the $395,000, but instead only appraises for $387,000. The buyer still needs the $10,000 concession to pay their closing costs, and does not have the extra cash to make up the difference. The deal will therefore either die or the seller will have to absorb the $8,000 shortfall and net only $377,000. The seller is unhappy about this, and proposes to the buyer that instead of the $10,000 being a concession, that the buyer agree to pay back $8,000 to the seller as a second mortgage that is recorded after closing. They cannot put it on the HUD-1 because the mortgage does not allow for subordinate financing. The buyer might agree because they don’t want to lose the house. The seller is trying to avoid netting less money.

This is “fraud.”

While it may be tempting to grease a difficult transaction with a silent second or similar side deal, it can get all parties, including the lawyers and agents, into hot water. And no sale is worth jeopardizing one’s career for. To do the right thing, the buyer either has to get more money elsewhere or lose the deal, or the seller has to take less money. And as much as that stinks for either party, it sure beats losing your license. If something cannot be documented on the HUD-1, it should not be practiced.

For example, consider a home priced at $500,000 that gets an offer of $450,000, which is not uncommon. A good agent will guide their seller client through the ping pong of negotiations, taking into account the market activity and anything they can read on the other side with the buyer and their agent. A good listing agent will evaluate signs from their counterpart representing the buyer, often speak with the loan officer to double check qualifications, and generally draw on their skill and expereince to advise the seller on maximizing the number that can be gotten from the buyer. After protracted negotiations, the buyer raises their bid to $490,000 (this is a hypothetical example, remember).

The seller is at $500,000. They originally hoped for more money.

They are still getting showings.
Zillow says the house is worth $517,000.
They recall all the work and improvements they made on the place over the years.
A home they were considering buying once they sold comes off the market, taking the edge off the urgency they may have felt a week prior.
Their cousin in Petaluma is incredulous, because the same house out there would be $600,000 easy, or so they say.

The seller, mindful of all these things, makes the fatal mistake of assuming that they could get more money if they held out for another, better offer. After all, these buyers were the clowns who originally offered them a crummy $450,000!

And the seller, against the advice of their agent, tells the agent to make a best and final counter offer to the buyer of $495,000.

The buyer walks and buys another home a few blocks away that just came on.

The seller bought back their house for $5,000. They were the high bidder. They get the house. Again. Three months later in July, they reduce their price to $475,000. They close with another buyer in October for $455,000. That $5000 counter offer cost them $35,000, and another 6 mortgage payments.

This should never happen when a buyer and seller are only 1-2% apart. But it does happen, because the seller is tempted by the sirens on the rocks of the spring rush.

Making that last counter for 1% or less of the asking price of the house is known as buying the house back for $5000. Spring comes but once a year. Be very careful about getting to absorbed in the wheeling and dealing. People don’t want to go back and forth- they want a home. Listen to your agent. If they advise you to take something that close, take them seriously. We all have a story like this.

I know all too well the anecdotes of the pushy agent who jumps up and down for their client to take a lowball offer.  This is not one of those times. When the buyer is within a mortgage payment or two of your number and your agent is telling you this is it, strike while the iron is hot. Don’t buy back your own house for a marginal amount. It could save you far more money in the long run and avoid a protracted extension of market time as a stale listing because you let one slip through your fingers.

I’ll go out on a limb and say that unless you have had a specific negative experience with an agent or broker, if a house fits your needs you could care less if it were listed by Attila the Hun, Rasputin, Herbie the Love Bug, or Kronos, Ravager of Planets.

This goes for both consumers and buyer agents. Most sellers get this, but a select few make the mortal error of listing with a name rather than the merit of an individual agent. That can cost. If you want to sell real estate in 2012, you have to understand how buyers and buyer agents think. They input their criteria into the search fields and hit “enter.” The results will come out in a list of homes, and they sift through the places to separate the best from the also-rans. Among the highest regarded choices, curb appeal, condition and price rank highest among reasons for a home making the short list.

No one chooses (or eliminates) a home because of who the listing agent or broker is. It is antithetical to the process. Do you care where the peanuts in the peanut butter were picked? No, you just want peanut butter. Do you care who installed your toilet? Probably not, as long as it flushes. Yet there are a few sellers out there that are hung up on the name recognition of the broker as if buyers care. They don’t. Buyers are tuned in to WIFM- What’s in it for me? I never in 16 years ever heard a buyer say “we bought the house because it was listed with ABC Properties” or “we want to see this house because it is listed with Joe Agent.”

Sellers should hire an agent based on that agent’s qualifications whether they work for a prestigious firm with a name that sounds like a high end law practice or if they work for a mom and pop. It isn’t the company. It is the agent. Their track record, their marketing plan, their references.

Track record.
Marketing Plan.
References.

Those are the things that should matter to the seller.  Name recognition is the booby prize. It may sound nice, but it doesn’t sell houses.

The same goes for homes listed where the buyer agent is offered a bonus or enhanced commission. Even if we wanted to get paid more than average for selling a house, there really is no plausible way to convince a client to make a place theirs if it doesn’t feel like home. If they love a place, they’ll want it no matter what their agent is paid. If they hate a place, you could offer me the crown jewels; there is no ethical or pragmatic way to make someone buy a home they don’t want. Buyers are, therefore, often leery of what could be perceived as a gimmick.

My experience with sellers who offer a buyer a credit or their agent a bonus is that they have an  attachment to price above net proceeds. Money does talk. And it speaks loudest in the list price. If a sellers wants to throw some money at making their property more attractive, it should be in the form of a price reduction. If a buyer needs help with closing costs, they’ll already know that on the advice of their agent and loan officer and structure that in the offer for the place they want.

The danger with offering a giveback to either buyers or agents is twofold. First, it does not make the place more visible as I explained. But worse, even when a buyer makes their offer and negotiates a seller down  from asking price, they will still want their credit back! For example, consider a home listed for $509,000 and the feedback is that the main bath is outdated, and maybe the carpeting is drab. My advice to the seller would be to lower the price to $499,000 for a higher perceived value and more eyeballs on the property. But instead of reducing the price, the seller instead instructs me to offer a $10,000 remodel credit to the buyers. A buyer comes along and negotiates an accepted offer of $488,500. And sometime prior to contracts they’ll also demand that $10,000 credit. Now we have a problem.

There are those who say that the credit can be taken out of the negotiations to avoid suck a pickle. Not that easy. Once offered, you can’t put the smoke back in the cigar. If the credit is for a full priced offer, the buyer will simply view it as a price reduction from the outset, or money the seller was already willing to part with, and use that as a baseline. If a full priced offer is not a condition of the credit, then its removal is viewed as a bait and switch. In other words, it causes more problems than it solves.

If you are a seller, and you want to throw more money in the pot to move a property, do it where it speaks the loudest and with the fewest complications: lower the price.

Among Mr Astorino’s concerns about the project were cost to maintain a park, the overall health of the bridge, and other pragmatic concerns. While converting the bridge a park might be a less expensive proposition than the 9 figure estimate to dismantle it, I wonder if the project could truly have any long term efficacy in the Northeast. And a Greenway would not be a low cost proposition by a long shot.  We would then have two bridges to maintain instead of one. You would have to still deal with wind and salt water; cultivate and irrigate the park somehow; provide services, such as plumbing for bathrooms, police, safety and first aid stations; and provide some sort of amenities, like places to eat. And I don’t see how the weight of several feet of earth the length of that thing would be less stress than actual traffic.

Over time, the long term deterioration of a structure well past it’s projected 50 years coupled with the cost of maintaining an artificial, weighty earth surface on top, would probably render the whole thing fiscally unsustainable.

But even if I am wrong, I have another large concern.

My concern is that the Greenway would be a boondoggle that loses popularity when people learn that the middle of the Hudson is not exactly a pleasant place about 9 out of the 12 months of the year.

Be honest: have you ever been out in the middle of the Hudson any month other than July or August? I don’t mean February- how about April? Or October? If you have, ask yourself what it would be like 40-80 feet above the water. The span is at the widest part of the Hudson, and for much of its length it is more of a causeway than a bridge for good reason. Take it from a former coxswain: the middle of the Hudson is windy. And cold. With the exception of a few extreme sport enthusiasts, nobody is going to go out on that span in the winter, in the cold, or in the rain. And if the temperature falls below 80 degrees, there won’t be many moms wheeling their babes in strollers out there on summer days either.

Don’t forget, the new bridge will be right next to the old one. So not only will it be crazy windy and cold most of the time, you’ll be right next to an Interstate with  nothing but the brackish ambiance of the Hudson to act as a buffer. Now imagine all that and our taxes supporting it in perpetuity.

There might be a few days or weeks in July or August when the wind and traffic ebb that it would be spectacular. But from October to April you wouldn’t enjoy it out there. This is the Northeast. If this were the Miami Bridge  or the Tuscon Bridge that would be one thing. But in the Northeast we have cold weather, and the conditions would be pretty much the same out there as they are now. So if the cost isn’t  a winning argument against a Greenway, I would posit that quality of experience -or its absence- is.

We already have a ton of parks on the banks of the Hudson and we’ve done an admirable job in recent years of restoring that land for ourselves up and down the river towns. Let’s not take our eyes of the ball. Rather than create an artificial greenway of dubious quality, let’s do a better job with the green we already have.

Madeline has now made the choice to get back in the brokerage game, and we are excited to have her join us. Not every agent takes the next step to become a broker; it is more than an educational designation or certification, and it is one of the things that the public gets as being significant. It certainly isn’t lost on me either. Licensees are all salespersons, but only a small percentage take the step Madeline has taken to be a broker. Technically, brokers can start their own firm. Most associate, but the stature is significant.

Madeline specializes in southern Westchester, specifically Yonkers. She has some excellent experience with investors as well. You can reach her at (914) 230-7904 or email her (email will be updated this week!). We are very jazzed to have her with our firm, and I am sure you’ll feel the same.

I have heard horror stories about competing managers poaching clients from their own team, and I could certainly tell horror stories about non competing managers. For the record, I am in the field actively listing and selling properties. However, I dislike the label of being a “competing” broker because I do not consider myself in competition with my team for reasons I will get into shortly. I prefer to categorize managers as being in the field or not in the field because competition is very subjective.

The advantage of working for a broker or manager in the field is that they have first hand knowledge of exactly what it is like to work in the current environment. They see homes. They sit at kitchen tables. They go to inspections, deal with appraisers, lawyers and loan officers and get the climate we are all in. Their skills out to be sharp because of this, and if they accompany one of their team on an appointment they can be more valuable. Unfortunately, some managers who are in the field DO compete with their team members, and sometimes that causes issues when they get a client and beat out one of the other agents in doing so.

I can’t say much about managers who do not actively list or sell. I am not one of them, I never worked for one, and the bad experiences I have had are, I hope, anecdotal and could just as well have happened with active managers. For example, a manager who plays favorites with client inquiries doesn’t have to be out f the field to do so. The same goes for managers who tolerate misconduct from their agents (a HUGE pet peeve of mine).

About 5 years ago I got a phone call from one of my agents. He congratulated me on “getting” a listing he had been working to procure. Apparently, the people who called me and subsequently listed their home with me were also advertising their home as being for sale by owner, and my agent was trying to get them to list with him. I felt bad that I won and he lost, so I asked him to co-list the property with me. That was a mistake. I should have entrusted the listing to his primary care. He knew the folks, they liked him, and they would still have access to us both anytime they wished.

My philosophy since is that if I am ever competing with one of my agents for a buyer or seller, I will do everything in my power to secure the client to the company- and see to it that my agent gets the deal. As owner of the company, I win when my people win. I don’t need to be a glutton and shut them out. It is counterproductive to the long term goal of growing and strengthening the team, and erodes morale. But if I make sure they win, we all benefit. This role shifts me from being in competition with my agents to being their biggest resource. They never have to hide anything from me, and they never have to worry that their company is not 100% behind them.

This may sound self serving or self promotional in nature; it is not my intention for this to be a mere fluff piece to recruit more agents. But you know what? It is self promotional. We are growing the firm, and I feel it necessary to put my views out there. People get passionate about the discussion. We only want agents who will operate with the highest standards for our clients, and if that is to be so I have to do the best by the agents.

SO…on your $850,000 listing, they’ll say its estimated value is actually $780,000. And that $400,000 starter? They say it is worth $440,000.  Would we have tolerated that for a hot minute back when the New York Times was the ad platform of choice for Westchester homes for sale? What about paying through the nose to get your home on one of those Sunday morning TV shows with all the homes for sale. What if, after you home were shown, the channel posted their own estimate right under your list price and it didn’t match? This is exactly what happens with homes listed for sale on Zillow.

Earlier this week, I was signing papers with some nice homeowners to put their home on the market. Good, educated people. And they asked me to not list their home on Zillow.

I was flummoxed. But their point was that when they were looking for homes, they were skeptical of homes where the Zillow Zestimate (Zillow’s value estimate) was less than the list price. They didn’t want people doing that to them. When I told them that would undermine their exposure, they continued that even if they missed eyeballs on their house, they didn’t want people being encouraged to offer less based on a faulty value estimate.

Now, I love offers, and even low ones are better than no offers because they are a start. But I can tell you that agents in the field have absolutely no love for the Zillow Zestimate. It can help in a general sense in some cases but overall it muddies the waters terribly. Sellers can feel they under-priced their home. Buyers get freaked that they overbid. Even after showing clients the actual comparable sales and explaining how a professional, local broker is not a zestimate, but actually a ZACTIMATE, Zillow injects doubt where we are trying to foster trust. I didn’t make that term up- I got it from Brad Andersohn, industry outreach guy at Zillow and a respected colleague.

According to their own statistics, Zillow’s average margin of error for Westchester Zestimates is 8.3%. Only a third of their zestimates are withing 5% of actual value. You have to drill fairly deeply on their website to find this caveat, but they do publish it. Spencer Rascoff, CEO of Zillow, is pretty clear that his company is the business of selling real estate advertising. If so, why put a zestimate on a home listed for sale? If brokers are the zactimate, why not just defer to our list price, since Zillow never saw the house or executed a market analysis? We are, after all, the customers. And as my couple demonstrates, value to the consumer is dubious.

Back to my couple: They weren’t comfortable having a zestimate undermining their asking price. I showed them how an owner could claim a listing and influence the Zestimate by inputting improvements they made to the property and so forth.  It isn’t exactly an exact science, but it was something they could do. They agreed to proceed with syndicating their home to Zillow for the exposure, but their reservations about the Zestimate speak to the growing doubt among consumers about Zillow’ methodologies. It isn’t just agents that have issues. And I hope the issues can be worked out. I think that offering Zestimates just for homes off the market and having only list prices for active homes for sale would be a good start.

Full disclosure: I am a paying Zillow customer and find many of their tools to be of value. I also know plenty of Zillow employees and they have been gracious and decent people. And I hope they’ll consider my thoughts here as worthy of serious consideration.

And then, in a social situation, when asked how the market in Westchester is doing is by a friend or acquaintance, they step in it.

“The market is really heating up!”
“I think things are turning around!”

My personal favorite, advocated by the seminar gurus is “Unbelievable!” because it is ambiguous enough to mean anything. But there is a clear knee jerk reaction in some agents to become fountains of ebullient enthusiasm when asked about market conditions, as if their cheery outlook will snare them an easy deal. It won’t. It may snare a listing or a looker, but overpriced listings and lookers who don’t buy are not deals.

The truth is that every spring the cyclical nature of our industry kicks in. The holiday season is lower in activity for obvious reasons. The spring is busier because more people want to be moved in and settled by the summer. So springtime is, by comparison, busier than it was 90 days prior. But that is like saying we should build an ark every time it rains. When retailers evaluate a Christmas shopping season, they compare it to the previous Christmas, not the July before. If we are evaluating this March of 2012 in the Westchester real estate market, the only valid comparison is with March 2011. That’s just how it works. If you are an agent and you are busier now than you were in December, that isn’t a turnaround in the housing market, it is you showing up for work in the spring.

I could care less what people say when they chit chat. But it undermines our status as a reliable source of information when our eyes glaze over at the site of tin foil. Agents hate bad information online because it makes their job that much harder when Zillow says a $500,000 home is worth $435,00 or $620,000. Our job is challenging enough without having to overcome an agent’s bad advice given online to a consumer in another state. So why do some agents shoot themselves in the foot with syrupy market opinions when asked?

Lest you think I am being a parade rainer oner, here are some facts courtesy of the Empire Access MLS:

In the first 90 days of 2011, there were 704 single family homes closed in Westchester at a median price of $554,000.
In the first 90 days of 2012, there were, as of this writing, 717 homes closed in Westchester at a median sale price of $505,000.

Which means that volume is up an anemic 2% and median price is down 9%. Prices are now down to to about the median of the second quarter of 2002.

2002.

And in that quarter, there were over 1500 closed sales.

I have an uphill battle when a client wants to list their home at a higher price because someone told them things are looking up. Listings that start out overpriced end up chasing the market-unsold and stale.

Consumers: Don’t ask for opinions. Ask for facts. All real estate is local. And the local market is unique.

Agents: Don’t be afraid to just tell the truth. People want the truth, not spin or the party line. Life is so much easier when you just tell the truth. And it is far harder when you don’t paint an accurate picture.

As an example, consider a home that a comparative market analysis indicates as being properly priced at $500,000. Typically, we would price the place at $499,900. On occasion, a seller decides that they’d like to try it out for $509,000 to “get a little negotiation room.” The mistaken belief is that the offers will come in higher because they are asking a little more. The reality is that the offers won’t come in.

• Many would-be buyers won’t even know the house is for sale because they only looked up to $500,000 (an obvious dividing line for many), and they never saw the house. These people see other homes and buy something else.
• Lookers and online market watchers see the house, but refrain from doing anything because they will wait for the price to come down.
• Those left over (who wants leftovers?) may see the house but choose a more competitively priced home.
• In rare cases, you do get a bold buyer who makes an offer, but not only for what they think it is worth. In other words, the extra “padding” means nothing to them. They’d never offer more just because you asked for more. They might actually bid lower just to speculate.

The argument I get in favor of that extra little padding is that people can just make an offer. But as I have pointed out, by pricing incorrectly, many people either didn’t even see the place or opted to make their offer on a more reasonably priced property. It is human nature. Buyers gravitate toward what they perceive as a better value. Given the huge number of homes in competition with your home, that isn’t a stretch. You cannot manipulate outcomes. Overpricing never gets the seller more money, because buyers will always make offers based on what they want to pay, not what the seller speculatively asks. Market value is market value. 

Often, by the time sellers get wise to the dynamics of pricing and buyer trends, the window of opportunity is lost. We are then “chasing the market,” as more aggressive home sellers reduce their prices to get sold. The spring rush tails off, and it becomes an all out pricing war and beauty contest where competition suppresses prices. All too often, these are the homes that go into the autumn as stale listings facing a price reduction that is lower than the seller’s original bottom line. Buyers are funny like that; if a home is on the market longer than 60 days, they wonder aloud what is wrong with it! In a market like Westchester County with a median price of over $500,000, that is very costly for the seller.

The high bidder always gets the house. In cases where that bid comes from the seller, they unfortunately keep the property. You can overprice, price fairly, or price to sell. We advise to err on the aggressive side, because that actually nets the seller more and cuts down on the wait.

One of our newer agents, Stephanie Solano, who is still in her first year with the firm, has closed another home. It is her 4th transaction in the past 6 months and was not without obstacles. This comes on the tail of two successful January closings, and a virtuoso debut in a November closing. Stephanie showed her true colors in the first transaction, choosing to disclose information she heard on the grapevine to her buyer clients and risk losing the sale, which she felt was better than losing her good name if she kept mum. Her clients were impressed with her forthright advocacy, and elected to go forward, appreciative that their agent was committed to watching their back and being completely  transparent. The details are secondary; she put honor above the wallet. We love that around here.

Her latest transaction was another challenge. There was a “lightly seasoned” agent on the other side, and in many ways she did the work of two agents on the deal. She had a knack for asking me for help at the right times (not often) and managing things well on her own the rest of the time with excellent judgement.

Judgement and honor are two things I can’t teach. You either have them or you don’t. So what we have in Stephanie is the real estate version of a 5-tool baseball player: she can do it all. She produces results, and she conducts herself as a good professional should, with high standards. That is what everyone in the public should seek when they get representation.

We are very proud of everything Stephanie has accomplished and how she has gone about her work. She’s the kind of agent you want.

You can connect with her at stephanie@jphilip.com or call her cell at (914) 645-2433.

The inspiration for this piece came recently when a client emailed me saying that she spoke with her parent, and that she was going to go with an agent referred to her mother. As a last ditch effort, I asked her to have her mother Google me before making the final decision. I applaud her mother for being open minded, doing so and recanting, saving the agreement I made and retaining me as listing agent. It is my opinion that she did right by her daughter, which was her intention from the start anyway.

There are two things parents of prospective home buyers should always avoid.

Your children should be free to choose their own agent (and other professionals). It is a seldom discussed aspect of real estate that it is a massive financial event. Yet I have seen grown parents insist that their children use Aunt Ethel, Cousin Joe, or an equally unqualified person by mere virtue of the relationship. Aunt Ethel sells 2 houses a year and is asleep by 9pm. Cousin Joe just got his license. Are they really the best person to broker the largest financial event of your life? The same goes for lawyers, which are integral to the real estate process in New York. The toughest deals I have closed (or seen die) are the ones where the attorney is a round peg in a square hole because he’s a relative or family friend.

You’d never ask an eye doctor to set a broken bone. Yet I see litigators begrudgingly used as real estate attorneys, and it never works. Use a specialist. The biggest reason for using the wrong agent and attorney is typically the insistence of the parents, who attach that string because they are contributing financially. They don’t realize the importance of specialization. And that is dangerous. Real estate is a business transaction, not an instrument by which you dole out favors to friends and relatives.

Never be an 11th hour veto. The bane of every agent’s existence is showing a young couple 35 houses, finally finding that perfect place and negotiating a good price for their client, and then being told that the buyer’s parents would like to see it “now that we’ve found it.” Some of the time, the folks come in, say they love it, and everyone goes forward. Sometimes the parents get out of the car with a big puss on their face and they could walk into the Taj Mahal and it isn’t good enough for their baby. Often, these folks haven’t bought or sold real estate since the Reagan administration. Sometimes they just can’t let go of their children growing up and buying their own place.

These parents haven’t been out walking through the rain to homes by the dozen with us. They haven’t seen the slanted floors, dirty litter boxes, barking dogs, roller coaster driveways, swamp back yards, and all the other things their grown, employed, children have sifted through to find the right place. They just come from a world where half the money bought twice the home. And we can’t bring them up to speed before they tell the kids that they’ll be making a huge mistake if they proceed, or some variation. If a parent wants to have veto power, they should be involved earlier. I have no problem bringing the folks on a showing- why would I? But coming in after all the work is done and flushing it all away out of sheer nostalgia is tragic. It isn’t just a waste of work, it causes lost opportunities.

It boils down to letting go and respecting the decision of the very people you yourself raised to be smart enough to live in this world when you are not around. Let them go. Be supportive, and cut the strings.