Do apartments sold fast mean changing market?

After period of stability, an upward trend in volume is inescapable. (Source: UrbanDigs)

Something seems to be happening.

I’ve visited dozens of open houses on the Upper West Side over the last month or so, and each of the apartments that had been recently listed enjoyed heavy traffic.

Not only are folks looking.  They are buying as well.

Although properties in the second quarter were taking more than five months to sell (and that’s from their last price), I’m finding

There is only one right time to buy a new home

See you next week.  Enjoy the holiday weekend!

One of my favorite posts.

In an uncertain market, the question on every buyer’s mind is whether it is the right time to get off the fence.

One buyer recently answered that question in an e-mail quoted by the Observer. His response is worth noting in part because of the credentials that he and his wife possess.

Robert Frank is the wealth reporter for the Wall Street Journal and author of the best-selling book, Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich. His wife is Rebecca Patterson, global head of foreign exchange at JPMorgan Private Bank.

Smart people, right? They recently spent

Land-lease building should be your last resort

SUMMER DAYS DRIFTING AWAY

One of my favorite posts.

The phrase “land lease” often strikes terror in the hearts of co-op and condo buyers and brokers alike.

It should.

That’s because a land lease means that the building sits on land it doesn’t own. Someone else holds title to the property and rents it to the building.

This was not the liveliest showing of my career

SUMMER DAYS DRIFTING AWAY

One of my favorite posts.

In an online piece that turned up yesterday in the Real Deal, a clutch (flock, bevy, herd?) of brokers related some horror stories from open houses, among them:

• “How about a five-year old breast-feeding?”
• “A half-naked, sleeping couple.”
• “When the listing broker invited my client and myself into an open house, showed us around the apartment and when we go to the master bedroom, the seller and his girlfriend were in bed — awake [and] reading the paper [with] no clothes on.”

Such accounts are demonstrably livelier than mine, which concerns an experience I had a few years ago

When selling, don’t check reality at the door

SUMMER DAYS DRIFTING AWAY

One of my favorite posts.

Sellers tend to learn the hard way.

That’s the message of a piece in today’s New York Times, which chronicles the bad decisions that some sellers made when they listed their homes.

Among a few anecdotes, the newspaper quotes a couple who ignored their broker’s advice to ask no more than the prices of houses near their 4,000-sf place in suburban Houston:

You’re emotionally attached, so you think your home is worth more. I had a landscape service and a Sub-Zero refrigerator and an icemaker on every floor, but buyers don’t care, they want deals.

Listed originally for $825,000, the house being sold by Michel and Rick Shanks underwent four price reductions and eventually sold for $605,000 after 10 months on the market.

Well, doh.

Do you pick your. . . feet in Syracuse

SUMMER DAYS DRIFTING AWAY

One of my favorite posts.

If memory serves, that headline is a reasonably accurate, if obscure, reference to the The French Connection, which starred Gene Hackman as the questioner.

What prompts the memory is a recent post by one of my favorite blogs, BrickUnderground.com. They asked the people behind Virtual Doorman – which provides remote monitoring and doorman services to more than a hundred co-op and condo buildings in Manhattan and Brooklyn – what they’re spying in elevators.

“You’ve got a combination of exhibitionist types and people who don’t think,” says Ralph Stein, the director of business development for Virtual Services, which owns Virtual Doorman.

Elevators haven’t been a safe site for private dancing for some time.

He notes that men and women behave differently in front of the mirror.

Guys are more worried about the things they’re going to get called out on, like checking their fingernails, straightening their ties, checking their nose hairs—I’ve even seen guys check out their chest hair, like opening one button or two,” says Stein.

In fact, brokers as a group get no respect

SUMMER DAYS DRIFTING AWAY

One of my favorite posts.

The Harris Interactive Poll below proves what any self-respecting real estate broker already knows: When it comes to viewing prestigious occupations. . . well, there’s solace in assuming that at least used-car salesperson must rank even lower.

NY1 segment aims at red flags in real estate sales

This image from Jill Urban’s NY1 segment shows neither her nor me.

Real estate reporter Jill Urban of NY1 interviewed me last week about the ways buyers or sellers can cause trouble before a contract is signed.

We also discuss what either party can do when sensing a problem.  I hope you enjoy viewing her short piece on red flags in real estate.

I know I enjoyed participating and finally meeting Jill, with whom I have several mutual friends in the business.

The clip is only two minutes long and includes one of those friends, lawyer Ron Gitter. I’ll have much more detail about the issues in a future post.

Tomorrow: Thanks, Rodney

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Malcolm Carter
Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker
Senior Vice President
Charles Rutenberg Realty
127 E. 56th Street
New York, NY 10022

M: 347-886-0248
F: 347-438-3201

Malcolm@ServiceYouCanTrust.com
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Out and About: Floors can be winning or wanting

In my years as a real estate broker, I naturally ask buyers what is important to them in their new home.

A great kitchen?  Proximity to a subway?  Central air conditioning?  A doorman?

Floor in new development.

The responses vary, but not once has a prospective buyer suggested to me that good flooring was essential.

Yet floors can be the, uh, foundation of the emotional response buyers have when they enter an apartment.  The type and condition of the flooring may well make the difference between a sale and a search that continues.

Tastes vary when it comes to floors, and just as kitchen styles have evolved, so have floors.  There was a time when

Weekly Roundup: Starters hot, U.S. prices rise, rates tick up, foreclosures drop, Houston’s cool

Weekly Roundup returns after Labor Day, but. . .

. . . you may want to check back here for occasional posts and keep current via Facebook or Twitter (below)

Wells Fargo provides mortgages to one-fifth of the city’s borrowers

July sales of starter apartments grow 30.5 percent over previous year

Sales of new Manhattan condos up in second quarter, but median price sinks

Lesbian couple get both names on lease after months-long battle, threatened lawsuit

Report suggests property tax evasion widespread

Swimmer whose name rhymes with ‘hike’ selling Baltimore condo

Singing couple proves that money talks with their $400,000 Hamptons rental

Actress orders purchase of Upper West Side townhouse for $10.7 million

Grammy winner’s condo on the Bowery finds buyer after 5 percent markdown

Late pop artist’s lofty domain goes on the market in SoHo

One of late heiress’ Fifth Avenue apartments is under contract — again

Case-Shiller records significant price gains from year ago

Strength of apartment sector