With real estate offers, who says that life is fair?

(flickr photo by maorix)

Sadly, homebuyers are finding that sellers are in the driver’s seat once again.

And they don’t always play fair.

As lawyer Adam Stone points out in a BrickUnderground.com column, not only do many sellers entertain multiple offers.  They also may work with multiple contracts.  Stone asks a pertinent question:

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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.

Renting to own can be option if used cautiously

Buyers who are short of enough cash for a downpayment, closing costs, moving expenses and property improvements may find themselves gravitating toward a rent-to-own option.  It also is a route that consumers in the process of repairing their credit my want to try.

But such a concept — which I have found to be employed infrequently — must be pursued with great care.

10 signs that an owner must be dying to sell

A friend of mine thinks I’m funny — not just in that way.

She is Teri Karush Rogers, the inspired editorial director and CEO of BrickUnderground.com.  Her site provides a wealth of information for apartment dwellers, and I read it every day.

A few weeks ago, she e-mailed me with the idea that I come up with ways that buyers can perceive that sellers are desperate to unload their homes.  Following is my list (published by Teri earlier this month) of 10 giveaways that owners are just dying to sell:

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You may want to “like” Service You Can Trust on Facebook if you haven’t yet and find much information not in daily posts.

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The High Road: With disclosure doubts, don’t ask

(Flickr photo by Auntie P)

Have you heard this observation before?

If you have to ask, you already know the answer.

Naive sellers may ask their listing brokers whether a certain defect needs to be disclosed.  The most sophisticated sellers know better than to ask their agent: They appreciate that the law obligates brokers to disclose defects of which they are aware.

At the same time, New York State is among the most permissive in the nation when it comes to seller disclosures.

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Employment posts gain in June, but jobless rate continues to stall

The city’s unemployment rate in June went to 8.7 percent from May’s 8.6 percent, the state Department of Labor reported.

The one-month rise was not itself a significant increase, but after falling consistently each month for nearly a year starting last spring, there have now been four consecutive months without a noticeable decline in the city’s jobless rate.

Most of the drop in the rate from its 10 percent peak has come not from significant job gains but as a result of discouraged job seekers leaving the work force.

The city added 51,400 private sector jobs in the 12 months ending in June. The 1.6 percent growth rate, “is pretty good by historical standards,” according to James Brown, principal economist at the labor department.

Rental rigmarole challenges prospective tenants

With a vacancy rate in Manhattan of under 1 percent, apartments sometimes rent in hours, not days or weeks. Good tenants are not that hard to find. On top of that, evicting problem tenants can be expensive and time-consuming.

So, as the New York Times observes, most landlords here require a lot of information.

They want to see a prospective tenant’s tax returns, pay stubs, bank statements, proof of employment, photo identification and, sometimes, reference letters from previous landlords.

Everyone will run a credit check (many Manhattan landlords look for a score above 700) and just about all, from big management firms to small-time landlords, want to know that your gross income is somewhere between 40 and 50 times the monthly rent.

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Manhattan condo prices have yet to recover fully

From its peak in December 2008 to its trough in May 2009, the RPX Manhattan Condominium price declined 24 percent, according to Radar Logic.

Since then, it has regained only about half of the value it lost during the crash.

As of March 31, the RPX Manhattan condominium price was $1,017.10 per square foot, which is 16 percent above its cyclical trough of $923.24, but still 12 percent below its all-time peak of $1,212.83.

Sales activity also remains well below pre-crisis levels.  Activity during March 2011 was 18 percent lower than it was during March 2008, before the national housing crisis took hold of the Manhattan market.

Although the rate of sales increased robustly during 2009, its recovery has faltered since, with the transaction count declining 3 percent over the last year.  There has been a clear shift in the concentration of sales from smaller to larger units over the last year.

Buyers are still out there and having offers accepted

Buyers continue to step up and sign deals for Manhattan property at a very strong pace, according to a new post by Noah Rosenblatt of UrbanDigs.

Finding in his excellent data