SuburbanDigs

There's No Urgency

With the softening of the market comes a new mantra: I'm/we're in no hurry. We don't have to buy...we don't have to sell...we have a lease til late next year...our mortgage is paid up...baby's coming but we're fine with small spaces...now that the kids are gone, our house is too big and so expensive to run and we hate the taxes but we're not going to give it away..."

Of course, the point of selling real estate is to sell it. If one's clients are saying that they don't need to move, it's a problem!

So I read with interest this week a piece from Realtor.com called "Common Concerns of a 'No Hurry' Prospect." Number One General Concern: What if this is the wrong house for me?

Just months ago, buyers were not as concerned about perfect fit. They wanted to get a good house, get their kids into good schools, secure that great NYC commute. So what if...the kitchen wasn't that big...the street had some traffic...the basement wasn't finished...the master didn't have its own bath...the houses were close together...local reading schores slipped a bit last year. Time, effort and contractors would eventually right all things, as long as there was a HOUSE to call our own.

Today, buyers can simple adore a house, marvel at it's Viking appliances and black marble countertops, oversized sunroom just right for the big plasma TV and yard big enough for soccer practice, but still find one thing that prompts a wave of tremendous indecision. One thing that, when lined up against all the good parts, kills the love.

On the seller side: Showing statistics about recent home appreciation (up to 144 percent in our area over the last 6 years!) and realistically suggesting that further escalation in home prices may not be in the cards, can be a huge turnoff leading to not listing a house or having it arrive on the market at an outrageous price.

There always were people who couldn't decide to buy or sell and there always will be. But most people who spend their weekends trudging around looking at other people's homes see themselves making a move. When they don't, ancillary industries slow down, too -- furniture, rugs, home-building supplies.

We Realtors are at the center and it's left to us to restore the urgency to the home buying/selling process, one nervous client at a time.

Jeans or No Jeans -- Dressing for Success in Real Estate

Since I work 7 days a week, I never have much time off to dress down. If I ever have the urge to wear jeans and a workshirt during the week or even on a weekend, it's always the day that a $1,000,000-plus buyer strides in and looks me up and down.

Jeans or no jeans? That is the question. I love denim and own several pair of fake jeans -- designer denim slacks that aren't as much fun to wear as the real thing but are more comfortable and relaxing than pressed dress pants. I also have an array of denim jackets design-y enough to look sharp for clients but not as confining as real suit jackets.

Correspondingly, most home buyers and sellers -- irrespective of their economic level, dress way down when they meet with me and never apologize. House-hunting or selling is not a lesure activity that demands haute couture. Comfort is better. Often, too, their cars are a real mess inside. I'm used to that and fit in with no problem. But, for their agent, jogging pants and shoes, classic jeans, raggedy sweaters are the kiss of death.

Most important, it seems, is the car a person in my profession chooses to drive: Rule of thumb -- the more upscale and elegant the better. It took me a decade to figure this one out while I drove around in perfectly nice mid-level cars (Suburu, Toyota, VW) thinking it was better not to be ostentatious.

When I rewarded myself with a Mercedes to commemorate a decade of hard work in the profession, some of my clients actually embraced me and murmured kind words of congratulations. I realized that people like being able to see tangible signs of their favorite agent's success. It makes them feel successful, too. And, after all, the more empowered one feels in a deal, the better. Negativity doesn't work well in real estate, or any other profession, for that matter.

So, seven days a week, I make the effort to look better than my clients and try to keep my car neat and clean. It's what they expect!

Downtown Bloomfield, NJ Could Be Great, If...

As a member of the local real estate community, I care about the towns I work in and tend to look at how distressed areas can be improved and daydream about how I would do it. So, when issues of Eminent Domain arise, as they have in Bloomfield, NJ, I can't help thinking that here's a town that could someday be great if everybody could just get together on the dream. Just 30 minutes from Manhattan, with a huge inventory of classic homes and a downtown train station, it's almost a no-brainer to say that Bloomfield could be the next Long Island City or Williamsburg in Brooklyn.

But it's not. Far from it. After years of legal rangling, Bloomfield's city fathers have seen their plans for a revitalized train station and downtown with new condos, stores, and entertainments quashed still again in court by a small group of very annoyed shopkeepers with pockets deep enough to hire attorneys and stop a multi-million-dollar redevelopment project stone cold.

The result is that the downtown, never wonderful, is looking very odd. There are, already, some new stores with nice signage, that appeared over the last year or two -- hoping, I would guess, that the redevelopment project would take them to a new level. The 12 Miles West Theater Company ventured into downtown Bloomfield a few years ago from neighboring Montclair, with the expectation that the downtown was on its way up. There are also lots of denuded parking spaces where the town took away the meters in expectation of breaking ground. The train station is often overrrun by weeds. Many other small shops went out of business and have not been reclaimed.

And now, in still another round of legal combat, Bloomfield town fathers have been chastized again for trying to take, through Eminent Domain, several important downtown parcels that weren't, in the judges' opionion, really as awful as the town had characterized.

On Baristanetnj.com, many locals' favorite place to blather on about terrible developers and poor shopkeepers, it seems that any entity with deep pockets is necesarily bad. On Baristanet.com, the feeling seems to be that Bloomfield will regenerate of its own volition -- all that's needed is some gung-ho shopkeepers and the people will come.

This gets me going. Bloomfield is not the only town center with urban renewal issues. In most cases, it takes a strong city government as well as county and state support -- and private, outside investment  --  to fund redevelopment projects to a meaningful level.

One of the criticisms of the Bloomfield project was that the central parcel would be inhabited by a food store. Okay, that's not exactly a thrilling idea. But it's better than the out-of-business rug store that now faces the train station or the sad-looking restaurant (awful food, by the way) that sits there now. Kudos to Starseed Yoga for claiming one of the empty spaces.

But the most important thing is to get more people into downtown Bloomfield. The condos that Forest City, the outside development firm working with Bloomfield, would erect, are exceptionally important. Without people living downtown and using its shops, the town can't move to the next level, no matter how many little retailers come back.

I hope it's not too late for Bloomfield to make the right choices and retreive the downtown for future generations.

It's Thanksgiving. Good or bad for real estate? Holiday weekends are always hard to read in real estate. With people traveling and cooking, who has time for house-hunting?

Boom/Bust Vocabulary Overtakes My Mind

Every day for the last several years, I went to bed thinking about "The Bubble" and woke up talking about it. Over morning coffee and 3 daily newspapers, there was bound to be at least one article reporting a new survey or an Op-Ed piece on the Coming of the End of the Bubble.

More than 7 years ago, when I sold my last house, The Bubble hung over the deal, at least in my own mind. Pricing the house, I wondered whether I'd see an over-asking response or a sudden deflation of the market during the deal. (We did well selling it and now it's worth almost double again.)

Through time and hundreds of transactions, the health of the high market loomed ever larger. Bubble...did it exist? Bubble...would it pop, leaving nothing but angry buyers and disgruntled sellers...or, slightly pin-pricked, would it deflate slowly until patched by other, more positive market variables? Bubble...bubble...bubble, where will you bounce to next?

Soft landing...adjustment...leveling off...deflation...crash. The lilt of new jargon is what puts me to sleep now as I catch up with last-minute reading before bed (positive vibes from Business Week; ominous intonations from the New York Times) and wake up to another round of real estate punditry, the I-told-you-so types in the media who have been waiting to endorse a market change of enormous proportions whether it was really happening or not.

No consensus seems possible. Today's news from The Wall Street Journal Online: "The worst of the housing bust is over, economists said by nearly 2-to-1 in the latest WSJ.com economic forecasting survey. But they still predict that the average selling price of a house will fall next year."

That's 49 major economists in seeming consensus (if this is even possible in a field notorious for inconclusive pronouncements), that "home prices, measured by the government's Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight index, to rise 2.8% this year and to fall by 0.5% next year. That contrasts with a 13.4% increase in 2005." (In fact, the WSJ survey reflects economists who cheerfully predict a 7 percent rise in 2007 and naysayers who conjure up a cloudy crystal ball warning of a 10 percent decline, so what the poll really is saying is...who knows?

Anyone selling a home right now sould be happy to know that his/her house is GOING UP, even a tiny bit or just STAYING WHERE IT IS after a 13.4 percent rise in 2005, alone. Going down? That's nasty news, but should be countered by the fact that in the fertile tri-state crescent that includes NJ and Essex County, the huge uptick in prices over the last 5-10 years has already positioned even the smallest, most modest homes in a resale range never before seen in real estate history.

We'll just have to see what happens...

 

The New Condo Explosion in Essex County, NJ

Okay, as promised, here's a rundown on the new condo developments in the area:

The Sienna -- Located in downtown Montclair, NJ, on the site of the old Hanes Department Store, once the flagship of a NJ chain. The Sienna is a handsome highrise with more than 100 units, just steps from tons of restaurants, shops (including Urban Outfitters) and the movies. Half the units have been sold as of Nov. 1, 2006. Prices range from under a half-million up to the nines. Near the NYC bus; about a 10 minute walk to trains at the Walnut St. Station or take NJ Transit down Bloomfield Ave. to the Bay St. Station trains. Word is that a large health club facility will inhabit the ground floor.

Montclair Heights -- Located at the edge of Montclair's prestigious Estate Section, on the site of the old Montclair Community Hospital, this noble-looking, all-brick luxury development, is priced at more than $1K per unit and is still in the contruction phase. Bus transportation to the city is at the corner, but it's not near trains.

Walnut Lofts -- These eleven upscale lofts, located in what is sometimes called the Woho section of Montclair, are across the street from popular Egan & Son's pub, the forthcoming Oppenheimer's seafood restaurant and various other eateries, bakeries, antique and clothing shops, with NY Direct trains down the block. Priced between most haven't yet sold.

The Reserve -- In neighboring Glen Ridge, on the site of the old Verizon building, this combination one and multi-floor condo/townhouse structure has an elegant lobby and concierge service, as well as private courtyard, 1-car garage space per unit, and incredible access to NYC Direct trains literally across the street. Shops in neighboring Bloomfield center are available; or, shoot over the hill to downtown Montclair. Glen Ridge, itself, has 2 banks, 1 sandwich shop, 1 florist, 1 manicurist, 1 upscale restaurant,  and 1 pharmacy, as well as schools ranked in the top 10 in the state. Units at The Reserve are priced from the high $500's (for 2 bedrooms) to nearly $1.5K for 3-bedroom, 3.1-bath townhouses.

Vizcaya -- Huge, new development, still in the construction phase, located on Northfield Ave., West Orange, opposite the regional JCC facility and on the express bus line to the city. Just listed in the MLS this week, Vizcaya literature touts 2-zone a/c, 2 assigned garage spaces, one-level living, and huge floor plans -- 2502 - 3490 -- with prices ranging from $875,990 to a whopping $1,710,990. Monthly maintenance fees run around $1,500.

Bel Air -- Located on Mt. Pleasant Ave. in West Orange and just listed on the MLS, this is builder Hovnanian/Matzel & Mumford's new development of 250 townhomes. Fitness center, library, card and billiard rooms, tennis courts, outdoor pool, changing rooms, etc., are part of the package here, along with walkout basements, with units offered from the high sixes to high eights. So far, no direct NYC bus on this stretch, but perhaps that will change. Maintenance charges are in the $400 a month range.

The Manors at South Mountain -- South Orange's toney development, located on the mountainside, has been available for the last few years, with several dozen units still to be sold. Through year's end, many new units are being offered for $999.000. These are huge townhouses, approaching 6000 sq. ft. with finished basements, dramatic staircases, huge kitchens and formal dining rooms, upscale appointments all around. Maintentance fees are in the low $400s.

Livingston Town Center -- This large development in "downtown" Livingston, NJ, wraps itself around a shopping area. The largest unit -- 3 bedrooms, 7 rooms, 2.1-baths, on one floor -- is more than 3000 sq. ft., with upscale everything, and priced at $1175,900. with lesser units in the eights.

The Pointe at Livingston -- Another development in Livingston, this one for over-55's, with a very classy clubhouse, is in an advanced stage, with a new building going up now. Units with 3 bedrooms, 9 rooms and 3.1 baths are going for $819,000 with maintenance of about $700 per month.

City Homes at Essex Park -- Centex Homes' new, gated condo development in Belleville has units from about 1,000 to 2,000 sq. ft., priced from the mid $300s to the mid $400's, with the more expensive units having family rooms. There's a pool, community center, bocce court...and public golf course across the street. Maintenance is $280.

New Condos Sweep Essex County, NJ

From a real estate agent's perspective, the condo inventory in Essex County, NJ has always been somewhat lacking, with much of the inventory dating back to the building surge in the late Eighties, with so-called Euro-style kitchens, bland tan bath tiles and rugs, rugs, rugs all around. In the early to mid Nineties, a number of other developments rose up that had more in common with those earlier designs.

Condo developers lay low for a while, rising again in the full exhuberance of the recent high market. But it takes so long to purchase land and obtain proper permits and variances that many new developments in Essex County, NJ are just now debuting -- as the market flattens and turns, once more, into the inevitable real estate doldrums.

Right now, there are new condo and townhouse developments begging for buyers in Montclair, West Orange, Livingston, Belleville, South Orange and Glen Ridge, to name a few towns where real estate agents are being offered higher commissions, invitations to wine tastings and musical evenings and buyers are being lured by weekend specials, mortgage rate supports and the like.

So, if you're looking for a condo...take your pick. Tune in again and I'll tell you all about them.