SuburbanDigs

The Right Place

My website, NJDreamHouses.com, has been going strong for several years and, during that time, I've made contact with thousands of people who have stopped by the site, signed up, and stayed. I know many of them by name or by email designation. Occasionally, I strike up conversation that goes beyond questions about taxes, number of bedrooms, and school rankings.

Today's website email brought this cheery note from a devotee I'll call D.

"I look forward to your relentlessly optimistic spin on the new housing data," D wrote. "Nothing ever,
ever harms the outlook in your neck of the woods.  By the way, by your  logic below, why not raise the taxes even higher?  That would enhance the quality of the community and environs another notch or two, no? Come to think of it, how about a moat?"

The logic D refers to is my love letter to Montclair, and by extension, Glen Ridge, West Orange, South Orange, Maplewood and all the other towns in Essex County, NJ where I enjoy doing business. What had told him was:  "We love it here, despite the taxes; or, maybe more because of them."

D is always trying to prove that Rockland County (Spring Valley, Nyack, Haverstraw, Airmont, etc.), in New York State, is better because the taxes are lower. But, D., it's farther from the City! We're just a heartbeat away, by bus or train. D is fixated on the "absurd taxes for the size of the property" that we have here..."Rockland is still a better value... You get land for your money," he argues. And, who's to say what's more important, D...land...or...something else?

The point is, we Essex County, NJ types, are willing to forgo those big yards for the ineffable spirit of place we find here, for the energy. Relentless optimism? It's just feeling good about going home to the right place each and every night.

Okay, Maybe I Should Have Dieted

Okay, maybe I should have dieted. It's hard in real estate, because you're always running somewhere and suddenly it's 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the blood sugar is running low and you could just drop at any second and you know that bread isn't good for you, but it's what sandwiches come in.

You see, I just saw myself in HGTV's promotional photo for the new show "Bought & Sold." Maybe I look good for my age, but not that good! If I could have been on this show when I was 25 or 35 -- 45 even -- now that would have been something.

When I was 33 and pregnant and a journalist, a magazine editor asked me if I could be photographed giving birth. My husband wasn't too thrilled about that and we said no, but that was a close as fame would come. Now, in the parking lot of the Upper Montclair A & P, I bump into Nicole, one of my nicest clients ever. She embraces me warmly and says she is so thrilled to hear I will be on this HGTV show that she called her husband on his cell while he was skiing. It better be important, Steve, said, about to push off down the slope. Indeed, what could be more important that your real estate agent on national TV?

The thing is, being a real estate agent is a lot about not acting too important -- the client, after all, always comes first. Entertaining, yes; smart and competent, even better. But not too important. So it should be interesting to see how clients react to my new line of work.

Lights, Camera, Action on HGTV

In about 6 weeks, I'll be a "regular" on a new TV series, a "character" on a new docu-reality program called "Bought & Sold." Brought to you by those house-hungry people at HGTV, this was pitched to us as a cutting-edge look at a group of normal real estate agents who happen to work just outside of NYC, in some of the wealthier suburban communities in Essex County, NJ. The told us we'd be portrayed as hardworking, sensitive professionals, though we haven't seen any of the footage and, I'm guessing, won't until it airs nationally on April 29,

We were told the production company, UK's Granada TV, interviewed hundreds of agents last spring before focusing on a group of us from RE/MAX Village Square, a 5-office franchise.  I spent all last summer worrying about being chosen. With so many derogatory stereotypes in my profession, I wondered how realistic it was to believe I would come through such a project in one piece. A relative who is actually in the reality-TV biz actually told me not to get involved. It wasn't in the nature of this particular beast to be nice, she said. Why risk it?

But the producers were persuasive: Roberta, they said, you're our "teacher character," the one with the wisdom. In the end, thinking that was as decent as projection as any of my personality, I couldn't refuse my potential moment-of-fame. I told them if, at any point during the shoot that I felt abused or embarrassed, I'd quit. In fact, that never happened. Everyone was unfailingly polite through endless footage (yes, reality TV isn't done in one take!) and lots of hurry up and wait on the "set." 

The big thing about reality TV, though, is that it's fame in the raw. No stylist, no makeup, bad hair days, being shot from awful angles while driving the car; foul weather, fatigue, lots of smiling into the camera, very little coaching about how good or bad you are in a "scene." All this and more, I suppose, will be will be repeated ad infinitum and ad nauseum through time and space as the years go by. I know this because my appearance as a talking head a couple of years ago on the Lionel and Nicole Richie bio on E!Entertainment Television (in my previous life I had written a biography of Lionel), has been replayed on numerous continents and has been seen by virtually every person I have ever known.

Last month, HGTV invited the "cast" for a promotional shoot in a big house in South Orange, NJ. I was late because I had been to my own "hair and makeup"; At least I could control the way I looked that day. In frigid temperatures, we posed without coats for a very hip group shot on the front lawn; then, for individual portraits inside.

The rest is still to come. Only our broker has seen the episodes and he has pronounced them wonderful, compelling, moving, and sympathetic to Realtors. Let's hope.

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Insomnia in Realtorland

It''s 3 am. I can't say I've never had insomnia. As far back as the 1970s, when I was a newspaper reporter working til midnight, I occasionally either had trouble falling asleep after filing a big story or would wake up at 3 or 4 ready to write another. Tonight I slept well for a couple of hours, then turned over and was caught by a thought: so much left undone, so much to do. That's actually the same thought I have all day long. Today, or now it's yesterday, I gave a presentation to colleagues about internet marketing and if it made their minds race, look what it did to me.

The web, for most realtors, is still a scary notion, taking them out of the world of dutifully placed print ads or from the phone that used to ring. If most buyers are on the web, and most sellers, too, then we, too, must be.

But as the web stretches out its arms, they appear to be tentacles. The embrace is invigorating but as it pulls us in in to a secret garden of delights, there seem to be so many things to investigate..so much to do. Like getting up at 3 am and writing this blog entry.

While I'm at it, I think I'll make an old-fashioned list of what I have to do tomorrow:

9 am -- Meet contractor for bath remodeling estimate for clients who live abroad.

9:30 am -- On way to office, drive by two houses where I will doing pricings; research comparables for each of them.

10 am -- Check status of offer presented previous day. Create feature sheet for new listing arriving in 24 hours; promise myself to delegate that job to someone else next time!

11 am -- Call about a million people -- clients, tradesman, lawyers, sellers -- to touch base, cajole, make appointments, move business along.

Noon -- Quick lunch (have half a sandwich left over from yesterday).

12:30 pm -- Do pricing of local home. Owner already has a private buyer but has second thoughts.

1 pm -- Quick phone meeting with my marketing consultant. What should we focus on next? Quarterly mailings, website upgrades, new printed materials -- our agenda morphs but never ends.

1:30 pm -- On-the-road training with my newest Baldwin Dream Team buyer agent. So many neighborhoods, so little time.

3 pm -- Oatmeal cookie(s) time. Need some quick energy.

Rest of afternoon -- Begin confirming weekend appointments. Is it Thursday already? Hardly any new inventory to encourage buyers to leave their warm homes but the weather is supposed to improve and the intrepid among them will fall into place for Saturday and Sunday.

Evening -- A quiet dinner with hubby? Thursday night is website update night. Hope to be home for CSI (is it a new episode?), then write my NJDreamHouses.com "Weekly E-Newsletter" after it ends and shoot it out with listings to my database.

Recipe for more insomnia?

The Dream House

Recently, one of my clients expressed the need to move sometime in the future from the really cute home purchased a few years ago on one of the most desirable blocks in Montclair, NJ, near everything. "I don't know if we necessarily need bigger, just a little different. Still at least 4BR, 2 BA, place for an office, ideally a finished basement, front porch, quiet street,  unique style, layout (i.e. not necessarily a center hall colonial), walking to train, shops, more varied landscape... you  know, the dream list."

Yes, I do know...The Dream List.

Everybody's got one, to be sure. My own website, NJDreamHouses.com, perpetuates that yearning. I, myself, invested more than a year in my own quest for a dream home. Yet in Essex County, NJ's sea of quirky older homes in towns like Montclair, Glen Ridge, Maplewood, Millburn, and South Orange, dreams aren't fulfilled as easily as they might be if one were working with an architect on plans for a brand new house or purchasing nearly-new construction.

Buyers in our area usually don't want new homes, but they bring to bear many of the collective needs for houses with this and that attractive amenity-- stylistic broad strokes easily achieved in a truly suburban home but not so easily in our 80-year-old (on average) inventory just 13 miles from the City.

For instance, central air. Maybe half the houses here now have it, but many others don't have upgraded wiring or the space required for the system without losing an attic or closets. Another current desire, for playrooms attached to kitchens so you can see your kids while you cook, renders much available inventory useless; only a $150,000 architectural fix to add one onto an home (with only an small sunroom off the living room) will do. Master bedrooms attached to luscious baths with tumbled marble walls, granite countertops, standup shower & soaking bath with jets...not likely in an average-sized home that may not even have enough closet space for today's clothes horses. Living room wall space for a 52" TV? Vaulted ceilings that coax more light into homes? People today definitely want light and bright. In the old days, homeowners were mainly concerned with warmth; fewer, smaller windows were one way to be warm.

One lovely couple I'm working with exemplify how current buyers approach the seach. The first couple of weekends, they're charged up. So much space out here! Where they're coming from -- a small NYC apartment with no furniture. The suburbs are their oyster. They realize they want something historically true to period, vintagy but not rickety. Near NYC transportation. Soon, they focus on the big yard. Quiet street. Other pretty houses on the block. Three or 4 bedrooms plus 2 more rooms for home offices, family area, and a place for grandparents to stay (preferably on a lower floor, with accessible bath). Reasonable taxes. And, of course, it has to speak to them. 

The speaking to them part is the hardest part of the dream to fulfill because many houses don't even whisper a hint of what they really have to offer. They are rickety. They have bad paneling, old linoleum, mottled rugs, too-few baths, undeveloped basements with big old furnaces that look scary. I encourage a second visit, remark on hidden virtues, bring in experts to suggest design opportunities, put costs of improvements in perspective, but if a house doesn't shout out its charms, it's not going to be the one.

Still, as one client emailed me the other day: "It's funny, I feel like you're our psychologist realtor." Indeed, as I may have previously mentioned in these pages, the job is 60-90 percent psychology/10-40 percent other, depending on the nature of the deal.

Luckily my mom was a pysychologist so I have a genetic predisposition toward dispensing house-and-home therapy. It's a value-added part of my job and one of the most rewarding when minds are expanded, ideas are exchanged, fears are overcome and contracts are signed. So, when people kvetch about Realtors in online forums or at dinner parties and trot out the 'what do they really do' question, just know that what we really do, aside from knowing inventory and connecting it to the right buyers; negotiating the deal and keeping it together til closing -- is to take good people by the hand and understand and interpret what they want and convert it into what they need to live satisfyingly in one of America's great counties.