SuburbanDigs

If At First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again?

It's a war zone out there in local Essex County, NJ real estate, as it is almost everywhere else. Since 2008, some sellers have tried and tried again to move -- and they're still living in the same house. Rather than positioning these houses where they could really even sell, they top off pricing in a no-man's land, then endure months, even years of visits from cautious, unresponsive buyers who just aren't feelin' it, receive oodles of analytics about their market and their neighborhood sales, see all the dire headlines, all the while protesting that their agents just aren't working hard enough to make it happen. Despite relentless public feedback about what their houses DON'T have, where it AREN'T located, and what THE AREN'T priced at, our intrepid band of oblivious sellers maintain that the whole world is wrong.

Meanwhile, plenty of other homes sell, and what does that do? It reaffirms the contrarian's view that his or her house is better and deserves more -- and that next season or next year, this month's inflated price will be vindicated by that one buyer who better understands just how great the house really is.

We Realtors have been through this more times than we'll admit to counting. Just recently, I received one such seller protestation that quietly pushed me over the edge into stark, raving Realtor madness: "My objective," he announced, "continues to be to sell my home at a price consistent with my perceived value of the home and at a price that will allow me to recover the investment I have made in my home over the last several years. It is my hope that this will happen soon."

That, after six months on the market, a series of glacially arrived at price reductions totalling $80,000; about 10 showings; and another half-dozen showings rejected because the owner wouldn't accomodate less than 24 hours notice. In that time period, during which we exchanged some 75 detailed email discussions, the immediate market swelled to near 400 listings, more than 50 of them similarly priced. Meanwhile, prices of local solds that provide appraisers with tools to analyze a home's value, dropped faster than we could keep up.

Without a seller's unconditional need to sell a house today at a price consistent with the market as it is today, failure is the outcome. The seller who says he's withdrawing the listing to try again next spring or next fall at the same price, hasn't a clue about value, does not get it and doesn't feel the need to get it because - and we hear this every day - "I don't really need to sell."

If it could talk, really talk, the beleaguered real estate market itself would rise up and say it loud and clear: Then don't! Our market glut isn't exclusively from short sales and foreclosures; it's also caused by the try, try again crowd to whom every indignity associated with selling with today's real estate conditions is a badge of honor. Go figure.

Gauging The Bottom

For the last 18 months or so, gauging he bottom of the market has been a buyer's primary goal. It has been a how-low-can-I-go scenario. When I'm working for a seller who has drawn a line in the sand, below which there is no deal, I encourage the buyer's agent to be reasonable when bringing in an offer. Last week, I conveyed just that to a agent who said her clients were thrilled to find just the right house. They'd fallen in love after two mishaps -- houses that didn't pass inspection for whatever reason -- and they just couldn't wait to make this happen.

Then the offer came in -- $60,000 under asking. Now, the sellers bought it for $50,000 more than they were selling of for, so we'd done the numbers and felt sure the house wasn't overpriced. Well, maybe not THAT over priced! We negotiated. The sellers dropped another $20,000. The buyers...oh, they hardly budged at all and then, quick as a wink, disappeared. I guess they didn't love the house SO much.

And now, some other people are interested in it. We'll see what they come up with. I reviewed all the competition today in the MLS. Okay, this isn't the biggest house in the price range, but it's by far the prettiest, the most elegant, and the most updated. Time will tell.

What we're seeing this first month of a new year is promise -- for homes that are priced right. Amazing but true: Buyers are making offers. And they're not all insanely low. In Montclair and Glen Ridge, NJ. adjacent towns with enormous desirability due their access to NYC, homes are selling over-asking again. When they're "worth" it!

Which brings me to the how-low-can-I-go scenario in 2010. A client of mine made an offer last week on a very pretty, updated, centrally located home here. She came in $20,000 under asking for her Best and Final offer; the other two bidders came in at least $20,000 over asking. One of my team's listings in Maplewood last week, cute as a button, sold in just days. Just under a 10 percent adjustment in 2 years for this home, to be sure, but hardly a Humpty Dumpty real estate moment.

Sure, there are many homes out there without happy endings and there will continue to be. Once a home enters short sale status, whatever real value it has will have been compromised. Only bargain status will give it marketplace power, no matter the home's inherent value.

But for properties left untainted by misfortune, the outlook is better. The most desirable properties are being shown and embraced. A colleague of mine put a cute 100-year old home on the market yesterday. There have already been 12 showings. This one last sold in 2008, with multiple offers. Now priced $10,000 under that old sale price, it may well reflect that part of the market that retains value. It's not a bargain, never has been, and it seems, never will be. But it's a wonderful place to live, great schools, great commute, and it's going to be home sweet home, on a fair and square basis, to someone who just loves it and embraces it, price and all.

What a deal!

Upgrades, Anyone?

During the old high market, I never ceased to be in awe of buyers who closed on their new homes and then began ripping out and replacing just about everything to create the perfect environment for their lifestyle - sometimes at very great expense. They were largely undaunted by worries that the sum of these improvements might take a while to enhance the home's value in the marketplace.

Through time, not all home improvements have made sense -- we all see that now. The best upgrades had utilitarian as well as design value, the worst fulfilled that short-term desire for an icing-on-the-cake lifestyle. Like custom cabinets vs. semi-custom; whole house A/C vs. window units; finished basements vs. not-so-finished -- but still cute, still liveable.

Custom cabs make no sense if the rest of the house isn't up to custom standards -- if you're still walking on old, curled linoleum or staring up at florescent lights from 1965; A/C is a luxury in a house with an old roof and peeling shingles, for buyers will discount the aberrant upgrade and focus on the have-not part of the home in this, our new, frugal buying environment. Finished basements for more family space-- hey, who wouldn't want that? But what's so bad if it hasn't got wall-to-wall carpeting or the pipes are visible? What about just replacing that horrible commode and putting in a new one for $100? Forget the high-end tumbled marble down there.

And so here we are at the end of a brutal 2009 real estate market, faced with the official yearly cost vs. value report on home improvements -- and it's a lesson to us all. According to Realtor.com today, "the majority of the 10 remodeling projects with the best return on investment nationally are a testament to pragmatism. Six of the 10 projects, using a variety of materials, involve home maintenance that costs less than $14,000."

There will still be those who jump head first into home ownership with the dream of perfection -- and, if they have the money, who can stop them? -- but my fervent New Year's hope is that my buyers will find ways to enjoy what they have and to work toward perfection with caution and humility. For, as some have found the hard way, new kitchens and baths do not necessarily happiness -- or profit -- make.
 

To Get Or Not To Get...

The other day I received a phone call – he said by mistake – from a homeowner who last spring didn’t choose me to represent him. At the time, he mumbled that the reason who was that he thought another agent’s (regional) company had more reach than my (international) affiliation. A better fit. Wasn’t he listening? Wasn’t I communicating? Oh, well. Can’t win them all. Onward and upward.

Then, yesterday, when he called out of the blue, for an instant I thought, oh, maybe he’s figured it out. After all, he hadn't moved on his original timetable...there was hope! Not at all, as it turns out. He was looking for a notary in my office and was apparently surprised to reach me…directly. Well, this is my cell phone. I thought. Oh, he said, I found this number online and thought it was the main number.  I also thought but did not say, remember when I told you I was ubiquitous...Still, I was nothing if not cordial and, without skipping a beat, I arranged to have him visit my colleague, who stamped his documents accordingly.

While doing so, she mentioned she was surprised he hadn’t used me to list his home and he replied that he and his wife felt “I didn’t ‘get’”the house. Really?

Okay, his is a house positioned on the property in an unusual way and my experience told me that might be a problem. No sense waiting for the house to hit the market to hear people say the same thing and break the news like it was a surprise. I had also suggested that inside, he concentrate on moving out some dated furniture that I would switch out with “Pottery Barn” overstuffed leather chairs that I use for staging. I urged him to declutter his third floor, put a closet door on a closet, let me replace the rugs and generally heighten the look throughout.

That’s what I do – stage to maximize the dramatic elements of a house. Along with various other value-added options that come with hiring me, taking advantage of  visual opportunities to highlight a home – communicate what it really can be, not what it looks like raw -- is essential. Not to mention my position as a consistent top producer who has sold on his block and throughout his community, to the highest levels.

“No, she didn’t get our house,” he said. And then, he added, a bit sheepishly, I’m told: “Well, she saw it when it was a mess…”

Yes, I did. I also had to rush through my initial visit, I recall, because his wife was so busy and his daughter had a play date. When I returned with my price estimate and my PowerPoint presentation, the spouse wasn’t there at all and their daughter returned from school in the middle of it all and wanted his attention, and why shouldn’t she?

Perhaps I didn’t ‘get’ his house. He and his wife also didn’t ‘get’ me because they hadn’t carved out the time to do so.

I keep telling myself that there's a better way to do my job. Getting a listing is a complicated affair. Highly competitive, without thought, planning and perfect execution, it's not going to happen. Yet, several times this past year, I dropped everything and ran over without all that. One gorgeous, sunny Sunday at 5, just as I was sinking into the hammock with the paper, a homeowner called and said she was listing…”like right now.” Could I run over? My mind said no, but my heart said yes.  I never like to lose when I think I can win. So, I changed out of my gardening shorts, checked the MLS comps, and shot over there like a whippet. We ran through the house, which was in various states of disarray, and then I ran through my presentation in record time on her rickety café table in the backyard because she needed an analysis yesterday.

I didn’t get that one, either. She chose a brand new agent in town with apparently infinite value-added skills who ended up (not kidding!) re-sealing her driveway, mowing her lawn, moving her furniture to her own storage facility, and God knows what else. That agent ‘got’ that house.

Early New Year’s Resolution, 2010:  Just say no, I don’t work like that, Mr. Seller. If you are part of the couple or extended family who own the property, you all need to be there. You need to carve out real time for me because we need to be the same team, from square one. When I present my marketing plan, you will need to visit to my office because this is a professional meeting. Then, and only then, will I be able to ‘get’ you and your house and provide the highest level of service and top dollar for your home – and you will ‘get’ me -- in the process, fully comparing and contrasting the honest value of one Realtor over another.

But, Happy Thanksgiving and yes, I am thankful for all the great deals I had this year with the people who "got" me! And for much, much more.

 

 

Managing Expectations

That's my favorite phrase these days ... managing expectations -- for my clients, buyers and sellers alike, as well as for myself.

As a Realtor who has been in the profession almost a decade and a half, it's hard not to remember the good old days, when the only expectations we had to manage were about how high a house would sell, or how many houses a buyer would have to lose before figuring out he or she had to bid way, way over asking.

Now, expectations are in miniature: How low a buyer can safely go in with an offer; how low a seller has to go to rid himself of the property. Lots of lows, lots of misery all around. And, when the parties have finally agreed on something, comes the hard part: getting a mortgage.

The other day, a very good mortgage professional we work with sent a "managing expectations" note to one of my clients who is due to close on a home any day. The process has been relentless -- documents required up the wazoo, signatures and double signatures, more proof here, much, much more proof there. Once, it was fine to for me to witness clients' signatures on a contract with my own on just one line. Now, for every signature, another line for me to sign.

I'll refrain from asking for what real purpose such diligence exists. The other day, just days from closing, one buyer was told to her loan-to-value ratio was suddenly off-balance. The bank demanded she pay off her car loan and she did. Days past, the closing date came and went. Underwriting just stood still, with only one further comment -- that there had been no point in paying down that car loan. We finally took the client to a private banker who funded the purchase in just days.

So, I was rather touched to see the following end-run email from our mortgage friend, which in a few words telegraphed that the next few days would no doubt be harrowing: "Thanks for sending the documentation and working with my associates," he wrote to my prosective buyer. "They will have the documents reviewed by the underwriter and our operations manager to have the loan cleared to closing but please be prepared to give additional documentation all the way to the closing.  That is the nature of the mortgage industry now with the large amount of documentation required by FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  I tell clients, and especially FHA borrowers, that we will be finished supplying the underwriter with documents when you walk out of the closing. I apologize but that is the state of our industry as we dig out of this foreclosure crisis. Please let me know if you have any questions as we are with you every step of the way."

Post-apocalyptic real estate at its best.
 

Commiseration Time

In downtown Miami, there are so many unfinished and empty high rise buildings. As soon as people I met there this week hear I’m in real estate, that’s what they mention. It’s commiseration time. We’re all in this together, whether we live in tall, communal buildings or short, single-family ones. Now, on my way home, a captive of delayed flights, I can’t escape today’s murky headline – "Improving Home Sales Belie Market Reality." The gist of the piece is that more than half of all sales are now "distressed"; only 31 percent are "unforced or optional" – meaning not tied to the far-reaching mortgage mess.

In many of these "unforced and optional" deals, you wouldn’t know they were the conventional ones, because they have become so terribly contorted. Buyers motivated enough to go on with their lives, to buy a house or condo so they can make the life they planned before all this terrible stuff took over,  now approach their experience with fear and loathing -- of the financial process which is much more convoluted than before; and of the sellers wading knee deep in the depressive market with their most valuable possession, their house.

This week, a number of my summer deals closed (or didn’t …maybe next week!) All had in common a demoralizing stand-off that began with a price tug-of-war the likes of which we haven’t seen in more than a decade – and ended in disbelief that the process could have gotten so ugly. These days, the usual miseries of the home inspection period are likely to fester right up to the end, and sometimes after. Angry sellers, even those lucky enough to make a significant profit, argue over a hundred dollars to fix something. Buyers unsatisfied by repair estimates, haul in in new ones with higher numbers. Not convinced by paperwork showing this or that has been fixed, they drop in to check for themselves.If a homeowner's fixed something himself, it's not good enough; call in an expert.

In retaliation, sellers retreat and dig in. Refrigerators and window treatments promised to buyers are suddenly withdrawn, mid-deal. Forget hiring the cleaning team before closing. Let the place shimmer with dust. Let the lawn go. It's all-out war.

I try to remember my own first-time homeowner experience, in the mid-eighties. My husband and I couldn’t have been dumber about the process. I remember a lot of nail-biting and tears as we toughed it out. We got a really cute, old house that needed everything -- and we were hardly daunted. The kitchen closets didn’t even have doors! We expected nothing from the sellers except to turn over the keys at closing. Perfection wasn’t a word that could be applied to our little place, but we worked together, over years, to bring it back. Our next house, the scenario was much the same. When we pointed out that the roof was flapping and the furnace rusted out, they shrugged. We bought it, anyway, because we loved it.

So, I just clench my teeth and smile when today’s buyers, who are getting some astoundingly good deals, don’t think it’s enough. Be happy, I think. This house experience will do you good. Make it your challenge. Don't move in with all this bad- deal karma.

When the static clears, maybe they will hear me.

Three Small Cheers for Freddie Mac!

Wow! I'm diggin' this. By this, I mean the bulletin out today from Freddie Mac to the nation's appraisers -- you must know of what you speak. Or, don't assess home values that you're unfamiliar with in towns you've never been to.

Just this past month, three of our solid deals fell apart because appraisers who had no business working in Essex County, NJ, got their hands on the wrong comps and carried through with random -- and often destructive -- assessments, undoing deals that were good to go. In one case, beleaguered sellers who had already forged a deal $68,000 less than the price they paid for the same home a year ago, were forced to further cut another $20,000 when an appraiser from another planet defied logic by choosing terrible comps from the wrong neighborhoods. Our request to the lender, Chase Bank, to rethink the appraisal, was swiftly rejected.

That was just two weeks ago. In today's news, better news: Appraisers "must be familiar with the local market" that they are assessing and must choose "appropriate comparable sales" that they must then certify to be "most similar" to the subject property. Now, isn't that quaint.

To be fair to appraisers, it hasn't been easy to do their jobs, let alone to do the right thing. And I know how hard it is to turn down business. When a buyer asks me to show houses two counties over, in places I've never been, I'm not nearly as sure of myself as I am on home ground. So, the best thing is to say no to that business. Too many appraisers have been saying yes.

Freddie Mac's bulletin went on to say that

the selection of comparable sales "is crucial to providing an accurate opinion of value." A couple of weeks ago, I put our own little investment property on the market -- a cute, 1-bedroom condo, all redone, spiffy as pie. The first week, we got a great offer, near asking, quick close. And...you guessed it. The appraisal, compliments of the FHA, was $9,000 less than the purchase price. That appraisal, I'm told, is now filed at the FHA, so that any other person who applies for an FHA loan to buy this property -- which, by the way, I did not sell for less -- must use that standing low appraisal and only that appraisal for the next six months.

Perhaps Freddie Mac's bulletin today will alter that situation and free me to sell to a buyer willing to pay the 'right' price, the negotiated price. I was so steamed when the appraisal fiasco intensified that I had a moment when I wanted to drop everything and march on the White House in protest of the legislation that got us into this mess.

Instead, I, like tens of thousands of other licensed Realtors, signed a petition while our representatives at the National Association of Realtors, decended on D.C. to make our case -- that it's hard enough in this contorted economic environment to sell anything without having our deals illogically undercut. It didn't make sense a couple of weeks ago when my clients were forced to snip hard earned eqjuity from their deal. It didn't make sense when I turned down a perfectly good and sane offer for my little condo, either. It still doesn't make sense. We can't go back and undo those crimes, but we can be glad today that somebody up there is trying to set things right.

Love ya, Freddie Mac! 

 

Long Goodbye

Our holiday cards this year saluted the best clients in the world -- ours. Well, almost all of them are. They’ve been incredibly supportive and loyal through time. But sometimes, you’ve just got to scratch you head and wonder what goes through their minds as they choose not the use you…me -- after years of contact and caring – on their next transaction.

Searching the MLS tonight, a listing came up that, in my mind, rightly belonged to me. Problem was, I didn’t know it was being sold.

Now, I take my professional relationships very seriously. When my clients run businesses, I support them. Through the years, I’ve purchased computers, restaurant gift certificates, art – you name it – to trumpet people who came into my life because of real estate. I’ve attended their concerts, plays and other creative endeavors. Since I’m an inveterate networker, I’ve brought clients with similar interest and careers together, helped their kids get summer jobs. It’s my nature. I love doing it and it’s not just so that, down the line, they’ll come back and do more business with me. But, that is necessarily important to me because, after all, my businesss future is based on keeping in touch with those I’ve served well in the past. Without that effort at continuity, I can’t expect them to remember me; I must hope that all the reaching out and love will come back in a good way.

So, when it doesn’t, how should one feel? It’s not pure misery anymore for me. I’ve been in the business too long. It’s more a combination of anger and surprise that people I’m in touch with and had expectations for would do the right thing – and didn’t.

My mind races through the options open to them: They might have called and said, "Hi, Roberta, we wanted you to know we’re considering using our friend/neighbor to list our home but before we make a decision, we would like you to come in and discuss your marketing campaign, as well."

Or, failing to do that, maybe they’d just courtesy call: "Roberta, we’ve known each other for so many years and, while we cherish the friendship, we’ve decided to use our friend/neighbor to list our home. When you see the listing come up tomorrow, we hope you’ll understand."

Without such closure, I’m left wondering whether I should say something to them or just let it go, focus on the people who want me to work with them again, who view me as an essential element in their lives. How odd it will be, though, when I show their house. For a certain sadness will always be attached to that address. Once upon a time, along with the people inside, it felt as if it belonged to me.

Hello, Old Friends.

Our team will be sending client holiday cards early this year that are focused on giving thanks for what we have in a troubled time. Food banks are depleted, registrations for unemployment insurance are going up and up, retail sales down and down. We might not be making much of a difference with our greetings of the season, given the general mess out there, but as I pour over the mailing list of all those people I’ve worked with over the years, I see each and every one illuminated, their particular stories of striving for home ownership come to vivid life. Some found exactly what they wanted and remain content to this day; others settled in only to wonder about the town and schools and commute they chose but nonethess stayed put; still others, anxious or impatient, are, by now, on house #2 or 3.

From the first to the last name on the mailing list, I see them as they were at our first meetings, successful at their jobs but wet behind the ears at this house-buying stuff, their (usually very young) kids caught in time (backseat of my car or theirs, sucking a pacifer or eating Cheerios or string cheese). These families' individual stories are crystal clear. The frantic quality that defines so many transactions as they're happening has faded.What's left are mostly fond and amusing memories, thank heaven!

Many of my past clients have become good friends. Our natures drew us together in the first place and we have been connected through our lives in the same community, asking for advice, socializing, at the ready in crisis. Others I've worked with saw me as the service provider of the moment, then stepped back and made their own way, only occasionally reaching out through email or to brush shoulders with me at the mall or supermarket. Even those who, as they stretched out their searches way past the norm and made me wonder if they were constitutionally capable of owning property, come to mind this day, their edges distinctly softened.

Last night, at a bustling Montclair, NJ restaurant, I bumped into two clients. The air was warm with good cheer (Greek food does that to people!) and when they rushed over and embraced me, I felt thankful that out there in the ether there are hundreds of people like these, who remember what we meant to each other at a particular time in their lives, and that I was part of that time, in a good way.

A terrific feeling, well worth waiting for.

Mid Century Modern (1950 - 1970 - 2008)

When I got into real estate more than a dozen years ago, in my New Jersey sales area, ranch homes were considered the lowest of the low. Prospective buyers would say they were open to colonials, Tudors, Victorians, occasionally even splits and capes, "but definitely no ranches." If I did have ranch buyers, when they asked why the house had been sitting for eons, the answer was that because the style was the least popular and they could probably get a great buy. But down the road, it would be a tough resale.

Everything’s changed. When we had a so-called "Mid-Century Modern" home advertised on our website, NJDreamHouses.com, recently, we got dozens of hits overnight, while a cute Victorian with open front porch had virtually none. I did a quick search of the internet and learned that there are actually some builders right now -- including Maxx Livingstone (http://www.maxxlivingstone.com), of California -- advertising new mid-century modern houses based on 'classic designs'. There’s also a magazine, Atomic Ranch (http://www.atomic-ranch.com), and companion book publisher, dedicated to preserving the style, which in days of yore was often associated with tract housing. And there are areas like Marin County, CA, that advertise a wide inventory of well-preserved M-C-M homes.

What is this world coming to?

I grew up in a Fifties development in Western New York State in a "California ranch", the design for which the builder had dragged from a sunny, warm state to a cloudy, cold one, complete with a carport that wasn’t quite right most of the year. My family eventually enclosed half of it it into a den, where it still functions with Jalousie windows as an all-purpose, before-you actually-enter-the-house way-station. Fifty-plus years on, we still call it "the new room." Our puppies were born there in 1969 because my mom didn't want them in the house. The other part became a much-needed garage.

The ranch was a perfectly nice place to grow up, but it had no attic with old suitcases in it or anything else remotely intriguing to a girl who loved history, old books and forgotten love letters, and the often stifling old attics at my friends' houses were just such an adventure.

Of course, as an adult, the first house I bought was a 100-year old, very rickety Victorian that needed everything.

In New Jersey, towns largely developed after World War II and the Korean War for GI's coming home to marry start families, are where you generally see ranches, along with splits and capes. These houses weren't built for extended families or servants; they were relatively small and compact. In recent past, young people have been redoing them into sleek, open living spaces, often keeping interesting elements like flagstone fireplaces, high-grade hardwood floors, big windows, and cathedral ceilings, while vanquishing those terrible pink, green, and black bathrooms, flat-faced cabinetry, monochromatic Formica countertops, and wrought-iron staircases, original touches that fail today to impress as either either kitsch or elegance.

I still prefer older homes, my current one built about 80 years ago, very upright, tall, noble and un-ranchy.  Oddly enough, though, these flat, sometimes sleek birds of another feather seem a bit more interesting to me, now, and not just because my knees hurt every time I run up and down stairs in my own house or because in my old age I'm getting sentimental.

No, I think it's more about the risks taken by designers in those days, to try something new. You only have to look at those Mid-Century Modern designs that are so popular today to realize the impact that these funny-looking houses have had on our contemporary culture. In Manhattan last week, my husband and I stopped into Crate and Barrel for a couple of minutes to kill time before seeing a movie. We looked at each other at the same instant after taking in the dining room set on display. It looked just like Mom's, circa 1956. And we liked it! Welcome home, Mid-Century Modern!