Instead of the loosening of inventory that I had so hoped for this busy winter season, a further contraction seems to be a harsh reality. So in the sincere hope of procuring some very special properties to bring to market, here’s a quick list of what some of my buyers are hoping to find (please be mindful that we have seen EVERYTHING currently on the market so if it appears on the following wish list, it isn’t on the market…yet!):
- Classic 6 with light and views on the Upper West Side (high 60’s to 90th Street) for $2.4M or less.
- Large 2BR/2BTH (1400sf or larger) with stunning views and doorman for $2.5M or less.
- 2000sf or larger 3/4BR on Upper West Side on high floor with stunning views and doorman for $4M or less.
- Single or Multi family townhouse from 67th to 75th Street, between CPW and Columbus for $12M or less. Willing to do work.
- Large 2BR/2BTH (1200sf or larger) below 14th Street (Lower 5th Ave…Gold Coast) for $1.4M or less.
- Large Prewar 1BR/1BTH on Upper West Side with doorman, light and views for under $850K and reasonable maintenance (not $2 per sf).
- Upper West Side 2BR/2BTH (1000sf or larger) with light for $1M or less. Seeking best "value."
There’s more, but that’s a start.
Sellers…PAY ATTENTION: If you’re considering selling in the coming months, there may be an opportunity right now for you to capitalize on the incredibly low inventory in the Manhattan real estate market. That said, if you have a plain cookie cutter type apartment and you’re hoping to score big, you may want to just stay put.
All of my readers know that I’m a huge fan of videoblogging and hope to have some new and interesting episodes of TGTV coming really soon. I recently participated in a panel discussion and Q & A at Inman’s Real Estate Connect NYC 2008 (register now for San Francisco in July) on this exact topic.
The complete video is below but despite the underlying theme of my co-panelists who seemed to convey the difficulty of producing a good video, I, perhaps naively so, remain a very strong proponent of the video tour and video blog as I have had great success with very little working knowledge of the technology that takes place in the background. I continue to believe that a well done video tour brings a much needed transparency to the real estate industry and can be achieved with a good camera person/editor and some on screen practice. And more importantly, sellers LOVE video as a marketing tool for their homes!
Here’s the panel discussion with more tips from me and my colleagues:
If you want more information on each of the panelists, check out their blogs/websites here:
- Rachel Natalie Klein-IntoTheBox.TV (excellent video blogging on a daily basis!)
- Daniel Rothamel-The RealEstateZebra.com ("Zebra" comes from referee as in Basketball referree which is Daniel’s other life)
- Mike Price-MLBroadcast.com (THE site for the real estate pro interested in videoblogging or podcasting)
- Jeff Turner-RealEstateShows.com (Check out Jeff’s site for an alternative to the full blown on camera video tour)
From IntoTheBox.TV comes this great piece on the emotional and financial pain that is parking in NYC.
Check out Wait For Parking:
Prior to taking the plunge and paying an exorbitant amount of money for a parking space in our current building, my wife and I (who am I kidding…just I) used to wait sometimes for as many as 5 hours for a parking spot on the street. I’m not kidding…there were nights where I actually fell asleep in the car! For us, the amount to pay for parking was worth avoiding the time and aggravation of street parking. That said, there isn’t a day that passes that I don’t think of the Mercedes S Class that I could be leasing if I didn’t have that current garage payment.
Transcript of a phone call that just took place in my office with a seller’s agent representing a new exclusive property:
Jennifer (from my team): Hi, this is Jennifer Breu from Doug Heddings office at Prudential Douglas Elliman. We noticed your new exclusive on your web page and our client would like to know what floor it is on.
Agent: It will be ready for co-broke tomorrow. For now the information you have will have to suffice. (It’s listed as her exclusive on her website)
Jennifer: You can’t share with me what floor it is on?
Agent: I have someone on the other line, this will have to do…click
Most of my colleagues and I play nice but occasionally you stumble across an agent who has their head so far up their ___ that they lose touch of the service they are supposed to be providing their seller. Do you think for one moment that her seller would approve of her unwillingness to disclose the apartment number to a prospective purchaser. What’s the point? She’s having an open house on Sunday and says the apartment info will be forthcoming tomorrow. It takes less than 2 seconds to state an apartment number and for the life of me I can’t fathom why an agent wouldn’t share that info. Perhaps she’s just having a bad day but something tells me that this particular agent is just generally uncooperative to the rest of us in the industry.
So why in the world would a seller hire someone like this and pay them a hefty commission to be an obstacle to the sale of their property? NO CLUE!
For those wondering if there is still an inventory shortage in the Manhattan real estate market, I’m here to tell you…ABSOLUTELY! Gazumping just doesn’t happen all too often in falling real estate markets and I and many of my colleagues have been victims of the gazump numerous times in the past 2 weeks. I can’t speak specifically for my colleagues but my personal anecdote is this:
After negotiating an incredible deal with "eager" sellers of an Upper West Side Classic 6, my clients and I awaited delivery of a contract. After an unexplainable (we thought) delay in receiving the contract, I received the news from the seller’s agent that another offer had come in about 5% higher than our agreed upon and accepted offer. The agent kindly gave us the opportunity to match the offer but my clients rescinded based on the level of renovations that the apartment required. As an agent who’s business is largely representing sellers, I completely appreciate this scenario but I’m always wary of the gazumping offer actually proceeding to a fully executed contract. The ultimate decision as to whether a seller wants to risk losing the "bird in hand" is completely up to the seller and in this case money talked.
One important point that people need to take away from these scenarios is that none of this is personal and all too often agents and/or their clients do take it that way. I know deep down that my buyers would love to hear next week that the gazumping bidder backed out of the contract and the sellers are back to square one. As for my buyers plans, we have the fortune of having found another property even nicer (requiring no renovation) that they would love to call home.
So the bidding begins…
I actually have a moment to breathe…and blog today and I’m inspired by an email that I received from one of my buyers this morning regarding our property tour on Friday and 4 open houses on Sunday (I have removed the addresses to respect confidentiality):
Here’s a summary of what we saw today and our impressions. Sorry for the brain dump. We went and saw 4 places. 2 were from your list and 2 were random nearby places slightly out of our price range but we took a look for laughs to see what the places look like and whether we thought they were well priced or not.
1. Riverside Drive -. This was a Condo with low fees. It was beautifully remodeled, recent condo conversion. Light was great. Building was great. View of the park. No kitchen to speak of and the LR layout was limiting. Potential to be noisy next to 96th / Riverside intersection and a basketball court under the window, but didn’t seem too bad. This was also just moved down from 1.2M. If it came down another 100k, maybe… but for this price a kitchen would be nice.
2. West End Avenue- Top place so far. Low maint. Needs a bit of TLC, with a new kitchen, floors redone, bathroom work, skim coat, etc. But this didn’t need to be done right away. Definitely a lot of space, with 2 bed / 2 bath plus a maid’s room. And a washer/dryer is really huge for us. Overall no light to speak of, except in the master BR, which has a potential to be noisy but I think I could get over it. Also the LR was pretty small. We liked this the best as it was very similar to the "other one" in state of repair, but the bonus maid’s room with a W/D really got us excited as an office, guest area, future nursery. The biggest thing I hated about this place was that it was a busy corner but we would buy it.
3. W 90’s- Ok, definitely out of our price range. It was a 3BR/1.5 bath plus a DR and a study. The place needed a gut renovation figured at about 300k, and has a 1500/month maint. We went to see it since it was so much space we thought maybe we could live with the condition for a while and repair over time, but it’s unlivable. A ton of stairs to get the stroller up was a pain too, but the light, the neighborhood, the kids in the building. Oh well. If you could get the broker to spot us the extra 450k and a place to live for 6 months we’ll go back with an architect on Monday.
4. W 70’s-. 2BR/2Bath Condo. Love the neighborhood. Dark. Tiny Kitchen. Hard to get over the cramped feeling with all the stuff they had in there. Plus your colleague needs to get them to get rid of all the family photos and half their furniture. Anyway, at 150k more than #2, there’s no way that the neighborhood would make up for the size. Guess condo’s aren’t worth it to us.
So, summary of the past 3 days of looking:
* "Space" is important to us. We really get excited by a bonus room / area. Something that could be a DR / Office for the near term, then a nursery in a few years helps us picture being there 5+ years.
* Quiet is important, but really I think it’s the bedrooms that I’d like to be quiet vs. the living area.
* An open kitchen or at least wide enough for two people to work is important.
* A bathroom that has some space to move around is important. Not a fan of sitting on the toilet to shave (sounds efficient to me).
* Washer / dryer important, or at least easy to get to.
* State of repair isn’t that important as long as we can live there and remodel over time. 2 bath nice to live through bath remodel.
* Light is important, but not as much as space.
The places that do ok against this criteria:
1. WEA. Can you talk to the broker and get a feel for the level of interest, building, closing flexibility, pricing etc.?
2. W 70’s- Love the layout and the location. Building leaves us a little cold, and worried a bit about the short term construction issues. Also with only 1 bath, problematic to remodel the bath. Overall we spent a good amount of time thinking about the possibilities. Maint 400/month more than WEA, but would see some value in the amenities. Maybe worth asking the broker the level of interest in this place too.
Ultimately, interested to see if these places are well priced or not. Also interested if either of these are "once in a lifetime" deals. How often does "Great Aunt Izze" leave an estate that includes a 2BR in "that building" with those views? And how often does a classic 5 show up on the market for under a mil? Does it seem like there is more supply coming onto the market, and feel any change in the past week or two with all of the rate cuts.
It doesn’t get much better than this as far as providing feedback to your real estate agent. Just remember that if your agent is listening…and I mean truly listening, s/he will be able to sort out your wish list from reality and successfully navigate your search and negotiate a deal for your new home.
And regarding this buyer’s question on supply…I don’t see enough supply hitting the market to effect any change in prices as demand remains high.
I continue to be incredibly busy and apologize for the weak number of posts this week. It has been unavoidable as ech day has been busier than the previous. So as many of my readers know, when I’m swamped, I often like to offer some links to stories that I find intriguing or just plain fun. So here goes:
Be back Monday with a continued update on our current market conditions including a report on weekend activity and a short term projection of where everything seems to be heading in the world of Manhattan residential real estate.
I don’t know exactly what is going on but the Manhattan real estate market is churning white hot yet again. I’m having difficulty finding the time to blog. For example, here’s just how today went:
- Highest, best and final offer for property first offered this past Sunday. 7 "final" offers (3 dropped out…intimidated) of which 6 were way over ask.
- Contract out to be signed tomorrow on property that received multiple offers last week after a board turn-down and 4 months on the market.
- Contract out to be signed tomorrow on another property which also received multiple offers after 5 months on the market.
- 10:30AM-11:30AM-met with buyers to view 2 properties: one didn’t have the view they like and the other is a viable option. Awaiting there call to see if they want to bid. 50/50 chance I think.
- 12:15PM-5PM-with buyer viewing new development projects with pools. Bidding on something we saw.
- Email to follow-up with prospective seller.
- Appointments arranged for buyer to visit property 2nd time with architect.
- Expediting closing for 2BR.
- Phone call with seller who may want to sell 3BR East side Condo to purchase Townhouse.
- Email with seller who wants to see 3BR fixer-upper and may sell Classic 9.
- Right now…doing searches for 2 prospective purchasers who are ready to buy ASAP.
- Going home to see my wife and kids!
All in a day’s work. I love this job!!!
And BTW…my colleagues seem to be incredibly busy too! Our top agent put 6 new exclusives into the system TODAY. Anyone else care to share what’s happening in their business or with their searches?
Some of my readers recently asked me what I meant when I said that "property is king" in the Manhattan real estate market. Yesterday at one of my open houses, the evidence of this truth was never more powerfully displayed. I have been in the Manhattan residential real estate business for 16 years and never in that entire time have I experienced the masses of traffic that appeared at this open house yesterday. I am not embellishing in the least when I tell you that about 150 people came through this apartment in 90 minutes! I remain stunned. We currently have 5 offers, 4 at the asking price, and anticipate many more before we go to a highest, best and final bid scenario. I attribute this incredible amount of traffic and interest to one or more of the following reasons:
So if it’s still not obvious why property is king as a Manhattan real estate agent, here’s my point. I have been working with some of my buyers for as long as 3 years. Some of these buyers have difficulty trusting that I’m doing a good ("complete") job for them despite all of my efforts. On the flip side, there is this particular seller whom I met 3 weeks ago and who was referred to me by someone she deems credible with high levels of integrity. Therefore, she trusted me to price the apartment properly and market it effectively to appeal to the broadest segment of prospective purchasers. In this instance, her trust, my expertise (I got this one right), and most importantly, current market conditions all came together likely resulting in an efficient sale whereby the market will truly dictate the price at which this home sells.
And some additional anecdotal evidence of a more active Manhattan real estate market:
- A studio we have been representing for 5 months has multiple offers as of last week.
- And another home that we are representing received multiple offers after yesterday’s open house.
That is precisely why PROPERTY IS KING!
Here’s a video of the home that saw 150 or more bodies pass through Sunday between 11:30am and 1:00PM.
For my regular readers, you know I hesitate to market my properties on TrueGotham (and I’m not really marketing this one here either) but I felt that in this instance a display of the video may further explain the reasons behind the huge turnout for this property.
and I’m busy, so see you on Monday. Have a great weekend!
