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In This Month’s Video I discussed the missed opportunity in New York, that is ignoring more than half of the population here. That is, women! Women are buying properties for themselves. No one is waiting anymore to get married to buy real estate, least of all so many successful women. This includes our many amazingRead more

Buyers usually show two sides: The homebuyer side and the analytical side. Usually, it’s the homebuyer side that shows the truth. A buyer is trying to move forward in her life, for any number of reasons. Time to expand, time to downsize, and everything in between. Home is open, excited, and ready to find what’sRead more

I’ve written about how buyers have gotten a bit accustomed to TV shows, where every house in Waco, Texas looks like a West Elm catalog. In the case of New York City, buyers have started to see more, more, and more staged apartments. West Elm Goes to Texas The expectation then becomes that every apartmentRead more

I haven’t been writing as much on new development of late. In this case, I wanted to think through what buying in a particular new building would look like if you decided, from the building, that you would be buying as an investor. In this case, after five years, the math could work so thatRead more

One of my favorite times is when my customers, aka my homebuyers, bring their families to see their new apartment for the first time. Of course, some buyers bring a consensus-building approach to their purchases, bringing lots of family members to the property before they choose to proceed. Many others, however, leave their families outRead more

It’s that time of the summer when buyers are particularly tuned out from, well, most things. So, it’s not entirely surprising to get “please update me” questions about the real estate market. What seems odd is the question I’m getting quite often right now: “Do you expect the real estate market to drop 15-20% ifRead more

The question that was put to me last week: “Does a building’s rules to allow pets, specifically dogs, impact the value of a property?” I have sold about 25 units in a building on the West Side that has not allowed dogs in many years, so the question isn’t new to me. Some shareholders wereRead more

A big question. How has social media affected real estate purchases? Are there positive impacts? Negative ones? Both? On one hand, I hear stories about how Facebook is helping realtors do business, Instagram helping us promote what we’re up to, spreading the word, quite effectively, with very beautiful photographs. I do get to see absolutelyRead more

Certain buyers are drawn to certain homes. And some properties are more universally appealing, being a bit more generic, like 1-bedrooms or Studio units. In some cases, having a limited audience can be quite challenging when it’s time to sell. I am seeing 5- and 6-room apartments have an increasingly limited audience. But in thisRead more

I’m Scott Harris at Brown Harris Stevens, founder of the Harris Residential Team. Thank you for sharing these videos and posting them to social media! My 8 year old daughter asked me last week what superpower I would want to have. Of course, this would be my second superpower, my first being the ability sellRead more