Blog

In this month’s video, I continue to muse on what seems to be driving the market into higher sales volume.  The very short answer?  Pricing.  That’s it.  If prices look to be “in the zone,” people make bids.  If prices seem to be too high, no offers.  Tumbleweeds.  So the question is this, sellers:  DoRead more

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

After 10 years of keeping a monthly newsletter, I have discovered that I still quite like sharing what I’m learning about the real estate market, or from my travels around New York City and the world. I’ve written about running, new developments, the good and bad behavior of agents, companies, apps, ideas, renovations, you nameRead 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

Conventional Wisdom would see things this way: If the sales market is strong, the rental market should be weak. If the sales market is weak, the rental market should then be strong. Most of the time, it looks that way. And right now, it would appear, by most metrics, that the sales market is softer,Read 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 summer is a time to recharge the batteries. In the case of the Manhattan and Brooklyn markets, it may also be a time to get really amazing deals. I’m thinking about how mortgage rates are likely to come down, inventory is slightly up in most places, and prices are slightly down from a yearRead 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