Blog

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

Probably 95% of what I do is empower buyers and sellers to move forward in their lives. Real estate remains the most tangible expression of who they are. And what is more tangible than doing a renovation exactly how you want to do it? And yet- this can be incredibly daunting. You need patience andRead 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

Sellers of cooperative apartments who are seeing their properties linger are wondering what they can do. You can take a look at our reports here and here for a bit more color about inventory and the market. I can point out a few trends which hurt the resale prospects of older, less renovated properties: BuyerRead more

I began my real estate career working at Citi Habitats, focused on rentals. It was trial by fire, and there couldn’t have been a better training ground for someone who had never worked in residential real estate. I saw 80-100 apartments per week, whether previewing them, showing them to prospective renters, and managing the hustleRead more

The 1st quarter of 2019 was a big dud. Though prices increased on average in the first quarter, it was “solely due to a jump in luxury new development closings, including a record-setting $240 million sale. The average price for just resale apartments was 3% lower than a year ago, as price adjustments continue atRead more

Let’s Talk Buyers Getting buyers get educated and confident about the market is my number one job. I do a deep dive with homebuyers to understand who they are and what they’re looking for. I get to know them, their dog(s), their kids, watching them bicker, argue, joke, yell- at me, at each other. TheyRead more

If you ask sellers, you may hear that the real estate market is horrible If you ask the New York Times, you may hear that the real estate market is capable of producing BOTH horrible results AND the highest sales prices ever in the history of the United States. If you ask buyers, you willRead more