“Look at it like the stages of grief,” says J. Philip Faranda, the broker-owner of J. Phillip Real Estate in Westchester County, N.Y. “In 2006 and 2007, it was denial; in 2008 and 2009, it was mourning; in 2010, it’s acceptance.”

Sellers slow to change

It’s not surprising that it would take some time for sellers to come to terms with the market’s rapid and drastic changes. It’s a learning process — a “price-discovery process,” in economic terms.

Sellers frequently concede they’re harboring unrealistic expectations only after having tried and failed to sell their home. (See “Are you the reason your home won’t sell?“) Or they’ve watched other sellers reduce prices repeatedly to get buyers to even look at their homes, then seen those sellers relinquish additional ground when negotiating.

Pride often prevents sellers from seeing foreclosures as the new competition.

“If a guy with a half-million-dollar house still thinks it’s worth $600,000, I can show him two or three foreclosures that are listed for $400,000 and $450,000 and ask him how he thinks I’m going to hypnotize people into buying his house for $600,000,” Faranda says.

The Internet has helped change expectations. A seller traditionally blames his agent when his home isn’t selling. But today, Multiple Listing Service and syndication agreements let sellers list homes for sale on a dozen or more Web sites (take a look around your neighborhood), so “all the old excuses of ‘you’re not advertising my house’ have gone away,” Faranda says.

The reporter told me that she found me on Active Rain, which is nice to hear. I post quite a bit on that blog. The link is in the sidebar. I also got a nice hate email, from some anonymous guy who told me what a bad person I am because I helped cause the economy to fail. His presumptiveness is secondary; I acknowledge his frustration.

My main point in the interview with the reporter was that, once listed, a home becomes virtually ubiquitous, and, therefore, the main reason any home doesn’t sell is price.

Westchester County buyers are still lowballing, cautious, and demanding. I think it will remian a buyer’s market until other sectors of the economy rebound. I am still listing a high number of short sales all over the Hudson Valley. They have become part of the vernacular. Moreover, New York City is in the early stages of it’s own decline. Hopefully, NYC’s problems will be far more short lived than the rest of the country.

44 Morehouse, Red Hook, Accepted Offer

62 Baldwin, Patterson, Under Contract

204 Tomahawk, Yorktown, Under Contract

15 Orchard, Putnam Valley, Under Contract

5 Bayden, Ossining- Pending Sale

177 Avondale, Yonkers, Pending Sale

97 Robertson Rd, White Plains, Pending Sale (2 offers)

2 Overlook, White Plains, Pending Sale

_____________________________________________

http://WestchesterRealEstateblog.net

http://www.jphilip.com

http://NewYorkShortSaleBlog.wordpress.com

http://www.NYShortSaleTeam.com

Listing Book

Some features of the program include:

• Customizable search, including bookmarking and rejecting specific properties
• Morning updates delivered via email daily as new listings become available, putting you on top of the market
• Personal notes on properties and the ability to send messages to your agent on each home
• Change criteria quickly and easily
• Database is updated twice an hour, not once daily!
• Price change alert on bookmarked properties
• Much more

Nothing can replace a good agent, but having this kind of technology at your fingertips will make the process far more efficient. Fewer homes will be “missed out on,” more homes will fit your search, and you’ll be able to be far more specific in your criteria. Not only that, you can instant message and email your agent from the site in real time.

All your information is confidential and safe. You’ll never be spammed or solicited from 3rd parties for registering your search on the site. This is truly real estate 2.0.

Right now the database is for the Westchester-Putnam MLS system only, which includes Westchester and Putnam Counties, as well as the Bronx and Dutchess County.

If you want to search Long Island (Queens, Nassau & Suffolk Counties), click here.

If you want to search Connecticut, email me and I can get you the link.

Today, after months of acrimony and headaches, I gave a seller client her release. The ironic thing is that she is a retired real estate broker herself, and someone I thought would be collegial to work with. She wasn’t. Just scheduling showings was like performing a miracle, filled with drama and angst. It was a short sale file, no easy task to begin with, and an offer has been on the table for about 2 weeks. My client refused to submit the offer to the lender for approval, and has been obstructing my efforts to affect a short sale.

This afternoon I got a call from an agent who could not schedule a showing; I called my client to get to the source of the issue. It was a tempest in a teapot. I am not showing a lack of empathy, believe me. If Ed McMahon showed up at your door with a check for $1 million, would you refuse the money because his tie and socks didn’t match? An offer on a short sale is important, precious, and not to be trifled with. For a veteran of our business to obfuscate important issues with pedantic obsessions with process is not something I can work with.

My hope is that this will be a wake up call to the lady that she needs to get serious about avoiding a foreclosure. For me to continue things the way they were going would be enabling destructive behavior and subordinate my diginity to earning a commission. Even in this market, that is something I cannot do.

I have not read every article in this series, but the two I have read were written by an agent whose blog paints a picture of frustration who is muses for a salary; and a web-based firm which doesn’t do traditional brokerage in a market where local listing agents have to accompany every single showing (no easy feat).

Inman may get alot of chatter and mileage from these articles, but in light of the failure of Foxtons and Iggy’s House, Real Estate never had the massive Internet-fueled sea change we saw in travel, insurance and stock brokerage, which revolutionized entire industries almost overnight.

I’m also a little tired of people poo-pooing the role agents play in the home buying process. The “I saw it first on the ‘Net so I don’t need a broker” game is tired, inaccurate and obtuse. You saw it on the net first because you were on a broker’s website and they figured out how to make it play into their model. The rest of the process is so clunky, complicated and drawn out that the best brokers who do the most business drive the traffic while working at companies where they can earn the most for their expertise.

Read the rest here on my ActiveRain Blog .

1. Help them grieve their taxes. The taxes on homes I’ve sold in recent years may be reduced. I just emailed 4 recent sales to someone who bought a house with me in 2006 and it looks like his assessed value should go down by $50,000.
2. Market updates. People are curious about how much a new listing as asking or what a nearby home sold for. Better that they ask me than another licensee.
3. Make them hip to my blog. Past clients may wonder what my thoughts are about the stimulus bill, where the market is going, or just I am doing in this economy. I tell them right in these pages. Clients are a built in readership, and they select themselves- no emails for them to delete and they visit when convenient.  
4. Service directory. Most of my clients use the lawyer, lender and home inspector I refer. I also have a filing cabinet filled with plumbers, carpenters, electricians, landscapers, chimney sweeps, heating & cooling firms, oil companies, and other sources that homeowners need. I may not be the good housekeeping seal of approval, but whoever I refer will make me look good for doing so.
5. Network them! I count among my past clients physicians, restaurateurs, free lance artists, contractors, insurance brokers, roofers, teachers and dozens of other professionals. If someone needs E & O insurance, a tutor, artwork or a new driveway and they ask me if I know someone, why wouldn’t I give business to the people who gave business to me? If you need something, call or email me.

ALSO- The STAR exemption for your property taxes is key to saving money on your New York property taxes. All of my clients are encouraged to fill out an application to get it ASAP after closing. If you haven’t followed through, contact me and we’ll help you get it done.