Music to My Ears

I had a client say something to me yesterday that I don't hear very often.

"Gee, this house looks better in person than it does on line."

Why are those such rare words?  Well, too many homebuyers decide not to look at anything that does look great on-line.

Unfortunately, photos sometimes lie.  And while many of us get lured in by a stunning on-line presence of a so-so house, there are many great houses that get totally ignored simply because the agent didn't have a wide angle lens or didn't know how to shoot a room with lots of daylight streaming into the viewfinder or other photography skill.

The house that my client looked at wasn't the right house for them but I was so pleased that they took my advice and looked beyond the poor images.  It is just a matter of time till we bump into the right house.

10 Real Estate Markets to Watch in 2012: Rochester, N.Y.

I love talking to reporters but often cringe when I read what they write. This article didn't give me any reason to cringe. It's nothing but good news for Rochester. Enjoy the article!

10 Real Estate Markets to Watch in 2012: Rochester, N.Y.

Rochester's Strong Real Estate Market

The Greater Rochester Association of Realtors reported this morning that the number of accepted purchase offers in the fourth quarter of 2011 were up 93 percent, signaling a strong start to the market this year.

Generally, purchase offers result in a close the following quarter.

Home sales in the fourth quarter were up 5 percent over the same quarter of 2010 with 2,243 closings.

I personally am having the busiest January I can remember.

Rochester is Great!

It sure seems that the whole world is learning what we've know for quite some time....Rochester, NY is an awesome place to call home.  Just this week, the city was ranked by The Street, a financial news website, as being poised for greatness in 2012!

In the past six months, Forbes ranked Rochester first on the "Best Places to Buy a Home" list.  MSN says Rochester is at the top of the nation when it comes to "Most Livable Bargain Markets."  And Core Logic, a provider of consumer, financial and property information, analytics and services to business and government, recently released information indicating that Rochester had the fewest number of Underwater Home Owners!

Way to go Rochester!  I'm happy to call you home!

Feb 1st Deadline for Sr Citizen STAR Tax Exemption.

If you are a senior citizen, aged 65 or older and own and occupy a house in the city of Rochester, you may qualify for a reduction in your school taxes.  This year, the senior tax exemptions will range from a 50 percent reduction for those with 2010 incomes of $29,000 or less, to a 5 percent reduction for those who didn’t earn more than $37,400. Applications must be in the City Assessor's Office by Feb. 1, 2012.  


Seniors renewing should already have received applications in the mail. Additional applications can be obtained by calling the City Assessor’s Office at 428-6994, going to City Hall at 30 Church St., Rm. 101A, or by downloading the application at www.cityofrochester.gov/assessment and clicking on “Residential Property Exemptions” in the menu to the left. 

City Assessor Thomas G. Huonker reminds residents that Enhanced STAR, New York’s school tax cut program for seniors 65 and older, is also available. Enhanced STAR is offered in addition to the City’s Senior Property Tax exemption. Seniors will automatically receive the Enhanced STAR exemption if they are approved for the City’s Senior exemption. If a resident doesn’t qualify for the Senior exemption, he or she may still be eligible for Enhanced STAR if they did not earn more than $79,050 in 2010. The deadline for Enhanced STAR is also Feb. 1, 2012. 

The Kiss of 'Real Estate' Death

The house has been just sitting on the market.  No one has come to see it in weeks.  It's time to make a price adjustment and so I begin that dreadful conversation with the sellers.

"Well, we are not in a big hurry to sell.  We are willing to wait for our price," they tell me.

 UGH!!!!  GROAN!   And a few other words that I don't dare publish.

More than ever before, buyers are very educated to the real estate market.  Often they will start poking around the Internet six month to a year before they are ready to make a purchase.  Sometimes they know the inventory better than a realtor, going through each house, picture by picture, room by room.     And if they are not walking around with all the latest real estate stats on the tip of their tongue, one of the first questions they will ask about a house that they like is 'how long has it been on the market?'

When a house is brand new on the market, buyers will ask "What will it take to purchase this house?"  Once a house has been sitting on the market a month or more, buyers will ask "How low will the seller be willing to go?" and if the house goes stale after 6 months or so, buyers always ask 'What's wrong with it?'  That is why I say nothing depreciates a house faster than a 'For Sale' sign.

Dropping the price is not an easy out for real estate agents.  It usually sets off a list of tasks that include new ads, new flyers, e-mailing past showings, etc all to earn less commission.  The only reason a real estate agents recommends a new price is that is what it is going to take to put up a 'SOLD' sign.

Saving $20,000 on the Cost of a Home!

Whew! That feels good. Talk about the deal of a lifetime! We just cut more than $20,000 off the price of our home! Great negotiation skills? Nope! Foreclosure? Nada! Fire sale? No way.




We just refinanced. And no, it wasn’t a 10 point drop in interest rates, either. The secret to our savings is reducing the term of the mortgage. We went from a 15 year mortgage to a ten year mortgage. Our original mortgage would have cost us more than $46,000 is interest over the 15 year term. Our new mortgage will cost us less than $17,000. And the most amazing part of it is our payment will only go up about $150.



When I work with buyers, I am always amazed that they will fight till the bitter end and sometimes walk away from a purchase in which we are maybe two or three thousand dollars apart in price. But then they will get a 30 year mortgage with minimum down payment and end up paying the bank almost as much in interest as they pay the seller for the house.

I don’t dislike banks. If the only house I could buy was one I could afford to pay cash for, well, I would not be a happy camper. And if I could only sell real estate to individuals that can afford to pay cash, I doubt I would sell very many houses. Banks are good and mortgages are great but we should only finance what is necessary. After all, I’d much rather see that $20,000 go towards my vacation than the vacation of some banker!

By the way, interest rates are extremely low, making it a very attractive time to either buy real estate or refinance. Don’t hesitate to give me a call for more information. My office number is 756-7457.

Selling a Home With Pets

I showed a very nice, very expensive home earlier this week in which the dog had peed all over the welcome mat! My buyers love the house and had me write up an offer but then had me tear it up. What if they couldn’t get rid of the smell? Pets are unpredictable and I’m betting that this pooch was just stressed by all the sudden interest in the place he calls home. And then I was at a meeting with other Realtors yesterday when one agent announced that she is allergic to cats and she flat out will not show a home if the owners have a cat. It’s a challenging market and pets make it even more challenging. So I decided to put together a few pointers about selling a home with pets.




First and foremost, please spend special attention cleaning up after your pets. Nothing spoils the mood of finding a really nice house than having to clean off the bottom of your shoe. Believe me. I’ve seen it happen. Also, pay attention to your landscaping. If your dog’s urine is killing the grass, consider taking it for walks or moving the tie-up spot. And if you have an inside litter box, keep it clean and fresh.



Be aware of pet odors. Cat urine is the worst. Bring in a neighbor to do a whiff test. Do not use air fresheners or scented candles. People with allergies will react and others will be suspicious. Try enzyme cleaners such as Simple Solution, Nature's Miracle or call a professional ozone company. Arm & Hammer has information on a dry bath on their web site.



If your house is being shown, put food and water bowls away.   Stash the play toys. If possible, remove cages, carriers and other tell-tale signs. If you have enough warming time, treat rugs and furniture with a carpet deodorizer.Vacuum and vacuum again.

Coffee Table Decorations: Organizing Coffee Table Books and Trays | Pott...

With a difficult real estate market, almost nothing is more important than stagging when you are getting ready to sell a house. I was quite excited to find this clip from Pottery Barn (after all, what's more exciting than a house described as a Pottery Barn decor !) but was left a little unimpressed. Is it just me? What do you think of these coffee table decorations???

Starter Home Extraordinaire

I remember buying my first home like it was yesterday. It was a fixer upper, which is all I could afford at the time. The only reason the roof didn’t leak was it was the bottom floor of a condo building. The windows did leak, and not just air. One morning I woke up to find a small pile of snow in my kitchen. But this was a great investment for me. Located on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., I sold it four years later at twice what I paid for it and moved to western New York.

Starter homes have come a long way. Today I have a perfect little starter home in the town of Greece which has a newer roof, windows, furnace and even central air. It sits on a beautiful park-like lot that is nearly a third of an acre and has a 2 car garage. The kitchen and bath have been upgraded with tile and granite. The living room is large and has a stunning stone fireplace (wood burning). The home is located at 126 Alpine and you can check out more details and photos at: www.RochestersBestHomes.com/R152267 or give me a call at 756-7457.

FHA Mortgage Insurance Premiums Going Up

Monthly Mortgage Insurance Premiums (MIP) will increase effective April 18, 2011 and so if you are on the verge of buying a house with a FHA mortgage, consider pulling the trigger and applying for a mortgage by April 17th!  The upfront premium remains unchanged at 1.0% of the base mortgage.  In addition, down payment minimum remains at 3.5% and maximum seller concessions is still allowed at 6% of the purchase price.

For personal advice about buying and selling real estate in the Rochester area, don't hesitate to give me a call at 756-7457.

$5,000 Over Asking Is Not Enough!!!

I like it where I live and apparently so do some other people. Last weekend I wrote an offer for $5000 over asking and I’m sorry to say the house went to another bidder! Why did we offer so much? Well, we lost a house the week before by writing only a thousand over asking. That’s pretty amazing considering there are parts of the Rochester area where houses sit on the market for weeks and months, sometime without even a showing.

The Ellwanger Barry neighborhood, also known as the Highland neighborhood, provides a nice stock of classic American Foursquare homes along tree-lined city streets. It is convenient to the U of R as well as Strong and Highland Hospitals and since last week was Match Day (the day when medical students find out where they will train as residents) the competition for housing is fierce.

Fortunately, my clients are not young doctors. Instead, they are a professional family that wants to leave the suburbs for the convenience of city living. They are not on the rigid timeframe although they are anxious to start their new life. Hopefully, the next house we write on will be the one. But if not, it may be the next.



Rural Real Estate

I've spent the last few weeks running from Kendal to Canandaigua to Byron.  Tomorrow I will be near Lyndonville.  I love everything about the jaunts into the country side except filling my gas tank.





Here are a few shots from the last two weeks. Kind of nice to see the ground again, isn't it?

How Disappointed Will You Be If You Lose This House?

No one will sell you a house for less than what you offer, right? So why not start very, very low with the first offer?




Sometimes it works. I’ve had very low offers accepted without a single counter. Almost always it’s because the house has been on the market for a while and the seller is simply sick and tired of the process.



More often, it doesn’t work. My most notable transaction was when the seller was so insulted that she refused to sell to the buyer even after he came back with a full price offer. She still owns that property.



More than once, I’ve seen a second and better offer come in and so the low bidder never gets an opportunity improve their offering.



Most often the low ball offer will be met with a counter. And depending on how reasonable the counter is, I can often predict the outcome. Most people get a bit of a thrill with the start of the negotiation process but they quickly tire of the drama. If counter offers bounce back and forth 3 or more times (unless it’s very minor tweaking of the terms) most often the offer is going nowhere.



So, before you sit down to right a very low offer, ask yourself how disappointed will you be if you lose the property. Only your gut will tell you how to proceed.

Low Ball Offer

My clients cleaned and painted and staged. Finally, we put a ‘for sale’ sign in the front yard. For weeks, they walked on egg-shells trying to keep the house ready to show at a moment’s notice. And finally we got the call! An offer was coming in.

As soon as I picked up the offer, I knew my clients would not be happy. It was $30,000 off asking and this was not an expensive house. What I didn’t expect was their anger.

“That offer does not deserve a response,” he stormed. “Tell them to go find another house!”

The most important advice in this situation is not to take it personal. In fact, try thinking like a buyer when trying to sell your home. If there was the slightest chance that you could buy a house for $30,000 less than the asking price, wouldn’t you try it? Of course you would. It is only human nature and so don’t hold the low ball offer against the buyer.

It took some time and effort for my sellers to regain their composure. They finally agreed to write a reasonable counter offer that the buyer ended up taking. Today they are living in a new house.



Not all transactions work out this way. Sometimes the buyer walks. Sometime they counter back with another very low offer. But whatever the situation, it is most important to stay calm, focused and not take it personally.

Tomorrow I'll talk a little about low ball offers for buyers.

A Touch of Spring at the GEH

Has this frightful weather got you down? A visit this week to the George Eastman House may just be what the doctor orders. There are just seven days left to the museum's Dutch Connection 2011 exhibit.(closes February 26, 2011. Daffodils, tulips and hyacinths Oh My! Not only is this a visual treat, but the fragrance is heavenly! Here are a few photos I took there yesterday.

Resolve to be Money Smart in 2011!

I like New Years and fresh starts and resolutions. I make lots of New Year’s resolutions. It’s not that I don’t like the way that I am, it is just that I thrive when I’m challenged. So I set lots of goals. I do lots of the typical “eat less, exercise more and get organized resolutions.” I also resolve to visit new places, learn new skills and have fun. But one of my best resolutions was to get money smart, especially when it comes to debt.

I would often buy things simply because they were on sale and because I really couldn’t afford the item, I would put it on a credit card. I regularly carried a balance of several thousand dollars on the credit card, and with interest rates in excess of 12% I guarantee you I paid the banks much more money than I ever saved by shopping sales. One year I started tracking how much of my money was going towards interest and how much was going towards purchases. That’s when I resolved to get out of credit card debt and I’ve not carried a credit card balance in ten years!



As I work with families that want to move up into a larger home or even downsize I’m often surprised at how unaware they are of their equity in their current home. Usually when they pull out a statement to see their mortgage balance, they are surprised and even shocked at how much money they still owe on their home. Lots of first time mortgage holders have never stopped to realize that the bank front loads the interest and very little of their payment goes towards paying down the principle. For example, on a $100,000 loan with an annual interest rate of 5.5% amortized for 30 years, the mortgage holder will pay $6,813.48 a year but only $1,347.12 will come off the balance due during the first year.



Mortgages are not a bad thing as very few people are in a position to pay cash for a home. Today’s current low interest rates make borrowing money much more economical than in years past. But it’s not free!

My challenge to you is while the year is still new to pull out a current mortgage statement and make note of your current balance. Examine your payment. If you have an escrow account, your payment should have three parts: principle, interest and escrow (for taxes and insurance). Understand how much of your payment is going towards the debt. If you are not satisfied with the rate in which you are paying off your mortgage, you can always pay extra principle.

This is also a good exercise if you have credit card debt or auto debt. I do not like sending off money and not getting anything back for it. The knowledge of how much of my hard earned income was going towards interest payments gave me the power and resolve to make better financial decisions. I hope it will help you too.

Happy New Year! If I can help you with any of your real estate needs during 2011, please don’t hesitate to give me a call.

Real Estate During the Holiday Season

Every year it is a debate whether or not to leave a house on the market during the period between Thanksgiving and New Years. I tell my clients that it is a personal decision. First off, it is very unlikely that their house is going to get an offer if it is not on the market. Second, traffic should be light but those that are looking are most likely serious buyers. But if you struggle with keep the house ready to show the rest of the year, it could be even more difficult with shopping and wrapping and baking and other festivities. It is a person decision.

This year I had one young family that decided to pull their house off the market in the middle of November. With two young girls, they wanted to concentrate on the spirit of Christmas and not the spirit of real estate. I understood completely but three weeks after we pulled it off the market I got a phone call from an agent that had showed it previously. After discussing it with my client, we decided to put it back on the market for 14 days. Guess what? Within 24 hours we had two offers and we put a sale pending sign out front.

Another young family had already purchased a new home and decided to tough it out and leave their house on the market. We only had a couple of showings but did receive and accept an offer. A third listing received an offer, but after going back and forth a couple of times, we did not come to terms and the discussions stopped. And here it is the week before Christmas and another listing has two showings scheduled and one promising showing took place over the weekend.

My guess is that most of this activity is being driven by higher interest rates. After months and months of unbelievably low rates, they have inched up for the five last weeks and so buyers that have been kicking lots of tires are suddenly putting in purchase offers. I don’t blame them!

I hope you and your loved ones have a safe and happy holiday. My photo above was taken at Lamberton Conservatory at Highland Park. They have a beautiful poinsettia display and for the next two Friday evenings they will be open till 9 pm with an incredible light display. The cost is $3 at the door.

Don't Do Windows?? Then Hire Them Out!!

It's no secret that houses are not flying off the market like they were a few years ago.  Buyers are as picky as ever and tend to look at everything on the market before they make a decision.  If you're trying to sell your home, it's important that it shows as well as possible.  Over the next few weeks, I plan  to provide some general information about getting your house in tip-top showing condition.

Last week I attended an engineer inspection and the buyer told me when she walked into the kitchen and saw the afternoon sunlight streaming in, she knew she had to have that house.   With Rochester's grey season just about upon us, it is especially important that windows are clean to allow every bit of sunlight in that is available.  And when there is a daytime showing or open house scheduled, be sure to open all drapes and let as much light as possible into your home.




  Another cost-free trick to have your home look its best, is to clear your kitchen counters of almost everything.  Pack away appliances, dish drainers and all unnecessary clutter.  The results will be amazing.  In a matter of minutes your ordinary kitchen will look like something in a catalog.

Veterans Day 2010

Veterans Day 2010
Originally uploaded by maryshelsby

Remembering all the men and women of our Armed Forces who have and are keeping us safe. Thank you for all your sacrifices.
This shot was taken at the Vietnam Memorial at Rochester's Highland Park.

On a real estate note, one big change in the market is that investors are back! Perhaps they recognize the bargain basement prices out there, but I've heard from more investors in the past 30 days then I have the entire past two years.