I have a few posts in the pipeline, but in the mean time I thought I might try an open thread.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with blogging terminology, an open thread is a post where the blog readers are encouraged to leave comments on any topic they like. Feel free to leave a comment and ask a question, make an observation, tell us what you’re up to or just introduce yourself and say hi.
Also, I’m interested in what people might like me to post about here. More local Babylon Village stuff? More housing news? More pictures of my baby?
I was also thinking of doing a post about the amount of website traffic I get on HIB, perhaps with some snapshots from Google Analytics. Any interest in that?
Anyway, have at it.
20 Comments
I would be interested in getting feedback from folks who have tried to sell a house on their own, especially in the local market. By what methods have you tried to get the word out about the property, how successful were they, when did you market it, etc. – thanks in advance
I’m'na read whatever you write! I’m hooked.
Cute kid!
I have been reading your blog for a months now and really enjoy it. We are in the same position as you: LOVE the village, WANT Babylon schools but…. anything we could easily afford is not worth the money they are asking. We are getting frustrated and from time to time consider broadening our search but always come back to the village. How long should we wait? Don’t you wish there was someone who could see the future and tell us what to do?
Checked out 50 Cadman Ave today…really nice, but a bit out of my price range ($459K). Anyone else seen it?
78 Livingston ($400K) wasn’t worth the 3 block walk to get there.
I don’t see 50 Cadman on MLS. Was it a FSBO?
Debra went to see 78 Livingston a few weeks back. Her verdict was the same as yours.
50 Cadman was represented by someone from Hoffman East Realty. The owner of the house is friends with the agent.
50 Cadman??? that’s a new one. However, that’s a bit pricey at 459. 31 Greenway has a lot of curb appeal…no pics of the inside yet. Gary..check out that Stowe/Lowerre area…some nice houses!!! WB School
To the Frustrated poster holding out, Int rates are going to drop one more time, then I suggest you buy buy buy…there are some good deals.
So 50 Cadman is an exclusive to Hoffman East? I can’t believe they’re listing a property exclusive in this market?
That’s nuts on a stick.
Gary: re sale you previously reported on, 14 Araca Road.
“MLS# 2027699 – Zillow Page
Sold: $450,000 – 10/27/2008
Prior Sales: none
3 bedrooms – 1 bath – Colonial
Taxes: $7,098 – Village Taxes: $735
Looks like a decently sized house on a bigger plot of land south of Montauk”.
I don’t know if you’ve passed by this house since it transferred, to gauge your sense of the reasonableness of the price vis-a-vis size, location, condition, etc. I’m guessing you did not get into that house before it sold. Generally you comment more about your impressions than what you said above. As a potential purchaser and regardless of style (colonial or split level), how much do you think the lack of a second bathroom factors into sale price? Would that be a big issue from your point of view? What about the corner lot configuration and impact on “rear yard”?
Lack of a second bathroom is a fairly significant negative for me from a functional perspective. Going forward, we might have four people living in the house eventually and having only one bathroom might make things difficult. If there were somewhere in the house that another bathroom could be easily added in the future, that might mitigate it somewhat.
I’m not sure about corner configuration. I think that most people buying a house would want some kind of backyard for their kids to play/entertaining/dogs/etc. I don’t need a particularly big yard, but I would like at least some rear yard space.
Please understand that I’m not a Realtor or an appraiser. I’m just some schmo looking for a house to buy for my family live in. My impressions on this blog are highly subjective.
Unlike Realtors or appraisers, you will actually (well, maybe) be voting in the marketplace with your dollars, making your highly subjective impressions infinitely more relevant than their impressions (and which may or may nor be “objective”).
Thanks
Gary, you mention MLS access; do you have access to the agent side of listings?
Unfortunately the real estate sales cartel (flush from enrolement in the boom years – it wasn’t just a bubble in prices, but in NAR memberships as well) spent enough lobbying dough to get away with a slap on the wrist from the FTC back in ’06-’07. They agreed to let flat-fee listings onto the MLS (previously banned), but most importantly the did NOT have to make MLS data available on equal terms to any subscriber (meaning members and non-members alike).
The public access via MLSLI is crap IMHO, and likely intentionally so. Other regions (e.g., GSMLS) are no better.
I have some enhanced MLS access through Listingbook, thanks to my Realtor Tom. I can see days on market, previous pricing and better information on sold homes.
MLSLI is getting better with the data it provides. Unfortunately the user interface and site design are still terrible. MLSLI is a potential goldmine and they’re wasting it.
I blame myself for not trying to seize the opportunity when I was working at LISB. If I had played my cards right, I could be rolling in it now.
Wasting it? Depends on your point of view. From the Guild’s point of view, if the data was available, even for a fee, few buyers would need to pay a member of the Guild to have selective access to the data – selective being as much or as little as the Guild member decides to share with his client (provided you even believe what a buyer’s agent is telling you). The “buyer’s” agent cut of 2.5-3% of the transaction on the back end ($10-12,000 on a $400k house) is a hell of a lot more than a prospective buyer would be willing to fork out on the front end for access to a website.
So, the union keeps the data controlled. NAR had a great view of what happened to the travel agents in the internet world of Expedia/Orbitz.
New listing: 99 Park Ave. at $479K. Which is, as my dear husband so elegantly describes, nuts on a stick. It appears to be a lovely house, on an admittedly large parcel, but there’s the part they don’t mention: that it’s on a really busy corner without a traffic light. When trains arrive, things get backed up. Also there’s a popular and busy park on one side. It’s too bad, it’s exactly the sort of house Gary and I would love to buy, but I think the location is too much of an issue. Also, there’s a stream running right through the backyard, which is a dealbreaker for someone with a very small child.
99 Park is a nice enough house. The location is tough. Besides the train traffic, the foot traffic to and from all the schools twice a day (or more) is a killer. Would be a great house for the crossing guard who has been stuck on that corner forever. House was owned by the same family for years before it sold for a song ($134K in 5/2000). Buyers renovated nicely but had vastly overinflated idea of what it was worth. Listed it for $549,000 (after kicking around $600K!) in 08/2004 before finally selling it in 05/2005 for $442,000 (public records record sale as $455,260, i.e., 3% “seller concession”). The current owners also appear to have maintained it and/or updated it as well; it does have good curb appeal and looks especially nice in the spring/summer.
Sold for $442k at the peak absolute peak of the market (Spring ’05), and as everyone knows, the market has gone up 8.5% since then…
Just call it another house not really for sale.
That house is a dump. Talk about cheaply renovated. That reno is the equivalent of a Garden State Bricface….
It didn’t look cheaply renovated to me, but I was carrying the baby in her carseat and both realtors were following me around as there weren’t any other people there. I liked the way they replaced all the interior doors and put stylish levers on them, although I personally would have chosen glass doorknobs instead of black levers for that period of house.
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[...] those of you who have been keeping up, this house was first mentioned back on March 15th by commenter Steele. At that point it was an exclusive by Hoffman East and was listed at $459K. Now [...]