J Philip Faranda

It was a bizarre phone call this afternoon. The lady on the phone swore that her home had just come off the market with another broker, but I couldn't find it on the MLS. I changed statuses, spellings of the address (1st? First?), and anything else I could think of. Nothing. The home is in Yonkers, so I asked if it could be on a corner and have another address. Nope, middle of the block.

I asked who the broker was, and she didn't know. Her brother and co-owner was handling that. Then, she finally gave me the clue I needed. The broker was in Queens. After a quick check, I had my answer.

The broker listed her Yonkers home on the Long Island MLS. Yonkers is not in the Long Island area. It belongs on the Westchester-Putnam MLS.

No wonder there were no calls. No wonder there were no showings. The house was, for all intents and purposes, not listed, at least not on the local market. It might as well have been on the California MLS.

So, if you are selling your home, I guess you need to add to track record, references and other advisable queries, if the agent will actually put the property on the correct MLS. Not that you want the local brokers and buyers to be aware of it. I mean, if you did that, it might actually sell.

Oh, and here's another little detail. The house doesn't expire on the Long Island MLS until August, 2010!

Next!

"Luck is when Opportunity meets Preparedness"

-Branch Rickey

After one of my more difficult meetings with a seller today, I had an appointment at a Yonkers condominium that had expired previously with another broker. Not long into out interview, the lady's cell phone rang and she informed me that she was not actually the owner.

Strike one.

The real owner was her brother, who was on the phone just then. He asked to speak with me, and I was happy to speak with him. It is always better to speak with the principal, you know? Initially, he wondered who I was and what I was doing over there.

Strike two.

I can't say that I blame him. If I were in his shoes I'd want to know who is trying to list my home with my sister who doesn't own it. I told him that very same thing. I asked, now that I'd seen the unit, if he and I could get together to speak about how I could help. He had more questions for me, and I guess I said the right things. He said he'd be over in 10 minutes. "Prepare the paperwork, we need to sell this thing."

Boom. It is high, it is far, it is gone.

10 minutes later, he was over, we hit it off as well in person as we did on the phone, and the condo was listed at a $25,000 price reduction. Pretty lucky, given other possible outcomes. But things like this don't happen unless you are out there and prepared for curve balls. He got that I wanted to do business, he meant business too, and we clicked. Just like that. Sometimes you get lucky.

Stay tuned.

* Branch Rickey was the GM of the Brooklyn Dodgers who signed Jackie Robinson and broke baseball's color barrier. Also the inventor of the minor league farm system, he is considered one of the most innovative baseball executives ever. Moreover, he changed the world.

First, a little Kipling. This is one of my favorite poems:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream-and not make dreams your master,
If you can think-and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings-nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my son!

-Rudyard Kipling

Now, Max:

Let me tell you what tough is.

Tough is being a single mother and putting your son through Yale.

Tough is being an animal lover with multiple dogs, cats and a horse and having to lose 2 cats in 2 days.

Tough is being put in between a battle axe listing agent and demanding, New York City clients and getting the $400,000 battle axe listing to accept $350,000 in those 2 same days.

Tiffany represented a builder when I met her and I recruited her for a year before she joined the firm. She's a good team player, very protective of her clients, and firmly commmited to doing the right thing in business. She's also Max's godmother, having found him on German Sheperd rescue for me when she knew I was looking for a dog.

This has been a tough year for most of us, and she has had to endure a very rough week. One of those cats was 17. I've lost pets before. It sucks. A 17 year family member is truly family. You mourn. You are tempted to stay in bed.

Tough people, however, do what they have to do, and Tiffany gave a virtuoso real estate performance with difficult parties to please on both sides in the midst of grief and adversity. As Yankee fans would say, she hit one into the monuments.

I'm not surprised.

This is the kind of person I am proud to have on the team. We don't shuffle rolodexes around here. We make things happen in spite of circumstances, and Tiffany embodies that. If you are in Dutchess County, NY and you need a good agent, you need to add her to your short list.

New York real estate closings take forever compared to other areas. There are too many attorneys and too much red tape, but you can't control the weather. What you can control is how you approach your purchase and expedite the transaction. Is a 30 day closing possible? Yes, but you have to have all your oars in the water:

• Have all your mortgage documentation complete. Everything. If your loan processor says they want all bank statement pages, front and back, including advertisements, give it to them. This is perhaps the most imprtant thing you can do.
• Be reachable. If I need an answer, answer your email or call me back at lunch so we don't lose a day.
• Reach out to your attorney! Hint: If the attorney can't come to the phone, handle it with the paralegal. That's their job. The biggest legal hangup is title. Have it ordered fast. Some lawyers wait for the comitment to come in, which sets us back 2-3 weeks. Chew gum and breath.
• Reach out to your Loan officer. Ask questions. Was the appraisal submitted? Were there issues to handle? Make sure they have all they asked for. Ask what the next step is what what has to happen to get there.
• Settle disputes fast. You can either live with the drapes or you get your own. Talk it over and make a choice. Don't hold up a half million dollar deal for 3 days while you agonize over a few hundred dolalrs in window treatments.
• Get your homeowner insurance! You'd be surprised how many Friday closings become "next Wednesday" closings because you don't have the binder.

If you have your act together and we work as a team, we can get you into underwriting and have mortgage commitment in hand within a few weeks. When you show the seller the money, the onus is now on them to move forward and close. Assuming they are as on point as you are, a fast closing can be achieved.

Here in New York just about every buyer north of New York City working with brokerage uses a buyer agent. It just makes sense; the seller has an advocate in the listing agent looking out for them, so buyers should have the same advantage in the largest transaction of their life. Moreover, it almost never costs the buyer anything out of pocket beyond their purchase. A good buyer agent can help with many things, but there are some things we can't do.

Let's start with what a good agent can do.

• Due diligence on the property background, sales history, and condition. I'm the guy that advises you to test that oil tank, septic system, and presence of radon. I check with the municipality to ensure that the taxes are correct, the square footage is accurate, and everything represented by the listing agent is true.
• Market activity- Is the house overpriced? Underpriced? Competitive for the area? Listed previously with another broker? I can tell you what houses like it are selling for, and in many cases I know the other sales in the area very well. I may have personally made some of those sales!
• Negotiate- I can sniff out a divorce. I know what questions to ask. I probe for weaknesses. I know exactly how to handle the listing agent, certainly far better than an unlicensed, first-timer. I have seen listing agents hang buyers out to dry in cases where the buyer thought themselves wise to deal directly with the lister.
• Advise- I can tell you if the time is right to raise your offer, stay put, how to handle a counter offer, and tons of other things you may not have even thought of. I do it all the time.
• Refer you to competent lawyers, mortgage sources, inspectors, and other specialists you need to make sure you have proper representation and assistance. Need an estimate on a new deck? I'll get you 2 contractors. Need to know if a roof is going to need a replacement? I'll get you 2 honest roofers who'll tell you the truth, not shake you down for a job.
• Serendipity- I have verified estimated fuel and utility costs, listened for train noise of a nearby line, timed a commute, and hundreds of other things you may not be able to do yourself.
• Is there more? I could probably write for hours. But you get the point.

• Predict the future. I have NO IDEA what a seller will take. Don't ask me to ask their agent. They are ethically bound to represent the asking price, period. I have NO IDEA what the house will sell for in 5 years. There is no way to tell. I have NO IDEA when the roof or furnace will go.
• Steal a house. Well, in most cases. Yes, it is a buyer's market. No, that doesn't mean that you can insult the seller and presume they are desperate and will take anything. Have we gotten some fantastic deals done well below asking price? I have. But once that lowball offer is rejected or countered at full price, you need to understand that the odds of a steal are remote.
• Hypnotize the seller and their agent into taking your 80c on the dollar offer. This is especially the case with highly desirable properties with recent price reductions and plenty of interested people looking. People are all about the money. If you are in a competitive bidding situation, they take best and highest.
• Manipulate reality. This is somewhat like hypnosis. If you are making a low offer with a low downpayment and a pre approval from some Internet lender, you are not giving me the sufficient tools to make you look good in the eyes of the seller or their agent.
• Beat the other side into submission. Being adversarial doesn't work. Sellers aren't bad people for wanting to maximize what they net for their property, so getting insulted when they counter offer or don't accept all of your terms the first go around doesn't make them unreasonable. It makes them people with their own wants and needs which should be respected and considered. Advocacy is not pillaging.

A few other observations to keep in mind, especially in this environment where the buyer has the upper hand:

• Not every seller is desperate.
• A win/win outcome, or even the appearance of one, is superior to a win/lose outcome. I have seen sellers who felt like they were held over a barrel by a smug buyer replace large appliances with cheaper ones and do other things the buyer didn't like but couldn't fight because of ill feelings over how they were treated.
• Never underestimate the importance of psychology and perception. If you are going to offer $395,000 on an opening bid consider 400k instead.
• Nobody likes a bully. Sellers bullied buyers back in the hot market. It wasn't wise. It isn't wise to demand that a 75 year old vacate their home of 40 years in 30 days instead of 60 just because it works for you. Think win/win again.
• Don't overplay your hand. A 10-year old kitchen with corian counters and black appliances instead of chrome isn't outdated or 3rd world.
• If you adore a fantastically priced, spectacularly appointed property you probably aren't alone. Don't be shocked if such a home has competitive bidding.

Here's the bottom line: if it sounds like I am defending sellers I am not. I am trying to portray that there are people on the other side just like you. Empathy makes you a better negotiator, and better negotiators get better deals.