Sharon Wager "Your Blue Jean Agent"

I cruised out on tour today with Bill Bigelow and Brian Normoyle this morning. We had a little bit of a late start, and had to end at 12:30 to accommodate appointments, so we didn't get to see much. We also chose to skip several listings that we've already seen, or that were too far out from our offices.

Our first stop was Skyview Terrace in Camillus. Cute. The wall between the kitchen and dining room has been opened up, which really helps add to the openness of the floor plan. Our second stop was into the city to Strathmore Drive. If you're a buyer looking in Strathmore, this is a home you appreciate more once you're inside it. It has a nice charm to it. Had a nice lunch there, courtesy of Debb Parker of Commonfund (thanks Debb!).

Next we headed back out to Camillus to see Brice's Warners Road listing. It's right across from Reed Webster Park - a real bonus if you like to play tennis because you can easily walk to the courts. (As a side note, be nice to Brice today because I totally rounded on him as soon as we walked in the door, looking to find out if he heard anything new about a deal of ours that should've closed a month ago). Our last stop was Stonehedge, right off West Genesee near the high school. Always a popular neighborhood, with it's slightly wider streets and typically well kept houses.

That's it for what we saw this morning. I wish we had time to go see Depa and Mallard. Depa we just ran out of time, and Mallard's time frame was set to end a little early. I know it doesn't sound like much, but we were out for two hours. I think the most houses I've ever seen in a single tour was a year or two ago. Somehow, I don't know how, Kate Gow and I saw 22 houses in two and half hours. I'd like to head out to tour the east side tomorrow if I can manage the time.

The big appeals of tour today were touching base with other agents and the great conversations the three of us had in the car. From kids to cars, gas prices, the housing market, websites, billboards, and just plain old gossip. And lunch - Debb always provides us with great lunches :-)

So what's selling in the town of Marcellus? In the past 30 days, just five properties have been changed to a pending status (an accepted contract with contingencies removed). South State Street, Patterson, Gray Ledge Terrace, Lot 15 Sage Meadows and lot 4 Abounding Way. Sage Meadows and Abounding Way are both Pigliavento lots. Listings changed over to a K status (offer accepted but with contingencies) in the past 30 days are East Maple, West Main, New Seneca Turnpike, Hillside and Deerpath. Combining the two statuses for a total of 10, we have a low list price of $82,000 and high of $299,900. Five colonials, three ranches, one split level and one cape.

There are 11 new listings in the past 30 days (although Arizona could be considered a re-list, since it was on at the end of last year, withdrawn, and is back on again). 5 of this 11 will be new construction in Fowler's Cedarville Ridge.

There's a total of 66 active listings in the MLS for the town, 32 of which are listed as existing (not "to be built") - which translates into "there's a few builders looking to build in town!" There's 14 total pended listings (including the 5 within the past 30 days).

I guess the best way to sum up a Marcellus snapshot is that houses are selling, but it can take a little bit of time. Looking at how the MLS tracks the number of days a listing is active across the pended listings, it's a range from 3 to 145 days. The average is 72 days. That's actually a pretty good number. It just doesn't seem like it after the frenzy of a few years ago.

The real estate market is moving quite nicely here in the town of Camillus. According to the MLS, 47 listings have accepted offers in the past 30 days, and are presently either at a K or P status (K means an offer has been accepted but there's some type of contingency, for example a home inspection to be performed, and P means all contingencies have been removed). But the real question is what is selling?

Currently, there are only 2 colonials listed under $100k. Leroy St. in the village, and the corner of Melrose and Hudson streets in old Fairmount. They are both listed as active. The rest are mainly capes and ranches. I did see the cute grey cape on Turner (across from the municipal building) pended.

The big activity is $100 - 200,000. 35 of the 47 fall into that range, and of those 23 are priced below $140,000. The ever popular Orchard village claims 7 K or P listings: two on West Way, two on Forrest, and one each on Northfield, Terrace and Pear Tree. Technically Pear Tree isn't Orchard village, but most people think it is. Also the very popular Hidden Knolls is doing well, with two on Flint Path and one on Quartz with accepted offers. Not surprising, the two on Yorkshire also have offers. There are 57 active listings in this price range.

Looking in the MLS at every house listed over $200,000, there are 96 active listings, 36 of which are currently existing (not "to be built"). There are only 2 K status, and two pended that have accepted offers in the past 30 days. Even outside our 30 day snapshot, there are only 16 listings K or P over $200,000.

An interesting comparison is if you look at what's available in the Westhill school district and exclude the town of Camillus, since those listings have already been included above. Priced above $200,000, there are only 5 listings with accepted offers, and 34 active listings. The percentages of listings with accepted offers to total listings run nearly equal: 14% Camillus and 13% Westhill schools.

Again looking between the town of Camillus and Westhill schools, but in the $100 - 200,000 range, the percentages of total listings with accepted offers in Camillus is 38% to Westhill's 43% - a fair comparison. Now I will throw a curve ball into all these numbers - sometimes a property is listed as active when it's really sold. Sometimes a listing hangs out at a K status, when it should be P. The only way I can adjust for those instances is to call every listing agent that shows up in my search, and that' s not happening today. Or tomorrow.

I guess my point is, if you're thinking about selling, and you live in either the town of Camillus or Westhill school district, things are looking pretty darn good if you're in the $100-200k range, particularly if you're priced under $140,000.

FYI - you can track local active and K listings through several websites, but you won't find Pended listings, as they are no longer being marketed. You can also track post closing sales through the Sunday paper, and it will even tell you the sales price.

While on vacation last week, someone asked me this. So I decided to share :-)

A broker's open, quite simply, is an open house for real estate agents. Agents are usually busy hosting open houses on Sundays, and can't get to the other public open houses. Around the greater Syracuse area, the day and time of your neighborhood's broker's opens are generally determined by the board of Realtors. That is to say, they've established a general schedule for agents to follow. For example, on the west side, we have them on Tuesdays. We start in the city, covering the west and south sides earliest, and work our way outward. A Tipp Hill listing might be open 10 - 12, and a Skaneateles listing might be 12 - 2. By following the schedule, it allows agents to see the most number of houses on the least amount of time.

There are several reasons why we have broker's opens - and I have to admit that I've heard that they are not very successful in other areas. From a seller's perspective, the number one reason to agree to hold a broker's open is to let agents preview your home. This will save you time (and cleaning!) if the agent determines your house doesn't meet his buyer's needs. On the flip side, an agent might decide that your home is perfect for his buyer when he wasn't even originally considering it! One of my favorite "tricks" is to offer some type of snack or light meal to agents. If they stay to eat (which most of them do because it's the only way we get lunch that day), then they stay in the house a little longer than just "cruising through". The longer they are in the house, the more they remember it. The more they remember it, the more likely they are to talk about it. The more they talk about it, the more it piques the curiousity of other agents... it is a subtle, yet effective method of network marketing.

Now to throw a curve ball, I have to wonder how much longer broker's opens will remain popular as the price of gas keeps increasing. Syracuse's northern suburbs have been predominately "caravan style", where several agents pile into a few cars, and each listing is only open for a few minutes. It's not uncommon for a few agents within a single office to ride along together for east and west side opens, but the listing is still open for a couple of hours. Personally, I wish I could bike to broker's opens. Sometimes the distance is just too far, but what really stops me is the idea of showing up in biker shorts and shirt with helmet hair. I'm all for business-casual dress, but that seems a little bit toooooo casual. Although, if gas hits $5 a gallon this summer, I'm going to rethink that. In my opinion, the benefits of a broker's open outweighs my vanity.

What a day yesterday! A black bear was spotted in a residential Fairmount neighborhood yesterday around 6:45 AM, and most of the day was uneventful. This neighborhood, for those of you familiar with the Fairmount area, is pretty deep into civilization (and is split between the West Genesee and Westhill school districts). My sophomore son did tell me a number of jokes floating around the high school about the bear, but that apparently was it for excitement until...

The West Genesee school district decided to lockdown all the middle and elementary schools at the end of the day, and not let anyone go home without permission from a parent first. The irony being that either the decision was made to lockdown after the high school students were released as usual, or after someone figured out that high school students are immune to bear attacks. I'm not sure which, but as I look over at my computer gaming addicted son, I think it might be the latter.

Anyhow, parents of every student had to be contacted by a teacher before students could be released to ride the bus home, or parent had to go pick their child up. I can't even imagine what the teachers were thinking when they found this tidbit of information out. Parents had no advance knowledge this was the situation, and I know the chaos it caused in my house for a few hours.

Now, at the middle schools, I don't think this was as much of an issue because so many middle school students have cell phones. My 6th grader called me on her cell phone, and I wouldn't be surprised if she handed her phone around the room for others to use (at my expense, I'm sure, since I pay the cell phone bill). My point being, multiple phone calls could be made simultaneously. But in the elementary schools, hee hee hee hee... I think there are teachers missing clumps of hair today after pulling it out. If there are 25 students per classroom, and 5 classes per grade, through 5 elementary schools (Easthill, Split Rock, Onondaga Road and two at Stonehedge), and if each school has 10 land lines, it's going to take some time to make all those phone calls.

So you're asking why did the school decide to lockdown? Well, you're not the only one asking that question. There were no more sitings after 6:45ish in the morning that were made known to the public, until the thing was caught around 7 last evening - in the same area it was first spotted, about three miles from the high school. They let all students go out and catch the busses to school in the morning without any warnings to parents, and then they let the high school students go home without any issues. soooo.... I'm not sure what prompted the events to cause lockdown. It's nice they were thinking of the students' safety in the afternoon.

All said and done, my 6th grader got home about an hour and 10 minutes later than normal, but my 2nd grader was about an hour and 45 minutes later than normal. He was tired, irritable, and hungry, and acting like a bear himself.

There are many things about the day that I don't know. But thing I know for certain - the day has created a memory that the kids will remember for many years to come.