Smallwood and Multiple Offers

Smallwood Streamfront Cabin 129K

I had an inspection in Smallwood yesterday, but no scheduled showings this weekend. That is in stark contrast to last week, where both days were chalk full, and on Saturday I met six different customers. The day was fruitful however. I ended last weekend with four offers.

Three were on the same house, however. It is a short sale that I have listed, and have had listed for almost four months. When we first put it on the market, it got a bit of mild interest, but then tailed off, and despite the fact that I dropped the price a few times, and marketed the hell out of it, it sat without a whole lot of activity.

Well last week, I dropped it another ten thousand, and all of the sudden I started getting calls on it. I had to squeeze in four different showings on Sat. morning, and of course—feast or famine—three of the four showings resulted in offers.

This is the first time I have been in a multiple offer situation like this. And believe me I am not complaining. I think most brokers would love to be in this predicament, but unfortunately I liked all three couples, and all three really liked the property. So we asked for everyone’s highest and best by Tuesday—and on Wednesday I was in the odd position of calling two of them with bad news. I felt like Simon Cowell sitting at the desk after the contestants make the long elevator ride. It was a weird feeling and no fun at all.

But the couple that did “win” are very happy. This is a special property, and hopefully the bank will agree to the short sale.

The other offer I received was from a couple that has been looking for awhile in Smallwood. I had shown a few houses in Smallwood prior to this, but with these buyers we looked at between 10-15 homes. I was pleasantly surprised at Smallwood, and I plan on recommending this area more to people who are looking for affordable second home getaways.

Smallwood is a hamlet in Bethel, tucked in between White Lake and Swinging Bridge. It was originally settled in the 1800’s by eastern European immigrants, but it was not until A.N Smallwood came along in 1928 that it began to change into what it is today—A rural country escape, small, modest Adirondack style cabins hidden away under giant pine trees. Click Here for a History of Smallwood. As the years have gone on, more substantial—year round homes have been built. However Smallwood still has that feel of a working class summer retreat. If you are looking for a second home on a budget, you should definitely consider Smallwood. Although the pictures do not do it justice, Click Here for Smallwood Streamfront 

There were 19 properties reported sold in the Sullivan County MLS in the last ten days. Click Here for Solds.

Fall in Sullivan County

Sonoma Falls in Livingston Manor

Peak fall foliage is just around the corner. This year will probably not be as spectacular as some, because we have had all the rain this year, which has knocked off a lot of the leaves before they could reach full potential. However over the next seven to ten days, most of Sullivan County will be in prime color. The cold nights mixed with the warm days are making the middle of our autumn season quite enjoyable. If anyone is thinking about coming up this weekend for a sightseeing trip, I would think that you will not be disappointed.

There are quite a few activities and events going on throughout the fall. It really is not a matter of what you should do while here, but what you should skip, because it is not possible to cram it all into one weekend.

Sonoma Falls in Livingston Manor is a great place to stop by if you are in the area. They have an old fashioned cider press set up in a barn, a country store that sells fresh produce and fruits, hayrides and a pumpkin patch for the kids, and some pretty spectacular water falls, with hiking trails—definitely a good spot to spend that afternoon. Cider Mill.

Bethel Woods has its rustic craft show this weekend. This expanded specialty craft event will showcase wood carvings, handmade furniture, pottery, accessories and accents for the home. They also have large tents filled with local fruits and produce. Bethel Woods

Segway Tours in Woodridge has fall foliage tours throughout Oct. Fall Foliage Tours

All farmers markets are in full swing, and will continue throughout Oct. as well. Farmers Markets.

Calkins Creamery will be having an in-store tasting and demonstration this weekend Calkins Creamery is a small, farmstead cheese operation on Highland Farm in Wayne County, Pennsylvania. Emily Montgomery, the cheesemaker, produces an array of raw milk aged cheeses as well as fresh, pasteurized cheeses. Emily's father and brother, Bill & Zack, operate the 6th generation family farm. Cheese are aged at the creamery and underground in the caves at neighboring Calkins Creek Vineyard. Creamery Link

There will also be two Halloween parades. One in Callicoon on Oct. 29th at 1PM, and one on the 30th in Jeffersonville at 6PM. Another great activity for the kids.

There were eight single family homes reported sold in the Sullivan County MLS in the last 14 days. Click Here for Listings

Deed Restrictions

We don’t have very many subdivisions with extensive deed restrictions here in Sullivan County, and the ones we do have generally are pretty lackadaisical. Mostly you see no trailers or mobile homes, or no further subdivision. That is pretty much the extent of it.


However apparently in Spring Texas, they take their deed restrictions very seriously. Now I get it—the role of the deed restrictions are to protect the property values of the homes in the subdivision. The deed restrictions spell out what you can and can not do to or with your home, often including what color you can paint your house, or what type of mailbox you can install—Conformity equals value I suppose.

The Sardo family who live in just such a subdivision are learning all about deed restrictions and lawsuits. The Sardo family own a pot-bellied pig and according to the Thicket at Cypresswood’s deed restrictions no animals, livestock, poultry, reptiles, or insects of any kind shall be raised, bred or kept on any lot in the subdivision. The Board of the Home Owners Association (HOA) for the Thicket at Cypresswood has informed the Sardo family they are in violation of deed restrictions and Wilbur, the pot-bellied pig, must find a new home. The Sardo family says Wilbur is a pet and not livestock and thus they are suing their HOA to keep their pig.

Who will win? Who knows. But there will be a lot of money spent on lawsuits over a pig. A much loved pig, I might add. There has probably never been any pig with more Facebook friends than Wilbur. At last count and still growing Wilbur had over 5,000 Facebook friends.


After hearing this story I jumped on the computer to research other odd deed restrictions. Apparently as long as the restrictive covenants do not break any local or federal laws, you can pretty much put in what ever you want. There is a house in Tennessee that has a giant statue of a cat in the front yard. Subsequent owners have been unable to remove it because it is in the deed that it must remain. Other strange restrictions include a stripper pole in a Las Vegas home, and a home in Colorado that must remain a deep purple.

On a more sobering note (although obviously no longer enforced as law now prohibits) there are deeds here in Sullivan County that restrict resale to “non-Caucasians and Jews.”

There were 11 single family homes sold in Sullivan County in the last seven days according to the Sullivan County MLS Click Here for Listings

Irene in Pictures

All my weekend appointments canceled in anticipation of the storm, so the last few days have not revolved around real estate. I couldn't take the network news coverage much past Sat. morning. The buildup was ridiculous. I know it was a category 1 hurricane, and nothing like this has hit the east cost in thirty years, but sixteen mind numbing hours of batten-down-the-hatches coverage? Bloomburg and Christie got plenty of face time. Every time I put on the t.v. it was one or the other.

Well our power went out early Sunday morning, but the real crux of the storm did not hit my section of Sullivan County until probably between 2 and 5 PM. It was blustery and rainy before that, but the winds really kicked into high gear around 2, and blew pretty steady for the next few hours.

By that time I had some major cabin fever, so I headed out to see what damage Irene had done. Nothing really major. We had a bunch of trees down, and the Delaware and all the streams were pretty flooded. We got our power back here in Callicoon pretty quickly, but as I write this Monday morning, many in our areas are still out.

Delaware River above Hankins

Looking Downstream

Tree down on Obernburg Hill

Volunteer fireman cleaning up CR 121 above Hankins

On the mountain on CR 121. You can't really tell by the picture, but the clouds were moving, and the wind was really blowing. Christie would have told me to get the hell off the mountain.

Another

Callicoon Creek

Jeffersonville Creek

Trees and debris in Callicoon

Hankins Creek



Another tree on a wire in Milses above McGurrins. For a moment I thought about trying to make it, but that is not how I want end the legacy.



Somebody had already cleared a way through. Fremont Township

Another of the Delaware. It crested at 2AM Monday. No big issues









There were eight properties listed as sold in the Sullivan County MLS in the last seven days. Click Here for Report

My pick of the week is one of my listings. It is an old farmhouse on Menderis Road in Swan Lake on five acres. This really is a special spot. It is very secluded, and it has an old post and beam barn, huge blueberry bushes and apple trees and grapevines. It is a short sale, and we currently have it listed at 169K. It is a great price, but I have only had one showing on it since I listed it last month. Someone is going to come along and fall in love with this property. Swan Lake Farmhouse



















Trains

Once again my blog post is later than I would have liked, but the fact of the matter is, I have had a very busy week. I got offers on both of my lakefront listings this week, after a summer selling season of little action. Both weekend days were full of appointments, as well as some showings during the week. It is like people realized it is Aug. and they better get in gear.


Both of my showings this weekend were Manhattanites, mid thirties, looking for a second home. What was different about both couples is they were not necessarily looking for privacy. They were looking for convenience. It was a little surprising, because I have gotten used to seclusion being sort of the mantra for the urban searchers. For many they want to be tucked away among the trees, out of sight from Fri. until Sunday.

Well it seems as I encounter more of these thirty-something shoppers, their priorities are different. First of all many do not own cars. Now if you are to buy in Sullivan County, you have to own a car. (Or rent one every weekend.) So I have had a few buyers who are looking for a house and car at the same time. However the issue is, many want to entertain in their upstate home, and most of their friends don’t have cars. So rather than having a house out in the woods, where house guests will be essentially trapped for the duration, dependant on the hosts to go anywhere, they are looking for closer, even in-town homes, where a guest can get up earlier than everyone else if they choose, and stroll into town for a bagel and coffee.

Also both buyers I took out this weekend are considering the Ulster/Greene county areas. There are a lot of reasons why they like Sullivan County better (besides price--we are on average 25% cheaper) one made the comment that our area has a “country feeling” that those more populous areas have lost. However what those areas do have is a train. This is a huge draw for thirty-something buyers. Guests can hop a train to Rhinbeck, or Kingston, and be picked up at the train station. Even a day trip visit is possible with a 90 minute scenic Hudson Valley train ride.

I think this is another example of how our county is lagging behind. Yes we are dependant on tourism, and we have made strides in making our county more attractive to visitors. However there is a train route in place, and twice a day a locomotive carrying what looks like garbage and roofing supplies, chugs through Callicoon. I know there had been big plans a few years back (Train article) to bring the trains back through. However like so many others, they fizzled with little fanfare.

I have done very little research on the history of the train line that ran up the Delaware in the last century. I do know it was the lifeblood, and many of the towns around us would never have existed if it weren't for the train. Callicoon was originally Callicoon Depot, and the entire town sprung up around the station. This link gives a little more info on the history of the train lines.

What would it take to bring a passenger train to Sullivan County? I don’t think it will happen without some sort of government subsidy. Conrail, the owner of the railway that snakes its way up the Delaware from Port Jervis to Hancock, makes its revenue from freight. Commuter or passenger revenue can not compete. A private venture like the one proposed by Mr. Wilson I believe is just to grand of an undertaking for the private sector. No, we need a local elected official to go on a mission. Someone with a little influence who can persuade those that frown on gas drilling and gambling, that perhaps a Sullivan County renaissance is as simple as a once a day commuter train from NYC.

There were eight listings reported sold in the Sullivan County MLS. Click Here for Sold listings

My house of the week is one of the in-town houses that I showedd this weekend. It is pretty big four bedroom completely redone farmhouse on Mill Street, right by the brook in Jeffersonville. It has two cool barns on the property, and it is set underneath a bunch of giant pine trees. The grounds are private despite being in-town, and you hear the constant sound of the brook anytime you are outside. The interior has been done with great attention to detail. It really needs to be seen to be appreciated. The pictures do not do it justice.Recently they have dropped th price to 249K, which I think is a great price. Jeffersonville House

Seller Frustration

So everyone knows how crappy the real estate market is in this country. The media loves doom and gloom, and there is at least one news piece daily that reminds me of this. And despite recent glimmers of hope, it remains in the doldrums, and most experts agree that it will stay that way for some time. It has been discussed ad nauseam, tight banks, nervous buyers, high taxes and gas prices, whatever is the driving force that is keeping things tight, it would appear that it will remain this way for some time. I believe like most things in life, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the more it is discussed and dissected and moaned about, the more it will stay the same.


Since I represent both buyers and sellers, I am seeing it from both sides. Right now I have a handful of listings that are not selling, and despite my best efforts, are continuing to languish. Now this is not an aberration. Less than one in four homes listed on the Sullivan County MLS will sell. That is the cold hard facts of this market. If you list your home today, there is an 80% chance it won’t sell in the next calendar year. Now these stats include the unmotivated, test-the-waters sellers, which although much less than at the peak of the market, still litter our MLS, but it is a sobering fact to bring up during a listing presentation.

So what does this mean to sellers? Your home must not just be a good deal, it has to be head and shoulders above the others. It must have a wow factor that sets it aside from the twenty other homes that a prospective buyer can pick to look at. And even then, this does not guarantee a sale. Every week I call my sellers, and we have discussions of what we can do differently. How can we make this house stand out from the others? For many we are at or close to the bottom for price, a few we have dropped into the short sale category, and all feel frustrated. Their lives are on hold as we search for a buyer. I feel for them, and it is often frustrating to see little to no response on some of these homes that a few years ago would have been snatched up quickly.

At any rate, there is still buying and selling going on. People are still moving, switching jobs, needing more room for growing families, and buying second home getaways. It is the process of how they are doing that which has changed. And who can blame buyers? The landscape is completley different than a few years ago. Buyers can wait, and nibble, and choose carefully. There is very little competition, and multiple offers are a thing of the past. Yes it is a buyers market, no doubt about it.

There were seven single family homes reported sold in the Sullivan County MLS for this week. Click Here

My pick of the week is along the same vein as homes that don't sell. It is an almost 2,000 square foot redone ranch in Narrowsburg. This is a nice home, and although it is on a small lot, it has appeal to both a second and primary home buyer. It just recently expired off the MLS after a year. Original price was $199,000 and they dropped it to $179,000. This is just another example of how just being a good home, priced competitively, isn't necessarily enough to get your home sold. Click Here

MLS Whoops!

I am a member of two Multiple Listing Services and every morning over coffee I look through all the new listings that have come on the market. I keep tabs on the good ones, and perhaps send a few to various casual buyers that I have, that will buy the right house at the right price.


Most of the listings are presented very professionally. The pictures are all pretty tastefully taken. You can see some time and effort was put into removing clutter and positioning the shot for the best possible view. The description as well is mostly well written, and hits the high points of the house pretty concisely and with little error.

However with all things in life, you get the occasional agent who had a bad day, or just overlooked something. Most are just a misspelled word or two, or a wrong decimal point, but every once in a while you get a gem. I have seen some good ones on our local Multiple Listing Service, but nothing like the list I compiled from various real estate message boards and blogs. Some I think are pretty hilarious.


“Info on Homostead Act” (They never covered this form in my continuing ed.)

All wall damage repaired, butt cracks on surface.” (I hate those)

“Light filled home with strategically located mirrors.” (Boom chicka)

“Bathroom has His and His sinks.” (Understandable given the new Act stated above)

“Sit and enjoy the kitchen fire while Mom cooks.” (Mom attended the Michael Jackson School of Flash Cooking.)

“Yard with kennel and sandbox for the kiddies.” (Who needs a babysitter?)

“New addition with bedroom with French doors and pig roaster.” (Of course pork in the master bedroom)

“Kitchen with Spanish influences and un-permitted large maids quartered.” (Large maids with no permits?)

“Lovely home with new baths with EZ freeway Access.” (When you have to go and then go)

“Seller wants fast sale. Doesn’t like the area.” (But don’t worry you’ll love it.)

"There is also a sunny deck on the 2nd floor that gets a morning to afternoon delight." (I guess technically there is nothing wrong with this, but the twelve year old part of my brain gets a chuckle out of it.)

"Glass Doors Leading To Rear Deck Where You Can Sunbathe Naked and Commune with Nature." (Again I guess nothing wrong, but really?)

Some of my other favorites include a home that has been “remolded”, “motorvated sellers” and a “wreck room”.

And then we have these train wrecks below:

“Back to the market the client not get approval from Lender. For washer and dryer included…elememtary at 2 blocks, 2 duplex, 4 units .proyect will be ready on 4 months . call for details listing agent". (Someone needs to go back to "elememtary" school.)

"Not a short stale, this is a banked own home. IS AS Where As. Please bring all offers and write them on contracts." (What?)


And a picture tells a thousand words:

There were 15 single family home sales reported in the Sullivan MLS. Click Here for Listings

 

I do not have a pick of the week this week. Again nothing really jumped out at me. We are leaving tomorrow for Lake George for a few days. We're taking little Zach on his first vacation.

Pictures of Sullivan County

Over the five years of selling real estate here in Sullivan, I have taken a bunch of photos. For whatever reason, I have saved all of them. Yesterday while transferring some old files, I came across a bunch of them, and in my--will do anything to waste time besides work--mode that I so easily seem to slip into, I wasted a half hour looking through them. Well to justify that half hour, I am going to use them as this weeks blog post. Actually some I think are pretty cool, and together they give a good snapshot of what our county has to offer.



This car is up above Roscoe on Old Route 17, along the Beaverkill. I always get a chuckle when I drive by it.

I took this from the Callicoon bridge just before the start of the annual Callicoon Canoe Regatta. The regatta was a tradition when I was growing up here, and I'm glad it is back.

My favorite driving range up in Fremont. Owned by a retired farmer, you hit the balls out into a hay field.

An old wooden bridge over North Branch Creek that leads to..

This boarding house on 50 acres. This was one of my all time favorite properties. I was bummed when I wasn't the one that sold it. The property also has a large old barn on it that was featured on History Channel's American Pickers. Very cool spot.

I took this while waiting for a client who owns 100 acres outside of Jeffersonville. This was beginning of Nov. last year when we got all the early snow. I didn't take the listing, but it is a nice piece of property. Land is a tough sell right now if you want top dollar.

I took this last spring while waiting for another client in Neversink. I ended up selling this property to him. Perhaps the fawn was my good luck charm.

View from the PA side of Kellams Bridge up above Hankins. My favorite stretch of the Delaware is from Long Eddy to Hankins. It takes about three hours in a tube, or an hour and a half in a canoe, and it has a great mix of rapids, and deep spots to hang out and swim.

I took this in Narrowsburg two years ago when a bald eagle decided to spend the summer in this big pine. I couldn't tell if there was a nest or not, but for that whole summer he just hung out in that tree.

View of Callicoon from another great house that I didn't sell.

We had 13 houses reported sold in the Sullivan County MLS. Click Here for listings

My pick of the week is a farmhouse in Smallwood listed for $299,000. It is a pre-civil war farmstead, with a huge (70 foot long) post and beam barn, and a separate carriage house, on 14 acres. For someone searching for an authentic old farmhouse, that has that "feel" this is Shangri-La. Yes it was built in 1850, so some of the floors slant, and the basement probably gets wet, and there is probably very little insulation in the walls, and all the other drawbacks that come with owing an old home, but it has that "feel" that is impossible to describe or duplicate. Homes like this one are rare, and for under 300K, ever rarer.  Smallwood Farmhouse

Zillow’s IPO and other Real Estate Sites

So Zillow.com’s initial public offering hit the Nasdaq on Wednesday (Z). The price was set at $20 a share and it closed at $39. A 79% percent jump.

I’m sure that anyone who has done any “real estate Googling” has come across Zillow. They are a company based in Seattle, founded in ’05 by some pretty bright minds that previously had a hand in Microsoft and Expedia. Basically they are a database that includes 100 million homes across the United States. And although current homes on the market are a big part of their search results, in addition they give value estimates of homes, by offering several features including value changes of each home in a given time frame (Zesitmates), aerial views of homes, and prices of comparable homes in the area. Where they can access appropriate public data, it also provides basic information on a given home, such as square footage and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Users can also get current estimates of homes if there was a significant change made, such as a recently remodeled kitchen.

They are currently in third place for the highest ranking real estate sites behind Yahoo and Realtor.com, and despite the fact that they have never shown a dime of profit, (in fact last year they lost 6.8 million) they seem poised to seize the online real estate market. There are others, like Trulia and Realbird, but the big players seem to be these three.

Doubters are calling this another example of the beginning of the Dot.Com Bubble 2.0, and in some ways I agree with them. What exactly is Zillow selling? Well information I suppose, and that is what brings me to my point, and why I have an issue with websites like Zillow.

Real estate listings are a sought after commodity for agents and brokers. It is the product that drives each brokerage. Besides the obvious that you need a listing so you can sell it and make a commission, listings are used to show other potential sellers how successful a company is, they are used to lure in buyers, and a yard sign with your name on it is free advertising screaming to the neighborhood “Look at me. I am a real estate agent.” Listings are the life blood of any successful real estate agency.

Well once you get a listing, the pressure is on to find a buyer. Sellers want to know that you are working hard on their behalf and shouting from the rooftops, so agents scramble around to advertise. However they do not want to spend a lot of money. That is where these piranha sites come in. They very generously offer to advertise your listings for free. The posting process is smooth and easy. Often times they will partner with your local MLS and it can be done automatically. It’s a chummy win-win situation.

Well as these sites have evolved, they have begun to get greedy. They have come up with ways to attempt to get money from real estate agents as well as advertisers. They now offer different programs where you can enhance a listing, or pay to have it bumped to the top of the search results or better yet sponsor neighborhoods or zip codes, all for a monthly fee. Suddenly another agent’s contact info is splashed around on your listing. And all the while they have SEO web people feverishly working to assure top Google placement, effectively beating out local agent’s websites that have freely given them the listings in the first place.

The National Association of Realtors has also efficiently set up Realtor.com so that it holds agents hostage unless they buy an annual enhancement package at an absurd fee. Listings are stripped of all but one photo, and all descriptions are also removed, unless the fee is paid. On top of that, they offer neighborhood sponsorships, and banner ads. The total can be in the thousands. To me this is the biggest travesty. NAR is supposed to be an association that agents join freely to help them do business better and more efficiently. Instead they have basically become a monopolizing bully. It is akin to the protection fee you pay a crew from Canarsie. I suppose you could operate with out it, but without the MLS, few agencies could survive.

I don’t begrudge the entrepreneurial. On the same hand I don’t like to see people taken advantage of, and I think unknowingly we agents and brokers are. And I don’t think most agents realize that we are in a position of power. We have the product, and we spend a lot of time and effort obtaining that product. To freely give to these companies who then turn around and charge us, and compete with us in search results makes no sense to me. If all agents and brokers got together and decided not to give away our listings, the top five real estate websites would immediately fold.

But for now Zillow is worth 950 million, without making one cold call or knocking on one door.

There were five sales reported in the Sullivan MLS this week. Click Here for listings.

My pick of the week is one of the sold listings. MLS 32165. I think this sale is an example of our market stabilizing and perhaps even picking up a bit. It is a nice early 20th century farmhouse with a bit of land, and some seclusion. This house would appeal to a lot of second home searchers. What caught my eye was the days on market, and the original list price. (165K and 103 DOM) A few years ago, a house like this would have been priced at 200 plus K, and would have sat at least a year, with begrudging intermittent price drops. This one was a quick, efficient--list it and sell it. I think this is a good sign.

2% Tax Cap

"Statement from New York State Association of REALTORS CEO Duncan R. MacKenzie


Albany – June 25, 2011 – Today, a great victory has been won for New York State’s long suffering property taxpayers. Governor Cuomo, Majority Leader Skelos, Speaker Silver and the lawmakers who voted for the cap deserve kudos for standing up to the tax-and-spend forces that made this common-sense approach a political football. Tough times require tough decisions and Albany has delivered. This is also a significant win for the REALTOR organization. Residential property owners have no organized voice in Albany, so the 51,000 members of the New York State Association of REALTORS took up the cause and used every resource at its disposal to make the cap a reality.

New York’s REALTORS also praise lawmakers for including mandate relief opportunities as part of the cap effort. We have consistently said that the ultimate success of the tax cap will be tied to finding ways to help municipalities and school districts achieve savings from programs that have been passed down to them from Albany."

So what does this mean for Sullivan County? Nothing for the near future. Were this law passed in boom times, I suppose we would be able to see some relief a bit quicker, however with property values dropping, and tax levys here in Sullivan in some areas at a staggering 10% of market value, It could be years before we see any sort of change.

Massachusetts passed a similar law in 1980, making the property tax cap there 2.5%.  Since then, their taxes have gone up 23% compared with 56% in New York. No question this is a step in the right direction, and over the next ten years (if this law stays in place) our local municipalities will have to makes some major changes in how they spend the tax dollars. I am all for it. We have haphazard school districts, filled with 100+ K superintendents, principles and administrators. We have separate tiny hamlets, each with their own highway superintendents, building inspectors, assessors and dog wardens. Excess spending is blatant and is hurting our county.

There were ten sold listings in the Sullivan County MLS this week. Click Here

I don't have a pick of the week property this week. Nothing has jumped out at me. I have been super busy. It is mid-summer, and people are looking to buy.