Service You Can Trust

All of us get spam and all kinds of mail that we don’t have the time to read. From the e-mails that I receive from other brokers, you might think they were the exception. This is just a sample--every one of them selling a property. More below. I’ve gone to a bit of trouble to show you the e-mail...

Being a real estate broker is a glamorous and leisurely pursuit. Right! (Photo by loungerie on Flickr.) Someone told me a few days ago that she was thinking of becoming a real estate broker part-time. “Don’t,” I said unhesitatingly. Even if she has a wide social network, there is no way she can ...

Six of one and . . . (Flickr photo by theilr) Starting March 12, the city changed the way it displays property records in its online database, the Automated City Register Information System, or ACRIS.  The modification was little noticed until the Real Deal ran a piece on its Web site the other ...

The truth is I hate closings, which are as ritualized as a religious service. They never start on time. A key individual always is late. The amount of paperwork is oppressive, and the time taken for lawyerly explanations and writing signatures drags as slowly as a dial-up connection. Photo by Ori...

” . . . The saddest are these: It might have been.” The San Remo So wrote the 19th Century poet John Greenleaf Whittier. The building pictured above and the one below represent some of the most memorable moments in which my life as an apartment owner might have been quite different. The time was...

  The Frank/Pattersons' new penthouse apartment with huge skylights. In an uncertain market, the question on every buyer’s mind is whether it is the right time to get off the fence. One buyer recently answered that question in an e-mail quoted by the New York Observer.  His response is worth noti...

  Model apartment at the m127 condominium. Potential bidders may snag a baragain in the auction June 27 of unsold condos in a small new development in the heart of Manhattan.  Or, they may get more than they bargained for.  Indeed, winning bidders may well regret their success at the absolute auc...

  Flickr photo by unjanedoan. The convention in New York City and many other housing markets is for buyers to offer to put into escrow a 10 percent deposit when they go to contract to purchase a property. That deposit, which is called a binder or earnest money in some areas, are funds that buyer...

A broker friend of mine I'll call Lily recently related an encounter of hers that bears retelling. She has an old acquaintance who wants to list his two adjoining apartments totaling something like 10 rooms in a building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.  Naturally, he called Lily to see whether sh...

hen I was broker in the Washington, D.C. area, I put together a team of three (plus the virtual assistants on whom I still rely).  For buyers, sellers and, especially, me, the arrangement worked beautifully.   Flickr photo by Gavinzac Our clients benefited from having retained three heads and th...