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Manhattan Open House Report - I Think I Heard Crickets

September 22, 2007

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This is the Manhattan Open House Report. A weekly post that I hope to be able to maintain in the coming weeks. It will be my first hand observations of what’s happening in various sectors of the Manhattan real estate market. I’ll take photos, video and quite possibly even interview some courageous buyers and brokers on video. Overall, I hope to give you, the reader, a glimpse into what’s happening on the ground floor in the New York City real estate market.

This past Sunday I attended 7 Open Houses in the Mid Town East area. More specifically, the Sutton Place and Turtle Bay neighborhoods. My search included studios and 1 bedroom apartments priced under $600k. I focused on larger studios, some with alcoves - called junior one bedrooms, and smaller one bedrooms.

To make things interesting, I thought it would be fun to do a search from a DIY consumers point of view. I used Streeteasy, a free New York City real estate search engine, to organize my search. In just a few easy steps, I was ready to roll.

1. Create my free Streeteasy user account
2. Enter a specific area, price range and beds and baths

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3. Narrow down the results

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4. Save them in my Open House Planner
5. Print Out the Map and property information

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Now that I had my lovely Sunday afternoon open house search agenda on paper, it was time to hit the cobblestones. Being that it was a holiday weekend - Rosh Hashanah - the city was very quiet. And so were the open houses. I think I heard crickets.

Now let me back up a second. As a real estate broker, I held a few open houses on holiday weekends myself over the years so I had a general idea of what type of foot traffic I would see. But today was different. Based on the sign in sheets, I was either the first, second or the fifth person to sign in at the most. This was unusual because I had attended most of the open houses towards the end of their alloted showings. Granted, it was a beautiful day outside and the the second avenue street fair was in full swing but darn it, it was pretty eerie I tell ya.

I could also sense some desperation in some of the agents. Most of whom were actually covering for the listing agent. Some of the homes were on the market for a few months. Some had price reductions. Some were cluttered. Some had an half inch of soot on the windows. I asked some basic questions that potential buyers and other agents might ask and surprisingly, I received plenty of I don’t know answers. Not good.

As a listing agent, it’s your responsibility to know as much about the building and unit as possible. You owe that much to you seller clients. Not knowing basic answers to common buyer questions is unprofessional. When I say basic, I mean things like are pets allowed or whether washer/dryers are permitted inside the unit. Should you have someone cover for you, it’s a good idea to prepare them with this information. It just doesn’t seem right when a real estate professional has too many “I don’t know” answers. And we wonder why consumers have such a skewed view about our profession. Damm the order takers!

This weekend may be different considering the half point fed interest rate cut and the 300 point jump in the Dow. Maybe buyers will get a much needed boost of confidence. Maybe not. My takeaway from this past weekends open houses is that, in most instances, real estate brokers have but one chance to make that exclusive listing shine to potential home buyers. Know your stuff and make the home presentable.

P.S. Streeteasy rocks!

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Posted by Rudolph D. Bachraty III | Filed Under Manhattan Open Houses, Real Estate Blog 

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