I feel I might be repeating myself each month about the market. 

Although...September and October were definitely upbeat! 

In an effort not to repeat, the mantra right now is: 

If you do not absolutely need to sell and can hold off, do the latter. 

The market is NOT frozen as it was during the 2008 crash. There is definitely activity and there are even bidding wars! It is just not happening on every property and homes - beautiful homes - are taking longer to sell.

If you have no choice but to sell, I would stage your property to the max in order to retrieve the highest possible offers. 

Now I am repeating because it is worth repeating: 

Compass has a wonderful program offered to sellers -  Compass Capital, ex Compass Concierge. Now more easily than ever, a seller can be advanced funds GRATIS to assist with the various costs associated with staging. These costs will be paid back at closing with no fees or finance charges to the seller!

 

My Guide to Staging and Compass Capital Information

 

All in all it has been a good year with a few casualties mostly with sellers who are resistant to being realistic. Sellers NEVER determine market prices. Buyers determine the prices at which properties will sell. Even developers who present brand new properties with all sorts of bells and whistles and amenities are not immune and wind up eating their expectations, lowering prices or offering some incredible concessions to the buyers who are not willing to pay what the developer thinks they should pay.

 

 

According to the NYT, over 1.5 million packages are delivered in NYC everyday. WOW! Everyone loves convenience (especially in NYC) but it is really burdening our city’s traffic problems both in the streets and on the sidewalks. FedEx and UPS racked up over 471,000 parking violations last year which is a 34% increase from 2013.

With the number of online purchases only to increase, NYC is looking to find ways to keep the convenience and reduce traffic and truck emissions. 

 

Click HERE to read the full article on the NYT. 

As you probably already know by now - and just in case you don’t… 

Barneys is disappearing off the NYC landscape!

 

The iconic luxury department store is closing 15 of its 22 stores throughout the U.S including flagship stores in Las Vegas, Chicago, and Seattle. Barneys is hoping to unload a majority of its inventory which totals approximately $500M with “going out of business” sales. Currently the discounts are starting at 5-10% and are expected to increase as time goes on. The retailer is prepared to keep sales going until February 2020 if need be.

Q: My building does not allow open houses or showings on the weekend.

Is that a problem? 

A: It can be. 

 

Buildings of a certain ilk that want to protect their owners from “disturbances” on the weekend will frequently have the most showing restrictions. However, when selling your home, you want to have the ability to show relatively easily because the more showings, the greater opportunity to find that one buyer. Show restrictions could obviously make this more difficult. As well, your sell price may be inadvertently lower. Open Houses can provoke an earlier offer or multiple offers - those infamous NYC “bidding wars”.

 

There are brokers out there who are of the opinion that open houses are a waste of time but I disagree. I have received many offers from buyers who initially came to see a property.