Don't know..... Things do seem to be slowing down in many parts of the country. When I was selling my home FSBO I ran into plenty of young buyer's who might have been able to afford a home had NY not seen the crazy 10-15-20 percent a year inflation for the past few years. Most of them today can barely afford a decent co-op.

As I was pondering the subject I did run across some other blogs with interesting articles on the topic.

http://housingbubble.blogspot.com/

http://www.nyhousingbubble.blogspot.com/

http://biz.yahoo.com/seekingalpha/061107/19983_id.html?.v=1

I realized some people may not be cut out for the FSBO route of selling their home. The problem is in my experience is most Realtors want exclusives and you have to really really haggle in order to get them to list for less than 5 or 6%. If you are not prepared to seek out customers on your own or are intimidated by the whole process the only alternative out there may be a company called FOXTONS. They claim to be full service Realtors who will charge only 3%. Their website seems very nice. I see more of their signs popping up in my area so they seem to be spending the money to bring in the buyers. If anyone out there has had any experience with FOXTONS feel free to leave a comment.

In addition to sites like Forsalebyowner.com and Owners.com where you just put up a listing, there are a lot of sites out there that claim you can put your home on the MLS without a Realtor for $395 or $495. To tell you the truth I was a little skeptical of them so I did'nt give them a try, but looking back maybe it would have been interesting to give them a shot. I was hesitant because you still have to offer at least 2% to an agent that brings you a buyer, something I really didn't want to do in the beginning. I am still curious, so if anyone has had success with them, feel free to leave a comment with your experiences. I have a very open mind and if enough people leave comments about their experience it may be helpful to some other homeseller down the road. $500 bucks may not be a bad deal if it gets your home on MLSLI.COM or Realtor.com

When I first planned to sell my home "by owner" I was planning to use the internet a lot more. I did put ads in the paper and those ultimately worked well before I got a chance to post on every site I wanted too. I also didn't anticipate the flood of Realtors and that some would actually bring real offers and that I would have some change in attitude towards them (real estate agents). So my internet experiment started by I got so busy dealing with all the phone calls and worrying about potential buyer's getting a mortgage that I didn't follow through completely. I would like however to mention two notable sites for those who are planning to sell their home and need some tips. One is Forsalebyowner.com, it's not the cheapest but it is a nice site and they are far cheaper than advertising in the newspaper. A newspaper ad doesn't give you the type of photos that they do, plus the buyers from forsalebyowner.com seemed to be a little more prepared than individuals on their own that came in from newspaper ads. I guess that's because internet surfers tend to do more of their own research ahead of time. Just a guess, I am not completely sure. Another good site, is Owners.com. It is 29.95 for an ad with 5 photos, it's worth it if you get a few calls. When you are selling FSBO, you have to use as many venues as you can.

Real estate and the world has changed a lot since the old days when if you wanted to sell a house you could count on simply putting an ad in the newspaper as the tried and tried and true method. Now there are a ton of ways to get the word out there, many listing sites on the internet, blogs, you can even set up your own website and submit it to a couple of search engines. One of the reasons I am putting this up is because like me at one time there are probably a lot of older folks out there who haven't figured all of this out yet. So I am going to throw out some tips on some of the things I have learned and experiences I have had so some of you slow learners on the internet out there can come up to speed with your children. Your kid may be very knowledgable in a lot of areas, how to download music and videos, how to install software, show you how to use a browser and a word processor but a lot of them still haven't thought about real estate (although they should be, because prices are very high and they are going to need a good head start with the down payment and building their credit.)so they don't always know where the good resources online are. Hoepfully I can help open up that niche over time.


I do this also because selling my two family this time was actually fun, I liked the people process and when it was all over to tell you the truth I was kind of disappointed. I got so involved I didn't want it to end. I know it sounds strange but in a way it's true. On the other hand I am not ready to go out there a get a real estate license to sell homes, no way. Too many people already have one and it's very cutthroat business. So I decided a blog was enough for me. It may help me stay on top of the market and give me an excuse to pop up at some open houses.... maybe when I find some nice properties, I will write about those too.

I recently set out to sell a two family home in Bayside , Queens. I wont give it out the address because I succeeded and there are new owners living there but I can describe it. It was a two family, 3 beds over 2 with 3 full baths, finished basement, meticously maintained and built in the 1940's. I listed it for $599,000 even though I thought I could get a little more (I wanted to sell quick in order to grab another property) and because I was going the "for sale by owner" route so I figured I would save on realtor commissions. I like many other people have/had an inherent distrust of realtors as a group although I do like some of them as individuals. The New York real estate market hadn't completely cooled off in February 2006 so I figured how hard could it be to try myself. In some areas some homes were still selling pretty briskly, compared to other times in New York's history. Even this slowing market was a lot better than one's I have seen in the past. I was willing to spend a couple of hundred dollars on newspaper ads and I was going to have a nephew post the house for sale on a few places on the internet, so I did not think I would have a shortage of offers. A couple of hundred bucks also made more sense than having to shell out 4 to 6% of 600,000 at closing. Well.... before I go on........ I am going to give an early conclusion... I did not have a shortage of offers... and although I tried I DEFINITELY COULD NOT avoid realtors. Once I put up a for sale sign and put an ad in Newsday...... I was flooded with calls....... a deluge. A handful of regular buyers, semi -interested (or one can say discouraged by the high prices everywhere....... a big problem in NYC..... my mortgage was paid off , so I really felt for some of the new young couples I met) or struggling to get a mortgage and a ton of realtors. One realtor after another, 3,4,5 or 6 agents form the same office, calling, dropping by, offering to give presentations. Impossible to avoid, but I am a flexible a guy, so I figured if they could bring real buyer's, I would soften my hardline "for sale by owner" stance and pay a 2 percent commission, maybe even 2.5%. In the end I only did so because I see a lot people who came without a realtor were intimidated and afraid to make offers. I told them to get an attorney to walk them through the process but there was still alot of hesitation. Realtors on the other hand (without judging whether it is good or bad) seemed to enjoy pushing buyers to make offers (some may call it a form of subtle torture..... I don' t what they told their clients but the offers did come).

Anyway I did get and accepted an offer for $625,000 within about 35 days. I received a bunch of verbal and written offers and in the end settled for the family who I felt was the most serious. I agreed to pay the agent who brought them 2.25% and they accepted very, very, reluctantly. The agent kept insisting on 3% but since I mentioned only 2% from the outset, I held firm. The buyers were fixated on the house, the block and seemed to feel comfortable with me as the seller and the way I maintained the house so the agent after some very serious haggling agreed and realized I originally mentioned 2%...... since I am a nice guy I upped to %2.25, which I felt was fair..... since I was told by the buyer's the agent only showed them six houses. If he gets at least 1% from his broker.... that's at least $6250 for about a day and a half of work plus showing up at closing. A helluva a lot more than I make (and I paid for all the advertising....).

Moral of the story, if you go down the for sale by owner route, don't be totally closed minded toward agents......... offer them 2% if they bring you a real buyer because you will probably get more for your home. Some of them are nice people and no matter how hard you try, unless you lock yourself in your home and disconnect your phone, you won't be able to avoid them. In a 4-5 week period, I must have run into 35+ agents and brokers. Even after the house was sold they still kept coming.

This is my first blog, it's a new world to me. I am an older guy and although mechanically orientated for most of my life I did not have the time to invest in learning computers the way I wanted too because of work, family, etc. I was a little skeptical of most blogs at first (and still am), I considered it a form of high tech gossip., until I ran into a few on topics I was familiar with and learned some valuable things. I now consider many blogs to be slightly more useful gossip because the comments sections usually (although they can be slightly vicious at times.)keep people honest and correct many inaccuracies. There is something about writing that makes people more careful then when they are speaking. Blogs are also useful in stimulating parts of the brain I have not used since high school and the little bit of college I had. Writing helps me organize my thoughts.... anyway enough of me and back to blogging and what this blog is about.

I decided to start this blog to write about one of my passions, real estate. I may go off on to other topics from time to time but I wanted to start this little experiment because of experiences I recently had selling one of my homes on mine own. I am going to be writing about real estate in general, how market perceptions have changed, the New York and New Jersey area, prices, past and present and wherever else my mind wanders (it will probably always come back to real estate).