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The Edgemont Coop in Scarsdale NY
I just sold this lovely coop in the Edgemont complex in Sacarsdale NY. The sale price was $187,500 which is 96.2% of asking price and the accepted offer was received in under 1 month. Prior to that I sold another unit at 97% of asking price.
Features of this unit include a private terrace, newer kitchen, bath and flooring. Extra large living room, large dining area, large master bedroom with walk-in-closet. The complex has a newly renovated pool and playground and features a gym on the 1st floor. Unit comes with assigned parking, 2nd spot available for $45/mo. Star Exemption with reduce Maintenance by $141/mo. The complex is close to all! * ONLY 10% DOWN REQUIRED! *
Coop apartments are quite possibly the most popular type of real estate in Westchester County. There are garden style, mid rise and high rise coop buildings located in Westchester. Maintenance free living and central location to many amenities including shopping, businesses and trains are reasons that makes these types of apartments so popular.
To view every coop currently for sale from every real estate company in the area check out: Coops for sale in Westchester County
Narrow down your search by checking out: Pet Friendly Coops in Westchester County
Recent sales in Hunter’s Glen in Carmel NY
Listed below are recent townhouse and condos sales for the past 6 months in Hunter’s Glen:
| Address |
Price |
Sold Date |
Days on market |
| 5106 Applewood Circle |
368,000 |
1/23/2009 |
220 |
| 1208 Nutmeg Drive |
260,000 |
1/6/2009 |
98 |
| 1703 Nutmeg Drive |
265,000 |
12/31/2008 |
33 |
| 3903 Buttonwood Lane |
335,000 |
11/24/2008 |
201 |
| 4306 Hickory Hollow Lane |
340,000 |
11/7/2008 |
209 |
| 4906 Applewood Circle |
369,000 |
11/6/2008 |
48 |
| 301 Chestnut Drive |
290,000 |
10/31/2008 |
310 |
| 3505 Morgan Drive |
290,000 |
10/17/2008 |
390 |
| 6201 Applewood Circle |
321,000 |
9/22/2008 |
54 |
| 1601 Nutmeg Drive |
300,000 |
9/16/2008 |
84 |
| 3303 Morgan Drive |
315,000 |
9/4/2008 |
103 |
| 403 Chestnut Drive |
250,000 |
8/13/2008 |
187 |
| 5001 Applewood Circle |
320,000 |
8/11/2008 |
195 |
View the full list of sales in the past 12 months: Recent Sales in Hunter’s Glen
If you are looking to buy a townhouse in Hunters Glen, check out the following link to see current active listings active listings: Townhouses for sale in Hunters Glen.
If you are a seller and would like to receive a free home evaluation of your townhouse, you can email me at [email protected] or click on: Free Home Evaluation. In the past 12 months I have showed over 30 buyers townhouses in Hunter’s Glen and have access to more buyers looking to purchase than any other Realtor in the area!
Cortlandt Manor NY Condos & Townhouse for Sale
Search all popular townhouse and condominium complexes in Cotlandt Manor in the following popular complexes:
Wild Birch Farms
Valeria
Woodcrest at Jacobs Hill
Hollow Brook Mews
Cortlandt Ridge
Cross Creek
Conklin Park
Search all listings: Townhouses for sale in Cortlandt Manor NY
Would you like to be notified new listings in your price range come on the market? These properties will be emailed to you the INSTANT they come on the market and before they hit the Internet! Be the 1st to access these listings right off the Realtors “HOT SHEET”. You see what we see! Just fill out your search criteria by clicking the following link: Automated Property Updates No password or log in required!
Now more than ever pricing your home RIGHT is of utmost importance. With values falling up to 20% in some areas in the past 18 months, pricing your home competitively is the only way you will have a chance to stay a head of your competition; competition being other houses in the area comparable to yours. List too high and your home will sit on the market and may never sell or even worse sell for much less than you want it too.
Let’s discuss one of the 1st things a prospective seller says in defense of pricing a home higher than their Realtor recommends.
“But we can always drop our price.”
No you can’t. Well you “can” but most likely it will be too late. New listings get the most activity the first 3 weeks of the on the market, after that the interest in the house levels off. It no longer is considered a new listing on the “hot sheet” and just finds its way with the rest of the over priced listings in your town.
If you do not put your best foot forward (aggressive price) from the beginning then by the time you drop the price it will be too late, you will be “chasing the market. If your Realtor says you need to be $50,000 less and you disagree but finally after 1-3 months “give in” to his price recommendation it is actually too late. Now to be competitive with the other listings in the area you may need to be $75,000-$100,000 less than your current asking price.
Here is a good example. I had a seller call me after 6 months on the market with an agent and the agent was not able to sell the house. The asking price was $700,000. I came in and told the owners you can’t be a penny over $650,000. Of course they did not agree and thought I was crazy and refused to list it “that low”, and the lowest they would allow me to list it at was $675,000. After a few weeks on the market the activity was minimal due to it being overpriced. I asked them every week to please let me drop the price.
After 3 months my sellers “gave in” and let me drop the price but I told them $650,000 is now too high. Of course I am the “crazy” one and they only let me drop it to $650,000. I told them it is too high and to drop to maybe $619,000 and hope to get $600,000. Well at $650,000 I brought them 3 offers at $600,000 and neither buyer was willing to go higher. My sellers told me there was no way they would “sell their house for that low”. I finally let the listing expire because my sellers were unrealistic and were more or less ensuring themselves to lose a lot of money.
They listed with another agent and 6 months later they sold… for… $550,000.
“Buyers are always going to bid lower”
Yes and No. A competent buyers agent knows the market and when a house comes on the market at a very good price the agent educates their buyer on current listed and sold properties and more so than not the offers come in VERY close to asking price. I saw a house that was GROSSLY over priced, about $150,000 over priced then one day the agent drops it $150,000 to $425,000. My buyer saw it and was impressed and felt it was worth every penny of the asking price. The agent just dropped the price the day we saw it (I told her about it as soon as I saw the new price), my buyer was unsure about what to offer and we discussed the comparable homes in the area and we offered asking price. Of course it was accepted and my buyers were more than happy.
Another reason why thinking you can “always lower the price” or “buyers are always going to bid lower” is wrong is that you push yourself out of the market with an over priced listing. SERIOUS buyers these days know that prices are down, they know sellers have dropped prices a lot, buyers are NOT searching for houses that are $50,000-$75,000 higher than a number they can afford like they used to do years ago. Buyers looking for a $400,000 house are not searching much higher, maybe $425,000 and under and MAYBE (rare) as high as $450,000 but chances are they are not. So when you price your $400,000 house at say $440,000 you just made your home INVISIBLE to buyers because they do not know it exists when they search online for homes. Price it at say $415,000 and you expose your home to a large pool of buyers and your chances of getting a good bid on your home has drastically increased.
I had a seller who did not let me list his home at the price I told him, the price was $850,000 (down from $969,000 from his previous agent who was not able to sell it) and I said we need to be around $800,000-$810,000 and he only let me drop the price to $839,000. After 3 weeks my seller was fed up and I was even more fed up and pleaded with him to let me drop the price before it is too late. I asked him what is his bottom line and he said $800,000 give or take a few thousand. Well we priced it at $800,000 even after my seller said “but people are going to bid lower”, of course the uneducated buyer will but not the educated buyer.
Within 24 hours we had THREE OFFERS. One for $700,000, one for $750,000 and one for $790,000 and we settled at $798,000!! The buyer who bid the $790,000 knew the market and knew the price was good and she also said this “I never knew this house was even on the market until the price was at $800,000 and I would have never seen it if you did not drop the price”.
Another example happened when I went on a listing appointment and the price I have the seller was $550,000. I stressed not a dollar higher is this unstable market. I did not get the listing and 2 weeks later I see his house listed at $750,000!!! To make this story very short, he is now on his THIRD real estate agent and his current price is $450,000.
Agents do NOT waste their time showing overpriced houses.
When an agent sees a listing that is obviously overpriced they are not going to waste their time showing it especially when their buyer tells them it is just way too out of their price range. An agent is not going to show a listing like that and then lose creditably with their buyers and waste their buyers time driving around showing homes that are not what they are looking for.
The old vs the new real estate market.
When the market was “hot” from around 2002-2005 agents would look at what sold and then list homes around 5-10% more than the recent comparable sales.Now we look at what just sold and price it LESS than or at the price the most recent comparable’s sold for. Any other way and a seller will chase the market and lose money like the seller above who listed at $750,000 and is now at $450,000.
The moral of the story is listen to your Realtor’s price recommendation and price your home inline with the competition or even lower and NEVER ever choose your agent just based on the PRICE they tell you. If that was the case then I would just go around telling sellers what they WANT to hear and not what they NEED to hear and give them all over priced values. Some agents love to throw out a very high number in order to “steal” the listing and get the listing over the other agents who interviewed with the seller. Avoid this unethical agents.
My job as a Realtor in regards to seller clients is not to just sell your home but to sell your home for TOP DOLLAR and in the SHORTEST amount of time. More importantly to make sure you do not get less than you should and an over priced listing is a perfect recipe for loss. If a competent Realtor comes up with a value on your home and you want to list higher than they say because “people are always going to bid lower”, you probably just killed your chances of not only getting a bid near the value the Realtor came up with but any chance of selling your home at all.
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Newspaper ads do NOT sell houses and why agents do them.
As a follow up to part 1 of this series I talked about the fact that open houses do not sell houses and why real estate agents still do them. In this blog I will talk about ads whether they are newspaper ads, pennysaver ads, magazine ads, etc.Just like with open houses, ads for homes for sale are not done to sell
the home they are done to make the AGENT more money.
What do you mean ads do not sell houses? How do ads make the agent more money?
There are statistics but I do not have them in front of me but something like 2% of the people who call on ads buy the house they are calling on. I recall that statistic years ago when the market was hot and the Internet had not dominated the real estate market like it does now. I would guess now it is less than 1/2 of 1% buy the house they call on. Just like with open house attendees, people who call on house ads really do not know much about the house and are rarely qualified or ready to buy a home. The ad is usually black and white or has no photo at all. The ads are ALWAYS vague to entice the prospective buyer to call and ask questions. After the caller finds out the house is not for them they often ask the agent what other houses they have for sale. At that point the agent EMAILS a list of houses in the callers price range and now that agent has a brand new client!
So why do agents place for sale ads?
For the same reason they do open houses, to appease the home seller and make them think placing a tiny ad in a paper is how to sell a house. Also some agents think ads are what sell homes. The seller also thinks this means you are doing your job. As I said earlier the REAL reason agents place ads is to get more clients/buyers from the ad. I used to work for a company that would hound me every week to authorize more ads for my listings so they can put them in the upcoming paper, ads that the COMPANY PAID for, it costs me NOTHING to run an ad but yet I was literally being hounded to provide as many ads as possible to run in the paper.
So it costs me nothing to do and they were hungry for more ads. The more ads the company does the more calls they get and the more recognition they have among town. Eventually sellers start looking at the ads every weekend and they think because this company runs ads all the time that they are the best ones to call to list THEIR home. So not only do these ads not sell houses but it gives the real estate company 2 types of potential sales. A new buyer client and a new seller client. Here is a little tip… ever notice you see the SAME ad for the SAME house EVERY weekend for months?!…. Still think ads sell houses?
One ad sells 8 houses.. what!?
My previous company placed and ad, we got a call from a buyer who asked about the house, did not like what they heard and asked us to help find her a home. She then asked us to list her house as well. We met 3 people from ads from this clients home who ended up buying another home through us. 1 of which had to sell their house and we did and we found our own buyer and that buyer referred her cousin who we found a house for. So that 1 ad turned into 8 sales. So why else would a real estate company love doing ads? The sad part is, the longer a house does NOT sell the more money that company makes, sad but true.
As I said in my open house blog Open Houses do not sell houses, if something is FREE to do but more agents do not want to do them, you have to wonder why. Because they do not sell houses! I would rather do something that sells houses and costs me a lot money then waste time doing something for FREE that does not sell houses.
If you notice over the past year or so that there are less and less ads in the paper yet we have the HIGHEST amount of homes for sale in many many years. The fact is that more real estate companies are realizing not only do ads not sell houses but NO ONE is calling on the ads any more. Some new companies in the area have a business model that specifically does NOT run ads.
The truth is that the Internet has completely taken over the real estate industry and is the only EFFECTIVE way to sell a home other than the obvious – PRICING it right. I get thousands of emails a every month, people send me text messages, instant messages, you name it looking for houses or inquiring about the listings on my web site. There was a study done a few years ago that said that the Internet consumer on avg makes about $3,000 more per month than the traditional consumer who buys homes, products from looking at ads, magazines. So when it comes to a buyer for your home, which type of consumer do YOU want looking at your home?
A good Realtor should have multiple web sites for different segments of the market, a cost of $100,000 for a few web sites is not uncommon, the typical $100/month web site provided to an agent by their company is NOT a web site, it is just an unproductive expensive business card that just takes up space on the web.
When choosing a Realtor to help you sell and buy a home, make sure he/she dominates the Internet with their web sites and can show you proof of the business these web sites produce. My web sites are some of the most highly trafficked sites in all of Westchester and Putnam County. With over 20,000 visits a month, my web sites generate thousands of buyers and because of this I am able to sell homes much faster than the average real estate agent with a non productive web site or no web site at all. My most recent sales last month were listings where I was able to find my own buyers from my web sites in less than 2 weeks! Most of the time I can find a buyer easily in under a month, no matter what type of real estate market we are in.
Some examples of my web sites are:
Regardless of what the media and politicians tell us, this is a great time to buy a home, it is also a great time to sell a home. Rates are at record lows (my last client just locked in last week at 5.125% for a 30 year fixed), prices are stabilizing and buyers are tired of waiting and ready to buy a home. The announcement that the Senate passed a $15,000 tax credit for home buyers in 2009 has made my phone ring of the hook from buyers who have been on the sidelines waiting to purchase.
I am about to let the readers of this blog in on a very well kept but very guarded secret among Realtors which may or may not cause controversy among my fellow agents but here it goes… open houses are not done to sell the sellers home they are done too……make the AGENT more money.. shhhh don’t repeat that too loud.
What do you mean they do not sell houses? How do they make the agent more money?
Years ago when 1st received my real estate license the open house theory was burnt into my brain, all I did was open houses every weekend and I made a LOT of money from the open houses. Did I sell the house at the open house and that is how I made so much money? NO.. I built my database and received TONS of new clients at the open house.
How do you get more clients?
You see open house attendees typically are in the VERY EARLY stages of the home buying process, they are often neighbors who have no desire to buy anything or buyers who have NO idea what the asking price of the home is because all they did was see some open house signs and balloons and they came in the door. The people who come in that do want to buy as I said are very early into the process, have not even spoken to a mortgage broker or their bank to get pre approved and have no idea how much they can afford. Others still have to sell their home and have not even spoken to an agent to list their home!
I have met so many people who visited my open houses who were “scoping out” the competition for when they put their home on the market. They often come to the open house to see if that agent will LIST THEIR HOME. It used to happen to me all the time, I got so many listings from doing open houses. I got tons of new buyer clients and sold so many houses to these clients but NEVER the house I was doing the open house for.
Of course the main job of any Realtor at an open house is to sell THAT HOUSE and that was always my 1st priority but 99% of the time there is a reason why and the people coming into the house do not want that house. So after confirming that there is nothing in the world that will convince them to buy the house, they always say “hey can you help us find what we are looking for?” BINGO!.. that is what every agent loves to hear and the real reason why agents do open houses, so they can sell more homes to more buyers and use your house as the means to getting more clients. Of course some agents or buyers will tell you how their cousins sisters neighbors uncles boss’ dog , etc just bought or sold a house at an open house, as I said there is that TINY percent that do that at the open houses, but VERY tiny.
I did open houses in the peak of the market when homes sold in 1-2 days all the time with zero effort and even then I never sold a house at the open house. I was on a VERY popular TV show not too long ago on a VERY popular home show network that films an agent doing an open house for a seller. They then show the people coming into the open house, putting a bid on the house and viola! buy the house. Ok, its all a LIE.
I already found the buyer 2 days before the filming of the open house, I called the producers to tell them we better cancel the open house and they said no way and that this is exactly what they hoped for. You see they said this to me “You see how we do all these shows and do open houses and we always find buyers on the show?… well we never find them at the open house, the show often airs 6-9 months AFTER we film the open house and a few months later when a REAL buyer is found we go back for a 2nd day of shooting and work it into the episode and PRETEND we found the buyer at the open house.” And then the producer said this which was just unreal…. “c’mon you know open houses do not sell houses!!”
So why do agents do open houses?
Honestly because sellers think that is how you sell houses and if an agent sits for 4 hours in your house doing nothing that means they are doing their job. Even scarier, some agents think that is how to sell a house! Then of course as I said before the real reason they do them, to make more money from the business they generate from the open houses. The longer your house sits on the market the more money they make!
I recall one time on a listing appointment and wowed the client with my presentation and she specifically said she is looking for an agent who will do a brokers open house and public open houses. I told her I have agents who can do them if she really wants but told her I really do not think they will do much for her. I ended up losing the listing to another agent. When I asked the seller if she can please critique me and tell me why she did not choose me, she said it was because I did not want to do open houses. I told her I understood and wished her good luck. Not too long after that I ended up getting 3 other listings in her complex and sold all 3 of them for $30,000-$50,000 more than what hers finally sold for nd I sold them all in under 90 days, hers was listed for 6 months. I bumped into the listing agent one day and she told me she was doing open houses every weekend for 3 months and never had 1 buyer put in an offer, the offer ended up coming a buyer who saw the home listed online!
Now I could have easily had open houses done for her every weekend if she wanted them but she wanted an agent to do open houses, she never told me she wanted and agent to sell her house. So I guess she got what she asked for.
One thing every seller needs to ask themselves, if there is something out there for an agent to do that will sell a house and costs nothing to do, wouldn’t the agent do it? You have to really think why an agent would not want to do something that will sell the house? As I said, open houses DO NOT sell houses, if they did I would do them 7 days a week.
Having a seller who thinks open houses sell houses and means the agent is doing their job is as crazy as if a seller told me to please not spend money on marketing her home! Why in the world would I not want to market the home? It costs me money and I WANT too and MUST market the home, open houses are FREE and make me more money sitting there but yet I prefer to do the one that costs money because that is the one and ONLY one that will sell the home.
So what does sell houses? Read part 2 in this series entitled Ads do not sell houses
Below you will find all popular 55+ active adult communities in Northern Westchester and Putnam County NY.
To view more info visit my: 55+ Active Adult Condos page
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Looking for a co-op in Scarsdale NY that allows pets? Some of the hardest coops to find in Scarsdale are pet friendly coops. To make the search easier for all the pet lovers out there I have created a web page dedicated to coop buildings in all of Scarsdale that allow pets. View listings in popular complexes including Scarsdale Ridge, Scarsdale Country Estates, Colchester Hall and Heathcote Court.
To view current listings on the market check out: Pet friendly coops in Scarsdale NY
The web page is updated daily with new listings from every real estate company in the county. There is no other site like it!
Search all pet friendly coops in Westchester County NY
Buying a short sale in Putnam and Westchester County
In today’s real estate market it is a great time to buy a short sale. During a short sale, the owners of the home are selling their home for less than what they owe the bank. The asking price on short sales can be anywhere from 10% – 50% less than what the sellers owe on the mortgage. Read more about
Short Sales.
The good thing about short sales is of course the price. Most short sale listings are priced at or under market value. The one thing to keep in mind when considering a short sale is that they typically sell for at asking price or only a little bit under asking. The reason is because the Realtor who listed the property did a market evaluation of the home and listed it for what the “market” says it is worth..or hopefully they did if they know how to do a short sale. The Realtor does not have to deal with seller objection to price compared to a house that is worth $400,000 but the seller wants to ask $450,000 or $475,000. So when you see a short sale, assume that price is a considerable discount compared to other properties on the market.
Bidding on a short sale:
Here comes the tricky part about short sales. Most banks do not hear “offers”, they are not in the business to keep calling agents back with counter offers, if a buyer wants to put an “offer” on a short sale typically you go right to contract on the home. The “offer” is presented to the agent who presents it to the seller and if it is a strong offer, under advisement from the agent the seller will accept the offer. The same holds true if the offer is low and the agent and seller feel it is a “low ball” offer, they will turn it down and it will never reach the bank who has the final say on the offer.
Once the offer is “accepted” by the seller, it then has to be submitted to the bank for approval. At this point you would put go to contract, sign the contract and put your deposit down, still not knowing if the bank accepted (approved) your “offer”.
The bank could take from 30-120 days to respond and if the bank feels the offer is too low they may take even longer to respond. Banks will not waste time responding to a low offer and will get back to the agent when they feel like it and that could take months. So a strong offer (at or very close to asking price) on a short sale is the 1st step to increase your chances of the bank approving the sale.
A lot of buyers think they can just throw out a low bid which is not the case and even if a “low” bid was accepted by the seller the bank still has an appraisal done and then they compare your offer to their appraisal and if it is too low, the deal is dead. So short sales are even harder to negotiate down on price than “normal’ listings, but keep in mind short sales are typically priced aggressively.
Bank approval of a short sale
If you have not heard back from the agent with an answer to your offer/contract in 2-3 weeks from the time the agent submitted your contract to the bank for approval, assume that the bank has not even considered your offer because it was too low and you will need to come up with a much higher offer. If the bank does accept the offer, be prepared to close in 30 days of acceptance or less or the bank will not approve the sale.
The last short sale I closed on had an asking price of $360,000 and my clients put in a bid of $350,000 and the bank approved it, and the seller owed the bank $675,000! Also keep in mind the agent must be skilled at doing short sales and know the correct info to present to the bank or the deal will never be accepted by the bank. I am a
Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE) and have the skills and knowledge to handle short sales of any nature. There are only 1,000 CDPE’s in the US so if you can try to locate a CDPE in your area to help you with buying and more importantly if you are a homeowner, selling your home in a short sale.
If you have missed payments on your mortgage or will be soon and are facing foreclosure read my
Foreclosure Prevention page to learn about alternatives to foreclosure and saving your credit.
Useful link:
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I am a top producing Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker at Re/Max Classic Realty in covering the Putnam County NY and northern Westchester County NY are. I specialize in the towns of: Mahopac, Carmel, Brewster, Patterson, Somers and Yorktown Heights as well as a few other towns close by. I am also a condo and townhouse specialist covering all complexes in Putnam County and Northern Westchester County.
My popular web sites receive tens of thousands of visits a month and are some of the most well known web sites in the area.