Open House Picks

Not if you need at-home work space, 1:27. Like a LOT of people in NYC. Tons of mothers and fathers are freelancers who want to work at home so they can raise their child themselves. Or work a couple days in the office, a couple days at home.

People we know who live in coops and condos who need a home office have living spaces that are so cluttered they hardly ever have people over. And then what happens when their kids are teens and want space for their own hobbies and work?

It’s not insane to not want your home piled with crap all the time and feel like you’re falling all over each other. Our living space affects how we feel, and our productivity. I’m super sensitive that way. A cluttered undisciplined space makes for a cluttered undisciplined mind. There’s also the appeal of having a yard. It’s having a yard that personally keeps me sane in an urban city. Lastly, I get “building sickness” in coop and condo buildings and office buildings. I feel 100% better in a house. Environmental allergies and sensitivites are hardly rare, either.

1:02am said:

“My observation is that the market is softening mainly on lower-quality properties in less desirable locations.”

You speak as if all people easily have the option to pay $3 million for a house in Park Slope. People keep saying this and yet in our neighborhood which some would call “less than desireable” compared to the blue-chip ones such as Park Slope and Cobble Hill, the houses up for sale recently similar to ours have sold for $200K more than we bought our house for a year ago. We did get an especially good deal. However, even if we’d spent $100K more to buy it, the recent comps are still $100K more than we paid.

The ONLY thing affecting house values, is whether people keep wanting houses not coops/condos, and whether people are staying in Brooklyn or going out of the city to the suburbs. The trend that started well over a decade ago to stay in the city not go to the suburbs, is still holding strong among middle to upper income whites.

One would assume those people would start to lose interest in buying entire houses during a market downturn with the cost of investment in them, but ironically enough, the tiny rooms and crappy construction in newly built condos has helped boost the house market big time. People go to look at what they get for a $1 million to $1.2 million in a condo in “desireable” neighborhoods and you know what? They go for the house in the “less desireable” neighborhood. There aren’t fewer people at the open houses in these neighborhoods, they just want to pay less. And that’s fair. There certainly are some houses asking too much. But those particular overpriced houses sitting on the market too long, do not mean there’s no interest in those neighborhoods. Not at all.

Had to post this for you Open House Heads.

The Rise of the Mortgage ‘Walkers’

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120243369715152501.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

The What

Someday this war is gonna end..

luckily, there is a lot of “smart money” out there…

“The only people who prospered from the insanity were the smart money who liquidated at the top.”

A rare voice of reason.