May into June Waynesword 2007
It’s finally lush and plush around here again and like spring itself, I am late in welcoming May. I don’t remember a year in the past whenthe trees along the Northway were still bare stick-figures into the first week of May. I suspect that since there were 2 nasty snowstorms in upstate New York in mid-April that the trees, like us, were a bit suspicious that spring would really arrive at all. But that hesitation is past tense by now and we’ve had a couple of 80 degree days lately, the greenery has popped out, and everything is back to normal, whatever normal is in the age of global warming.
Normal for me is that May is my favorite month—the month of my birth—and a time of year I always love. Even in this northern climate, there is no more chance of snow, the trees are finally in full bloom, gardens can be planted, college graduations occur, swimming pools are opened in anticipation of summer, and the bounty of summer lies ahead. The messy realities of freezing rain and oozing mud and heating bills and IRS payments are behind us. Let’s look ahead!!
Messy realities for other parts of the nation currently involve
extensive, smoky wildfires in California, Georgia, and Florida, deadly tornadoes in Kansas and other areas of the mid-section, and ongoing drought in some sectors. We have none of the above here. Our biggest negative concern here might be the nationally reported plight of the
honey bees—the results of which still remain to be seen. I did notice a couple of those the other days while I was mowing the first crop of dandelions mixed into my finally-growing lawn—I steered well clear
of those suddenly most-precious creatures (the bees I mean, not the dandelions). The peepers are peeping in the swamps and wetlands; the early morning songbirds are again doing their thing at 4:30 a.m.—I am hoping to hear the buzz of swarms of bees also return to the landscape to know that all will be well.
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WHAT IS NORMAL FOR THIS REAL ESTATE CYCLE??
Question is: Has the real estate market gotten back to normal? I would say that the answer can only be individualized, not generalized.
The statistics will tell you that the market has sagged a bit overall in terms of closed prices and number of sales, both in our area and nationally. Realtor’s anecdotal evidence—here and in most parts of the country-- will typically be that showings are fewer, and the number of listings unsold in inventory is higher, and offers are coming in lower than they have in several years. Buyer calls and inquiries are down—but I would hasten to add that, if you price them right, the listings will sell. My most recent listing, a well-maintained hardwood-floored ranchlocated in Glenville (Schenectady County) sold in a matter of days, with 2 offers for full–price or better, and with a host of calls coming in on it even after the offers were received. Listing prices that are not overly extravagant stand out these days as the aberration they are.
LISTING THEORY, C. 2007
This year, more than ever, I work with a lot of Buyers, and I hear what they are saying in reaction to today’s home pricing on a daily basis. Whether they are first time buyers or move-up buyers or investors looking at 2-families or multi-units—they have in common the sense of bewilderment that people keep escalating their list prices beyond what the comps will support (for single-families), or beyond what the rents will support (for income property). There is more delusion right now on the part of the selling public than I’ve seen in a while. Sellers are in denial about the amount of competition they’re facing, and about how many fewer buyers are out there running around to look at homes. They are in denial about how higher gas and oil and heating prices are affecting monthly budgets and thus home sales. They are arguing on one hand to reduce their assessments to lower their taxes, while trying to raise their home’s worth well above the current “full market value” at which certain towns attempt to assess their properties. This is a natural tendency; there is nothing new about it.
What is a bit different now is the attitude of the Sellers, and the less-experienced Sellers’ Agents who represent them. Even if the public and other agents perceive a property as being overpriced by $20K or $50K or $100K…they will often act insulted if an offer actually comes in which reflects that fact. As a veteran Buyer’s Agent I will try to calmly explain what the comps justify, what the numbers dictate, et cetera. But far more negotiations bog down in a market like this. Often there is no overcoming the difference in opinion between the two sides of the market, and this is reminiscent of some of the market-times in the early-to-mid ‘90’s when things became a bit stagnant as well. But prices are much higher now than then. I can understand the frustrations of first time buyers in such a market, as prices of homes, like that of gasoline at the pump, continue to escalate even though wages and paychecks might not. The middle-class is clearly getting squeezed, and there aren’t as many wealthy people throwing their money at real estate as the Sellerswould like.
THE SECRET:
ONLY DEAL WITH REASONABLE PEOPLE
My theory on Listings, in short, is to only take a Listing that is not only well-priced according to my standards (and “per-square-foot” norms for the individual area involved), but owned by reasonable people who will not make irrational demands if their home does not sell immediately. Hence, I am being very selective about taking listings of my own at the moment. I am blunt, and have statistical backing for my pricing opinions and frequently certain Sellers will only want to hear the highest number quoted, and go with the agent that quotes it. Fine. But in that regard, I am hearing far FEWER complaints fromdisgruntled, unsold, Sellers than all my competitors who are loaded with listings. Fielding those complaints, and being an apologist for a leveling-off market, is and was always my least favorite part of the business. Having been through it in the early 90’s, the mid-90’s, and the late 90’s, I learned that being on the defensive all the time in relations with unhappy Sellers was no fun. Better to be honest up front than backpedaling furiously later on.
I give good advice to my coterie of close friends and clients who trust my opinion and research, but not to those people who don’t appreciate it. I’m not an elitist but I don’t have time to cater to everybody. That’s why I call myself “Saratoga’s Independent Voice of Real Estate Representation.”
If you want my opinion on the value of your home, and can handle the truth, call me. If not, there are many licensed agents out there who will tell you what you want to hear.
A Good Builder is Hard to Find, But Here’s One…
A Case Study & Testimonial
One thing I always worried about in building a new home washaving a wet or damp basement. No one wants that. In the resale market , some homes are un-sellable when they have that situation. Since some (or much) of the land being developed these days is adjoining wetlands, or surrounding low-lying areas, you wonder if the high water table and dense, sometimes rocky soils, will create conditions where full-depth basements occasionally allow moisture to come in. New house or old, it’s always a concern.
Where we built, we felt we were safe from that problem—our cul-de-sac location is on a rolling, grassy plateau, about a hundred feet higher in elevation than the Kayderosseras Creek in the valley behind our property. The land was formerly a mix of pasture, crop land and orchards, with no standing water, at least not on our side of the street. The storm drain system built into the developer-produced road seemed more than adequate to handle run-off. Yet occasionally we would get some seepage coming in one corner of the basement, near our Bilco door entry to the outside. Especially when there was frost in the ground and winter rain would build up in puddles on the north side of the home, the moisture was finding ways to creep in on that sidewall. Occasionally during heavy summer rains, there’d be some silt finding its way under the door to the Bilco. It was an annoyance more than a huge problem, and while we mentioned it to the Builder a time or two, we never made a big formal complaint out of it. With today’s poured concrete foundations and gravel beds under the slab and French drain systems in place both inside and outside the foundation, and with a functional sump pump in the pit below slab level—a homeowner should not have reason to worry. But the recurring silt and seepage were a clue that there was an issue.
GURGLING GROUNDWATER…
And guess what—this year’s groundwater levels in our area were
higher than perhaps any time in the past couple of decades. A combination of late April snowstorms and heavy rains causing flooding in low-lying areas around us apparently caused sub-surface hydrologyconditions which created more wet basements than in any recent spring season in memory, according to what I’ve heard. Ours wasn’t the only one. It was two days after the last mid-April snowstorm, and all the snow had safely melted and disappeared. I came home for lunch one day, and went down the basement stairs to feed the cats at their appointed spot. But the cats wouldn’t go down the stairs ahead of me this time, quite rare. When I looked ahead, I found out why—two or three inches or so of clear water had accumulated everywhere across the basement floor. Good thing I came home when I did—the sump hadn’t kicked on because a mis-labeled breaker was shut off, which controlledthe pump itself. Once I flipped that one breaker it did its thing, rapidly gushing the water out to irrigate the perennials on the lower slope of the back lawn. The standing water emptied out within an hour, and some sweeping took care of the rest. But even when the level in the sump pit settled down, the water kept gurgling from the french drain system intothe pit, filling it intermittently, kicking the pump back on for several days afterward. The gravel bed under the slab and the perimeter drains were still percolating with ground water. When I checked the Bilco area, it was apparent that both sides of the concrete sidewalls were spouting water at the seams where they met the foundation as well. “Hydrostatic pressure”—a phrase I’d heard from structural inspectors many times in the past—was letting loose and overflowing like springs you see popping out of rock along the Thruway. From underneath the bottom step, silty water bubbled through and under the threshold as well. The french drain in that area had filled with silt and the incoming was still overflowing the threshold, not flowing safely toward the sump pump.
Would The Builder Be Cool About It?
This gave me cause to call the Builder’s business line right away.
I’m calm as I write about it now, but my tone wasn’t as calm when I made the call. “You told me I’d never have water in this basement…!”
If I had been dealing with a different builder I might easily have had a long, drawn-out battle on my hands. But this particular general contractor was not evasive or unresponsive like some would be in the same situation. In fact, he was there at my door within about 30 minutes of my call. He looked at the Bilco situation and saw where the water was seeping in and simply said, “We’ll pull this next week, and get you a new concrete base. I’ll get Guardian over here for that.” (For the record, this Builder’s name is Brian K. Smith, Custom Design Builders, of Halfmoon. His phone number is: 664-2083. His subcontractor on the Bilco door work was Guardian Concrete Products, Inc. of Maxon Road, Schenectady—their work under the warranty was excellent as well.)
It involved taking out a section of sidewalk and re-excavating anarea on both sides and underneath the triangular foundation of the Bilco entrance—densely packed dirt that had to be scooped out at an awkward angle before the Guardian guy showed up with his big truck to winch out the old, and re-install the new. The work was done in twodry days and looked as good as new when finished. After one more intense rain storm, the fill settled again a bit, and the builder’s helper came back and repacked the backfill, raking it to drain away properly from the foundation. Knock on wood, there hasn’t been a problem since.
How Long Is A Home Warranty Good For?
Some major systems of a home are covered for seven years; other things are covered for two or four or one—there are certain NYS-mandated warranty items and a whole host of things that fall into different categories or grey areas. I am not an attorney and you should have your own counsel on that subject when you start the construction process. But the real answer to that question is that any Home Warranty only as good as the Builder that issues it. The best part of this situation is that we didn’t have to fire letters or nasty emails at each other; there was no reason to involve lawyers and legal semantics, and there was no mention of the fact that the house was already three-plus years old, et cetera. There was no grumbling on the part of the Builder or the sub-contractor; they simply did the work, at their own expense, not mine. Writing this testimonial to them was not part of the deal either—this will be a surprise to them if someone tells them about it. I’ve tried to deal with the builder in a respectful manner from the start and my wife and I were always genuinely appreciative of the house he built for us… I think that helped. Some people don’t ever say THANKS to their builder, or express their admiration for the end-product—they think that signing over the checks at closing is enough.
In a new construction situation, the “transfer of title”—i.e. closing-- is not the end of the process of doing business, unlike a re-sale situation, in which it is. New construction carries with it the expectation of executing a punch list, and of the builder fulfilling all contractual items—things like seeding and shrubs to be put in once the weather warms up, for a winter closing, or other finishing details that were pointed out in the walk-through before the closing. Furthermore,a couple of return visits are often in order after 6 months or a year to correct nail pops in sheetrock, or sticky drawers, or towel rods that came loose—all minor items you might find in the first year in the house. If there are drainage issues or any other “major” items—the consumer has a reasonable expectation that the builder will show up to address them.
But if the homeowners have indulged in testy exchanges from the start, or held back money unnecessarily at the closing, or berated the builder with unreasonable demands about non-warranty items…then the precedent has been set for trouble in the long-term relationship. Our builder was reasonable and responsive, and though we had some minor disagreements, we always have respectful conversations and emails between us. I like to think that helped in this situation… and we would like to thank him again for his professional demeanor and responsive conduct.
People can’t expect home to be absolutely perfect—whether new or old or in-between. Even building a brand new home—whether custom or cookie-cutter, stick-built or modular—can be a process that shows how large or small things can go wrong. But if the Builder/Contractor is a solvent and honorable businessman with high ethical standards, then the problems can usually be solved in a courteous manner. In an imperfect world, that’s the best salve and re-assurance there is.
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