Waynes Word ~ July King Of Months

July King Of Months.

JULY doesn’t get enough credit as the king of months. In June there are school finals and graduations, and year-end parties and celebrations, the hustle of planning vacations and feeling like you can’t relax quite yet. In our extended family, there are also 6 or 7 birthdays to deal with, to the point where you might get sick of looking at frosted cakes with candles on them. But once July rolls around, the summer is truly spread out before you. Birds are trilling their songs as of about 4:30 a.m. and the world is fully alive and green and there is no rush to yet to see an all-too-brief summer end.

In Saratoga, July is heralded by the yearly advent of the 2-day Jazz Festival, which truly seems the time when summer has arrived in full force. This season was the 30th Anniversary of that fine event, which is one of the things that drew me to want to live here back in the 70’s. Even though I couldn’t attend this year, memories of the first twenty festivals my friends and I saw there come flooding back…and I resolve once again to go next year.

Otherwise, at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, known locally as SPAC, the NY City Ballet is back, pop groups like Nickleback are lined up, with the Philadelphia Orchestra waiting in the wings. More importantly to my family, there are concerts by John Mayer, and the perennial return of The Dave Matthews Band, and ageless rockers The Allman Brothers. Those ecstatic nights in the amphitheater are yet to come.

But before you think of this as a hedonistic hype-site for Saratoga’s musical and sensual pleasures, let’s return to the snapshot synopsis of the local real estate market in this area, which is presumably what you tuned in for…

REAMS OF PAPER; HOURS OF TIME…

One good thing about a slow market is it gives the diligent Realtor more time to do research, and really study the fount of information available in the MLS, as opposed to always rushing around frantically and never quite getting the big picture. In a brisk market we as a group tend to rely on our Type A natures to get us through the rigors of showing 8-10 homes a day, or running through three CMA or listing appointments in a day, and juggling multiple clients in any given day. There is more time for contemplation and astute analysis now and in recent months, and several hours a day of laptop time on my part are devoted to becoming cognizant of all corners of the available market.

Knowledge is our business, and any agent who is badly armed in this area will suffer in a market like this. People don’t just want you to “get back to them” on questions; they want to know that YOU know what you’re talking about. An internet-savvy, magazine-scanning consumer these days may know more about the market at large than some of the part-time practitioners out there—and believe me, they can sense a lack of market familiarity instantly, if the Realtor they meet is unprepared.

This is why I go through reams of paper, and multiple bundles of print cartridges every month. I print up ANY listing that looks interesting—to me, or any of my hundred-plus potential buyers in the pipeline of clients I’ve developed—and I study and file such print-outs for prospective buyers, or comparable sellers.

Years ago, in the early ‘90’s I had a computer-expert client who informed me that lugging around a forty pound briefcase was primitive—that I was going to have to go lighter, go mobile, get a laptop and get rid of some of the bulky paper products. I informed him it was a paper-based business I was in, and it was likely to remain that way. Fifteen years later, my manila files are still bulging, and my briefcase is still pretty damn heavy…I haven’t shed all that paper knowledge yet, though I do love my subsequent succession of laptops too.

Rod Stewart once had a hit song titled: Every Picture Tells A Story, Don’t It? Well, now it seems like every page printed up from the MLS or LandData (via software from assessment records) tells a real estate story of sorts—and I’ve been cramming a few dozen such stories a day, waiting for you, the real-estate-seeking public, to pick my brain and ask me what the best deals are in any given price range…in Saratoga proper, in Saratoga County as a whole, or in most of the nearby or neighboring counties.

THE BIG PICTURE OF SARATOGA’S MARKET, OR WHAT EXACTLY IS A GLUT???

People often throw around stock phrases—“there’s a glut on the market…”—well, where? And in what price range? Across the board, or just in specific areas??

Since I spent a couple mornings combing over the stats and numbers of available properties in and surrounding Saratoga Springs, I’m prepared to pontificate on this subject for a bit.

I broke the market into 3 or 4 segments for the sake of this discussion.

1: STARTER HOMES

In the starter home category, it has been slightly amazing to me that there are so many properties UNDER $200K in our prime, magnetically attractive area. I have read in print for the past several years about the lack of affordable housing in the Saratoga area but I don’t find it to be true. Rents indeed are higher than ever before but you would think that would provoke local tenants to consider their buying options. At some point, taking into account the tax benefits and equity position of home ownership, paying $1200-1500. in rent for an apartment makes no sense for those with good credit and steady income, and those are the people I like to help enter the home-buying market.

In the Saratoga Springs School District as of early July 07, there are at least 42 homes available under $200,000. right now. Of course some first time buyers can afford more than that these days, but even for those without substantial down payments, a home in the $150K-200K range is achievable. While the home sellers in the local market must feel like there are a load of competing signs in and around their neighborhoods, they should take solace from the fact that 137 homes in that price range have sold and closed in the Saratoga School system in the past 12 months, so certainly the starter home buyers, or incoming home-seekers, HAVE taken advantage of the choices in that price range. These listings are closely scrutinized online by potential first time buyers, I’m sure, who like to window shop as much as anyone else. But experience shows they WILL pounce if something is a stand-out value, or if it’s been properly updated, or in a unique location.

2: THE “MIDDLE-CLASS”-- $200K.-500K.-- RANGE

The second category would be the “move-up” range of prices-- $200K to $500K.—which I would like to look at in two parcels. Within the Saratoga School District of early July, there are 97 resale listings just between $200K. and $300K. In this market range and area, only 5 new construction options are open to buyers here, and they are scattered sites on the outskirts of the district. Once we get into the range of $300K. to $499K. there are not only another 110 (one hundred and ten) resales to look at, there are also 92 new construction options to consider. So in the overall category, there are 314 homes available right now, either resales or to-be-builts, just in the Saratoga Springs School District, under half-a-million. Given the current rate of absorption, that would be well over a year’s supply. Even if one home per day—every day—sold in that range in the District, there would be a 10 month supply, assuming nothing else became available. Clearly, with those numbers, some people who are trying to sell are NOT going to sell., and are courting disappointment, just based on the numbers. Saratoga is growing, but not that fast. Many homes in this category are not always in the best condition, either, and I’m not sure the average seller realizes how competitive the market is. Certain styles of homes are also at a severe disadvantage in this price range—the average buyer that I meet will refuse to even look at raised ranches or split levels once the price is above the low-$200K. range. Homes that are 30 or 40 years old are now competing against newer, brighter, better-built, housing stock and those sellers are the ones who will usually suffer.

The condos at Excelsior Park near Exit 15, created by John Witt, have grabbed 30+ local sales between $200K. and $500K. in the past two and a half years. Meanwhile, the Springwood Condominium project out near the State Park’s 9-hole golf course, built by RJ Taylor, has shown 3 dozen sales from the mid-high hundreds when they started closing in 2003, up to the $340,000. mark so far. Even in this price range, then, the emergence of condo-living has made an impact on the market, though not as much as in the next category.

3: THE UPPER-MIDDLE RANGE-- $500K-999K.

Here is where it gets interesting. This category has grown the most in terms of available properties—a whole lot of people in this price range either want to bail out of their high mortgage, or want to re-locate, or want to downsize. Some want to move up to high-end condos themselves and forego maintenance issues on their property. Some are simply stuck in a game of musical chairs, thinking they could buy and sell every two or three years, and always at a profit. But here is the reality of the numbers in the local marketplace, showing what tough competition must be faced to try to sell a Saratoga-area home in this price range.

There are currently 130 homes for sale in this category. Out of those, 101 are listed as being “in-town”, although all good realtors know that those boundaries are stretched by other agents all the time. The other 29 or so would be in Greenfield or Wilton, or the Town of Milton, but still within the school system. Of the 130 total, 69 are resales, while 61 are new construction options, some of them spec homes that are already built and standing.

But what is interesting is to run the number of SOLDS in this category, ascompared to the number of ACTIVES. I went back to the beginning of the year 2006—and counted the sales from $500K. to $1 Million in the MLS system—just over 18 months worth of market reporting. There were 133 closed sales reported in this range, many of which went pending in the year 2005, so it was almost two year’s worth, in terms of the timing of the sales. Of the 133 sold, just over half were new construction (68), and the rest were re-sales (65). Of the 68 new construction deals in this price range, 30 were classified as CONDO sales, and two more as Townhouses. Of the 65 re-sales, only four were CONDOS—which means CONDOS as a percentage of the reported market formed about 25% of the total sales in the range from half-a-mill to a million, in the past 18 months.

By my math, then, there were a total of 61 re-sale single-family homes actually SOLD in the Saratoga Springs District in the price range of $500K. to a Million between January 2006 and the present (as of July 5th, 2007). That is an average of less than 4 per month, meaning there is 17 months’ worth of inventory out there as re-sales in this price range. This makes it a bit of a crapshoot for sellers of existing homes in that range, but most of them refuse to acknowledge or realize these facts.

The PENDING sales in this same category are also telling. There are a total of 54 homes under contract in this price range… but 44 of those (81+%) are New Construction contracts—i.e. people buying a custom home, or at least tailoring the final details to their exact liking. Only 10 Pending homes in this price range were re-sales—less than 20% of the Buyer’s total. What’s more—17 of the 54 sales were CONDOS—almost a third, and all but one of those were new construction condos.More than 30% of this price range is now tending toward the condo lifestyle, and most of those are likely second, third, and fourth home buyers. Clearly this type of buyer plans ahead and prefers to buy NEW as opposed to re-sale, with a couple of notable exceptions among closed sales.

SQUARE FOOTAGE PRICE COMPARISONS: CONDOS

If you are still reading this, you must be a freak for real estate statistics, so I’ll go a bit further in the analysis—this will come in handy for anyone comparison shopping in the Saratoga market—which I hope will give some perspective on why certain asking prices are out of line.

Let’s look at CONDOS first, since most of the “upper-middle” housing market in Saratoga seems to be reacting to or competing with that segment of the market. Square footage costs for CONDOS in general are always going to be higher—based on the sheer volume of the building structure, the common area costs, the elegant elevators and lobbies, the stone or brick exteriors and facades. People will pay more per square foot for those amenities, for a downtown location, and for the ability to remain entirely free of outside maintenance—that messy stuff like lawns and snowy sidewalks, cleaning gutters and raking leaves. It used to seem a bit odd to me that a certain bracket of consumers would pay a premium NOT to own any land to go with their living space, but then again I wasn’t raised in Manhattan so what do I know.

A random sampling of SOLD prices of Condos from the past year, divided by the ostensible square footage, gives us a rough point of comparison of “price per square foot” though I will not get into what the differences of amenities or final finish work might be in each case.

Consider this: a 2250 sq. foot unit, 3BR, 2.5 baths, sold in December 2006 for $549,510. That translates to a figure of appx. $249/sq. ft. What is interesting about that listing, located downtown at 70 Railroad Place, built by Bonacio Construction, is that the original list price was shown as $573,000., and the price was raised to $601,965. at some point before the actual sale took place.

There was a $52K price adjustment negotiated on that one—if that makes the re-sale market feel any better. Discounting is everywhere.

One of the highest reported sales for a “non-penthouse unit” was $730,000. for a 2260 sq. ft. condo at the same address—that comes to a whopping $323./sq. ft.,although to be fair it included 180 sq. ft. of extra storage and a 2-car heated garage as well. Only some of the penthouse units eclipsed that square footage figure. The highest sale on that basis I’ve found so far was a $1.028 million sale for 2668 sq. ft. of space, which comes out to $367.80/ per sq. ft., and presumably includes some amazing views of downtown Saratoga from the top of its building.

The above examples are the upper crust of in-town sales on a per square foot basis. The “average” condos sampled in the downtown area seem to be in the $250/ sq. ft. range for 3 Bedroom units and strangely enough, a bit more for 2 Bedroom units, at about $267./sq. ft. based on reported prices of new sales.

Two recent re-sales in the same downtown complexes were a $646,000. sale for a 2022 sq. ft. unit, which comes to about $319./sq. ft. for a “nearly-new” flip. Another successful recent re-sale was reported at $745,000. on a 2 year old unit sized at 2550 sq. ft., for a price just over $292./sq. ft.

Sometimes sellers trying to get in excess of $300/ sq. ft. do not succeed: a case in point is a 1 year old unit that started out at $849,000. and then dropped to $769,000. before finally selling at an even $750K. The size was noted to be 2767 square feet, but it was unusual in that it featured 4BR’s and 3 Baths, with 2 master suites. All that was sold for $271./ sq. ft. when it was done.

There is one unit I viewed recently with spectacular views to the east and south on an upper floor, a block off Broadway, that was priced at over $400K. per foot. Despite a huge covered terrace/patio that is not part of the square footage count, living space seemed on the small side for its ¾ million price tag. There are a few re-sales in that downtown condo market which are all priced above slightly above $300./ sq. ft. I plan to check those out as a comparison with what can still be purchased New by the same builder just around the corner—will report on that in August.

Just a last word on the condos in this range—there have been 277 reported sales of condominiums in Saratoga Springs since recorded time (i.e.—the mid-’90’s) began in our local MLS system. Only about 51 of those have been at or above $500K. in price, and 49 of them have been built by Bonacio Construction (including some re-sales). There was one sale of $786,000. for a grand 5 Bedroom, 4 Bath Penthouse unit out at Excelsior Park a year ago (which is now being marketed at over $1.1 Million). There was also a 19 year old re-sale at 106 Spring Street in 2005 that went for $530,000.—a lavish multi-level unit. But other than these two, Bonacio’s condo work has dominated this price range. (For stat validation, or discussion of “best available” choices in this part of the market, email wayne@waynesword.com or call me at any of the numbers on top of my webpage. Since I do not represent any of the builders or properties discussed in this article, I am comfortable acting as a Buyer’s Agent, offering objective advice for anyone who values it.)

SQUARE FOOTAGE PRICING: HOMES ON A LOT

As stated earlier, condo buyers are a different breed, and will spend more on a “square-foot” basis than a “normal” home buyer, just to be free of maintenance and updating issues. But the owners of single family homes seem to want to achieve the same kind of numbers as the condo-dwellers will pay, so in my opinion that skews the market disproportionately.

First off, let’s clarify that all lots in Saratoga Springs are NOT created equal. Land values on North Broadway, near Skidmore, and Fifth Avenue, near the Race Track, are clearly different than anywhere else, residentially speaking. Union Avenue, parts of Nelson Avenue ear the Track, and certain choice side streets within walking distance of the Horse Racing scene are in a secondary category of appeal and pricing, as are the areas just west of North Broadway, in the vicinity of the College. Upper Woodlawn Avenue, upper State Street, Clement Avenue and Park Alley facing the campus—these are all prime ground. In certain cases, the ground underneath is worth more than the home that sits on it—the “Beverly Hills Syndrome”, I used to call it.

I’ve been in business 20 years in this town, and remember when $100./sq. ft. was the “high end” the market could aspire to. A few years after that I sold a listing of mine that was a fixer-upper on a small parcel-- $140,000. for 1400 sq. ft. on the eastside, and that seemed like a lot for that property at the time. But things accelerated from there. Not long ago, the benchmark of $200./ sq ft. was reserved for Bonacio Construction or John Witt Homes, plus a few mansions on North Broadway, until about a half-dozen years ago. Now, it is hard to find a home priced under $200./sq. ft in the City of Saratoga Springs, although the price usually gets more reasonable as you fan out past the city limits. There are homes listed for close to $300./sq. ft. within the city limits which, in the MLS remarks, admit—“some cosmetic work needed.” Usually, if the opening lines on the description are “Location, location, location…” that means either the agent has no imagination, or the house itself is going to be a turn-off.

CABLE TV’S NEFARIOUS INFLUENCE?

I think it was not only the 3-year run-up in prices that gave local home-sellers the audacity to think their homes should be able to compete with the best builders in town on a square footage basis, but cable TV has contributed as well. I was flipping channels and came across the House & Garden Network show “Flip This House.” A couple with a child in tow in Thousand Oaks, California was buying what I thought to be an outmoded split level—very outdated and worn on the inside— for over a million dollars on an unspectacular lot, with the idea of putting “50 grand” into it, in order to make a “quick $100K. profit.” What universe are these people functioning in? They already owned another home (not shown), and did not appear to be foolishly rich (if they were, why bother with flipping split levels?), but for the sake of the TV cameras, they were discussing what cosmetic changes would be needed to appeal to “upper end buyers.”

Now I don’t know much about the housing market in Southern California,and maybe a million dollars is still chump change to them, but the couple—who were supposedly Coldwell Banker agents themselves—admitted being a bit nervous at having “5 or 6 thousand dollar carrying costs per month” while the renovation went on. I did not stick around to see how that episode turned out, but shook my head, and said—“Different world.”

People in Saratoga seem to think, because of the condo explosion, or because of the next phase of upgrades downtown or at the racetrack or the local Racino, that there are TONS of upscale buyers pouring into this small upstate town eager to part with their money. There are certainly a few who fall into that bracket, but I haven’t seen too many wealthy people who can’t tell the difference between a good value and a desperately overpriced piece of real estate, once they start looking around. This is not Beverly Hills yet, and is not, apparently, Thousand Oaks either.

COMPARISON SHOPPING IN SARATOGA…

There are endless examples of availability in what I have called the “Upper Middle” price range right now, but I’ll just give a few.

There is a fine brick center-hall colonial in a prestigious neighborhood of the Eastside listed at $799,000. for 3000 sq. ft. of living area; unit priced at $266./sq. ft.

Not far from there, a sprawling but somewhat dated (31 years old) 4BR, 3 bath ranch listed for $739,000. with 2800 sq. ft. of living area at a price of $264./sq. ft.

There is a two-year old brick townhouse (4BR, 3.5 baths) fairly close to downtown listed at $669K. for a total of 3098 sq. ft. which gives a square footage cost of a mere $215./sq. ft., for people who don’t need lawns around them, as a condo alternative.

Even closer in to the core of town, there is a restored Victorian listed at $810,000.which boasts 4000 square feet of living area, for about $202.50 per square foot (as in all cases—the square footage should be verified to validate these stats). One more older home (161 years old to be exact) bears noting—near both racetracks and close to I-87—there is a 5BR, 2.5 bath classic on a spacious lot for $750,000. listed at 3463 square feet, for a price of $216./sq. ft. This one has been through a few seasons on the market with different brokers, and has come down considerably in asking price over time, which, like gravity, pulls downward.

Other eastside landmark properties are available as well:

*$875,000. is the asking price for an 1886 Classic on Phila Street with 3264 sq. ft. at approximately $268/ft. Street presence here is gracious and authentic.

*$899,000. will also get you an even more vintage plum, an 1859 Beauty with 8 Bedrooms, and 8 baths, packed into reportedly only 2798 sq. ft., for an asking price that comes out to $321./sq. ft. within a short walk to Congress Park and the core of Broadway.

*If an asking price of $949,777. is not beyond your ken, and if the given square footage of over 5900 is accurate, the unit price bargain of the month in the sub-million category goes to a Turn-of-(last)-Century Victorian with turret on Lake Avenue, zoned three-family, with 8 bedrooms and 3.5 baths. The current asking price actually seems reasonable at about $160./sq. ft., in perspective with what else is out there.

None of the above is a listing of mine, but I’d be glad to give you the tour as a Buyer’s Agent, as I love living vicariously in looking at these places, like most good agents do. You can’t buy ‘em all; but which one would you take?

WHAT’S OUT ON THE PERIMETER?

Once you get to the outskirts and the close-in suburbs, while still maintaining a Saratoga Springs zip code, the prices tend to stick somewhere in the $200./sq. ft. mode, though there are decent, recent, exceptions that are now safely below that mark.

One such home in Loughberry Estates near Exit 15 just dropped from an initial offering of $539K to $519K to $499K in the first month it was listed, which I thought was aggressive, but realistic, on the part of both the Realtor and the owner.

The home is over 2900 square feet, and the current number on that comes to just over $170./sq. ft. which seems reasonable by today’s new construction pricing, if the home is sharp and well-maintained.

A five-year old home in the same neighborhood as above but on a pricier cul-de-sac is listed for $679,000., and purportedly features 6 bedrooms and 3.5 baths in its 2610 sq. ft., for a per unit price of $260./ft., presumably not counting the finished basement.

A home out on Arrowhead Road looks like a good deal to me—near the lake and very close to the secret southern on-ramp to the Northway—provides 3100 square feet, an in-ground pool and a 10-year old home in a great neighborhood for a price-tag of $692,000. That comes to about $223./sq. ft.

New homes can be built just past Exit 14, in the vicinity of Saratoga National Golf Course, in an interesting “new village” kind of setting called “Oak Ridge” for a price range that seems to start at about $260./sq. ft. For instance, a 2478 square foot home is listed for $650K., which I’m told is the base entry price for this place.

If you prefer a contemporary styled home on its own private parcel just out of town on the northwest side, past Skidmore’s campus, you will find one for $749,500. with 3300 sq. ft. of space, for a comparative price of $227./sq. ft.

And that’s about all the free numerical info I am going to give you this month, unless you call me to detail your specific search.

I should point out that my zeal for “unit pricing” in real estate is NOT taking into account the relative condition, or maintenance issues, of each of these properties; it’s just a raw number we’re using for price comparison on the surface of things. You actually have to get IN these places and JUDGE them individually to see what the best deals might be. But that is the fun part. Let me know when you want to go.

The best part of the market right now is that you have TIME to decide, in most cases, and consider what your options are. The sellers are waiting for you, and eager to be receptive to your real estate advances. Any Buyer with a hefty down-payment and good credit is in a good position right now.

LASTLY, THE OVER-A-MILLON CLUB…

I said I would break the market into “3 or 4” categories—well this would be the 4th. It’s not as big a club as the general public seems to believe, at least in terms of recent real estate purchases. Unlike our cabled televised friends out in Thousand Oaks on the left coast, I don’t see middle-class people stretching to buy homes in the ‘Million-Plus’ class, especially not to “flip!”

In the past 18 months the MLS shows “only” 8 sales above a million dollars in the greater Saratoga area. Knowledgeable locals will know that this is an incomplete picture of the upper echelon, as not all stupendous sales go through the MLS. Homes such as I described in my last Waynesword installment—those belonging to the likes of Bill Parcells or a billionaire like John Breyo—do not typically show up in the MLS statistics. Similarly, the re-sale of a fabulous estate like STONERSIDE, formerly the Betsy Cushing Whitney property, adjacent to the famed Saratoga Race Track, which was reputedly sold in excess of $10 Million dollars to a Saudi Arabian prince, will NOT, unfortunately, be reported in our local MLS. Certainly if ALL the actual numbers were entered into the equation, Saratoga’s real estate figures would certainly be skewed to the up-side.

Having said that, there are a couple dozen locally-listed aspirants competing for those big dollars. There are exactly 24 properties in sub-area 311 (the City of Saratoga Springs) listed for seven-figures. Eight of those are 100-or-more year-old Mansions. Several others are scattered through the Meadowbrook neighborhood east of Exit 14, trying to capitalize on the proximity to Mssr. Breyo’s grandiosity. At least one involves a large parcel of lakefront land, so that the house with it is of little consequence.

Other than the sorts of privately negotiated new construction arrangements noted above, there are only 8 pending sales in the MLS over a million for area 311 right now, and two of those are badly out-of-date, and closed long ago, or never closed for some reason. Six are legitimate, and three of those are condos under construction at 18 Division Street by Sonny Bonacio. One of the fine re-sales is John Witt’s masterpiece of a Carriage House replica on Woodlawn Avenue that has been featured in multiple glossy magazines, which was listed at $1.85 million. One other is a Belmonte-built offering underway in Meadowbrook Estates, and the last one was a 2 year old re-sale for just over a million that may have been negotiated lower, but the price has not been reported yet.

Through the grapevine I am aware of several large renovation or restoration or other private new construction project that will be well over a million dollars by the time they are finished, but those numbers will not show up in the Property Transfers published in The Saratogian each Monday, nor the MLS, so they aren’t part of this discussion.

For those keeping score in this final category, the highest reported sale in the past year was for a 4-year old Witt-built mansion out at Lakeside by Riley’s for $3.2 Million, near Bill Parcells’ new joint. Right behind that, in the palatial elegance of North Broadway, an 8 bedroom, 7 and a half bath mansion on over an acre went for $2.8 Million, inclusive of a carriage house alongside that was a gem in itself. Other than that 1907 Vintage beauty, the oldest home sold for over a million was a 14 year old place out in Meadowbrook on a 3-acre estate. Throw in a couple of Belmonte-built re-sales in or near Regatta View, a couple of Bonacio-built condos already discussed, and a sale for a million, two-fifty at Oak Ridge, and you’ve got the whole picture of million-plus sales from early 2006 to the present, within the confines of Saratoga’s MLS.

IS WAYNESWORD GOIN’ ALL ANALYTICAL ON US??

Now that I’m exhausted from statistical analysis, I’ll confess that I’d rather write about other, non-real estate topics in Waynesword, but felt it was a public service of sorts to provide some realism to the discourse on today’s prices. I won’t do this every month, believe me, but am capable of doing it for any truly interested buyer clients.

Some points of conclusion to be drawn are these:

Condos have certainly AUGMENTED the local market, not taken it over. Somewhere between 25-30% of the local market share over $500K. seems to be going in that direction, and there are many re-sales and new construction sites competing for the balance of that business. There are MANY builders competing for the consumer dollar in the Saratoga area, once you get above $300K. in price. Speak with a local Realtor about the relative benefits of any of those you are considering for comparison before deciding. It will help reassure you to know what the scuttlebutt is about them, behind the glossy brochures.

Most of the best locations have already been taken; this is why you must consider re-sales, if in-town location is important to you. The further out you go from the core oasis of Saratoga proper, the better the values you should find in housing, relative to the drive and distance.

Vintage housing is available in relative abundance, especially compared to a few years ago, when it was almost non-existent, or sold instantly. The Westside still holds some relative bargains. Thirty-to-forty year old homes on the Eastside may be high-priced even if cosmetically dated—they can be negotiated lower once they’ve been subject to the winds of the market for a while. A good, experienced Realtor other than the listing agent will usually be frank about that.

*****

Hope I didn’t lose too many regular readers along the way, but in August I promise I will return to writing about sundry topics such as SPAC concert experiences, reveling in downtown’s summer nightlife, and the virtues of swimming at Lake George.

On a more serious note, I also plan to write about the continuing saga of the missing honeybees, and the effects of Global Warming on local weather, and the difficulty and heartbreak of dealing with a family member going through early Alzheimer’s. It’s always a challenge of mine to balance the comic/hedonistic side with the tragic & compelling side. The Tao of Life requires both sides, I am always re-learning, and I thank you for reading my words.

(By the way, as I’m finishing this on (admittedly) the first post-4th of July weekend day when there have been no visiting relatives around, my wife and son and I just watched the synopsis and the ending of the LIVE EARTH 07 festival from 7 continents which was obscurely broadcast on the BRAVO Network, on Saturday the 7th of July…

In addition to great performances by The POLICE (Driven To Tears was killer, and Andy Somers was amazing), The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kanye West, Madonna (not normally one of my faves), The Black-Eyed Peas, and Miles’s favorite group The Dave Matthews Band, there was one performance which just blew me away. It was popular country performer Keith Urban’s Band hooking up with sultry R & B/hiphop singer Alicia Keyes, doing the Rolling Stones’ classic: Gimme Shelter! Urban’s ecstatic guitar playing was a revelation to a non-country fan like me, and Alicia Keyes had all the gumption and high-pitched passion the female part of the chorus demanded. I still get chills thinking about it, as I love that song, and the imagery it invokes.

It’s about Housing! It’s about our Earth House Hold (to rip off an old Gary Snyder poem and book title)!! It’s about maintaining a healthy relationship instead of running away and blowing it! And on this occasion it was also about not over-cooking or contaminating the world, so that the next several generations of our kids and youth get to enjoy it as well.

Man, if I could legally download that version of Gimme Shelter, and use it as the theme song for this website, I’d love it. Can someone get legal to check on that?