From the Jersey Journal:
Realtors often best indicator of market
When analysts want to take the temperature of the local real estate market, they look at loads of statistics like absorption rates and home sales to help determine whether it’s hot or cold, or perhaps somewhere in between.
Let me offer a more straightforward approach.
First thing, open your window and toss out those messy and often conflicting statistics. Then pick up the phone and dial a few real estate brokers. Ask them about how things are going with local developers, and listen closely. Their answers will tell you everything you need to know.
Roughly two years ago, when the county’s real estate market reached titanic proportions, most local developers were unloading properties as quickly as they got them – with real estate brokers idle on the sidelines. Why give a broker a commission when you can run just a few ads and get more than enough buyers?
“I remember one time I tried to get information on a property in Weehawken,” one real estate broker said. “I was pretty much told to go away. I went back weeks later and had to lie and say I was interested in buying the property, just to get the glossy pamphlets.”
Just two weeks ago, the broker said, the same developer’s office called him up and invited him to a lunch party of wine, cheese and hors d’oeuvres – and of course a walk-through of the remaining units left in the Weehawken development.
“I haven’t had to buy lunch in weeks,” another broker laughed. “I get a fax every day from one developer or another inviting me to a private showing or a preview of their units.”
Shifts in the economy often change people’s behavior, and the actors on the local real estate stage are not exempt from this law. Developers are under increasing pressure to satisfy lenders and they are hoping that dangling the golden carrot in front of real estate brokers will accomplish that goal.
“I haven’t had to buy lunch in weeks,” another broker laughed. “I get a fax every day from one developer or another inviting me to a private showing or a preview of their units.”
Realtors do not get any commissions, but at least they do not need to worry about food yet :)
Ok so Edgewater does come down. I figured everyone there since most things started at like 1 million+ was uber rich.
Oh that sounds so familar! I think I said something quite similar to this to someone on this board not too long ago when they inquired about riverpark in Harrison.
KL
Al
You wouldnt believe the amount of Broker open house lunches I could go to every week! (-:
so this article is implying that times are good for realtors?
skep-tic, it implies that realtors won’t go hungry so long as they line up these luncheons. Wegman’s still hands out samples in-store. Just in case…
grim:
Renshaw is a good guy. You should try to reach out to him if you can. You seem to have fewer feelers in Hudson County anyway. He is young, ethusiastic, and willing to muckrake in Hudson County. Worth a shot. Ultimately, no one has bought him off yet and his Editors haven’t warned him to back off.
Al
You wouldnt believe the amount of Broker open house lunches I could go to every week! (-:
Can I get those luinches TO GO ??? This way I will save even more on groceries??
Oh, but the folks over at kannekt.com say that all of those Hudson County ex-crackhouse-walkups-converted-to-condos are worth a mint. And those Hovnanian/Toll Bros. generic “luxury” condos along the waterfront are worth three mints.
Really, Mr. Renshaw ought to do an expose of that website. I really hope that there’s some big-time karmic payback for any and all guilty parties over there if any of those “Rich Dad/Poor Dad”-wannabes cause any real harm to any Hudson County buyers.
jonny505