Skaneateles Real Estate - October 3rd - October 17th

Before I forget (as if I would) I have an open house this weekend at my new (sort of) listing in Skaneateles.  Please come!  Tell me you saw it here!  The house is 50 West Genesee, almost across from the new Krebs. If the photo or the location sounds familiar, it is.  I listed and sold this last year.  The owners are relocating and want the house to move with them, but alas, it can't.  So you have the opportunity to buy it!  Hooray!
Four bedrooms, three full baths, a third floor that is now being used as a media room.  Incredible woodwork throughout - really, a pleasure to show.  Check it out online: ML# S280791  It's priced below where we had it last year, even - now $415,000.  See you between 1:00 and 3:00 on Sunday.

There are actually only 109 listings in the Skaneateles area of the multiple listing service.  Of these, 32 are in the Village and 29 are waterfront.  Besides this beauty above, five other houses came on the market during this time frame.  Three are waterfront, ranging form a low of around $600,000 to a high of two million.  The other two houses are in the town, and less than 50 West Genesee - with less space, too.

In the under contract categories there are 35 houses!  Seven are new, including two that made the trip from newly active to contingent during this time period.  Priced right and they sold!

As has been our custom, two more homes closed, bringing our total to 92 so far with still 10 weeks to go in the year.  Both sold right around the $400,000 mark.....hmmmmm.....kind of like 50 West Genesee.....Let's see if we can add that to the contingent list by the time the next update blog gets written.

Skaneateles Real Estate - Update Sept. 19th - Oct. 3rd

As you can tell, it's still busy and I am still out and about way too much it seems.  I pulled together the research for this blog and just never got a chance to write it out.  It helped me get a listing - I love knowing what I am talking about and being able to throw out exact numbers.  I feel like I could take on a candidate running for Realtor in Skaneateles!  I just need to find the time to communicate what I know to my readers.  And I know they will decrease without my publishing regularly, so I will do better by writing more often.  Starting here today.

During this period there were 111 active listings in the Skaneateles area of the multiple listing service.  Of these, 33 were in the Village and 27 were considered waterfront.  Eight new listings came on the market, but 5 of these were re-lists with reductions in price.  One of the new ones was a beautiful Village home priced just under one million.  A home in the town but not far outside was priced around $200,000 and a waterfront  camp came on around $300,000.

Six new ones joined the under contract or pending category to bring that number to 30.  One Village, 4 in the town, and a waterfront.

We now have 90 sold and closed, year-to date.  Incredible!  Six new ones were added to this list: one in the Village and five in the town.

This brings the number of Village properties sold year-to date (remember, the end-date is October 3rd) to 34.  I went back and looked at 2011; there were only twelve (12!) sold in that time period.  We are having a blazingly hot year, especially in the Village.  The median prices are slightly down - $285,000 vs. $349,000 - and certainly that is a contributing factor.  But so are the mortgage rates.  Come to Skaneateles!

The Fourth Twenty

I am not sure that I have EVER written a Fourth Twenty - certainly not at this time of year!  The Third Twenty was published on August 8th, so we are only about 7 weeks past that.  Magnificent!

The list is a bit odd - I will point out where - but I believe that it closely follows what has occurred.  We are well into the 80s for closings anyway....

1905 Stump Road - Town of Skaneateles - unpublished sale price

1719 Russells Landing - Town of Skaneateles - $355,000

80 West Elizabeth Street - Village of Skaneateles - $150,000

1863 Sugar Maple Lane - Town of Skaneateles - $198,000  (reported twice)

9 Academy Street - Village of Skaneateles - $295,000

174 East Genesee Street - Village of Skaneateles - $270,000

2812 East Lake Road - Town of Skaneateles - $293,000

38 Academy Street - Village of Skaneateles - $349,900

25 Hannum Street - Village of Skaneateles - $225,000

4755 Austin Road - Town of Skaneateles - $278,000

1711 Lancelot Lane - Town of Skaneateles - $280,000

628 Crow Hill Road - Town of Skaneateles - $337,000

2258 Cherry Valley Turnpike - Town of Skaneateles - $170,000

639 School Street - Skaneateles Falls - $87,000

3143 West Lake Road - Town of Skaneateles - $270,000

2753 East Lake Road - Town of Skaneateles - $499,900

3 Ramble Wood Drive - Village of Skaneateles - $557,500

24 East Elizabeth Street - Village of Skaneateles - $220,000

1025 Autumntree Court - Town of Skaneateles - $402,500

Skaneateles Real Estate - The Bi-Monthly Update

Summer is over, sort of, but it doesn't feel like it is.  I've had only one new apple so far thanks to the frost, and it was hard!  Usually I stop on Route 20 coming out of Lafayette and grab the first of the Jersey Macs.  Besides not having time this year, it just hasn't felt right.  Maybe because the rush is still on for real estate, and I haven't done the fall open house with cider and donuts because everything is selling.  It's just very different this year.

What is really different is the amount of business we are all doing.  Hold on to your hat!

Currently there are 117 active listings in the Skaneateles area of the multiple listing service.  Of these, 34 are in the Village and 27 are reputed to be waterfront properties.  Since I last wrote on September 5th, 13 new listings have come on the market.  Five of these are re-listings with a good deal of price reductions.  All of the three waterfront listings are in this category.  In the Village there are four new homes out there ready for their buyers.  They range in price from $400,000 to $800,000 or thereabouts.  There are four new ones in the town section.  Those range from the mid-$100,000 to higher $300,000s.  If the selling continues, I am willing to guess that half of all of these will be gone in two months' time.

In the contingent-under contract-pending category we have a low of 23 waiting to close.  Five are new to this, three of the non-waterfront properties averaging around $200,000 are "sold" but not closed.  The two new waterfront additions are quite lovely and higher priced, as you would imagine.

So of course if you've been reading this blog you know that if there are so few in the last category, then a lot must have sold and closed.  Eight more to be exact!  That brings us to 84 for the year, an unheard-of number in recent times.  As I have reported since spring, the majority are Village homes.  It's been a great year for the Village.  In the next week I will publish the Fourth Twenty closings.  Incredible!

BUT!  If you don't know what to buy or want to wait and see if your favorite Village home will come on the market in the next year, you are more than welcome to lease 31 East Elizabeth Street.  It's a Victorian with almost 2,000sf, four bedrooms, two full baths, a detached single car garage, and within easy walking distance of everything - shops, schools, lakefront, parks....The cost is $1,800 per month plus utilities.  Nicely-behaved pets are welcome.  Enjoy the seasons from the warp-around porch at the corner of Elizabeth and State Street, then stroll on down to our office to the left of Doug's Fish Fry and check out our listings.  Not such a bad place to live, work and play.

Skaneateles Real Estate - The Summer-Ending Update

The past three weeks is the longest time I've been away from this blog ever, in the five or so years I've been writing it.  But business has never been better!  I start the day before dawn when Charlie gets me up if I'm at home, and then fall into my chair at night around 8:00, content to have a Corona Light and talk about the day, or just sit there.  If I'm at the lake I skip dinner altogether and go straight to a movie and falling asleep in my wicker chair.  "Make hay while the sun shines..."  It's been a bit cloudy over the past few years, not in my business, but in the market as a whole.  August.  Who knew?

So to catch up.  In the listings area there really wasn't much action.  Currently there are 109 active single family homes in the Skaneateles area of the multiple listing service.  Of these, 30 are in the Village and 27 are listed as waterfront.  In the past three weeks only 6 homes have come on the market for the first time.  Each and every one is a Village home!  They range in price from the low $200,000 to almost a million.

There is not a great deal of change in the numbers of the "contingent, under contract" homes - still a hefty 31.  However, 11 of these are new to this category.  Six come from the town, two are waterfront, and three are Village properties.  That's remarkable in that the percentages are similar to the active listings.

Let's think....if there hasn't been a sizable increase in the contracted properties, then where did the others go?  To the CLOSED category!

We now have 76 homes sold and closed this year - so far - in the Skaneateles area.  Eleven are new, with four coming from the Village and five from the town, and two waterfront homes rounding it out.  Soon we'll have the Fourth Twenty homes to publish.  Last year at this time only 46 homes had closed.  In all of 2011 there were 70.  Yes, we are on a roll!

More interestingly, all the newly closed homes were listed this year.  So if they went under contract approximately in late June, then none of them were on the market longer than five and a half months at the very most.  Of course some were refreshed, or changed agencies perhaps, but I can only see one that was listed in 2011.

So this means that it is time to buy.  With this much demand the prices will undoubtedly rise soon - just the nature of the business!  Rates are still low, but as I cautioned someone today they have risen just a bit in the past two weeks.  We are doing well, and only now going into the fall season.

I can't wait!

Skaneateles Real Estate - Summer Edition

Yes, it's been two very busy weeks for me, so I didn't do last week's blog update.  But it's summer, the days are winding down...no, I haven't been hanging out on my paddleboard at the lake, but I have been getting a couple very sweet new listings, one of which I will add to the update.

This is my new listing at 1020 Ten Mile Point, just south of Lourdes Camp.  Look at that beach!  It has 295 feet of level small rocks, two current docks, and a cottage up in the trees.  The price is $250,000 - and no, this is not a giveaway.  Contributing to the peace and quiet you see here is the limited accessibility - a good thing in this rush-around world!  No cars, no roads, no traffic.  Take a short boat ride or woodland path past other camps along the shoreline and find silence, only the lapping of the waves and the birds in the many trees.  You are truly away from it all, but only minutes to the Village.

So!  There are currently 117 other active listings in the Skaneateles area of the multiple listing service.  Of these, 27 are in the village and 29 are considered waterfront.  Eight are new, including Ten Mile Point.  A couple are re-lists, including the huge mansion at the Enclave on Route 20 - now priced at $500,000 for the house and over 24 acres.  There's another property with twice as much acreage, also in the town.  A good little ranch and pretty cape, both in the town,  came on the market over the past two weeks.  An under a million waterfront property completes the new homes.

And sure enough, four new properties came under contract.  All of them are outside of the village, and three of them hover around the $300,000 mark.  There are 32 altogether in this category, including the four new ones.

And more closed!  Five new ones!  We are up to 65 sold and closed homes for the year!  Three of them are in the village, to continue the 2012 theme of buying there.  They range in price from a low in the mid-$100,000 to a high close to $600,000.  The two in the town that closed were sold near their asking price.

We are on to something here - Skaneateles is going through a wonderful upsurge in real estate.  And why not?  It is a beautiful area, filled with beautiful homes, where prices have not fluctuated as they have in the rest of the country.  And rates - oh my!  One of my buyers got a 3.5% FHA mortgage just recently.  It makes a HUGE difference!  So buy now - please!  And you can start with my Ten Mile Point listing!

Saundra Smokes

Saundra Smokes passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday in Syracuse.  She was a columnist for the Post-Standard for years, and only returned in May to write again in her hometown.  She was writing during the years before I tried to get my charter school off the ground, and she was an inspiration to me, pushing me (although she had no idea) to go out there and do things I never thought I could ever do.  But I should do them because I believed in them, no matter how hard.  Because it was the right thing to do.

I never wrote to her, as I had planned to do since her return.  I wanted to say thank you.

But this is a column she wrote that was hung up in my house on East Street in Skaneateles, and then made its way with me to Elbridge.  It resides on the back of the pantry door.  To remind me.

Put Resolve in Your Resolutions

One of my sister-friends and I were talking about the foolishness of making the same old New Year's resolutions.
I am going to lose weight.
I am going to get organized.
I am going to be on time.
I am going to exercise.
I am going to spend more time with my family.
I am going to learn a new skill.
And on and on.
Not that these goals are not worthy goals.
It's just that most of them are self-centered, and most of them keep finding their way on the list year after year - sometimes decade after decade.
What if - my sister-friend and I reasoned - what if all of us made new kinds of  resolutions?
Attitude resolutions.
Character resolutions.
Community resolutions.
We weren't talking about vague "I want to be a better person" or "I want to do more for my city" promises.
We meant specific, identifiable, reachable goals that would benefit others - loved ones,co-workers, neighbors.

What would have happened if, years ago, President Clinton had made a character resolution list and decided that he was no longer going to mess around on his wife, ignore his marriage vows, hurt his young daughter, jeopardize the office in which he was serving?
What if he had decided to deal with his lust problem and gotten some help to get himself in check?
Maybe we wouldn't be where we are at the moment - wrestling between censuring the man or putting him through a Senate trial to determine whether to remove him from office.
All of us have a list we can make that goes beyond giving up ice cream or reading more books.
Why can't people who have biting tongues make a point of controlling what comes out of their mouths?
What can't parents who holler and scream and say any old thing to their children resolve not to talk to their kids any old way?
Why can't bosses who think they know it all decide they don't, and listen to their employees?
Why can't employees resolve not to whine about everything?
Why can't the folks who are cheating on their loves resolve to stop lying and cheating and manipulating people?

Why can't those who are being cheated on , lied to and manipulated, resolve to stop the abuse or get help to stop the abuse?
Why can't family members who aren't speaking to each other resolve not to let another year go by without addressing whatever it is that is keeping them apart?
Why can't fathers resolve to acknowledge the children they pretend aren't theirs?
Why can't people in the caring and nurturing professions - doctors, nurses, teachers - resolve to treat all their patients and students with respect, affection and dignity?
Why can't neighbors resolve not to disturb the peace of the neighborhood by playing music too loudly or letting their dogs run loose?
Why can't people in the social services field resolve not to think of themselves too highly and forget that they may some day be where their "clients" are?
Why can't every person resolve to make a difference in the life of one child this year - by being a mentor, volunteering at a Boys and Girls Club or community center, becoming a Big Brother and Big Sister, joining an "Adopt a  School" program?

Why can't people resolve not to tell one racial joke, not to make on racial slur, not to contribute in any way to racial stereotyping or racist behavior?
Why can't customer service employees resolve to treat the public the way they would like to be treated?
Why can't companies resolve to truly assess the working conditions of their employees?
Why can't lawmakers resolve that every person in this nation will have a health-care plan as good as the one the lawmakers have?
Why can't lawmakers resolve that every child will get the kind of education their children are getting?
Why can't parents resolve to keep abreast of what is happening with their child in school?
Why can't parents resolve to not let the schools raise their children?
Why can't people resolve not to have to be motivated by the holidays to reach out to the needy?

Why can't the folks who want to lose weight resolve to give the money they would have spent on cookies, doughnuts and lunches that could pass for dinners, to charity?
Why can't people who are always stirring things up, always gossiping, always trying to cause trouble, simply stop it?
Why can't we all put some resolve in our resolutions?

I will miss her column, and miss her.