Property Grunt

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Open House Wars: Revenge of the Grunt

Tonight, in the dark of night, after night has shrouded my dark plan in its nightly darkness, I will exact my revenge!

The Brak Show


The Grunt was right all along. I knew a slowdown was in affect and Curbed confirms it with their latest open house reports from people in the field. According to Curbed’s meritorious analysis, Manhattan is on deadly ground while the outer boroughs are hard to kill.


1)Open houses in Chelsea last weekend were slow. more often than not i was the only person at the dozen plus open houses i attended. then again, it was slim pickins and high prices. i'm surprised brokers can even manage a straight face with some of the obscenely priced claustrophobic crypts they're slinging over here.

Sounds like my past three Sundays. I make the effort to keep up a good front but sometimes I want to pull a Monty Python and the Holy Grail and scream to buyers “Run away! Run away!”


2)I'm a broker on the UWS. Have been attending many open houses with buyers in the 1, 2 and 3 bedroom market with price points from $700,000 - $2,000,000. The last couple of weeks the open house apartments have been as bare of buyers as Lizzie Grubman's hoo hoo is of hair (you know the photo of which I speak).

That is really, really bare. For those of you who do not know what we are talking about here is the link. WARNING! NOT SAFE FOR WORK!


3)I'm looking in the $5,000,000 plus bracket. (I managed to sell some large corporation some potentially useful idea.) It seems that this market is chasing the same few qualified buyers. While there is a lot of noise and ink about these properties, they just don't actually ah.. sell. I've seen lofts "new on the market' that have been available for over a year, from one agent or another. I've seen a lot of lofts that seems to make very little economic or aesthetic sense. Fortunately, I'm not in a hurry. I intend to live in this place for a while.

God, I hate you. But the fact of the matter this buyer’s attitude is more common with the proletariat these days. And for the amount of money is buyer is willing put on the table I don’t blame him or her for taking a more patient stance in pursuing a home.
4) Got on offer on a place I'm selling in Clinton Hill within 1 week of it being listed. I didn't attend the open house, but the realtor didn't describe it as manic or desolate. Just called it a good turnout.

What your broker meant by good turnout is that you were lucky that people even showed up so just please take the offer and don’t ask any questions about how sh***y the market is. If you really want to know the numbers just ask for the sign in sheets.

Speaking of Brooklyn the Grunt received the following email from a Brooklynite.

we have no "sub-par" inventory - demand remains strong on the new development front -quality is still selling briskly in Brooklyn.

For the doubters who ragged on my initial reports, eat it. As for the people who supported me, thank you. It is nice to know who my real friends are. Thank you Lock for settling this matter and I am looking forward to more reports.