REAL ESTATE

Keeping cool in hot market

Demand pushes bids above asking prices; homes sell hours after listing

NOREEN SEEBACHER
For The Journal News

Robert Tauber and his wife Kathleen had it all planned: They'd look for a house early in the year, buy in the spring and be all settled before the birth of their first child in September.

Now, Tauber laments "It doesn't look like it's going to happen."

There are too few houses and too many buyers, many of whom are willing to pay more than list prices just to get a desirable property. Tauber, a real-estate agent for Balch Buyers Agency in Mamaroneck and a Yonkers policeman, bid $10,000 over the asking price for a four bedroom, 2.5-bath Swiss chalet in Pound Ridge.

He still didn't get it. The house went to a buyer willing to pay $30,000 more than the asking price.

For many prospective buyers in Westchester, Putnam, Rockland and surrounding counties, the dream of home ownership is remaining just that: A dream.

There are low inventories of new and existing homes in just about every price range in virtually every community — a problem that's creating strong competition among real-estate agents and buyers alike.

In some cases, as many as two or three agents are lining up outside homes to show them to customers as soon as they go on the market. Tauber said he and his wife see everything within five days of the time it hits the market "which is usually too late."

Houses are selling not just in days but in hours, real-estate agents say. They claim buyers who search for homes on the Internet are finding that as many as 75 percent of the ones they're interested in are sold and the remaining 25 percent have acceptable offers by the time they call to see them.

The Multiple Listing Service book in Westchester and Putnam counties, typically a hefty tome as thick as 3 inches, has shrunk to about half its normal size.

In Rockland, the book is "usually five times what it is now," said Margie Weinberg, office manager at Coldwell Banker Realty Stars in New City.

In some communities, there are so few new listings that there has been no need to hold weekly open houses. "There's a slight hysteria," said Janet Striffler, a sales associate at Julia B. Fee in Rye.

The grass is getting greener — but not necessarily for buyers. A house will come on the market, move rapidly and leave the status quo intact: The inventory remains low.

Jon Posner, owner of four real-estate offices in Northern Westchester and president of the Better Homes & Gardens Affiliates in Westchester, said cautious homeowners have created a bottleneck in the market. They're holding back from listing their homes because they're afraid their house will sell quicker than they'll be able to find another house to buy.

"They don't want to become homeless," said Posner, who owns the Better Homes & Gardens offices in Pound Ridge, Bedford, Cross River and Katonah.

Nor, he said, are they as courageous — or reckless — as buyers in the mid-1980s who would buy a second home with a bridge loan before selling the first.

In some cases, they're backing out of the market altogether, opting instead to stay in the existing homes and make do or remodel. The National Association of Realtors reports that remodeling activity throughout the region is strong, with jobs often hitting the six-figure mark.

But there's no indication demand for homes will weaken in the near future. Weinberg said low interest rates have brought out a slew of new buyers — people who intended to wait longer but changed their minds to take advantage of today's mortgage interest rates.

Dr. James F. Smith, chief economist for the trade organization, said sales should be robust for the next several months.

"All the favorable affordability factors that drive housing demand are at work as we approach the spring buying season, and many consumers are now going forward with their plans. They are comfortable in an environment of low unemployment, low inflation and low interest rates," he said.

Peter Bell, owner of Balch Buyers Realty, said he's signing up new clients at a rate of two or three per day. "We have to look every single morning. If something comes on, you can be sure it will go quickly," he said.