Buyer Orientation Guide · real estate agent, and gives you a a general overview of the purchasing process. Next, Stage One covers your initial agent consultation, and provides you

Seller Orientation Guide

1. Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate | RAND REALTYwww.RandRealty.com

Buyer Orientation Guide

Preparation Search Transaction

WelcomeBuyer Orientation Guide | INTRo | Welcome

Welcome to Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty

T hank you for giving us the opportunity to work with you on the purchase of your home. We look forward to providing you the services that have made Better Homes and Gardens

Rand Realty one of the largest real estate companies in the country and the leading brokerage in the region.

This Buyer Orientation Guide is our starting point for the delivery of services to you throughout the process. You will be receiving these guides throughout every stage of the purchasing process, from your initial consultation to your final closing. We’ve designed these Orientation Guides to help deliver a great service experience to you, by helping you stay informed, engaged, and proactive throughout the transaction.

The Orientation Guides will have three purposes:

• First, to fully inform you about what you can expect about each stage of the transaction.

• Second, to let you know what your agent and Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty are doing to help you find the right home.

• Third, to also let you know what you can do at each stage so that you are fully prepared for what is happening and what lies ahead.

This Introduction to the Orientation Guide provides you with information about Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty and your real estate agent, and gives you a a general overview of the purchasing process. Next, Stage One covers your initial agent consultation, and provides you with information you need to start looking for your new home. We generally send the Orientation Guides as you enter each stage of the transaction, but if you would like them all in advance, just ask your agent.

We hope you get the chance to read through the Orientation Guide before your appointment with your agent. If you do not, don’t worry, your agent will cover everything in your meeting.

Again, we thank you for the opportunity, and look forward to working with you.

Matthew RandManaging Partner

Joseph W. RandManaging Partner & General Counsel

Marsha RandCEO

The Rand Family

Buyer Orientation Guide | INTRo | Introduction

“Big Company” Advantages

When you buy your home with Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty, you harness the power of one of the country’s largest and most respected real estate companies, recognized by Real Estate Magazine and REALTOR® Magazine as one of the top 75 real estate brokerages in the country. Long recognized for its commitment to operational excellence, technological innovation, and market savvy, Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty provides you with a comprehensive array of cutting-edge tools to help you find a home:

• Our proprietary Client-Oriented Real Estate (CORE) systems that ensure operational excellence.

• The innovative technology on RandRealty.com, providing you with everything you need to search online on your computer or mobile device.

• Communication tools, including immediate email alerts when homes hit the market or drop their price.

• Full transactional integration with our partners at Hudson United, to take care of your mortgage, title, and insurance needs.

• On-demand lien searches through our title partner Hudson United Abstract, to ensure you do not get into contract on a property that will not close.

• The best “Market Intelligence” in the industry, giving you a competitive advantage over other buyers by keeping you informed about what’s happening in the real estate market.

Finally, you get the sheer comfort of knowing that you are working with the very best real estate professionals in the industry, dedicated to ensuring a quality purchasing experience.

“Small Company” Advantages

When you buy with Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty, you also get all the benefits of working with a small, family-owned, local broker deeply committed to the neighborhoods and communities we serve. Each of our offices functions as a neighborhood “boutique” broker, with its own manager directing operations and a group of local agents who live in, work in, and know our communities.

• Local Expertise: We know the nuances of our local markets better than anyone else: we know the schools, housing styles, history, local regulations, and everything else that can help smooth your transaction and find you the right home. That’s why we are the leading company in virtually every regional town and village where we operate.

• Buying Local: Just as you probably like to patronize locally-owned restaurants, shops, and other businesses, buying with Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty gives you the opportunity to support a local, family-owned company. You can be secure that our partners, employees, and agents are just as committed to local businesses as you are, rather than patronizing a company owned by people out-of-state, who don’t reinvest in our area.

• Commitment to Communities: The Rand owners have long been supporters of local charities, foundations, and community organizations, taking leadership positions in organizations such as Hospice, People to People, the regional Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, and the regional American Red Cross. And the hundreds of Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty agents and employees support and contribute to myriad local causes throughout the region.

About Better Homes & Gardens Rand RealtyWhen you buy your home, you don’t have to choose between the resources of a big company and the local expertise of a small neighborhood broker. Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty gives you the best of both worlds: a world-class real estate company that is one of the largest in the country and recognized as industry innovator, and a family-owned local business run by people who grew up here, live here, and are deeply committed to the communities we serve.

When you get the power of a big company and the intimacy of a small company, you get the best of both worlds: the influence of a large, nationally recognized organization combined with the intimacy and local expertise of your neighborhood broker.

Buyer Orientation Guide | INTRo | CORE

A t Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty, we have a plan for ensuring that you have an outstanding home

buying experience. For more than five years, we have made a commitment to creating systems, tools, and procedures to ensure that our agents deliver a consistently high service level to all of our clients. Our proprietary client care solution is called “Client-Oriented Real Estate” (CORE), which is a structured, comprehensive, and rigorous system designed to ensure that you have a great service experience buying your home, built around three primary goals:

1. ExecutionThe foundation of the CORE system is the “Buyer Project Plan,” which identifies and lists all the steps taken to find you the right home. The Project Plan follows industry best practices we’ve identified after consulting with hundreds of real estate professionals. The plan helps guarantee a great client experience by ensuring that agents complete all the steps correctly with disciplined attention to detail, and by reducing the possibility that any steps are missed. In the same way that pilots follow a “pre-flight plan” to make sure they don’t miss any steps that might endanger their passengers, and surgeons follow a “safe surgery checklist” to reduce postoperative complications, our project plans are designed to effectively narrow down your price range and preferences, follow industry best practices during your home search, and to help you complete the transaction. Your agent will show you the initial Buyer project plan during your consultation, but you will also receive the benefit of internal project plans that we use throughout our company to ensure attention to detail, reduce errors, and provide an efficient,

consistent, and high-quality client experience.

2. Communication Great relationships require good communication. You’ll see the CORE system difference at your initial consultation, which will not only provide you with an overview of our company services and marketing plan, but also identify your particular needs, concerns, and goals. Our agents use our “Buyer Consultation Guide” when they have their initial meeting with buyer clients, which provides them with all the relevant information they need to ensure that they achieve a comprehensive understanding of what you want and need in your buying experience. Similarly, we’ll keep the communication going throughout the process, with email alerts from randrealty.com anytime a property hits the market or goes through a price change.

3. InformationAt every stage of the buying process, we provide you with advice and guidance about everything you need to know about searching for a home, obtaining financing, negotiating offers, addressing inspection issues, understanding sales contracts, all the way to explaining your closing. Because information is power, we also provide you with the most comprehensive analysis of real estate market information available in the industry – what we call our “Market Intelligence” reports.

• Buyer Orientation Guides for every part of the buying process

• Buying Real Estate – Form Packets provide an explanation and bound copy of the legally-required forms for your initial consultation.

• Quarterly Market Reports that give you insight into the region, your county, and your local market.

Plus, you’ll also be able to get up-to-date information available on RandRealty.com, including our Market Intelligence Blog, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate video content, and regular updates on changing market conditions.

ConclusionAt Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty, we don’t just want to be the biggest real estate company. We want to be the best real estate company. And we believe that the way to becoming the leading company in the industry is to provide clients with the best possible service experience. That’s why we have created the innovative CORE program, and hope that you see the vast difference in how we anticipate and satisfy all your home buying needs.

Introducing Client-Oriented Real Estate (CORE)Everyone promises good service. But what systems and tools do they have to ensure delivery on that promise? A great service experience requires more than just empty promises. You need a plan.

How We Developed

the CORE SystemWe developed CORE by studying the cus-tomer service philosophies of great com-panies like Nordstroms, Four Seasons hotels, Starbucks, and Disney, to find common elements that we could incor-porate into the real estate industry.

We also integrated the lessons gleaned from books like Ken Blanchard’s Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Cus-tomer Service, William Capodagli’s The Disney Way, Robert Spector’s The Nor-dstrom Way to Customer Service Excel-lence, Danny Meyer’s Setting the Table, and Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Mani-festo.

Buyer Orientation Guide | INTRo | Getting Engaged

Real estate transactions are complicated, with a lot of moving parts: real estate brokerage,

mortgage lending, engineering inspection, legal representation, title insurance, and home insurance. Unfortunately, those parts don’t always work so well together. And when they don’t, what we often think of as the “American Dream” becomes more like a nightmare.

Indeed, as the owners of Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty, it has long been frustrating to see clients who otherwise had a wonderful service experience working with their Rand agent ultimately came out of the process miserable and unhappy – not because of anything their agent did, but because the rest of their transaction was so mishandled. The clients might have been thrilled by the work their agent did, but walked away from the deal with a sour taste because of transactional delays associated with mortgage processing or title work.

That’s one of the reasons we are delighted to be affiliated with the Hudson United family of home service companies, which provide mortgage lending, title insurance, and home insurance to many of our real estate clients. Perhaps we are “control freaks,” but we are passionate about providing our clients with an outstanding service experience, and we have found that we cannot ensure that experience without taking greater control over those moving parts of the transaction.

Hudson United Mortgage. Our full-service mortgage brokerage has access to any financial product you might need, and our mortgage officers are available to help guide you through the financing process right from the initial pre-qualification.

Hudson United Title. Our title insurance operation is one of the leading abstract

companies in the region, closing almost 1,000 transactions every year without a meaningful claim from its inception over 10 years ago.

Hudson Group Insurance. Our insurance company can provide you not only with the homeowner’s insurance that you’ll need at your closing, but with any policies you need, including auto coverage.

We encourage you to work with the professionals at Hudson United. As the owners of the company, we’ve applied the same commitment to excellence to these companies that we used when building a great real estate company. And just like with Rand Realty, you get a local, family run company, dedicated to the people and the communities in our area.

Most importantly, by putting all the moving parts of the transaction (literally) under one roof, we’re able to provide you with a better real estate experience – the integrated and seamless one-stop shopping experience that had long eluded our real estate clients:

• CORE Service. When you work with Hudson United, you get the same

passionate commitment to Client-Oriented Real Estate (CORE) that we have at Rand Realty, because we’ve brought those same CORE principles to all our affiliated companies.

• One Stop Shopping. You will have a more efficient and fluid transac-tion from the “one-stop shopping” experience that comes from all the professionals involved in your deal working together.

• Increased Accountability. You’ll benefit from the increased account-ability that your transactional profes-sionals will have not just to you, but to your real estate agent, whom they need to keep happy if they wish to continue to maintain that referral relationship.

As the founders and operators of Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty, we stand behind the outstanding service professionals at Hudson United, the same way we endorse the Rand Realty agents who form the backbone of our network of home service companies. And we hope you will have the opportunity to enjoy the one-stop shopping experience available from their combined talents.

Introducing Hudson UnitedThroughout your home buying experience, you’re going to be working not just with your agent but professionals who will service your lending, title, and insurance needs. You are always free to choose any service provider you wish, but we encourage you to meet with your representatives from Hudson United, part of the Rand family of home service companies.

Buyer Orientation Guide | INTRo | Getting Engaged

As you work with Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty, you’ll find that we follow a rigorous set of

project plans to ensure attention to detail. The plans are the hallmark of our “Client-Oriented Real Estate” philosophy: a set of checklists that set out every significant task involving the purchase of your home from your initial consultation to your closing. We have project plans and to-the-last-detail instructions for everything from identifying your preferences, qualifying for a mortgage, using randrealty.com, working with other professionals, and negotiating offers. Indeed, the fact that you’re reading this Orientation Guide is proof that your agent is following our Buyer Project Plan. It’s that kind of attention to detail and commitment to service that differentiates Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty from other brokers in the area.

But it’s not just about us, it’s about you. There are simply some things that your agent cannot do for you, and that you need to do for yourself. The most successful homebuyers are proactive and engaged in their purchase throughout the process. Indeed, the main purpose of the Orientation Guide is to help you get engaged by advising and informing you about what you need to do throughout the process. At each stage of the process, we’ll not only update you about what your agent is doing, but also what you can do to ensure that you have a great home-buying experience. From the Introduction through every stage of the transaction, we’ll give you ideas about what you can do to help make things go more smoothly.

Getting EngagedThe most successful home buyers are people who get proactively engaged in the purchasing process. Your agent is going to be hard at work finding you the right home, but there are some things he or she simply cannot do. So throughout this process, we’re going to urge you to stay involved in your transaction, which is the best way of ensuring that you have a great service experience. The first chance to be proactive in your purchase is your initial agent consultation.

The Three Stages of the Home Buying ProcessStage What Happens in this Stage?

Stage One:Preparation

In Stage One, we’ll help you get started the right way in your home buying experience. You’ll have your initial consultation with your real estate agent, which will familiarize you with the sales process, intro-duce you to our service approach, and determine your needs, goals, and concerns in buying your new home. And you’ll also set up the rest of your home buying team, and learn about all the resources available to you on RandRealty.com.

Stage Two:Search

In Stage Two, your agent will help you maneuver through the market as you start your search for your new home. You’ll learn strategies for finding the right home, get an overview of the showing process, and some advice about making the right offers.

Stage Three:Transaction

In Stage Three, your agent will guide you through the contract-to-closing process: presenting and negotiat-ing offers, setting up inspections, understanding real estate contracts, and securing financing and insur-ance coverage. You’ll also get some advice about what to expect from your closing, and how to ensure a smooth moving process.

Buyer Orientation Guide | INTRo | CORE Plan

CORE Buyer Checklist

Pre-Transaction Project PlanGet a copy of the Buyer Orientation Guide to read at your convenience.

Have your initial consultation with your buyer agent.

Review and complete your legal disclosures and agreements.

Review with your agent “What Are You Looking for in a New Home”

Get a prequalification letter from Hudson United Mortgage.

Start saving your bank statements and pay stubs for your mortgage application.

Register with randrealty.com

Set up saved searches on randrealty.com.

Add “@randrealty.com” to your “safe senders” list.

Set up a folder on your email account for your rand-realty.com email.

Save the randrealty.com web app to your smart-phone.

Set up a showing schedule with your agent.

Communicate regularly with your agent.

Review your randrealty.com email updates regularly.

Use the “Showing Project Plan” when looking at homes.

Get printouts of all show sheets.

Set up file folders for your show sheets (low-tech)

Set up a spreadsheet to track your showings (high tech)

Review all offers submitted by your agent.

Order preliminary lien searches from Hudson United Title for any offers you make.

Transactional Project PlanGet recommendations from your agent for your transaction professionals.

Contact your attorney about reviewing the contract of sale.

Attend the home inspection.

Review the home inspection report with your agent and attorney.

Review issues in the contract with your attorney.

Sign contracts of sale with your attorney.

Complete your mortgage application with your Hud-son United Mortgage rep.

Submit all your mortgage documentation.

Respond to all mortgage documentation requests promptly.

Order or have your attorney order a title report from Hudson United Title.

Discuss any title issues with your attorney.

Contact your Hudson Group Insurance rep to quote your home insurance.

Get estimate of closing costs from your attorney.

Get closing date from your attorney.

Contact movers for estimates of the cost of your move.

Hire a mover and schedule the move.

Schedule and attend the walkthrough with your agent.

Discuss any walkthrough issues with your attorney.

Attend the closing, bringing proof of identification and your checkbook.

Finalize all transaction documents at the closing.

www.RandRealty.com

Stage One:Preparation

In Stage One, you’ll have your initial consultation with your real estate agent, who will familiarize you with the sales process, introduce you

to our service approach, and determine your needs, goals, and concerns in buying your new home. In the Guide, you’ll learn about how to prepare for that meeting, how to assemble the rest of your home buying team, and how to get started using RandRealty.com.

Buyer Orientation Guide | PREPARATIoN | Chapter 1.1

The Advantages of Working with a Buyer’s AgentThe most successful home buyers are people who get proactively engaged in the purchasing process. Your agent is going to be hard at work finding you the right home, but there are some things he or she simply cannot do. So throughout this process, we’re going to urge you to stay involved in your transaction, which is the best way of ensuring that you have a great service experience. The first chance to be proactive in your purchase is your initial agent consultation.

B uying a home is easier than buying a car. The transaction is more complicated, because the stakes are so much higher, but the process is actually easier. For example,

let’s say that you’re buying a four-door sedan. To find the right car, you have to go to a bunch of different dealerships, because dealers will only sell you the cars they have in their own inventory. So depending on your price range, you might have to go to a dozen different showrooms: Chrysler, Dodge, Chevy, Honda, Ford, Acura, Infiniti, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Volvo, and all the rest. And you might even have to go to multiple dealerships that sell the same brand, since one Honda dealership can’t sell you a car held by another dealer. The process can be exhausting.

On top of that, you are always at a disadvantage when navigating the car buying process, because you’re totally on your own. That car salesman in the showroom might be the nicest guy in the world, but we all know he works for the dealer. He doesn’t work for you. His job is to get his boss the best price for the car -- which by definition means getting you the WORST price! And that salesman has huge informational advantages over you. He knows what other similar cars have sold for recently. You don’t. He knows the ins and outs of that car, and how it compares to other cars. You don’t. Even if you do all your research, you’ll never equal his product and market knowledge. It’s not an even playing field.

Now compare that to buying a home. Because of the way the real estate industry is structured, with an agent on both sides of the transaction, home buyers have a much better experience navigating the process of buying a home. Unlike car dealers, real estate brokers share all their inventory through a multiple listing service, allowing any member buyer agent to show and sell their properties. So you don’t need to visit dozens of different real estate brokers or agents in order to see the whole inventory – you just need one good agent. Regardless of who listed that property, any agent who is a member of the local MLS can show you that property.

More importantly, when you buy a home, you have the opportunity to hire an agent to represent your interests. It’s not like being at the car dealership where everyone works for the seller. Your agent works for YOU. She has fiduciary obligations to look out for your interests. Moreover, if she’s a professional,

full-time agent, she has market and product knowledge: she knows what comparable homes have sold, what homes have NOT sold, and what’s currently available on the market. That puts you on an even playing field with the seller.

You see the difference? When you buy a car, you’re on your own, and you’re always going to be at a disadvantage working with a salesperson who has superior market and product knowledge, and who negotiates the sale of cars every day for a living. But when you buy a home, you get the advantage of hiring an agent to help you sift through the inventory, advise you about what’s going on in the market and with that particular property, and then help you negotiate your deal.

And on top of all that, your buyer agent usually comes free! In most cases, buyer agents are paid by the seller out of the proceeds of the sale. If you represent yourself, you don’t get that savings in your pocket – instead, the seller or listing agent get to keep it. So if that’s the case, why are some buyers so afraid to hire a buyer agent? For example, real estate agents get calls like these all the time: “Thank you for calling Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty. How can I help you?”


“I saw your sign on a house on Ridge Road in New City. Is it still available?”

“Let me check. Yes, it’s still available. It’s got four bedrooms and three –“

“Great! Could you take me to look at it?”

“Well, I’d be happy to do that. Why don’t we make an appointment for you to come into my office so we can sit down for a few minutes and find out what your situation is? Then we can go take a look at that home and maybe some other similar listings that might meet your needs.”

“That’s okay. I just want to see that house. But I don’t want to come to your office. Can we meet there?”

We see this all the time in the real estate industry – buyers who would rather meet “at the house,” who spend months visiting open houses on their own, who waste hours staring at pictures on their laptops rather than making appointments to go see houses in person. They’ll meet an agent at the house, realize it’s not right for them, then say goodbye to that agent. A week later, they’re calling another agent on another house, meeting at the property, realize it’s not right for them, and so on. Such a waste of time!

Why are so many people afraid to hire a buyer’s agent? Sometimes, potential buyers in the early stages of looking for a home are actually too considerate for their own good. They’re afraid to call upon an agent’s services and make the agent waste a lot of time helping them if they’re not really sure they’re ready to buy. And while we do appreciate the thoughtfulness, we should make clear that this is a TERRIBLE reason not to hire an agent. That’s the job! That’s what real estate agents do! They help people just starting out in the buying process and guide them through that process. Do a lot of clients eventually choose not to buy something? Of course! But that doesn’t mean that the time spent was “wasted.” Agents don’t think that way. You shouldn’t either.

The biggest reason, though, is that buyers are afraid of “salespeople.” They’re terrified of the “hard sell.” They fear getting a “pushy” agent who is going to pressure them into buying a home before they’re ready. We particularly see this with potential clients who are in the early stages of

“just looking,” and who are afraid of agents inundating them with phone calls and emails once they express any kind of interest in buying a home. It’s like when you go into a department store and try to avoid the sales clerk because you’re really “just looking” and don’t want the clerk hovering over you for the whole time.

We can certainly understand why some buyers feel that way, because the real estate industry has a pretty well-deserved reputation for aggressive sales techniques that can sometimes make buyers feel uncomfortably pressured. But let’s also recognize a few important things:

But if you find that your agent is making you uncomfortable, just say something! Your agent works for YOU, so she should accommodate to your needs and comfort level. If the agent is a professional, she should get the message, and you won’t have to worry about working with a “pushy” agent.

“Ultimately, we understand”.

Ultimately, we understand and appreciate that people are afraid of dealing with a “salesperson.” That’s why Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty has pioneered the “client-oriented” approach to real estate brokerage that emphasizes our agents’ roles as service professionals rather than “salespeople,” and encourages agents to take a proactive approach to identifying

and satisfying our clients’ needs – including the need NOT to be sold to. We don’t want our real estate

agents to act as “salespeople” any more than you do. So we hope that you’ll realize

that having an agent is good thing, not something to shy away from. A fear of

sales pressure is a really bad reason to deny yourself the services of a good real estate agent, particularly when it is so easy to dispel that pressure and focus the agent on providing you with the services you need.

Rather, you should think about all the advantages you get with a good

buyer’s agent:

First, your buyer’s agent acts as a fiduciary representative, legally bound to

look out for your best interests. If you’ve never bought a home before, or you last bought a home prior to the mid-1990s, you might not even realize that buyer agents have that fiduciary responsibility to their clients, because buyer agency did not exist in New York until about 20 years ago. But it’s now one of the most important advantages you have in buying a home


with an agent. Indeed, the fiduciary relationship with your agent is similar to the attorney-client relationship that you’re probably familiar with: among other responsibilities, your agent has the duties to be loyal only to you, keep your confidences, and make all disclosures to you of any material facts. When you get a buyer’s agent, you’re not getting a “salesperson” – you’re getting someone who is on your side, representing your interests.

Second, working with a buyer agent gives you several competitive advantages that you cannot get working on your own. Some of those advantages, including advantages that you can only get working with a Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty agent, are:

• Access to sold property data. Even in the information age, it’s difficult for lay people to get full and complete access to sold information, which is crucial for helping you determine the market value of unsold listings and in preparing your offers.

• Preliminary lien searches. Because of our affiliate relationship with Hudson United Abstract, your agent can order a preliminary lien search on any property you place an offer on, which can help you in formulating your pricing strategy or identifying “red flags” on the title that might delay your transaction.

• The intermediary negotiating role. Any professional negotiator will tell you how important it can be to have someone act as an intermediary in any negotiation, to deflect persuasive pressures and allow you to limit bargaining authority from “outside the room.”

• Neighborhood Expertise. A good real estate agent knows the neighborhoods, and can provide you with information that goes beyond the four corners of the listing detail sheet, information that might be crucial for determining the true market price.

• Transactional Facilitation. A real estate agent’s job doesn’t end when you reach a meeting of the minds with a seller – rather, the agent then becomes a facilitator, coordinating all the other professionals in the transaction to make sure you have a smooth transition through to your closing.

And that’s only a short list of some of the biggest advantages you have in hiring a good buyer’s agent. Basically, good agents add

value to your home buying process.

Third, a buyer agent provides a range of services that will help you have a better transactional experience. From your first consultation to your final closing, your agent is responsible for a wide array of services that you will need to ensure a smooth home buying experience. Throughout the process, your buyer agent will stay in constant communication with you, through phone or email, to make sure you’re up-to-date with what’s happening in the market, your home search, and your transaction.

Finally, you generally do not pay for your buyer agent’s services, because the seller usually pays all the broker fees out of the proceeds of the sale. It’s really one of the best deals in the industry: you get all the services of a buyer agent to represent your own interests, help you find the right home to buy, and facilitate the entire purchasing process, and you don’t even have to pay for it. In certain cases, sellers do not offer to pay buyer agent fees, but your agent will make that clear to you when you look at the home, so you will be able to condition your offer on the seller paying the agent out of the sale proceeds. Generally, though, you get all the benefits of buyer agency without any of the direct costs.

Conclusion

Ultimately, this is one of the best deals you’ll ever have. Your buyer agent will work tirelessly on your behalf, always in your best interest, and in the end it will be the seller who pays your agent for those services. Think of it this way – real estate agents have a full-time job in helping buyers through the transactional process. If they’re not around to do that job for you, then you have to do it for yourself. And you probably have your own job.

Working with Multiple AgentsIf working with one agent is good, is working with multiple agents better? Answer: No! Sometimes, buyers like to work with multiple agents because they think that they’ll get more work done that way. But all that does is undermine the relationship you could develop with one agent, and waste a lot of your time. All agents in the local MLS have access to the same inventory of listings, so working with multiple agents means that you’ll probably end up seeing the same properties over and over again. Moreover, you’ll find that one of the most important aspects of the agent-client relationship is the insight that an agent gets from working with you over time, which requires a long-term, deep, and exclusive relationship between you and your agent. Don’t play the field. Make a commitment to the right agent.

Agent Services Through All Three Stages of Your Home Buying Experience

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Explain the entire transactional process, so you’re fully informed about what you can expect during your purchase.

Help you navigate the buying process, to avoid delays and pitfalls throughout your transaction.

Help you discover your needs, wants, and desires in purchasing a home, helping you narrow down your home buying preferences and introducing considerations that you may have overlooked.

Connect you to a qualified mortgage professional to help you fully understand the financing process, get prequalified for a loan, and ultimately provide you with your home financing.

Help you assemble the rest of your home buying team, including your engineering inspector, attor-ney, title representative, and insurance representative.

Provide ongoing information about the housing market in your target areas to help you stay on top of pricing trends.

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Set you up with saved searches so that you get email alerts whenever a relevant property hits the market, has a price change, or gets updated.

Help you review available inventory and find the home that suits your needs, wants, and desires.

Create buyer tours and comparative market analyses on properties you see, to help you in preparing the terms of your offers.

Schedule your appointments, and help you navigate through the inventory of homes available.

Professionally present your offers and negotiate the purchase of your home to ensure you get the best terms possible.

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Obtain a preliminary lien search report from Hudson United Title to determine whether your potential purchase is burdened with liens that might delay your closing.

Order and attend a property inspection and review all findings with you to help determine whether the property condition should affect your offer.

Assist your attorney in preparing the terms of a contract of sale.

Coordinate all the members of your home-buying team – finance, legal, title, insurance – to ensure a seamless transaction.

Attend the walkthrough prior to the closing to make sure that the property condition is acceptable to you.

Attend the closing to be available as a resource for any last-minute issues that crop up.



What Are You Looking For?Your first consultation with your buyer agent is an important step in setting the right course for the rest of your home buying experience. It’s a great opportunity to share with the agent your hopes, wants, and desires about the process, and to ensure that your agent knows exactly how to best service your needs. In order to have the best possible first consultation, we encourage you to prepare for the meeting by thinking about what you want from your home buying process.

W e want to give you some information about what you can do before your initial

consultation with your buyer’s agent. This will ensure a more productive meeting, consistent with our overall advice to be actively engaged throughout your buying process.

At your initial consultation, your agent will ask you questions about your familiarity with the buying process, your preferences in the type of home you want, your geographic needs, and your purchasing power. We will also be asking about any particular concerns or needs you have about buying a home.

You will have a more productive meeting if you think about those questions in advance. You have no obligation to prepare ahead, but you’ll find that you’ll get more out of the meeting if you think about these issues before you’re sitting down with your agent. Moreover, this exercise will also help you get into the right frame of mind about your home search process, and help get you into the practice of being more proactive about the entire process.

Here are some of the questions you should consider before sitting down with your agent for the first time.

Why Are You Moving?People move for all sorts of reasons, and it’s helpful for your agent to know about your particular motivations so that he or she can help prepare to get your process moving at the pace you desire.

• What’s the reason for your move?

• What’s the time frame of when you want to be in your new home?

• Have you already started looking on your own? What have you found that interests you?

Remember that buying a home can take a long time. Most of our clients spend months in just the home search process, and once you find the home that you want to purchase, you’ll likely spend three to four months more completing all the transactional work that is required to execute a contract, secure financing, and finishing all the other tasks required to get your purchase closed.

How Well Do You Know the Home Buying Process?You should be prepared to discuss with your agent your comfort level and familiarity with the buying and financing process. This will help your agent in gauging the amount and type of information you should be getting throughout the process.

• Have you done this before, or are you otherwise familiar with the process of buying a home?

• What are your biggest concerns about buying a home?

• Are you familiar with the current state of the regional housing market?

• How comfortable are you using technology to search for a home, like on randrealty.com?

All our clients are different. Some have purchased homes recently, and know exactly what to expect. Others are first-time home buyers apprehensive about what they should expect from the process. Whatever your situation, you want to make sure your agent knows what you need from us to help you fully understand the process.

What Do You Want From Your Agent?You should think about what you’re looking for from your Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty agent to ensure that your agent knows how to best service your needs.

• What are you looking for in an agent?

• What’s the most important quality you look for in service professionals?

• How do you want to communicate with your agent: phone, email, text, or only in-person?

• How often do you want to hear from your agent: daily, regularly, or only when new properties come onto the market?

• How often do you want to go look at properties, and are you already looking on your own?


Our goal at Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty is to ensure that you have an outstanding home buying experience. The first step for making that happen is to know exactly how you want to be serviced, so make sure you explain to your agent what it is you want from him or her.

How Familiar Are You With the Financing Process?You should feel comfortable discussing your financial situation with your real estate agent, since all our agents are licensed professionals who are qualified to help determine your purchasing power. You should absolutely have a good sense of your purchasing power before you spend time looking at houses that might be above or below your proper price range.

• What price range do you think you qualify for, based on your income and your savings?

• How much are you comfortable spending for your monthly mortgage payment, insurance, and property taxes?

• How comfortable are you with your understanding of the financing process, which has become more complicated in the past few years?

• Have you been pre-qualified for a mortgage amount by a local mortgage consultant, or do you need to talk with a Hudson United Mortgage representative?

If you would be more comfortable discussing finances with a mortgage consultant, have your agent contact one of our Hudson

United Mortgage representatives to discuss financing with you.

What Are You Looking For in Your New Home?Finally, and most importantly, you should take some time to think through what you’ll looking for in your new home. Now, you might have a general idea of the kind of home you like, but you’ll be amazed at the myriad choices that you’ll have once you start looking at the properties that are available.

The list of questions below are designed to prompt you to think about all the various considerations that might go into your home purchase. Some of these questions will address issues that are unimportant to you, but some might spark you to realize that you have particularly needs and desires that you’re going to want to satisfy in your new home. So think about each of these questions, and if they prompt some ideas then be sure to share them with your agent.

Ultimately, though, even as you go through the exercise of thinking about the kind of

home you want, it’s important to keep an open mind. What a lot of home buyers find is that they end up purchasing a home that is very different from the types of homes they initially started looking for when they began the process. They start out looking in a particular town for a specific home style, but once they begin looking at what’s available they fall in love with a totally differently-styled home that is completely outside their original market area. That’s a very normal part of the process, so don’t be alarmed as your tastes evolve.

ConclusionYour initial consultation with your Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty agent is just the first step of your home purchasing process, but it’s an important step. It’s your first opportunity to really think through what you want from your agent, what you’re concerned about with the process, and what kind of home you’re looking for. So please take some to think about these issues before you meet with your agent, to ensure that you have the best possible first meeting and get things started on the right foot.

The Buyer Disclosure PacketBuying a home is a serious financial and legal transaction, so at Better Homes and Gar-dens Rand Realty we are deeply committed to ensuring that you fully understand your legal obligations and protections. That’s why we have created what we call the “Buyer Disclosure Packet,” which is a professionally designed package containing all the docu-ments relating to your home purchase. Your agent will present your Disclosure Packet on your first meeting, and will go over all the forms with you. The Packet might seem overwhelming at first, but remember that these documents are designed for your pro-tection, and are required by federal law, state regulation, or the Realtor Code of Ethics. If you’ve met other agents who didn’t ask you to fill out these forms, you should wonder why they’re shirking their legal obligations to advise you of your rights!


Location

Size and Style

What Are You Looking for in a New Home: Questions You Should Consider Before Meeting with Your Agent

What area would you like to move to, and why?

What size of a home are you looking for, in a general square footage range?

Do you have any particular and unusual needs in a home that the agent should know about, such as large pets or residents with disabilities that need accommodation?

Are there other areas you would consider?

How many bedrooms and baths do you need?

Do you have any particular preference for lot size? Do you have a particular preference

for block location (e.g., corner lot, cul-de-sac, etc.)?

Are any of these things “must haves,” or are they just preferences? If they’re just preferences, which of them is most important?

Where will you be working, and what type of commute are you comfortable with?

What type of home (ranch, raised-ranch, colonial, contemporary, etc.) are you looking for?

Is proximity to particular religious institutions important to you?

Do you have any particular preferences for amenities (e.g., pool, master bedroom on the first floor, fireplaces, etc.)?

Are school districts important to you, and is proximity to local schools important to you?

Do you have any kitchen preferences (certain style of appliances, eat-in-kitchen, etc.)

Will you be working inside the home, and do you need a designated home office?


Personal Tastes

What Are You Looking for in a New Home: Questions You Should Consider Before Meeting with Your Agent

Do you want a lively neighborhood, or do you like privacy?

Do you like a big open floorplan, or do you prefer a more traditional layout with defined room spaces?

PERSONAL TASTES Do you prefer a home that is a “hub of activity,” or do you prefer a quiet retreat away from the world?

Have you visited homes that you liked for their unique features, and what were they?

Who will be living in the home, and is there a possibility in the future that the number of people living there might change?

What are the most important “must-have” features for your new home? What’s your highest priority?

What features of your previous homes did you like the most? What did you like the least?

Is there something you disliked about your previous home, and would you like to avoid that in your new home?


Are You Looking Outside Our Market Area?Although Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty services a wide geographic area, we often work with buyer clients who are also looking outside our market area. If you are also considering moving to places like Long Island, Connecticut, or even a market area that Rand covers but is not directly serviced by your agent, you should absolutely tell your agent that you need help outside of the market area that he or she covers. This will allow your agent to refer you to another Rand agent that does serve the market area, or to one of our “referral partners” who can ensure that you have a great buying experience.

What’s are the benefits to you of being referred?

• First, you’ll find that you’ll have a better experience if your agents covering the different market areas are working together, rather than “competing” to get you to buy in their area. They’ll be able to share information during your process as they learn about what you like and don’t like in homes that they show you.

• Second, you’ll be assured that you’re only working with agents that meet the high standards we have for our referral agents.

• And third, you’ll find that your referred agent will work hard to ensure you have a good buying experience, because he or she will know that future referrals depend on your providing us with posi-tive feedback about their performance.

So if you are thinking about looking outside our market area, or outside the are serviced by your agent, you should let your agent know so we can make sure all of your home buying needs are met.


Assembling Your TeamBuying a home requires more than just the services of a great real estate agent. You are going to need a team of real estate specialists to help you with your financing, legal, and insurance needs. A great team can make a big difference in your real estate transactional experience, so it’s important to start assembling that team as soon as possible.

B uying a home is a big project. It’s not something you can do yourself, and it’s not something that even

the best real estate agent in the world can do by herself. Like any big project, you need more than just one person. You need a team.

Your real estate agent is like the quarterback of your team, the most important player, the one who has the ball in her hands for most of the game. Indeed, her primary role through much of the process will be directly helping you find that home: taking you on showings, evaluating the market, preparing and presenting offers, and reaching a meeting of the minds with a seller.

But once you’ve reached an accepted offer with a seller, your agent’s role becomes much more facilitative. She doesn’t have much direct work to do once you’ve found the home you’re going to purchase, but now has the primary role of coordinating and directing the rest of the players on your team. Like the quarterback, her role is to set the formation, call the plays, and make sure everyone else is doing their job correctly.

The PlayersHere are some of the players that you’ll need on your home buying team:

• Loan Officer. Your loan officer is responsible for ensuring that you get financing for your home purchase. You should start working with your loan officer right at the beginning of your process, getting prequalified so that you know how much home you can afford.

• Home Inspector. Once you have an accepted offer on a home, you’ll need

an inspection to ensure that the home is fundamentally sound. Your home inspector will review the condition of the home, and prepare a report that you’ll be able to review with your agent before you sign contracts to purchase the home.

• Real Estate Attorney. Your attorney will counsel you about your rights and responsibilities under your contract of sale, and negotiate the final terms of the deal with the seller’s agent.

• Title Representative. Your title rep will order your title insurance, which you’ll need to protect against adverse claims of ownership. And if you’re working with Hudson United, you can order preliminary lien searches during your home search process to gather important information about homes you’re placing offers on.

• Home Insurance Representative. You will need full home insurance coverage before your closing. As always, we urge you to be prepared in advance, and one way to do that is make contact with your Hudson United Insurance representative early

in the process, discuss your insurance options, and then be able to secure coverage quickly.

Throughout your home buying process, it’s your agent’s job to facilitate the work of all these professionals. She’ll coordinate with the loan officer, schedule and attend the inspection, provide your attorney with all the deal terms, order preliminary lien searches from your title representative, and provide whatever information your insurance representative needs to make sure you have coverage at your closing. Like the quarterback, a good real estate agent knows how to get the most out of the other players on the team.

Hudson United

Hotline

1(845) 825-8061If you ever need your Hudson United mortgage, title, or insurance repre-sentatives, you can call our hotline number and talk to a customer service representative who can connect you to the people you need.


Choosing Your TeamNow that you know the players, the next question is about choosing up sides. If you want to have the best possible transactional experience, we have some recommendations about how you should pick the professionals that you’re going to have on your home buying team:

First, trust your agent’s guidance in choosing your real estate professionals. Your agent is going to have to coordinate all the moving parts of your real estate transaction, so you will most likely have a better experience if you agent is working with professionals that she has worked with in the past. Your team will perform better if the players have more experience working together. Moreover, trusting your agent’s recommendations is also a great way to ensure the quality of the professionals you’re going to work with. Those professionals know how important it is to maintain their service reputation in the industry, to ensure that they continue to get referrals from real estate agents. After all, you’re likely to do only one real estate transaction in the next few years, but your agent will do many transactions this year and have many more opportunities to refer service professionals. Those attorneys, engineers, and mortgage officers want to stay on that referral list.

Second, hire only local professionals with expertise in your market area. Too many buyers make the mistake of hiring out-of-market professionals who are not familiar with the local market when buying a home. They’ll try to get financing from some online mortgage company because they get seduced by some “bait and switch” rate that will mysteriously be unavailable once they are getting ready to close. Or they’ll try to save a few bucks by getting relatives who happen to be attorneys to handle their contract and closing, even though they don’t normally do real estate law. Don’t make these mistakes. Trust your agent to refer you to professionals who know the local area and have a strong reputation in the local industry. Hiring out of market lenders, attorneys, or engineers might look like a good deal, but it almost always causes delays or difficulties for your home buying process.

Third, don’t wait until the last minute. We include this section on “Assembling Your Team” in the Preparation Stage of the Orientation Guide for a reason – because it’s important for you to start planning ahead in choosing the professionals who are going to help you through your real estate transaction. For example, most buyers make the mistake of waiting until they have an accepted offer to hire an attorney, which invariably causes delays in

the process while they find the attorney, make first contact, have a consultation, and then start the process of reviewing the sales contract. Similarly, too many buyers find themselves scrambling to get home insurance coverage the day before their closing, because they failed to plan ahead.

That’s why you should start assembling your team now. Ask your agent for referrals for the professionals you will need throughout the process. Establish those relationships. It doesn’t take a lot of your time, or their time, to have a five-minute conversation to put them on notice that you might need their services sometime in the future. And then they’ll be available to you throughout the process whenever you have questions that you need answered. You’re going to need them eventually, so why not hire them now?

ConclusionFinally, we also encourage you to meet with the professionals from Hudson United, who can provide you with an integrated and seamless “one stop shopping” experience for your mortgage, title, and insurance needs. The better the working relationships among your team members, the easier it will be to ensure that you have a great transactional experience with Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty.


Getting Pre-QualifiedGetting a mortgage will be the most difficult part of your home buying process, but you can have a better experience if you get prepared and start working with your loan officer right from the beginning.

T he hardest part about buying a home is getting a mortgage. For the most part, you will actually

enjoy the home buying process: after all, looking at homes is like “shopping,” and most people enjoy shopping. Looking at homes online, going on showings with your agent, getting to know the different areas and neighborhoods – those are all the fun parts about buying a home.

But the mortgage process is messy, complicated, and often intimidating. That’s why we want you to be prepared. Our general advice to be engaged and proactive is particularly important for getting a mortgage. If you’re actively involved throughout the mortgage process, and if you start planning ahead now, you’ll have a much more pleasurable experience.

Because the mortgage process is so central to your home buying experience, you should have a general sense of how that process will develop:

• Initial Consultation. You’ll meet briefly with your loan officer and get a pre-qualification letter to advise you of your general price range.

• Application. Once you find a home to purchase, you’ll complete a formal mortgage application to your lender.

• Processing. Your loan processor, who works with your mortgage officer, will review your file and probably contact you about supplementing it with some supporting documentation.

• Underwriting. Your processor will submit the file to an underwriter, who could deny or approve the application, but will more likely issue a “conditional commitment” required more documentation or clarification.

• Clear to Close. Once you have satisfied all the conditions, your bank will issue a commitment letter and you will be “clear to close” your transaction.

How can you be more engaged, so that you are better prepared? Most importantly, you should meet with a loan officer right away. At Hudson United Mortgage, our affiliate lending company, we encourage our clients to meet with a loan officer right at the beginning of their home search, because even a short consultation can answer your questions about the current rate environment, assuage some of your concerns about the process, and also help you get a better sense of your buying power. Too many buyers start looking for a home without a clear idea of how much they can afford, and they waste a lot of time looking at homes that are above, or below, their actual price range.

At your initial consultation with your loan officer, you should be prepared to discuss in some detail your financial situation. Remember that loan officers, at least the ones with Hudson United, are under strict licensing requirements to protect the privacy of your information and keep your confidences, so you should feel free to discuss your personal situation without holding anything back. Your loan officer will review your financial profile, give you a general sense of your price range, describe the current interest rate environment, and explain the various mortgage products that might be available to you.

Most importantly, by having that initial consultation with your loan officer, you’ll be able to get a pre-qualification letter: a statement on the bank’s letterhead indicating that you have been “qualified” for a particular price range. Now, you

should be aware that a pre-qualification letter is not a firm commitment from the bank – you won’t get anything like that until you complete and submit a formal loan application, which you cannot do until you actually find a home to buy. Rather, the pre-qualification letter is really just a general indication of your buying power.

But the pre-qualification letter is still important for two major reasons:

First, it will allow you to go through the process of discussing your financial situation with your loan officer, which will ensure that you have a good sense of your true price range before you go out and start looking at properties.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, a pre-qualification letter from a reputable lender like Hudson United is almost a

Price Range ShortcutsHere are some simple rules of thumb to help you figure out your general price range:

1. The 3.5x Income Rule

Take your income and multiply it by 3.5 – that’s how much home you can afford, assuming that you can also make a reasonable down payment and have decent credit. (This used to be the “3x” rule, but when interest rates are in the 3-5% range, it’s 3.5x).

2. One-Quarter of Income Rule

On the other side, to figure out how much of a monthly payment you can afford, take one-quarter of your monthly income. Assuming decent credit, that’s how much you can reasonably spend on your mortgage payment.

“stamp of approval” for sellers and listing agents. In a competitive environment for buyers, a pre-qualification letter indicates that you are credible and serious, and that you have the general financial wherewithal to back up your purchase offers. Indeed, many sellers demand a pre-qualification letter before they will even consider your offers!

All that said, we should note that a pre-qualification letter is not a binding commitment from the bank. You won’t get any kind of formal approval until you

have identified a property to buy and have submitted a full application to a lender. Rather, the pre-qualification letter is designed to give you just a general idea of your price range, so that you have a better sense of what you can afford when you start looking for a home.

Accordingly, we strongly urge that you have a short sit-down with your loan officer early in your buying process. By forging that connection with your loan officer, you’ll secure one of the most important members of your home buying

“team,” and someone you can then contact whenever you have financial questions or issues.

ConclusionThis is really only a general introduction to the mortgage process. If you want a more comprehensive overview of mortgage products, qualification guidelines, and interest rates, check out the Hudson United Transaction Orientation Guide, which is available from your Hudson United mortgage loan officer or your agent.


Getting a Prequalification LetterIf you do not yet have a prequalification letter, just call 1.866.721.7263 to speak to a Hudson United Mortgage loan officer. We can arrange to get your prequalified over the phone and have a letter emailed or faxed to you immediately.


Getting Started with RandRealty.comThe first step in your home search process is setting yourself up on randrealty.com, the premier real estate website in our region. In this section, you’ll find out about all the features on the site and learn how to register so that you can get email alerts for your saved searches and properties.

T he Rand organization has always been one of the leading technology companies in real estate,

recognized throughout the industry as a cutting-edge pioneer committed to providing our agents and clients with the best tools possible. The centerpiece of our dedication to technological innovation is randrealty.com, our award-winning website providing the best real estate search and property display features available in the industry.

The randrealty.com site has long been at the leading edge of the regional real estate industry. We were the first company to provide full multiple listing inventory, the first to add multiple pictures, the first to provide mapping and address information, the first to adopt blogging and social media integration. We are constantly innovating the site, adding new features and capabilities designed to provided our clients with the best experience possible.

Today, randrealty.com gives you access to every property for sale through all the multiple listing systems in the region, with powerful, intuitive and easy search features. We also provide access to innumerable resources that you might need during your home search, including market data, school reports, and even design and decorating videos and articles from Better Homes and Gardens.

Site FeaturesHere are some of the feature highlights of randrealty.com:

• All the listings. Randrealty.com is one of the few places you can go to get listings of the entire regional area, so you don’t have to look in different places if your search takes you across a county or state border.

• Powerful search tools. You can do quick searches right from the home page, or do an advanced search to pinpoint the types of homes you are looking for, including multiple area searches with simple check boxes (not those “hold down the CTRL-key while you….”-type systems).

• Open house listings. Open house listings are updated every week if you want to narrow your search just to homes available for public viewing that weekend.

• Community Insight. If you want to research the local area, you can find comprehensive demographic reports and school information for all our communities and school districts. And you should also check out Community Heartbeat, our lifestyle blog for our local communities, featuring local attractions, village and town profiles, and picture tours.

• Lifestyle resources. To learn more about home design, decoration, and improvement, take a look at the videos and articles from Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, which cover everything from do-it-yourself projects to design trends to home makeovers.

• Market Intelligence Blog. Our company blog features analysis and commentary on the national and regional real estate markets, and advice for our clients.

Ultimately, our goal is to make randrealty.com your bookmarked site for anything you need to know about local real estate, not only during your home search but after you close. Indeed, the site gets almost two million yearly visitors, about 100 times the number of people who buy a home in our region every year, which

means that most of the visitors to our site aren’t even in the market to buy a home.

Property Detail PageOnce you’re done your searches on randrealty.com, you’ll notice the elegant, intuitive design of the property detail pages, which provide all the information available from the multiple listing system, and even more information for the many listings with our company. In addition, we have integrated a number resources into the site to give you features like mapping, demographic information, market data, and school information.

Here are some of the highlight features of the property detail pages

• Up to 50 high-resolution photos. We display all the photos provided by the MLS in the highest resolution possible, with up to 50 photos available for our own listings.

• Full property descriptions. Unlike some sites, we do not have a maximum character count for our property descriptions, so you won’t miss out on a particularly lengthy home profile.

• Property addresses and mapping. Every listing has the property address and all Google map features, so you can see where the home is, toggle to a satellite view of the property on Google Earth, and get driving directions. The satellite views are particularly helpful for getting a sense of the property line and dimensions.

• The Toolbox. Every local area has its own “toolbox,” which is a collection of school reports, demographic information, and a community tour from the Community Heartbeat blog, so you can do in-depth research of that individual property.

• Sharing and printing options. You can share any property via email, or on any of a myriad of social media sites. You can also print an informational flyer if you want to get a copy of the property for your files.

• Saving options. You can save the property to your “favorites” list to track it and register for email alerts on it.

Most importantly, randrealty.com provides you with all the information we can get from the local multiple listing system. We don’t prioritize our own listings, manipulate search results, or penalize other brokers by limiting the information we’ll provide on their listings, because that would not be a good service to you – the user of the site. We want you to feel comfortable relying on the information on randrealty.com as the most up-to-date, comprehensive, and accurate property information available on properties for sale in your area.

Using National Real Estate SitesWe truly believe that randrealty.com is the single best real estate website for doing home searches in our local region. If you want proof, just do some searches on randrealty.com, and then check the results, and the information displayed on the property detail pages, against any of our competitors – even the national sites.

Indeed, many of our clients come to us after using national real estate sites like Zillow, Trulia, or Realtor.com. Those are great websites, and we partner with them to display our listings, but they can’t compare to the sheer number of listings, the depth of informational detail on those listings, and the accuracy of randrealty.com. After all, the most important feature for any real estate website is timely, comprehensive, complete, and accurate data of the homes for sale, and

none of the national sites have or display the amount of property information that we do:

• They don’t have all the listings. Brokers can (and often do) opt out of providing their listings to national sites, so those sites don’t have all the listings that are available on randrealty.com.

• They don’t provide all the listing information. Those sites make money by charging brokers to “upgrade” their listings with full displays of all the pictures and listing information. Some brokers don’t pay, so the sites often present a minimal number of pictures or truncated information.

• They are often inaccurate. The MLS inventories of properties for sale are huge and complex databases, and data errors are unavoidable. We look out for these errors and fix them when we find them, but the national sites have to monitor hundreds of MLS systems and can’t possibly keep the same level of attention that we can.

• Their search results are often misleading. Most of the sites, again based on their business models, manipulate search results to put certain properties higher in the results, which can often cause you to miss homes that might be more relevant to your query – but which did not pay to get a priority placement. All search results on randrealty.com display by default in price order from high to low.

The bottom line is that you’ll find more listings, with greater and more accurate information, on randrealty.com. With all that said, though, we certainly work with many clients who use both our site and one or more of the national sites, so you should do your research on whatever site works best for you.


Going Mobile

The randrealty.com site is fully optimized for smartphones and tablets, with a “web app” accessible from any device. Just visit www.randrealty.com on your browser and follow the instructions to save the site to install the web app to your system. If you would like to use an integrated app, we recommend the Realtor.com app, which is available on all major smartphone and tablet platforms and is the best of the national real estate apps. Once you’re on the app, connect with your agent, who can then collaborate with you on searches, send you properties, and get direct requests from you for showings.

Saved Properties. You can save any property you’re viewing on the site by clicking the “Save Listing” link right underneath the photographs. That property will be saved to “My Homepage”, and you’ll get an email alert when any information on that property changes (e.g., price changes, new photos, etc.).

Saved Searches. You can set up a saved search anytime you use the “Search” function on the site. Just be sure to check off the box labeled “Save this “Search” before you hit the “Search” button. Saved searches are great for two reasons: first, because they allow you to run a search right from your “My Homepage” without having to re-enter the criteria every time; and second, because those searches will generate email alerts to you anytime there’s a change to a property responsive to the search.

Email Alerts. Whenever you get a “hit” on a saved search, or whenever information on a saved property changes, you’ll get an email alert at the email address you registered with. Make sure to add the “@randrealty.com” email domain to your “safe senders” list on your email account, to avoid having the emails mislabeled as spam. Also, it’s a good idea to set up a “smart folder” on your email account to segregate your randrealty.com email, so that you can find it easily and it doesn’t clutter up your inbox.


Go to the “Register Me” PageGo to www.randrealty.com and click on the “Register Me” link along the top navigation bar, on the right. You’ll come to the registration page. Fill in your email address, and then create a password for the site and enter it twice. Then click the button for “Get Free Access.” You should go to a page indicating that your registration was successful.

Go to the “My Account” PageGo back to the navigation bar at the top and click on the “My Account” link. Fill in as much information as you would like. None of the information is required, but it will help personalize your experience on the site.

Select Your AgentOn that “My Account” information page, select your agent where it says “Agent Information.” Just pull down the menu, and find your agent – the agents are sorted by last name. Make sure you do this, because it will create a connection on the site between you and your agent, and help you communicate. If you do not have an agent yet, and would like our help assigning the right agent for you, click on the “Please have a Rand representative contact me” box. Make sure to hit “Save Data.”

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Registering on the Site

Using the SiteThat’s it! You’re done and on the site. Now, you’ll notice there’s a new link at the top of the navigation bar called “My Homepage.” This is where you will go to see your saved properties and saved searches, which are important features that you’ll be using a lot during your home buying process:

www.RandRealty.com

Stage Two:Search

Searching for a home can be a fun experience. When you’re thinking of buying a home, every neighborhood is one big department store filled with

stuff that you might want to buy. And most people like to go look at homes – indeed, any real estate agent can tell you that her open houses are often filled with people who aren’t even thinking of moving, but just like to “window-shop” what’s on the market.

And just as real shopping is more fun than window-shopping, actually looking for a new home for yourself is a lot more interesting that just checking out open houses. You get to explore new neighborhoods and imagine what it might be like to live there. You get to walk through a home visualizing yourself having dinner there, raising your family there, having parties there – basically, living there. Even more fun, you get to see how other people live, and render snarky judgments on their decorating choices!

So enjoy this part of the process. After all, once you find the home you want to buy, the fun ends and the hard slog of contracts and mortgage papers and moving begins.

B efore you get started in your home search, we wanted to share with you ten fundamental principles about home buying that you might find helpful.

1. Get to know the market, but don’t take forever.Very few people are lucky enough to find their perfect home in the first showing, or even in the first couple of showings. Indeed, finding your “dream home” in the first showing can actually be counter-productive, because you’ll immediately think about all the other homes that might be EVEN BETTER that are still out there, without realizing that you lucked into the perfect home on the first try. So take your time to get to know your market and learn the inventory. Over time, you’ll get a sense of what you like and don’t like, and what’s a reasonable expectation given your price range. That said, of course, you should eventually come to the point that you’re confident in your read on the market, which is when you need to be ready to pull the trigger. Buyers who hold out for perfection often find the market passing them buy, as one great home after another gets snapped up while they’re deep in deliberation.

2. Buy something you love, but realize you won’t love everything about it.Buying a home is like falling in love with your spouse. You go on the market, you check out the “inventory,” and you find someone that you absolutely love and want to spend the rest of your life with. But no matter how much you might love your spouse, you’re never going to love everything about him or her. It’s the same with buying a home. You’re buying a home for $350,000, and wish you could have that extra bedroom that the $500,000 house has. But that guy buying a $500,000 house really wishes he could afford the $700,000 house and get a bigger lot. And the guy buying the $700,000 house is frustrated that he can’t get the finished basement that’s available in the $900,000 house. It’s that way all the up the scale. It doesn’t matter what price range you’re in, because there’s always SOMETHING in that home you don’t like and wish you could change. But if you could change it, then the home would be worth a little more and then you wouldn’t be able to afford it. And if you COULD afford it, you’d move up in price range and find something new to aspire to – and to be disappointed with.

3. Buy value, or where you can add value. When you’re buying a home, don’t be so focused on finding a “steal.” In an open market, it’s very tough to find something that is severely undervalued. More importantly, you don’t need to find a “steal,” you just need to find a home with value. And as you get to know the inventory, you’ll start to see where the values are. You might find value in a well-made home in a desirable area that

you believe will appreciate well. Or you might find value in a home that is in an up-and-coming area that will develop over time and boost home prices. Moreover, you should look for a home where you can ADD value: a house that doesn’t show well because of it’s condition, but which will be worth much more once you make some cheap repairs and clean it up. Or a home with property taxes that are too high, but which you think you can get reduced with a grievance. Ultimately, in the kind of market we’re in right now, finding value is relatively easy, because property values are likely to increase across the board over the next few years.

4. Keep an open mind.Most people start their home searches with a very firm idea of what they’re looking for. But you’d be surprised at how many of them end up buying a home that is completely different from the one they thought they’d be buying. Maybe they changed their location preferences once they got to know the areas better. Maybe they realized they didn’t want a big house yet, and decided to get a condo. Maybe they fell in love with an old-fashioned Victorian layout, even thought they started out wanting a modern floor plan. That happens all the time. So while it’s important for you to have a good sense of the kind of home you want, keep an open mind during your search process, and don’t be so fixed on those goals that you miss out on opportunities you might like.

5. You’re buying the home, not the furnishings.Smart buyers have the ability to look past the superficial nature of how a home shows. Always remember that you’re buying the home itself. You’re not buying the furnishings. You’re not buying the clutter. You’re not buying the condition: the smell of cat urine, the stained carpets, the dirty windows. All those things leave with the sellers, leaving the home itself behind. When you see something that’s cluttered, or dirty, or poorly laid out, try to look past it. See it with the eyes of a real estate professional, someone who looks at properties and just sees the location, the square footage, the amenities, the layout. Those all stay with the property. The clutter and the smells? They don’t. And it goes the other way, too. If the home is beautifully staged, don’t be so overwhelmed that you forget to think about how it will look once you’re actually living there. It might seem roomy only because

Buyer Orientation Guide | SEARCH | Chapter 2.1

Ten Principles for Starting Your Home SearchWhat should you look for in a home? What makes a good investment? What will make you happy? Here are ten things to keep in mind as you start your home search.


the sellers took out all the clutter that you’re going to be putting in! Pay for the home, not the staging.

6. Buy within your means.When you sit down with your loan officer, you’ll get a sense of how much home you can afford, and establish your price range. But that doesn’t mean you absolutely have to spend that much. Lots of buyers purchase a home that’s below the price range they could otherwise afford, particularly if they are first-time buyers who are looking to move up within five to seven years. They’d rather make the investment that allows them to save some money both in their down payment and their monthly costs, so they can continue to save toward a larger down payment for their next home. Or maybe it’s just that they want to be sure they can make their payments while still building a “rainy day” fund. Either way, don’t feel obligated to spend up to your maximum.

7. You’re buying not just a home, but a neighborhood.You’ve probably heard the expression, “don’t buy the best home on the block.” Why? Because it will be tough to sell, and you’ll never get the best price for it. But that’s a little misleading. Yes, if you buy the best home on the block, you’ll never get the kind of appreciation you’d get if the home were in a nicer neighborhood. But if the home were in a nicer area, it would cost you more in the first place! The better way to think about this is to simply remember that when you buy a home, you’re buying a neighborhood, and the value of your home will reflect the quality of that neighborhood. If the area goes up or down in value, so will your home. If the area changes, for better or worse, so will your property value – regardless of whether you have the best or worst home on the block.

8. Buy with an idea of what it will be like to sell.Generally speaking, you always want to own a home that has broad appeal. The more buyers who might be interested in purchasing that home, the better the chances of both finding a buyer and getting a good price when you sell it. That’s why some agents will counsel you to avoid homes that are too quirky or idiosyncratic – because it can be tough to find buyers for them. That said, sometimes homes with narrow appeal are easy to sell precisely because their features align perfectly with the needs of

a small but dependable group of potential buyers. After all, if you love the home, then other people will probably love it as well. Just go in with your eyes open that someday you’re going to have to sell that home, and there might not be a whole lot of people with your particular tastes.

9. Buy for your time frame.We never advise people to “flip” homes unless they are professional investors. Flipping is just too expensive to make sense for the everyday home buyer. The investment of time and closing costs makes moving every few years prohibitively expensive, so be prepared to stay in your new home at least five years. That means finding something that will be able to handle your needs for the foreseeable future, both in terms of size and location. So when you buy, think about your time frame. If you’re planning on being in your home for fewer than five years, you might consider continuing to rent until you’re ready for a longer commitment.

10. A home is an investment, but it’s not JUST an investment.Everyone says that buying a home is one of the biggest investments you’ll ever make. And that’s true. But it’s also a place where you’re going to live. So keep that in mind as you start your home search. Yes, you want to buy value. Yes, you want to think about what it will be like to sell that home. But most importantly, you want to buy something that’s going to make you happy for the time that you live there. If you end up falling in love with a home that has quirks, or is in a neighborhood that might not appreciate, so what? If you’re going to love living there for the next seven to ten years, buy it. We only have one life. We might as well like where we’re living it.

Conclusion: Dealing with Buyer’s RemorseFinally, one last thing. No matter what you buy, no matter how good a deal you get, no matter how much you love it, you’re

going to at some point feel a pang of buyer’s remorse. Recognize that for what it is – a small part of your brain that is playing games with you. Buyer’s remorse is normal. When you start to feel it, just write down all the reasons why you’re buying this home. Once you start doing that, the feeling will probably go away.

The foundation of the home search process is the property “showing,” which is an appointment set by your agent to go visit a property or a series of properties. Even though it

can be a lot of work, most of our clients actually enjoy this part of the process. There’s something exciting about every showing: the anticipation of seeing the home live that you’ve only before seen in pictures, the suspense of wondering whether this will be “the one,” the fun in imagining what it would be like to live in each home. Even more importantly, every showing you do is part of your educational process in refining your understanding about your own preferences, helping you and your agent learn about what you like and don’t like.

The BasicsHere are some basic rules of thumb for what you need to know about showing appointments with your agent:

Scheduling. The process of setting up a showing is very simple. You identify a series of properties that you’d like to visit, find a window of time when both you and your agent are available, and then your agent will contact all the sellers or listing agents to make an appointment to see the home. It’s your agent’s job to set the appointments, not yours – that’s one of the reasons you hired your own agent.

Notice. Generally, you don’t need to give more than 24 hours notice before setting up a showing. Most sellers are eager to have agents show their homes, and will agree to showings on very little notice. Some sellers do require more extensive notice, though, something your agent will be able to determine from the property information accessible to brokers in the MLS.

Time Commitment. You’ll usually spend about 15-30 minutes in the actual showing of the home, depending on your level of interest, but remember that you also have to factor in travel time. If you’re seeing a lot of homes in a very small geographic area, you might be able to see three or four homes in an hour. But if you have to drive a long ways between homes, then you might only get to one or maybe two in an hour. Your agent will have a good sense of the schedule.

Traveling to Showings. Whether you travel together or separately is up to you and your agent. Having the agent with you can be helpful for facilitating conversation and feedback between showings (and is environmentally preferable!), but sometimes you all can’t fit in one car.

What You’ll Get. When you meet with your agent to start the series of showings, you’ll probably get paperwork on all the listings you’re going to see. It’s a good idea to get a folder to keep all those “showing sheets,” because you’ll eventually see so many homes that it’ll be tough to keep them organized in your head. Keeping the show sheets, and taking notes on those sheets, is a good way to keep track of the properties you’ve seen and what you thought about them.

Feedback. After showings, or during showings if you are alone, you should give feedback to the agent about what you liked and didn’t like, so long as the seller or listing agent aren’t present. You should be as honest as possible in communicating your interest to your agent, who needs that kind of information to learn about you and your preferences. Your agent might also ask you to give formal feedback that can be communicated back to the seller, particularly for properties that you’re not really interested in. Sellers appreciate that, because it sometimes helps them adjust their price or presentation of the home. You’re not under any obligation to do so, but it’s considered polite to provide feedback if asked.

Cancelling Appointments. If you have to cancel a showing after setting an appointment, just try to give as much notice as possible to your agent, who will then cancel the appointments with the seller or listing agent. It’s no big deal to cancel an appointment, although it’s very discourteous to simply not show up when you were expected.


The Showing Process: The fun part of the home buying experience is going out on showings. You’ll go on dozens of showings during your home search, so this section sets out everything you need to know about the showing process.


What to Do At a ShowingOkay, so now that we’ve covered the basics, we come to a more important question: what exactly should you do at a showing? To answer that question, here are some suggestions for how to make the most out of a showing appointment:

Keep an open mind. Sometimes, you’ll pull up to the front of the property, and you’ll immediately make a snap decision that this is not the home for you. That’s fine. Tell your agent why. But you should still go into the house to look around. Why? Because we have many buyers who ended up buying a home that they absolutely hated on the first impression they got on the curbside. But even more importantly, you’ve already taken the time to drive over, you might as well go inside. Even if you don’t like the home, you might find something about it that you do in fact like, and your agent can learn from that. Every showing is part of the educational process of learning what you like and don’t like, so always keep an open mind regardless of your initial impressions of a home you’re seeing.

Try to visualize yourself living there. A great way to develop a good feel for whether this is the right home for you is to just imagine yourself living there. Think about what it would be like to wake up every morning in the master bedroom, to make breakfast in the kitchen, to have meals in the dining room, to sit back and watch television. Visualize where your furniture would go, and how it would look in the home. Essentially, try to imagine what it’s like to live there. If you like that image, then this might be a home you want to consider buying.

Taking Pictures at Showings

Some buyers like to take their own pictures when they’re out on a showing. Is that okay? It depends. Some sellers really do not like when buyers take pictures of their homes, because it’s perceived as an invasion of their privacy. So if you want to take pictures or videos, make a point to have your agent check with the seller in advance. Or if the seller is present, just ask nicely and explain why you want the photo. Please don’t do it without permission.

Feedback. After showings, or during showings if you are alone, you should give feedback to the agent about what you liked and didn’t like, so long as the seller or listing agent aren’t present. You should be as honest as possible in communicating your interest to your agent, who needs that kind of information to learn about you and your preferences. Your agent might also ask you to give formal feedback that can be communicated back to the seller, particularly for properties that you’re not really interested in. Sellers appreciate that, because it sometimes helps them adjust their price or presentation of the home. You’re not under any obligation to do so, but it’s considered polite to provide feedback if asked.

Cancelling Appointments. If you have to cancel a showing after setting an appointment, just try to give as much notice as possible to your agent, who will then cancel the appointments with the seller or listing agent. It’s no big deal to cancel an appointment, although it’s very discourteous to simply not show up when you were expected.


Communicating with Sellers and Listing Agents

Most of the time, you’ll be able to see properties with just your agent, particularly if your visit is during the workday. Sometimes, though, the sellers might happen to be home when you’re looking at the property. That can always be a little awkward, particularly if the sellers hover over you or want to do the agent’s job for her by showing you the house themselves. Other times, the listing agent might be present, particularly in the rare cases where the seller demands that the listing agent attend all showings.

In those cases, it’s always a good idea to be as friendly and likeable as possible with sellers. You might end up doing a deal with them, and you’d be surprised how much basic courtesy and friendliness can facilitate a good negotiating relationship. And if you end up in any kind of bidding war for the property, you’ll find that just being a friendly person can sometimes give you a leg up in getting your bid approved. So just be nice to them. And, of course, never say anything critical or derogatory about the property (the décor, the cleanliness) in front of the seller or listing agent, because insulting the homeowner is a bad way to start a negotiation.

On the other hand, you want to be careful about what you say about your personal situation. You don’t want to give away anything that might undermine your negotiating position if you ultimately decide to make an offer, such as your level of interest in the property, how it compares to other homes, your personal finances, your urgency to move, or your price range. For example, you might think it’s harmless to answer a seller’s question about whether you’re currently renting or owning, but answering it might inadvertently reveal your urgency for moving. Similarly, remember that listing agents have a fiduciary duty to their sellers, so telling that nice agent something like “this is the best layout we’ve seen” could end up undermining your negotiating posture later. Just like in cop shows, anything you say can and will be used against you.

So when you’re talking to listing agents or sellers, just keep it on a very superficial level. Make polite compliments about the home, compliment the furnishings, ask them questions to get them talking (and maybe revealing something!), and most of all let your agent do the talking.

If they ask you direct questions that you don’t want to answer, just be vague in what you say. You don’t want to be rude by ignoring the question, nor do you want to raise hackles by “lawyering up” – saying something like “my agent told me not to talk about that.” Just say things like “we’re not sure yet, we’re very flexible” or “we’re discussing that very issue with our agent.” And then just ask them a question yourself to change the subject. Generally, you’re not going to get the third degree when you see a home, so don’t worry too much about it. Sellers generally don’t ask buyers a lot of questions, and listing agents know that they’re not supposed to ask a represented buyer anything personal.

Five Mistakes Buyers Make at Showings

1. Rushing through the home.Take your time looking through each room. The more time you spend, the more details you’ll notice.

2. Making snap judgments.Even if you don’t like the home when you pull up, take the time to go through it. Remember that every showing is part of your learning process, to find out what you like and don’t like.

3. Blabbing to the sellers.Remember that anything you say can and will be used against you if you ultimately end up negotiating a deal on the home.

4. Falling in love with the staging.You’re not buying the staging. Think about how the home will look when you’re actually living in it.

5. Not taking notes. You’ll be surprised at how quickly you’ll forget the details of the homes you view. Taking notes can help jog your memory.

During the course of your home search, your buyer agent is your best asset for helping you navigate through the inventory of properties that you might be seeing. After

all, you might not have done much home-shopping, but your agent looks at houses almost every day, and can often pick out positives and negatives that you might not have noticed.

Keep these guidelines in mind when working with your buyer agent:

First, communicate regularly with your agent. You and your agent should set up a communication plan when you first start working together. That plan is up to you – how often do you want to talk, how often do you want to get emails from your agent, how regularly do you want to go out to look at properties, etc. Talk it out with your agent. It’s her job to serve your needs the way you want to be served, so be clear about what you want from her. Most importantly, though, find some way to stay in regular contact with your agent through the home buying process, even if it’s just a text message once in a while to update her (or her updating you) on the status of your home search.

Second, be honest about what you like and don’t like. As your agent works with you, she will get to know your preferences, even things that you don’t yourself identify as being important to you. Maybe she’ll notice that you seem to like homes with an open floorplan, even though you originally said that you instead like traditional room layouts with more privacy. Every time you see a house with your agent, she learns something about you. So you need to be honest. If you don’t like the house, tell your agent why. Don’t feel you need to spare his or her feelings by holding back – if the agent missed the mark in selecting properties to show you, be honest about it. She’s not going to take it personally. After all – that’s her job.

Third, don’t be reluctant to ask your agent for help. Remember that your agent makes his or her living by helping you buy a home. Sometimes, buyers feel reluctant to call their agent to take them out, because they’re early in the buying process and they don’t want to “waste” their agent’s time. But it’s your agent’s job to help you in the home-buying process, and agents will often work with buyers for months and months before the buyer finds the right home. If you’re really just “sight-seeing,” or in such an early stage of your process that you don’t feel comfortable going out with your agent, then work on your own and just use your agent as a resource for information. For example, she could set you up with automatic alerts for new

properties coming on the market, or let you know about open houses that you might want to visit on your own. But once you’re serious about your home search, don’t feel inhibited about calling your agent. You’re not being an imposition if you need your agent to spend a day showing you homes. That’s your agent’s job.

Fourth, keep your agent in touch with anything you do on your own. Over the course of your home search, you might find yourself doing some work on your own in addition to all the appointment showings with your agent. You’ll probably be saving properties online on RandRealty.com, which is how most of our clients get their first look at the home they ultimately buy. Buyers also sometimes do drive-bys of properties that they see listed online, just to get a look at the property and maybe check out the neighborhood. And many of our clients also go to open houses, when sellers open the property to the public, usually on Sunday afternoons.

These three other types of “showings” are all good ways for you to get engaged in your home buying process, particularly at the beginning when you might be reluctant to go out with an agent. But just remember that looking on your own is really only a supplement for the work that you’ll do with your agent. Looking at the property online or doing a drive-by is no substitute for actually visiting the home in person accompanied by an agent who will be able to provide a professional perspective when making your evaluation. And while open houses also involve personal visits, you’ll find it’s much more efficient and effective to set your own appointments rather than being limited to Sunday afternoon visits of whatever properties happen to be open that weekend.


Working with Your Agent Because you’ll be spending a lot of time with your agent, you should try to maintain an open line of communication in order to forge a strong working relationship. Here are some tips on how to work best with your agent.

U ltimately, the goal of shopping is buying. And at some point during your home search process, you’re going to find something that you’re interested in buying. You’ll be

interested in the first showing, go back for a second look, and, if you’re like many of our buyers, return a few more times “just to make sure.” At the end, though, if this is the home you want to buy, you need to start the transactional process by making an offer.

When you make your offer, you will set out basic terms upon which you are willing to purchase the home. If you and the seller come to agreement on those terms, the agents will send the offer to the attorneys for purposes of drafting a contract. At this point in the process, you’re not legally bound to the terms of your offer, but obviously you should only present an offer that you are willing to commit to in good faith.

Preparing the OfferFrom a procedural standpoint, the initial offer in a negotiation is usually prepared on a form provided by your agent. You will fill out the terms of the offer with your agent, and your agent will then send it to the seller’s agent for review. After that initial offer, most of the follow-up counter-offers are done over the phone or email between the agents, until ultimately you reach an agreement that is memorialized in a final term sheet that the agents will send to the attorneys to advise them in preparation of the contracts.

Here are the main terms that will comprise your offer to purchase, what we think of as the “material” terms of the deal that will be subject to some degree of negotiation between the agents:

• Purchase Price. This is obviously the most important term – the most important for you, and the most important for the seller. We’ll discuss pricing your offer in more depth below.

• Down Payment. The down payment is the amount that you will deposit when you sign contracts – NOT when you make the offer – as a show of good faith commitment to purchase the home. Down payments are generally between 5%-10% of the purchase price.

• Closing Date. The estimated closing date is really just an estimate. You’re not bound by the closing date even in the contract, so most agents just set a projected date three or so months for the future – which is the average time it takes to get from contract to closing.

• Personal Property. When you buy a home, you buy all the fixtures in the home – everything that is attached to the property.

But sometimes, you might find that the seller has “personal property” that is not legally affixed, but is so perfectly situated to the home that you want to buy it along with the property. The legal default position is that only fixtures stay with the home, so you’ll need to identify any personal property that you want to buy as part of your purchase price.

• Mortgage Contingency. When you prepare your offer, you’ll have to consider whether you want to demand a mortgage contingency, which allows you to terminate the contract without penalty if you are unable to get a mortgage after a good faith effort. You will probably want the reassurance of a mortgage contingency, but that might be something that the seller will resist.

• Inspection Contingency. Sometimes, the offer sheet will explicitly state that the offer is subject to inspection, but it’s not absolutely necessary because inspections are usually completed before contract anyway.

• Other Contingencies. You might have particular needs that should be addressed as conditions, such as the need to sell your home before you close on your purchase. It’s generally not a good idea to spring unusual requests in the contract, so if you have anything you need that’s out of the ordinary, make sure you discuss with your agent whether you should present it as part of the offer.

Of course, your offer might contain other terms that we haven’t addressed, but generally speaking those are the main issues that get presented as part of the offer.


Preparing, Pricing, and Presenting an OfferPresenting offers is part art, part science. The science part is the analysis you and your agent will do to examine recent comparable sales, the overall market conditions, and the perceived attitudes of the seller to determine the correct offering price. The art is how you present it, and whether you give yourself the best possible chance of getting your offer accepted.

Why do buyers sign offers?If an offer is not legally binding, then why do they have signature lines? In fact, you do not need to sign them, and the only reason to do so is to show good faith and to demonstrate that you approved the terms of the offer. But even if you sign them, the offers are not legally binding. You might get confused at this point, the form might SAY that it is a contract, but you’ll notice that even those “contract” forms are automatically conditioned on approval from your attorneys. So until your attorney approves the terms of the deal, you’re not legally bound to your offer. If you’re still concerned about the issue, then just don’t sign the offer. Your agent will still present it.


Pricing the OfferObviously, the most important term of your offer is the price that you are will to pay to purchase the home. All the other issues – down payment, closing dates, contingencies – are generally minor areas of negotiability. In most cases, the main issue is price.

Ultimately, of course, your pricing strategy depends on what that home is worth to you. You’ve already gone through the process of determining how much you can afford, and used that information in identifying your price range and choosing the homes that you evaluated with your agent. You’ve been watching the market, and at this point you should have a pretty good idea of what homes are selling for. The question now becomes, “what are you willing to pay to own this home?” And if you can afford that price, then that becomes your target goal for your negotiation.

As a general strategy for reaching that goal, you want to think about your initial price offer as an invitation to negotiate with the seller. You don’t want the offer to be too low, because you could insult the seller and poison the negotiating process. And you don’t want the offer to be too high, or you might end up paying more than you have to . It’s like Goldilocks and the three bears – you don’t want your offer to be too cold or too hot, you want it to be “just right”:

Similarly, you should never make an initial offer that is the most you’re willing to pay for that home. Some buyers do that in an attempt to short-circuit negotiations, and in some cases to convey that they are serious buyers: “here is our best price, but that’s as high as we can go.” Don’t do that. Very few sellers accept an initial offer, and from a psychological standpoint they need to comfort of engaging in at least some negotiation on the price of their home. So set that initial offer in a way that you have a little wiggle room, so that you can accept, or counter, the seller’s counter-offer.

Here’s one rule of thumb to keep in mind: most deals close within three or four rounds of negotiating. That is, (1) a buyer presents an initial offer, (2) the seller counters, and (3) the buyer either meets the counter or (4) presents a new offer that the seller accepts. Most successful deals come together in a matter of days, if not hours, so prepare your negotiating strategy accordingly.

So with that general strategy in mind, how do you determine what price to offer? The basic rule of thumb is that an initial offer, to be

taken seriously, should be about 5%-15% off the current listing price. That’s obviously a very wide range, but that’s the point – it’s just a general guideline to help you stay in the “sweet spot” between over-bidding and low-balling. The actual offer you make will depend on your particular situation: what comparable homes are selling for, the current state of the market, and the history of that individual listed property.

Our advice is simple: do some research, think about what’s going on in the market, and set your price accordingly. Your agent is the best resource for helping you craft your initial offer to the sellers, but here are some general guidelines to keep in mind:

First, set your initial offer based on sale prices of comparable homes. Your agent can provide you with information on recent sales in the local area, or even the neighborhood. That’s the data you want in setting the initial price for the home, particularly in situations where the seller might have set an unrealistic listing price for the home. Don’t get caught in the trap of locking in on “active listings” prices, because “active” listings all have one thing in common: they haven’t sold! It’s the sold properties that give you a better read of what’s happening in the market. Moreover, your agent can use that sold data to justify the offer: “we know that the seller has set a more aggressive listing price, but here are some recent comps that are totally in line with the offer we are making.”

Just remember that when you’re looking at sold data, you’re getting information about closed sales, which reflects the state of the market from a few months ago. That is, those closed sales were put into contract months earlier, and then spent time going through the transactional process to get to the closing table. So if the market is very active, some of the sold data might already be out-of-date. Unfortunately, the sale price of homes that are “under contract,” which are more recent comps, are not publicly available, even to your agent, so you don’t have access to that data.

It’s also important to remember that not all homes are easy to compare

to recent sales. Particularly in high end markets, you’re not likely to find a lot of recent sales at the same price point in the same area, so comparable sales data will not be as helpful.

Second, be mindful of the current negotiability in the market. If you have been reading the Rand Quarterly Market Report, or getting market reports from your agent, you know that we consistently

Beware of Online Valuations!When you’re deciding how to price your offer, you might be tempted to look at online home valuations provided by sites like Zillow. Be careful. Studies show that the “zestimate” is a markedly inaccurate tool for valuing an individual home. Too many sellers insist on pricing their home according to the zestimate, and they languish on the market for months, if not years. And too many buyers insist on pricing their offers according to the zestimate, and they never get those offers accepted. You can get all the data you need to price your home from your agent, you don’t need blunt online tools like Zillow.


measure the “listing discount” that sellers are giving to buyers off the last listed price for the home. In the past few years, the regional listing discount has hovered at the 5%-7% mark, which from a historical perspective is highly negotiable. But that’s a regional number, so the negotiability might be different in your particular town or village or at your particular price point. So the more local, and more recent, the negotiability information you have, the better. Indeed, pay particular attention to the negotiability of those recent sales. If you see that homes are selling for very close to the asking price, you’ll want to adjust your initial offer accordingly.

Moreover, we should caution you that as a market heats up, you can expect negotiability to fall significantly. As buyer demand increases, sellers become far less negotiable on price. The average listing discount during the last seller’s market was closer to 1%-2% of the last listed price, and multiple bid situations became very common, pitting buyers against each other and driving many sales to above the asking price.

Third, keep in mind the current status of the listing. Your agent can give you the history of the listing, which can be important in helping you formulate your initial offer. For example, you’ll want to know how long the house has been on the market. The longer the home has been for sale, the more likely the seller will be to reasonably negotiate on price. Similarly, you’ll want to know whether the seller has recently reduced the price. That’s important for two reason: first, because sellers are going to be less negotiable on price if they just made an overall reduction; and second, because homes that have recently been reduced in price tend to generate more buyer interest, which means you could be more likely to get into a bidding war that would dramatically reduce negotiability.

Caveat: Multiple Bid SituationsAs the housing market heats up, you might find yourself in a multiple bid situation – where a seller gets offers from more than one buyer, negotiates with all buyers simultaneously, and ultimately requests that the interested parties submit their “highest and best” offers to close all discussions. If you’re in that situation, you’ll need to consult with your agent about how to prepare your offer, which requires you not just to consider all the variables about the market and the listing, but also what other buyers might be willing to pay for that property.

Procedurally, what you’ll do is present your highest and best offer along with the other buyers, the sellers will then compare them, and then come to an agreement with whichever offer they prefer. A multiple bid situation can be very stressful, so as the market heats up we strongly advise you to move from accepted offer to contract as soon as possible.

Presenting the offer.Once you have finalized your offer terms, your agent will present the offer to the seller. For the most part, this is a fairly mechanical process: the agent emails or faxes the offer to the seller’s agent, the seller’s agent presents it to the buyer, and then communicates the seller’s response back to your agent. It’s pretty straightforward. But there are some circumstances in which you might consider supplementing the offer with additional supporting documentation:

• Comp information. If your offer is significantly below the asking price, your agent might submit a list of comparable sold properties that you both believe justifies the price you’ve offered. Now, the seller might disagree with your selection of comps, but at least you’ve given the seller something to think about and justified your offer – which might soften the blow of an offer that is disappointingly below ask.

• Financial Documentation. Sellers will take you more seriously if you provide some form of financial documentation with your offer – even if it’s just a preapproval letter from a reputable lender. Realize that the seller takes a risk in accepting an offer from a marginally qualified buyer, because the time spent waiting for that buyer to unsuccessfully get a mortgage is time that the seller was not actively on the market.

• Personal Letter. In situations where you know other buyers are interested in the property, a personal letter can sometimes humanize your situation and forge a relationship between you and the seller. This was a common practice during seller’s market for buyers to make a personal appeal to sellers to accept their offer, stressing things like how much they love the home and are eager to raise their family in it. Most sellers will make a decision based entirely on price, but you’d be surprised how often they will agree to an offer based partly on their impressions of the buyer. These letters can sometimes be effective.

Generally, you should not expect any seller to accept your initial offer. Simply out of reflex, sellers will usually make a counter-offer instead. At that point, you and your agent will have to negotiate the sale.

ConclusionFinally, remember that you are not legally bound by any of the terms in your offer until you execute formal contracts of sale with your attorney. Even if you sign the offer, your agreement is conditioned upon attorney approval, so you are not obligated to buy that home until you execute that contract of sale. This is a double-edged sword, because it also means that the sellers are not bound to sell you the home until THEY sign a contract of sale. That’s why we encourage you to move quickly once you have an accepted offer, so that you don’t give time for other buyers to jump in and make a higher offer.

Contrary to popular belief, negotiation is not about winning and losing. You don’t “win” a negotiation at the expense of the other side. Indeed, a good negotiated resolution always

has two winners by definition, because both sides must have gotten what they wanted or they would not have settled. Now, that doesn’t mean that both sides got everything they wanted, or that either side got all it wanted, but it does mean that both parties found the terms of the agreement acceptable.

Remember that when you negotiate. The seller is not your enemy, but rather a partner in trying to solve the problem of both of you wanting to transact the property on the most favorable terms possible. Buyers want to pay as little as they can, and sellers want them to pay as much as they can. It’s definitely a problem, and good faith negotiation is the solution.

Moreover, when you’re negotiating the purchase of a home, you need to keep your eye on the goal. The question you have to ask is, “How badly do I want this home?” If this is truly the right place for you, don’t get too caught up in trying to squeeze nickels out of the seller. Remember that if you’re financing the home, a purchase price difference of $10,000-$20,000 is not going to make or break you. For example, consider that at a 4% interest rate, a $10,000 difference in the sale price is less than $50 a month – less than your monthly mobile phone bill. So deliberating over the difference between an offer requiring you to finance $490,000 or $500,000 means that you’re anguishing over the difference between a monthly payment of $2,339 and $2,387. Will you really notice that difference? While you always want to get the best deal possible, risking losing your dream house over such a negligible difference in your monthly payments can be foolish.

Obviously, a full discussion of the art of negotiating on the sale of a home would be well beyond what we could cover in this Orientation Guide. At Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty, we have training courses dedicated to the study of negotiation. We don’t teach “game-playing”, but we do believe that a good negotiator can get the best possible result for a client by maintaining the upper hand, controlling the terms of the negotiation. And as you’ll see below, you should be negotiating through your agent, so you will have good professional representation as you try to make a deal.

Nevertheless, we wanted to share some perspectives into the negotiation process, and also give you some insight into the negotiation approach adopted by Better Homes and Gardens Rand:

1. Keep control of your anchored starting point.It’s always an ideal situation when you control the starting point of negotiations on the most important term. In psychology, they call this

“anchoring,” because the initial asking price becomes a reference point that can “anchor” the rest of the negotiation. In real estate sales, though, the anchor is already set before you ever step foot in the home – by the asking price. So you are already dealing with an “anchored price” on that MLS sheet or online listing. The key is to forget the asking price, to dismiss it from your thoughts. Instead, sit down with your agent to go through recent sales to see what prices homes have actually sold for. Once you figure that out, build an offer based on those prices, without even referencing the listing price. Try to create a new anchor through the sold listings that your agent can track down for you.

2. Never convey an eagerness to buy. Never let a seller or a seller’s agent know that you are anxious to buy, or that you are anxious to buy that particular home. You should always avoid discussing specifics with a seller or a seller’s agent, because if you happened to let slip that you were under any pressure to buy you would be undermining the firmness of your commitment to your offering price. Meanwhile, pay careful attention to any signals that the sellers give off betraying their eagerness to sell. They might communicate that nonverbally just in the way that they answer the door when you visit for a showing, or through their agent with an eagerness to hear your offer. Or they might do it even more blatantly with terms in the listing description like “bring best offer” or “owner anxious.” Pay careful attention to these cues, and avoid giving them off yourself.

3. Provide justifications for your price through your agent.Anchors become more powerful if you provide reasonable and objective justification for them. When you set your initial offer, have your agent provide the seller with reasonably comparable sales that justify the price you’ve set. You can firmly set that pricing anchor by putting the seller in a position of having to argue away the fact that comparable homes have sold for close to your offered price.

4. Get commitments from sellers.Psychologists have also noted the power of verbal and written commitments during negotiations. If a buyer can get a seller to make even a verbal commitment to agree to a term of the negotiation, the seller will feel strongly compelled to abide by that commitment. That’s why most of our agents demand that all offers and counter-offers be made in writing, not because the offers themselves are legally binding, but the act of writing them down (and in some cases signing them) is psychologically binding.

5. Frame the negotiation as about more than just price.In any real estate sales transaction, the most important negotiated term is price. But it’s not necessarily the only term that can be at issue. In some cases, closing date is important. In others, it’s the


Ten Tips for Negotiating OffersA good negotiation strategy can save you thousands of dollars in your home purchase. Although buyers and sellers need to work together in good faith, it’s always better if you’re in control of the terms of your negotiation. Here are some tips on how to take a strong negotiating stance.


down payment. And in others, it could be whether the buyer will have a mortgage contingency, or the fixtures or furniture included, or really anything that one side particularly wants. In most negotiations, however, the parties don’t strongly negotiate the other terms, because their sole focus is price. Accordingly, a good way to control the frame of the negotiation is to put all the other terms in play (closing date, down payment, contingencies, fixtures, furniture). If you are flexible on all those terms, but the other side is not, you now have something to bargain away to get a concession on price.

6. Avoid making concessions without getting a reciprocal concession.Ultimately, at some point in the negotiation, you’re likely to have to make a concession. Very few buyers are fortunate enough to get an acceptance on their first offer. But if you are to make a concession, try to avoid making the concession in a vacuum – condition your concession on the seller giving way on some other point. Generally, if you do someone a favor, that person feels obligated to return the favor, even if their “reciprocation” of the favor is disproportionate to what you did for them. If you’ve been successful in putting multiple terms at play, you can even concede on a minor point in return for flexibility on something you actually care a lot about.

7. Always negotiate through your agent.Negotiating through intermediaries is always a good strategy, if only because it keeps the client from developing or generating ill-will

with the other side or betraying anxiety that would undermine the bargaining position. In real estate negotiations, buyers and sellers rarely discuss the terms directly with the other side, instead communicating through their agents. One of the most powerful ways to control the process is to work through an intermediary (like your agent), keeping the ultimate decision-maker away from the negotiating table. That way, your agent can always use the justification that he or she does not have the authority to make concessions, giving you both time to discuss strategy and avoid giving in under self-imposed pressures.

8. Be likeable to sellers.We always counsel clients to be friendly and agreeable with all sellers, including sellers that might be grossly overpriced. Throughout your negotiation, you’ll want to maintain good relations with sellers, even if you ultimately cannot reach an agreement. We have seen many potential deals fall apart simply because the parties treat each other badly, insulting each other, ignoring offers, delaying out of spite, and other unhelpful tactics. Sellers want to like the person buying their home, so be likeable.

9. Be open to all counters.Generally, in real estate, we always welcome offers – and counter-offers -- of any kind because it gets discussions going on a path in which anything can happen. Everyone in the business has seen sellers initially dismiss an offer as “outrageous,” only to ultimately find an agreeable middle ground through a long process of good faith negotiation. Sellers sometimes set very high prices

specifically to give themselves “wiggle room” to negotiate. We don’t counsel clients to give lowball opening offers – indeed, our advice is to find an offer that you can justify based on comparable sales. But if you make a reasonable offer, only to have the seller make an incremental counter-offer, don’t dismiss the counter out of hand. Make your own counter-offer, and see what happens.

10. Remember that you don’t have to actually buy the house.Some clients worry that in the heat of the moment they will make concessions that they will ultimately regret, and find themselves experiencing buyer’s remorse. Remember, that you don’t make any final legal commitments as part of the negotiation. You’re never fully committed until after inspections, contract drafting, contract review, and a host of other issues that could delay final signing. So you never have to risk getting carried away by anxiety or pressure.

Conclusion: Stay CalmMost people are not familiar or comfortable with negotiations, because most of us do it so rarely in our professional or personal lives. Culturally, we don’t negotiate much compared to people in many other areas of the world – for example, we don’t haggle at supermarkets or department stores. So it’s not unusual for clients to become a little anxious about the prospect of negotiating something as important as a sale. Don’t worry. You have a lot of professionals watching out for you, starting with your Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty agent.

www.RandRealty.com

Stage Three:The Transaction

In Stage Three, your agent will guide you from your initial offer through your final closing, managing your transactional process. In the Guide, you’ll learn about all the

different parts of the transaction, and how to avoid delays that would keep you from closing on time. You’ll also get advice about what to expect in your closing, and how to ensure a smooth moving process.

Buyer Orientation Guide | TRANSACTION | Chapter 3

The Transactional Process

OFFER AND ACCEPTANCE

• Parties reach an accepted offer.

MORTGAGE• Buyer completes mortgage

application.• Lender submits

mortgage application for underwriting.

• Buyer resolves mortgage conditions with Lender.

• Lender approves loan as “clear to close.”

INSPECTION• Buyer’s inspection

engineer inspects the property.

• Buyer and seller agents negotiate any changes from inspection.

TITLE• Buyer orders title report

from title abstract company.• Abstract company delivers

title report to buyer attorney.

• Buyer attorney reviews title with buyer.

• Abstract company issues title insurance policy.

CONTRACTS• The seller’s attorney drafts

a contract.• The buyer’s attorney

reviews the contract.• Seller and buyer sign the

contract.

INSURANCE• Buyer

orders home insurance from insurance company.

• Buyer gets confirmation of the policy.

CLOSING• Attorneys schedule closing.• Buyer conducts walkthrough.• Parties close.

O nce you have reached an accepted offer with the seller, the real work of putting together your transaction

begins. This is when you’ll start interacting with your whole “team” of real estate professionals: your inspection engineer, attorney, mortgage loan officer, title representative, insurance salesperson, and everyone else charged with helping you put your transaction together.

Indeed, the biggest challenge you’ll face during the transactional process is keeping all your balls aloft in the air. You’ll have a lot to do personally, and you and your agent will have her hands full coordinating the rest of the team to ensure that you’re moving closer to the closing table.

In this section of the Guide, we’ll provide an overview of the transactional process, give you some idea of how long the process takes, and then discuss some common transactional problems and how you can avoid or fix them.

An Overview of the Transactional ProcessHere is a basic overview of the transactional process, more or less in the order in which everything happens:

Inspection. Once you have an accepted offer, you will hire a licensed inspection engineer to go through the house to do an inspection, checking all mechanical systems such as the foundation, the roof, the electrical system, the air-conditioning and heating, etc. This inspection is usually completed within a few days of the offer being made, and you’ll review it with your agent before contracts are ordered so that issues can be resolved with the seller before any final commitments are made.

Contracts. In our area of the state, a seller’s attorney will prepare a contract and send it to the buyer’s attorney. These are

usually fairly standard form contracts that the attorneys are used to working with. The seller’s attorney sends the contract, and your attorney reviews it and sends back comments or revisions, or even a “rider” adding terms to protect you. The attorneys then negotiate the legal terms, which are usually fairly straightforward. The only complications come from unusual situations: where sellers want to keep certain fixtures that would normally be sold with the house, setting out projected closing dates, etc. Contracts are usually finalized within two weeks of the accepted offer.

Mortgage. Once you’ve reached offer-and acceptance, and the attorneys are exchanging drafts of the contracts, you’re going to start working in earnest on your mortgage application. This can be a very difficult, time-consuming, and burdensome process, particularly these days where banks are ultra-careful about extending financing. You will need to gather a tremendous amount of documentation and submit it to the lender, who will then have to review it to determine whether it meets underwriting guidelines. This is usually the lengthiest part of the transactional process, because it takes time to coordinate the back-and-forth of documents with your lender. It might

take several weeks or even months to go from application to “clear to close” from the lender.

Title insurance. Once the contract is done, your attorney (or you) will order a title search from your abstract company to check for clear title, building violations, and identify the correct taxes. Once the report is done, your attorney will examine it to determine whether there are issues that have to be resolved by the seller. If all the problems are cleared, the abstract company will issue “title insurance” to protect you against claims against your ownership of the property. Title reports are usually issued within two or three weeks of ordering, so they usually come a few weeks after contracts are completed. If there are problems on the title, those could take weeks or months to resolve.

Home Insurance. At some point during this process, you’re going to need to order property and casualty insurance on your new home. Many buyers forget to do this, but your lender will require home insurance before finalizing your loan at the closing, because the lender wants to make sure that its loan to you is protected if, say, the house burns down while everyone is at the closing. It doesn’t take long to secure

Buyer Orientation Guide | TRANSACTION | Chapter 3.1

The Transactional ProcessNow that you’re at the transactional stage of the home buying process, you’re going to start having to work more intensely not just with your agent, but with all the members of your deal team. In this section, we discuss everything you need to know about the transactional process, and about how you can ensure the best possible experience in getting from accepted offer to closing.

Buying a Short SaleThe most common source of delays in real estate transactions in the last few years is the increasingly common situation created by “short sales.” Short sales are transactions involving owners who are selling their home for less than what they owe the bank for their mortgage loan. In these cases, an offer has to be accepted not only by the seller, but ultimately by the bank, which has to “approve” the short sale in order for the deal to go forward. Unfortunately, short sales can really slow down your transactional process. Not only does the seller need to complete a very lengthy set of documents to request bank approval for the sale, but banks vary as to how quickly they respond to those requests. The good news is that as short sales have become more common, banks have become better at giving prompt approvals to the sale. But be advised that if you are purchasing a short sale, you might find it takes longer than you expect.


home insurance, usually a few calls to your insurance agent and filling out some forms, and it’s usually done in a matter of days, if not hours.

Closing. Once everything has come together – the mortgage is clear to close, the title report has been cleared of any problems, and the home insurance policy is all prepared -- the attorneys will schedule a closing. If everything is ready to go, the only problem with scheduling the closing is finding a date when everyone is available: you, your attorney, the seller, the seller’s attorney, a bank attorney, a closer for the title company, and anyone else who is needed at the closing.

Avoiding Delays in Your TransactionAll told, a reasonable estimation is that it generally takes two to three months to go from offer-and-acceptance to closing, mainly because it takes time to get through the mortgage and title process. The worst-case scenario is that you find problems on the title report, or if your lender has major issues with your loan application, which can cause months of delays. On the other hand, in the best-case scenario, when you have a “clean” deal and all the professionals on your transactional team are working quickly, you can get cleared to close in less than a month.

Every transaction is different. Some move smoothly from accepted offer to closing, with all the moving parts of the deal working together beautifully: the contract gets done quickly, your mortgage sails through, the title report doesn’t turn up any problems, and you’re ready to lose in a matter of weeks. Everyone loves doing these types of “clean” deals.

Other transactions take a different path to closing. The attorneys spend weeks haggling over contractual details. Your mortgage gets bogged down in underwriting, with constant requests for new and updated documentation. The title or municipal report turns up a problem that takes weeks for the seller to clear. These are the problem deals,

the ones that keep real estate agents up at night and make both buyers and sellers crazy, with everyone wondering “is this deal EVER going to close?”

There’s no way to ensure that you’ll have one of those easy, clean transactions. Anything can happen during a deal, and many of the problems that clog up the works are unforeseeable and unpreventable even by the savviest of buyers and ablest of real estate professionals. But we would suggest a few things that you could do to at least improve your chances of a clean deal:

First, only hire local professionals for your legal, mortgage, title, and insurance needs. Early in this Orientation Guide, we advised you to hire experienced, local professionals to be part of your “transactional team.” This is the point at which they can make a real difference. Local real estate attorneys are familiar with the standard form contracts used for transactions in your area. They know whom to call at the county clerks office to clear up problems in your title. They are likely to already have a working relationship with the local attorney on the other side of the deal, if the seller has also hired local talent, which can dramatically accelerate the formation of the contract and the resolution of any disputes that crop up afterward. Lawyers who work outside the area, or who don’t normally do real estate, will invariably cause delays in your deal.

Similarly, don’t hire a lender who is from outside the area, or one who promoted some ridiculously low rate online, just because you think you’re going to save a few dollars. You’re not. Mortgage rates are not locked until very late in your transactional process, so those promises are easily (and legally) rescinded once it’s too late for you to make a change – or when a change is going to push your closing back for weeks or months! That’s why you should hire someone local, and experienced, and trustworthy to handle you loan. We recommend, of course, the professionals at our affiliation Hudson United Mortgage, because we believe that you can trust a mortgage loan officer who is under our supervision, and is accountable to us for

the client service experience you’re going to have. But whatever you do, hire a local mortgage loan officer, and use a reputable lender.

Ultimately, the choice is up to you. But it’s been our experience that when we have a real problem deal, and we investigate the source of the delays, we invariably find that the trouble was created by an inexperienced or out-of-market transactional professional. Be careful about who you put on your team.

Second, be engaged, proactive, and responsive. As we’ve discussed throughout this Orientation Guide, you’ll have the best home buying experience if you are engaged throughout the process. You have a real estate agent who will be working hard coordinating all the moving parts of the deal, but at this stage of the process, you’re the only one who can do some of the work that needs to be done.

• Be engaged. As always, you need to be engaged in the process. Don’t sit back and assume that all the players on your transactional team are going to get the job done. You’ll feel much better about the process, and far more in control, if you stay active, involved, and in touch with what’s happening with your deal.

CORE Client Contact from Hudson United

One of the advantages to working with the Hudson United home service companies for your mortgage, title, and insurance needs is the CORE Client Contact program that immediately notifies you via email whenever we complete a major step in your transactional process. Rather than wondering what’s going on with your deal, you’ll get an email alert when your mortgage application is sent to the underwriter, or when your title report has been completed. It’s a great way to stay on top of your transaction.

• Be proactive. Try to prepare in advance, and anticipate what you’re going to need to do throughout the process. Basically, ask all your transaction professionals this question, “what might come up that would slow this transaction down, and how can I prepare for it?”

• Be responsive. The most common source of transactional delays come from the mortgage end, which often results from buyers who are not immediately responsive to follow-up document requests from their lender’s underwriter. If you want your deal to move quickly, then immediately respond when you get requests for information from your lender, your attorney, or any of the other professionals involved in your deal.

At this point in the process, an engaged, proactive, and responsive buyer (or seller) can really move a deal forward, particularly when you’re working with a strong transactional team. This way, even if problems crop up, you’re in a good position to try to resolve them quickly and avoid unnecessary delays in your closing.

Third, keep everything organized. A real estate transaction generates enough paper to wipe out a forest full of trees, enough phone calls to burn through your monthly mobile phone plan, and more emails than

Nigerian princes needing a loan. You have a lot of stuff to keep track of, so try to keep it all organized. Here are some tips for keeping your transaction in order:

• Keep a transaction folder for all your documents. Keep all your deal documents together: all your mortgage forms and follow-up documentation, your real estate contract, and anything else that you get relating to the transaction. If you are tech-savvy, you might even consider scanning everything you get related to the deal, and keeping it on your computer so you can access it easily and send it around if someone else needs it later in the process.

• Create a separate email folder. Any modern email system allows you to create folders where you can dump any email that relates to your transaction. Some even allow you to set up “smart folders” that will divert all incoming email from particular senders (like your agent, your attorney, your loan processor, etc.) into the folder. That’s a great way to keep all your deal email segregated, so that you don’t have to hunt through your overflowing general inbox to find important transactional information.

• Keep a transactional project plan. As you have probably figured out by now, we’re big on project plans, which are

the cornerstone of the Client-Oriented Real Estate (“CORE”) philosophy that we follow at Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty. Project plans are really just collections of checklists of “to do” items that we codify in order to ensure an attention to detail and consistency of execution. You can do the same thing for your deal. Keep a master “to do” list of everything that has to be done for your transaction, not just by you but by everyone on your transactional team. That will help you focus on what needs to get done, and give you a better chance of actually doing it in a timely fashion.

Staying organized is not only great for helping you get things done, but it also makes you feel more in control of the whole process, which will make you feel better. The happiest clients we have are the ones who feel like they know what’s going on, and are in control of their own deal.

Finally, take a deep breath and relax. No matter how engaged you are, regardless of how great all the members of your transactional team are, you’re almost certainly going to hit a snag in your deal. Real estate transactions are tricky things, with a lot of moving parts, and delays can come from anywhere. The key is to be as prepared as possible for the problem, so that the delay is minimal. And no matter what happens, try not to get too stressed out.

ConclusionFor more information about the mortgage, title, and insurance parts of your real estate transaction, and how about how to smartly avoid delays that could put off your closing, make sure you get the Hudson United Orientation Guide available from your real estate agent or Hudson United rep. The Hudson United Orientation Guide will explain everything you need to know about the mortgage application process, review the potential problems that can come up in your title report, and give you a complete overview of the home insurance choices you’ll be making.


Issues That Can Delay Your Transaction

Problem Description Resolution

Contractual Dispute

The attorneys cannot resolve a contractual dispute.

Continue to negotiate the issue, and hope that you can come to a compromise. If not, you’ll have to walk away from the deal.

Inspection Problem

Your inspection turns up a costly mechanical, structural, or maintenance problem in the home.

If the problem is serious enough, you can still walk away from the deal. Otherwise, you can either renegotiate the price or demand that the seller fix the problem prior to closing.

Mortgage Denial

Your lender turns down your application for a mortgage.

If you have a mortgage contingency in your contract, you can claim it to terminate the deal. But if you still want to go forward, you’ll have to either revise your application or look for another lender. This will take a lot of time, and seriously delay your closing.

Mortgage Conditions

Your lender’s underwriter requires you provide additional paperwork to satisfy conditions necessary to get you an unconditional mortgage commitment.

If you want to keep mortgage conditions from delaying your closing, you’ll need to be immediately responsive to these requests from the lender. The longer you take, the more you will delay your closing.

Title Defects: Open Liens

The title report shows that the seller has open liens on the property other than the normal mortgage liens.

It’s really up to the seller to resolve open liens, but it can take time for the seller and seller’s attorney to remove those liens and clear the title so that you can move to closing.

Incorrect Taxes

The title report shows that the property taxes are higher than you expected.

If the difference is marginal, you’ll probably do nothing. But if the difference is substantial, you can try to renegotiate the deal to require the seller to subsidize part of the difference. This should not significantly delay your deal.

Undisclosed Short Sale

The title report reveals that the sellers will be selling the property for less than they owe on their mortgage loans.

Again, resolving this issue is really up to the seller, who needs to make an application to the bank to get approval for the short sale. That process can take time, so it will definitely delay your closing.

Municipal Violations

The abstract company’s municipal report shows violation issues.

The seller will have the obligation to clear up those issues before closing, but resolving these types of problems can take time.

Home Insurance delays

You don’t have home insurance set up in time for the closing.

Getting insurance coverage for your new home takes just a few hours, so this is unlikely to delay your closing. But it’s a good idea to get that insurance set up in advance so you’re not rushing at the last minute.


A fter you have an accepted offer, you should absolutely require a home inspection before signing

contracts. In other parts of the country, the home inspection takes place after contracts are signed, and the contracts contain a contingency allowing for cancelation if the report finds serious problems. In our area, though, the buyers do inspections before they commit to purchasing the home.

Very few deals actually fall apart from inspections, even though virtually every inspection report identifies at least some problems in the home. Some of the common problematic issues that home inspectors come across involve:

• roof damage caused by old or damaged tiles or improper flashing;

• undersized electrical wiring involving insufficient electrical service, aluminum wiring, improper grounding, and dangerous conditions, usually resulting from inadequate “do-it-yourself” electrical maintenance;

• surface grading and drainage, which can lead to cracked slabs and water leakage into a basement;

• heating systems that are in need of replacement or repair;

• plumbing problems caused by faulty fixtures and waste lines, improperly mounted hot water heaters, or degrading piping materials;

• lack of insulation from poor caulking of windows that causes water and air penetration; and

• mold and mildew in wet areas of the home.

Here’s the first thing you should remember when you get your inspection report: DON’T PANIC! Home inspectors ALWAYS find something wrong with the home. That doesn’t mean that there’s anything really seriously wrong. It’s just like how doctors rarely advise patients to get full body scans – because the scans always show some sort of abnormality that isn’t dangerous, but will make the patient crazy with worry. Basically, an engineering report is a “CYA” document designed to protect the inspector from claims that he missed something, and also to prove that he actually did the inspection! So you’re going to get a report that sounds scary but contains the kind of “defects” found in virtually every home.

That said, if the inspection does turn up something serious enough to require remediation, you’ll need to go over that report in detail with your inspector, your agent, and your attorney, and decide how you want to handle the results. Your options at that point are as follows:

Walk away. If the problems are serious enough to undermine the value of the home, then you probably don’t want to go forward with the deal. That’s fine. So long as you’re not yet in contract, you’re not bound or committed to purchase the home. Remember, though, that you will be out-of-pocket for your engineering inspection fee, because sellers have no obligation to compensate you for your costs.

Renegotiate the deal. If the problems are serious enough to affect the value of the home, but not so serious that you want to walk away, you still might want to reduce your offer in light of what you’ve found. In some cases, the problem might be something you can live with (like a leaky hot water heater), but which nevertheless reduces the value of the property compared to what you initially offered before you knew about the issue. In other cases, the problem

might need to be fixed, but you’d rather do the work yourself – at which point you’re going to want to deduct the projected costs of the repairs from the offer that you made. Either way, your original offer was made on the assumption that the home didn’t have any inspection problems, so you are entitled to adjust that offer to reflect what you now know. And, again, at this point in the transaction you are not bound to buy the home, so you’re free to negotiate the price.

Request remediation. Rather than reduce your offer, you can request that the sellers fix the problem at their own cost. The advantages of making the seller fix the problem, rather than reducing your price and doing it yourself, are that (1) you don’t run the risk of underestimating the cost of repairs when you do them after the closing, and (2) the cost of those repairs gets rolled into the purchase price, so you can finance it rather than pay it out-of-pocket.

But there are also disadvantages to asking the seller to do the work. Specifically, you run the risk that the seller will do a superficial, patchwork job that does not actually fix the problem. We’ve been involved in a number of transactions where the buyer discovered after the closing that the sellers hired a “lowest-bid” contractor to do the work, saving money because they didn’t really care if the work was done well – after all, they only needed the remedy the problem until the closing. Generally, once you buy the home, it’s yours, and unless the sellers commit actual fraud in doing the work you don’t have recourse against them after the closing.

Thus, if you are going to have the seller do the work, we would strongly recommend that you get a contractual right to review the bid, the estimate, and the work before closing to ensure that it meets with your satisfaction. If the problems are serious enough, you’ll need to discuss securing those contractual provisions with your attorney.


Dealing with Home Inspection ProblemsThe home inspection takes place after you have an accepted offer, but before you sign contracts. Most likely, the inspection will turn up some issues, since inspections always do. If the inspection turns up serious issues, we recommend you have your attorney resolve any problems in the contract of sale.

N ow it’s time to hire an attorney to help you through the rest of the transactional process.

Strangely enough, most parts of the country do not use attorneys in the real estate transactional process. Instead, real estate agents make offers on actual legal contracts that are approved by the local bar and get them signed by buyers and sellers. Attorneys do not generally even take part in closings, which happen in an escrow office with all transactional matters handled by a clerk. In our region, of course, real estate attorneys generally handle the drafting and reviewing of real estate contracts, perhaps because the practice of real estate in New York is particularly complex.

Hiring an AttorneyBecause of that complexity, we strongly recommend that you hire an experienced real estate practitioner familiar with the local customs. Although any licensed attorney is legally competent to assist you in the purchase of your home, we have seen time and again attorneys who are not experienced at real estate undermine a transaction or cost the buyer money at the closing table. To give you an idea, one of the owners of Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty is an attorney and real estate broker, but does not handle his own real estate closings because he defers to the expertise of lawyers who do that for a living.

So consider that a good real estate attorney can be retained for a reasonable fee and more than make up for it when you get offers from a friend, family member, colleague, or family attorney who is willing to do you a favor and represent you for your transaction. You may save a little money, but it can ultimately cost you. You can get a list of experienced, well-regarded real estate attorneys from your agent.

Common Contractual IssuesMost real estate contracts are common form contracts that go through small changes in the negotiation between the attorneys. The main material terms – price, down payment, closing date – are all negotiated, of course, but the standard protections given to buyers and sellers in the transaction are fairly common in most real estate contract forms. Thus, you are likely to see the seller’s attorney make small changes to a form contact, and your attorney write what’s called a “rider” that supplements the main provisions. We defer to the judgment of your attorney on contractual issues.

Although we are not representing you as legal counsel, we did want to highlight three common transactional issues that you should understand about your real estate contract.

1. Closing DatesClosing dates in standard real estate contracts are not deadlines, they’re

aspirational. If the contract states that the closing is to take place “on or about” September 1, all that means is that the parties are aiming in good faith for a closing on that date. The closing date itself will be set by the attorneys on a mutually convenient date once the title report is generated and the bank has made a mortgage commitment to fund your loan.

So what happens if one side is ready to close on September 1, and the other side is not? Usually, nothing. If the parties are working in good faith for a closing, the attorneys will simply set a new date for the closing, which will also be aspirational. But if, say, you are ready to close and the seller is not, and you and your attorney suspect the seller may be acting in bad faith to delay, your attorney can issue a demand for a closing within 30 days of the letter. If the seller does not close within the 30 days, it can give you ground to terminate the contract and get back your deposit, or give rise to a claim for whatever damages you incur from the delay. Usually, that’s not necessary.


What to Expect in Your Real Estate ContractIf you haven’t already hired your real estate attorney, you’ll need to do so once you have an accepted offer. Your attorney will review a draft of the real estate contract prepared by the seller’s attorney, negotiate legal terms, and guide you through to the closing.

Property Condition Disclosure FormUnder New York State law, you are entitled to a Property Condition Disclosure Form completed by the seller disclosing any known defects in the home. The form is supposed to be provided to you before you sign contracts, and is usually sent to you along with the contract. In most cases, though, attorneys in our area have advised sellers not to fill out the form, and instead pay a statutory “fine” to you in the amount of $500. Ask your attorney about whether you’ll be getting a Property Condition Disclosure Form.

Occasionally, contracts of sale will have what’s called a “time of the essence” provision that requires both sides to be ready to close as of the date in the contract. In that case, failure to be ready to close could render the unprepared party in default. A “time of the essence” clause is very rare in residential transactions, simply because neither party want penalties attached to the obligation to close on a particular date.

You should absolutely keep in mind, though, that closing dates in a contract are aspirational, so that you do not make plans to move until you are certain that the closing is going to happen. We see buyers who have been severely inconvenienced by a delayed closing, with their personal items in storage while they live in a hotel waiting for last-minute items to clear up. Talk to your attorney about whether the closing will happen on a particular date, and don’t make plans that could render you homeless if the closing does not happen on time.

2. ContingenciesSales contracts often have contingencies that can allow one side or the other to void the contract without any repercussions. You may think that the deal is final, but a contingency in the contract, if properly exercised, can undo the deal. The most common contingency, of course, is the mortgage contingency, which allows you to terminate a contract and retain your deposit if you are turned down for a mortgage. Buyers getting financing usually demand to protect themselves against the possibility of losing their down payment if they are unable to get financing. In most cases, a mortgage contingency is not an unreasonable request for the buyer to make, but some sellers will not accept a conditional offer.

Other relatively common contingencies are “sale” contingencies, in which, for example, the buyer retains the right to terminate the contract without repercussions if the buyer is unable to sell her current home. This has become a little more common in a slower market, because buyers want to be able

to protect themselves if they cannot sell their home. These types of contingencies are rare, because most attorneys disfavor them. Again, this is something you should discuss with your attorney, but do not be surprised if the seller rejects any offer contingent on the sale of your current home.

Similarly, a seller might demand a contingency allowing the seller to delay closing, or not close at all, if the seller cannot find a new home by the closing date. This is also relatively rare, and attorneys disfavor them because they give sellers too much flexibility in delaying a closing just by asserting that they have not yet found the perfect new home. Again, if this comes up, you can discuss it with your attorney.

3. FixturesIt is very important that you discuss fixtures with your attorney. Fixtures are pieces of personal property that are attached to the real estate property, such as light fixtures, appliances, window treatments, and the like. Generally speaking, you have the right to acquire all fixtures upon purchase of the property. You don’t have the right to any personal property (i.e., the seller’s clothes, books, pictures hanging on a wall, etc.), but you do have the right to anything semi-permanently attached to the real estate. Problems with fixtures come up more often than you would think, often involving very expensive light fixtures that the seller never intended to include in the deal, but which were not specifically excluded in the

sales contract (hence, again, the need for an experienced real estate practitioner).

Generally, a seller who wishes to keep any of the fixtures in the home will make that clear in the listing, which puts you on notice that certain items are not included in the sale. Sometimes, the sellers or the sellers’ agent forgets to exclude those items in the MLS listing, but they exclude them in the contract of sale. At that point, if the contract is not yet signed, you do not have any legal rights to those fixtures, so you need to decide whether you want to bargain for them or demand that they be included in the price you offered on the assumption that they were included. If the seller does not discover the error, though, until after contracts are fully signed, you have the legal right to them and any removal would entitle you to an offset of the price.

Most importantly, if there are any fixtures that you particularly desire in the home, or furnishings that you think might be fixtures and want to make sure they are included, you should tell your agent when you make the offer. Don’t leave those issues up for chance if you can avoid it.

ConclusionMost of the contracts used by our clients are standard form contracts, modified slightly for the particular circumstances of your transaction. Generally speaking, you won’t have much room for negotiation, since the boilerplate legal terms are fairly standardized. If you have other questions about your legal contract, talk with your attorney.


EPA Lead Paint DisclosureAt some point during the finalization of your contract with the seller, you’ll get a copy of the EPA Lead Paint Disclosure form completed by the seller. Federal law requires the seller to advise you of any known lead paint hazards for any homes built before 1978, when the EPA banned the use of lead-based paint. When you get the form, you’ll be asked to initial it and send it back to the sellers for their records. If the seller discloses any known lead-based paint hazards, you should discuss the matter with your attorney.

On the morning of or the day before your closing, the buyer and buyer agent will do a

quick “walkthrough” of your property, checking that the seller moved out without damaging the home or taking any fixtures. They’ll also be checking out the mechanical systems – running the water, flushing toilets, turning on lights, etc. – to make sure everything is in working order.

Most of the time, the walkthrough goes smoothly, and you won’t have any issues at closing. If you do find something wrong during the walkthrough, the attorneys will negotiate the issue and come to some sort of resolution. Barring outright cataclysmic problems in the home, walkthrough issues are resolved for a few hundred dollars and almost never cause a closing delay or a termination of the contract.

Once your walkthrough is complete, you’re ready to close. When you’re getting ready to go to the closing, don’t forget that you’ll need two very important things. First, you’ll need your checkbook, because you’re going to have to write a few checks to cover your closing costs, beyond the bank check you’ll be getting for the down payment. Second, you need your driver’s license (or some legal form of photo ID), because you’ll need proof of identity for the attorneys and the title closer. Your attorney will let you know what else you’ll need.

The basic dynamic of a closing is simple and involves three parts:

1. the buyer completing paperwork to get financing from a lender,

2. the seller transferring ownership of the property to the buyer, and

3. the lender giving the seller a check.

What happens at the closing is simply the execution of various forms that give final confirmation to the agreements made in the contract of sale between you and the seller, and the mortgage commitment between you and the lender.

That said, closings can be confusing to the lay person, because attorneys use a lot of jargon and shorthand in trying to facilitate a complicated process quickly and efficiently. To give you an idea, here is an overview of what happens at a closing:

The ParticipantsIn addition to the buyer, buyer’s attorney, seller, and seller’s attorney, there are two other significant participants at the closing:

• The closer. The closer is usually employed or contracted by the title company issuing title insurance for the buyer, and will actually run the closing as an intermediary between the seller’s and buyer’s attorneys. The closer is also the person who will ultimately take your deed, your proof of ownership, to be recorded in the county clerk’s office.

• The bank attorney. The bank attorney represents the lender in the transaction, and is there basically to make sure the loan documents are executed correctly. The buyer’s attorney sometimes is authorized to double as the bank attorney.

Of course, the closing might involve some other support personnel, chiefly paralegals and other assistants. And the real estate agents might show up in shows of support and to keep you company, even though they don’t have any formal role in the closing itself.

The Buyer’s FinancingMost of the time at the closing will be taken up by the buyer finalizing agreements with the lender on the mortgage terms. The lender will have a series of complicated documents that the buyer needs to understand and sign in order to obtain the loan necessary to buy the home, including the following:

• Truth in Lending Statement, which is federally required to disclose the actual financial terms of the loan.

• Itemization of Amount Financed, which tallies up the actual cost of the financing.

• The Monthly Payment Letter, which breaks down monthly payments into principal, interest, taxes, and insurance.

• The Note, which is the loan agreement between the borrower and lender.

• The Mortgage, which is the lien put on the home by the lender to provide collateral to the Note.

Once all that is completed, you are now in a position to purchase the property from the seller. For most of this process, the seller won’t have much to do. The seller did all her work months ago when she prepared her home for sale. The closing is where you are the main actor.

Transfer of OwnershipNow, the attorneys will begin having the seller execute documents that will transfer ownership from the seller to the buyer. These documents include:

• The Settlement Statement (HUD-1), which contains all the settlement charges associated with the transaction.


Understanding the ClosingThe real estate closing can be confusing, but mostly it can be boring. The attorneys do all the work, and you will mostly sit around making small talk between long bouts of signing big documents. The seller has even less to do, so you might not even see the seller for most of the closing.

• The Deed, which is the actual document that transfers ownership from the seller to the buyer.

• Proration Agreements, which are simply side-agreements to the contract that prorate the housing costs (taxes, HOA fees, utilities) according to the date of the closing. For example, if the seller paid the property tax bill for the year three months ago, the buyer will be reimbursing the seller for 75% of that bill, since the seller lived in the home for only 25% of the year. The attorneys will be

hunched over calculators for much of this process while they use standard formulas to figure out who owes what to whom.

• Receipts. Both parties might have to sign tax and utility receipts indicating awareness that certain costs have to be paid by one side or the other.

• Name Affidavit. At some point, the attorneys will ask you to provide identification proving that you are who you say you are, and ask you to sign a document attesting to your identity.

That’s to make sure that you are the person legally allowed to transfer title.

• Summary. The final document of the closing, listing all the documents that executed and included as part of the closing.

When that’s done, you will get a copy of all your documents, and the title closer will be rushing off to the county clerks’ office to record your new deed (and the mortgage on that deed). At that point, you are done, so congratulations are in order.


For most people, moving is like getting your car repaired. You don’t do it that often, you hate having

to do it, you don’t understand it very well, and you worry that you’re going to get overcharged. We all fear the evil stereotype: movers who break things, lose things, or give deliberately low estimates before raising the price once our belongings are all on the truck.

Those really are just stereotypes, and your experience does not have to be like that. While predatory movers exist, most reputable companies do a terrific job helping customers move massive amounts of heavy and precious things across the region or the country, and they do it for a reasonable price. Your agent has experience in recommending movers, so trust in a referral to someone who has a sound track record.

As with all things involved in buying your home, being proactive and engaged can help you have a better experience. Accordingly, here are some tips for ensuring that you have a great experience in moving:

Before the MovePlan AheadDon’t wait until the last minute to start hiring a mover, or you’ll end up not being able to get scheduled in time, you might have to pay more, and you’ll be doing everything in a rush. You can start planning your move as soon as you are in contract, or at the very latest as soon as you are clear to close with your lender.

Do it yourself, or let the movers do itYou basically have two options about the type of move you want. In the standard option, you need to pack all the small items into boxes, seal them up, label them, and then have them ready for the movers. You don’t need to box big items, or carry the big items anywhere, but you need to pack up things like clothes, books, dishes,

cookware, silverware, files, knick-knacks, things like that. That can be an onerous job. The other option is to pay extra for the movers to do all that for you. People who have experienced that full service option will never go back to packing themselves, because it is a glorious feeling to watch the movers descend upon your home and quickly pack, seal, and label all your things. It’s an easier way to move, but also a better one, because the movers are much, much better at safely and quickly packing your things than you are. Trust us, it’s worth the money.

For those people who choose to pack for themselves, more and more find that a portable storage locker that can be placed in on-site helps them to pack at a more leisurely pace. These large portable storage containers can be at your home for a number of weeks and allow you to pack while you have time. They are later picked up and moved to your new location on the day of your move.

Interview up to three reputable movers.One of the reasons to get started early is so that you have time to interview up to three reputable movers to get estimates. Let the movers examine your things, get a full sense of the scale of the move, and give you an estimate. You can learn a lot about the

movers just from the way they interact with you, and get a chance to choose a mover based on your gut feeling on who you would like the most. That said, if you get a referral from your agent for one mover, and you like that mover, you shouldn’t feel the need to go interview two more just to feel like you’ve done your due diligence.

Get a physical survey as part of your estimate.The mover’s estimation process should include a physical survey of all the things that you need to move, rather than simply an over-the-phone or internet questionnaire. Professional movers have a good eye for the requirements of a move, and most of us do not. They will pick up on things that you won’t. In our experience, many problems between movers and customers stem from a customer’s unreasonably low estimation of the amount of work that needs to be done, leading to an inaccurate estimate. Never hire movers that refuse to do an in-house survey and instead assure you that they can give an accurate estimate over the phone or internet.

Do not pay a large deposit.Very few reputable movers will charge a large deposit on a routine move. They might charge a good faith down payment to reserve their time, but nothing too substantial. Be wary of movers who want to


Making Your MoveFor most of us, moving is an unusual experience that can be stressful and difficult. It doesn’t need to be that way. Planning ahead, getting solid estimates, and engaging with your movers can give you a feeling of control over your move and provide you with a much better experience.

Beware of Some MoversYou should steer clear of movers who:

1. Give you a lowball estimate well below other estimates.

2. Will not give you a physical examination but insist on doing it over the phone.

3. Charge you a large non-refundable deposit.

4. Are not state or federally licensed.

5. Will not give an estimate.

charge you a large up-front payment or, even worse, charge you for the move before they have actually delivered your goods to your new location.

Consider Your Insurance OptionsWhen you move, you have the right to get moving insurance. Insurance comes in three levels of protection: “Full Replacement,” which costs the most and guarantees the full repair or replacement of any goods lost or broken; Assessed Value Coverage, which is based on the estimated cost of replacing the assessed value of goods lost or stolen; and “Alternative Level of Liability,” which only pays out liability at a standard rate of 60 cents per pound. You will find that in most cases it is worth getting “Full Replacement” insurance, but it really depends on the content, distance, and comfort level associated with your move.

Before you move, get rid of stuff you’re not going to want in the new home.Don’t pay to move things that you’re never going to need or use again. Moving is a great opportunity to pare down your life, eliminating items that you’ve been storing for years. Go over those items carefully. A lot of times, you boxed them up in your last move years ago “just in case” you needed them. The rule of thumb is that if they have spent more than four or five years boxed up without being needed, you’re not going to need them in your new place, either. So donate them, hold a garage sale, or throw them away.

The Day of the MoveOn your moving day, be engaged with the movers.

Moving day can be difficult and stressful, but you will have a better experience if you fully engage with the movers and stay on top of everything. Be home when the movers arrive with everything you need to do already done, so you can focus on discussing delivery arrangements. When the moving out is complete, and you are ready for transport, make sure the movers have a phone number to reach you, and that you have their number in case you want to contact them.

Pack your personal items separately and keep them segregated.Even with the best movers, and the best intentions, delays can happen. That’s why you need to make sure that you separately pack your personal items: changes of clothes, medications, toiletries, etc. The easy way to do this is just to imagine that you’re going on a three-day vacation or business trip, and pack a suitcase with everything you’ll need in those three days just in case the movers have difficulty getting to your new home. Even if the move can be completed in one day, and you’re not worried about that, having your “three-day vacation”

suitcase separately packed allows you to unpack the rest of your stuff without the pressure of, say, trying to find the box that has your hair dryer.

For truly valuable or irreplaceable items, keep them with you.Even if you have great and trustworthy movers, you’re going to want to take certain items along with you, or have them shipped separately in fully insured packages with a shipping carrier. Personal mementos, cash, coins, jewelry, precious photographs, and important papers should not be packed into a box and sent along with your clothes and books. Keep them separate.


Shopping ListHere are some of the items you need to buy in anticipation of your move, either for last minute clean-ups or packing:o cardboard boxes of various sizeo packing tape o dark magic markers for marking boxes

o twine

o cleaning productso lots of paper towels, trash bags.o paper cups, plates, forks

(you’ll need to eat)

Once your goods arrive, let the movers do the moving.Let the movers do the work, you supervise. Make sure they get everything off the truck, and let them do the unpacking of the boxes while you tell them where everything should go. Many people seem to feel guilty of making these poor movers carry all that heavy stuff, and they want to pitch in. Don’t pitch in. That’s not your job, that’s their job, and they’re getting paid for it. What you need to do is your job: supervise to make sure everything comes off the truck and the boxes are put in the correct rooms.

Provide your crew with coffee, water, lunch, and a tip.This is not required, but it’s always a good idea to have bottled water and coffee available for the movers when they arrive, and to offer to pick up pizza or a quick lunch while they’re working. It’s better for you to run out and buy them lunch than for them to take an hour off in the middle of the day. And providing water and coffee is just humane for people who will spend hours lugging your things around. If you get good service, and want to tip the crew, the best guideline we can give you is about $10-$25 per person who was part of the crew for the whole day. As with all services like this, tips are not required but appreciated.

Don’t move and close on the same day.Finally, one last piece of advice about moving: don’t move on the day that you close on the sale. A closing can be stressful event that doesn’t happen very often, and moving is a stressful event that doesn’t happen very often. There’s no reason to do them both on the same day. You should plan for your move no earlier than a day or so after the closing, so you can get one big stressful day behind you before you turn to the next one.

A Moving ChecklistHere is a short checklist of some easily-forgotten items you should make sure get completed by the day of your move.

Fill out change of address forms with the Post Office

Send out “we’ve moved” messages to friends and family by email or mail.

Change your address on social media sites.

Notify your doctors and any pharmacies.

Notify the DMV.

Notify everyone’s job, school, or anyone else who sends important mail.

Notify your credit card companies.

Notify your bank.

Notify any other service that bills you regularly.

Start Utilities

Contact the Phone company about installing service

Start Newspaper delivery

Start Cable or satellite service.


Now, you might be thinking, “what do I need a real estate agent for if I’m not buying or selling real

estate?” Well, think of it this way – who would you call if you were in any of these situations?

• You need a recommendation for a good landscaper.

• You want to know whether adding a pool would raise or lower your property values.

• You need a market valuation for a tax grievance petition, or for your home insurance.

• You are thinking of renovating your kitchen, and wonder how much it will impact your home’s value.

• You’re wondering what that home down the block just sold for.

• Or you’re just curious as to what’s happening in the market.

In all these situations, you really just need a good real estate agent. An agent can give you recommendations for various home service professionals (and probably some good restaurants, dry cleaners, and the like as well), can advise you about renovations or home improvements and how they’ll impact your property values, can get you all the information you need about the market, and can even do a comparative market evaluation any time you need it.

The same holds true for our Hudson United home services companies for mortgage, insurance, or title. If you ever have questions about your mortgage, insurance, or property title, you should feel free to reach out to us. For example, if you’re concerned that someone might have put a lien on your property without your permission, you should absolutely get in touch with us so we can provide you with a complimentary lien search to check the status of your title.

But we’re not just going to wait until you reach out to us with something that you need. Rather, at Better Homes and Gardens Rand

Realty, we’ve created a series of programs to deliver services to you on an ongoing basis. For example, you’ve already seen that we’ve

provided you with information about having a great move and grieving your

property taxes. We feel it’s our job to help you

with anything that relates to real estate, anytime

you need us, regardless of whether these matters

come up following the closing of your home.

You should feel free to reach out to your agent with anything

you need, but in the meantime, we hope you enjoy some of

the services we will continue to provide you as a client of the firm:

The Rand Quarterly Market Reports. The same quarterly market reports you’ve probably been reading during the course of your home search will be delivered to you either through the mail or via email. This is a great way to keep track with what’s going on in the real estate market. After all, your home is probably one of the biggest investments you have, so you should be watchful as to what’s happening with local market values.

The Rand Seasonal Event Guides. Along with the market reports, Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty provides four seasonal guides to community events throughout the region – everything from parades to street fairs and exhibitions. It’s a great way to get to know the region and to take advantage of all the wonderful things to do in the area.

Better Homes and Gardens Magazine. When you buy your home through us, you’ll be getting a complimentary yearlong subscription to Better Homes and Gardens Magazine, one of the

Buyer Orientation Guide | CLOSING | Your Realtor for Life

Conclusion: Your Realtor for LifeAt Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty, we believe that our obligation to our clients extends beyond the closing. As part of our Client-Oriented Real Estate (CORE) program, we follow the philosophy that our clients need real estate related services even when they’re not buying or selling real estate. After all, your accountant is still your accountant, even though you probably only work with him or her once a year when you do your taxes. In that same way, we believe that our agents should continue to work with you, and our company should continue to provide you with services, even after your closing.

December 1, 12–3PM, RyeA family festival which takes place on Purchase Street in Rye, NY. Santa, train rides, horse drawn carriage rides, holiday crafts, musical performances, food, fun and more! www.ryechamberofcommerce.com

December 1, 6PM, ArdsleyChristmas Tree Lighting. Come watch as we light up the town for the December Holidays, beginning at the Ardsley Firehouse and end up at the Community Center. Music from Ardsley High School, refreshments, and the man in red just might show up! 914.693.8012. www.ardsleyvillage.com

December 1, 3–5PM, YonkersRidge Hill Menorah Lighting at Ridge Hill Blvd. At a time when the world so desperately needs more light, Chanukah gives us the opportunity to brighten up this world in a tangible way. Light refreshments will be served. Free. 718.679.3614.

December 2, 6PM, YonkersCross County Shopping Center Menorah Lighting. Center of the mall between Adidas & Bebe. There will be, donuts, hot latkes, chocolate gelt, crafts and music!

December 2, 1–3PM, New RochelleChristmas Tree Trimming Party. Join New Rochelle seniors as they decorate the Seniors Christmas Tree. Bring an ornament and enjoy some hot chocolate and cookies. Hugh A. Doyle Senior Center, 94 Davis Avenue. Free. 914.235.2363.

December 5, 5:30PM, YonkersAnnual Chanukah Celebration. Location: Sprain Brook Manor, 77 Jackson Avenue. Chanukah music, hot buffet, latkes, donuts, gifts for the children. Free!

December 5, 6PM, New Rochelle

The Chamber of Commerce in cooperation with the City of New Rochelle is happy to sponsor the annual Holiday Lighting Ceremony. Memorial Plaza, corner of Main St. and Memorial Highway.

December 6, 5–8PM, PawlingDecemberfest at the John Kane House in Pawling. The Colonial era house will be decorated and open for tours. Donations of $3 appreciated. Children under 12 free. 126 E. Main St, Pawling.

December 6, 5PM, ScarsdaleScarsdale Chamber of Commerce Tree Lighting at Boniface Circle. www.scarsdalechamber.org

December 6, 6PM, YorktownYorktown Tree Lighting. Location: John DeVito Park. 914.245.4599. www.yorkcounty.gov

December 6, 6:30PM, Hastings-on-HudsonFriday Night Live Lights up the Night. Tree Lighting at VFW Park. Holiday Show, life-size candy house, Hastings Friday Night. www.rivertownsguide.com/fnl

December 7, 4:30PM, BrewsterOrnament Making Workshop. Hand make an ornament before the light festival on Main Street. 845.279.7500.

December 7, 10AM–4PM, MamaroneckChristmas Fair and Auction. Fun for the entire family. Christmas shop, homemade baked goods, lunch and other items for sale. Silent auction and live auction. Net proceeds support local community programs. Location: St. Thomas Church, Heathcote Hall, 168 W Boston Post Road. 914.698.0300. www.saintthomasmmrk.org

December 7, 4:30PM, IrvingtonHoliday Tree Lighting. Music and refreshments. I.K Benjamin Community Center, 71 Main Street. 914.591.7736.

December 7, 5PM, Dobbs Ferry Holiday Tree Lighting. Intersection of Main Street and Cedar Street. www.dobbsferry.com

December 7, 5PM, TarrytownThe 13th Annual Holiday Tree Lighting. Patriots Park. 914.631.1885. www.tarrytowngov.com

December 7, 2–6PM, New RochelleSeniors Holiday Luncheon and Dance. Feast on a scrumptious lunch and enjoy the delightful sounds of the Peter Childs Band. Hugh A. Doyle Senior Center, 94 Davis Avenue. Cost: $10 with Omnicard, $20 without. 914.235.2363.

December 8, 8PM, New RochellePac House Theater, 311 Huguenot Street. Cost: $10 at smartTix.com, $18 at door. 212.868.4444. www.incomingtideentertainment.com

December 8, 6PM, ValhallaGirl Scout Annual Tree Lighting. Valhalla Gazebo. For more info, contact Caroline Baviello at 914.760.4095.

December 13, 5:30-7:30PM, RyeSanta visits, drop by and say hello! Just enough time to give him your list for Christmas. Have your picture taken with Santa and make an ornament to take home. Refreshments will be served. Free. Rye YMCA, 21 Locust Avenue. 914.967.6363. www.ryeymca.org

December 14, 10AM–5PM, PoughkeepsieLocust Grove Estate Holiday Tour. Expert guided tours make the holidays come alive as you tour the mansion’s 25 decorated rooms with the theme, 12 Days of Christmas. Last tour starts at 3:15PM. Cost: $10 Adults, $6 Children. www.lgny.org

December 14, 10:30AM, RyePancakes with Santa. Enjoy a hot buffet breakfast and have your picture taken with Santa. Advanced registration required. Santa requests that parents supply gifts for him to distribute, dropped off at Rye Recreation by Dec 12th. Cost: $14 Rye Residents, $16 Non-Residents. Rye Recreation Park, 281 Midland Avenue. 914.967.2535. www.ryeny.gov

December 14, 8:30AM–1PM, HarrisonWestchester Jingle Bell 5K Run/Walk. Purchase College Performing Arts Center, 735 Anderson Hill Rd. Fun, festive event for the whole family! www.wcjbr.kintera.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=1078201

December 15, 3PM, YonkersYonkers Male Glee Club with Robert Sonnenberg, Music Director. Location: Saunders High School, 183 Palmer Road. Free Admission.

December 15, 5:20PM, YonkersHoliday Skating Party and Skating Exhibition. For the 1st hour, skate with Santa, Mrs. Claus and Swizzle the Skating Polar Bear. The 2nd hour, enjoy the Holiday Ice Skating Show. E. J. Murray Skating Center, 348 Tuckahoe Road. Free admission, $4 rentals. Doors open at 4:45PM. 914.377.6469.

December 15, 2013 & January 26, 2014, 9AM–3PM, White PlainsWestchester Toy and Train Show. Come and see this incredible display of trains made by Lionel, Ives, American Flyer, MTH plus K-line Trains. Cost: $9 Adults, Free for children 12 & under. 914.995.4050. www.westchestertoytrain.com

December 16, 3PM, YonkersReading of the Christmas classic, A Christmas Carol. Hudson River Museum, 511 Warburton Avenue. 914.963.4550.

Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty is delighted to present its annual Winter Events Guide, a listing of local community events throughout New Jersey and the Hudson Valley. The events are organized by region, and then by date, and we have also listed ongoing events in a separate section to make it easier to find great ways to celebrate the season. This year we’ve also included a list of area ski resorts. For updated lists of events, go to www.randrealty.com and look for our weekly events guide. Have a great holiday season!

Westchester, Putnam & Dutchess

2013–2014HUDSON VALLEY & NEW JERSEY

Winter Events Guide

www.randrealty.com

WESTCHESTER, PUTNAM & DUTCHESSMarch 8, 12PM, White PlainsSt. Patrick’s Day Parade. Over 90 Participating groups

and 26 musical performances. Come join the fun and stay

to enjoy the celebration on Mamaroneck Avenue. Free.

www.whiteplainssaintpatricksday.com March 8 & 9, White PlainsJournal News Golf Show – latest equipment, apparel and

accessories, work with area pros to fi ne tune your game.

Westchester County Center, 198 Central Avenue. Adults $10.

www.countycenter.biz March 15, 11AM–6PM, March 16, 11AM–5PM, White PlainsThe Westchester County Home Show is the largest and

longest running regional Home Show in the area. Located at

the Westchester County Center this home show boasts an

elite attendance from one of the wealthiest enclaves in the

metropolitan area. Adults $10, Seniors $8, Children 12 & Under

Free. For more information, Christopher Thomas 860.563.2111

ext. 307,Toll Free outside CT 800.955.7469. E-mail: [email protected]. Website: www.jenksproductionsMarch 17, 11:30AM–3PM, New Rochelle

St. Patrick’s Day Luncheon at the Hugh Doyle Senior Center,

94 Davis Avenue, New Rochelle, NY. Wear your green and

celebrate all things Irish. Lunch will include corned beef and

cabbage. There will be musical entertainment by Ina Watters in

Song. Suggested donation is $2.00. March 22, 1PM, Yonkers59th Annual McLean Avenue St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

Free parking and Shuttle Bus Service compliments of

Empire Casino in Yonkers Avenue Lot at the Casino! Free.

www.yonkersstpatricksparade.orgMarch 26, 7PM, YonkersBernie Wides will have a presentation which will focus on the

latest research about Whales as well as the central role they

have played for thousands of years in human cultures and

the rise in laws protecting them. Refreshments precede the

program. Free. Lenoir Nature Preerve, 19 Dudley Street. Call

Michael Bochnik 914.237.9331.

March 28 & May 18, 3PM, YonkersSunday Free Concerts at Saunders HS, 183 Palmer Road.

Presented by Fine Arts Orchestra Society of Yonkers/Yonkers

Philharmonic Orchestra! Enjoy totally enchanting and inspired

performances! www.yonkersphilharmonic.org/calendarMarch 29, 9AM–5PM, Larchmont2nd Annual Larchmont Brickfest: A Festival Built from LEGO®

Bricks! All Ages. Meet in the Village Center. Come explore a

world created out of LEGO® Bricks. This visually interactive

300-sq.-ft display, fi lled with whimsical scenes bursting with

puns hidden surprises, is sure to entertain kids (and adults)

of all ages. Along with the display will be “Seek and Find”

challenges, Premium LEGO® Sets for raffl e, LEGO® building

events and a LEGO® creativity corner. Tickets go on sale in

February and cost $5.00 each for ages 3 and up. Sponsored

by the Friends of the Larchmont Public Library with proceeds benefi ting the Larchmont Public Library.March 29, White PlainsWHUD’s Kids Fair. A day of education and fun with programs,

services and entertainment for kids of all ages. Admission

Adults $10, Children $5. Westchester County Center.

914.995.4050. www.whud.com/promotions/kidsApril 1, 10–4PM, YorktownEaster Egg Hunt at Downing Park and Breakfast with the Easter

Bunny. For more info, call Denise 914.962.5876. April 9, 6–9PM, MahopacJoin the Hudson Valley’s fi nest restaurants, wineries and food

& beverage producers for a tasting as the come together

and share their masteries to benefi t the Putnam/Northern

Westchester Women’s Resource Center. Putnam/Northern

Westchester Women’s Resource Center is a non-profi t

organization providing education, advocacy and services to the

community in order to create a safe, supportive environment

that eliminates violence and promotes gender equality. Cost

$75. www.pnwwrc.orgApril 12, 10:30AM, 12PM, Mt. PleasantHop on over to Broadway Field for the Spring Egg Hunt.

Preschooler - 2nd graders. Bring Basket and search for plastic

eggs, candy and other surprises. A visit from the Bunnies tops

off this event. This event is for children. In case of inclement

weather please call the Recreation Hotline at 914.742.2364 for

updates, times, and location.

April 12, 2PM, BeaconKirsten Swenson will discuss the works of Sol LeWitt. Part of

Dia:Beacon Gallery Talk series. Free with museum admission.

No reservations required. 3 Beekman St., Beacon, NY 12508.

845.440.0100. www.diaart.org/gallerytalk April 13, 7–9PM, Mt. VernonTribute to Thelonious Monk. PJS Members $14 Non-members

$22. Concerts are held in a cabaret setting – Free Wine,

Coffee & Tea available – Bring your own food & snacks or buy

our famous hot dogs, snacks and sodas. Additional Parking

is available at the Holmes School (entrance on Columbus Avenue). For more information call Greg at 914.793.7179. April 14 & 15, 7PM, April 28, Mamaroneck

Mamaroneck High School Senior Musical “CHAT”- Mamaroneck

High School, 1000 West Boston Post Road. Call 914.220.3100

for admission fees. www.mamkschools.org April 19, 9AM–6PM, PawlingKessman Farms - Easter egg hunts for toddlers, children, and

for all ages (includes adults), The Easter bunny will make an

appearance, Visits and photos with the Easter Rabbit. Free.

Other activities for children, Bring a basket to collect the eggs!

Farm animals are present, fresh eggs, snacks and refreshment

stand. 83 Route 22, Pawling. 845.878.7492. [email protected]. April 19, 10AM, YonkersAnnual Easter Egg Hunt! Redmond Field on Cook Ave. Free.

Sponsored by City of Yonkers. Ages 4-10 years old. Eggs are

hidden on the fi eld. Bring your baskets and your cameras!

Come and meet the Easter Bunny. 914.377.6450.April 19, 7–10PM, YonkersBeczak Environmental Education Center on the waterfront.

Urban H2O – The Folkadelics – they are anything but

a folk band! $10 at the door. Check schedule here:

www.beczak.org/eventscalendar.htm April 21, 10AM–12PM, RyeBird Hike and Egg Hunt at the Rye Nature Center. Join us for

a morning hike as we explore our backyard forest looking for

local birds. Bring your own binoculars. Hike will be followed

by an egg hunt at 11AM. Bring your own baskets to collect

eggs. Bird Hike: Free. Egg Hunt: Child Members $8, Child

Non-Members $10. www.ryenaturecenter.org

Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty is delighted to present its annual Spring Events Guide, a listing of local community events throughout New Jersey and the Hudson Valley. The events are organized by region, and then by date, and we have also listed ongoing events in a separate section to make it easier to fi nd great ways to celebrate the season.

Hudson Valley & New Jersey

2014

www.randrealty.com

Sales activity was up throughout the area,

reaching levels we have not seen in almost a

decade. Regional sales in Westchester, Putnam,

Rockland, Orange, and Dutchess Counties were up

almost 26% from the second quarter of last year, the

highest year-on-year sales increase since we started

measuring market trends over 13 years ago (other

than the 2009-10 period artificially incentivized by

the federal home buyer tax credit). Moreover, the

3,953 quarterly regional sales were the most since

the third quarter of 2005, and the 8,717 year-to-date

sales were the most since the first nine months of

2007. In other words, this was a historically strong

three months of real estate sales activity.

Moreover, sales activity has now been

increasing for over a full year. This was sixth

straight quarter of year-on-year-sales increases,

the longest such streak in over 13 years. To put

this in historical perspective, note that starting in

the fourth quarter of 2004, year-on-year quarterly

sales fell for 20 straight quarters -- over five years of

sales declines that ended only when the tax credit

kicked in starting in late 2009. And to give you an

idea of how far we have come from the bottom of

the market, the 3,953 quarterly sales was almost

25% higher than the 3,176 sales that closed in the

first six full months of 2009, at the very beginning

of the market correction triggered by the financial

crisis of late 2008. More significantly, sales prices were up

(slightly) throughout the region. As we have

noted over the past year, it takes time for increases

in sales activity to impact pricing. For example,

sales activity started to decline in late 2005, but

prices did not start to fall for over two more years.

Similarly, we have been observing increases in

buyer activity since early 2012 without seeing any

real change in regional pricing -- until now. For the

first time in years, average sales prices were up in

every county in the region compared to last year,

rising 7.6% in Westchester, 1.3% in Putnam, 10.2%

in Rockland, 1.8% in Orange, and 4.9% in Dutchess.

Similarly, although the median sales price was flat in

Orange, the median was up in every other county,

rising 3.3% in Westchester, 5.1% in Putnam, 6.0% in

Rockland, and 5.2% in Dutchess. Obviously, most of

those increases were relatively modest, but the key

point is that we saw prices go up in every county.

That has not happened in a long time. Prices are

generally still down to 2003-04 levels throughout

the region, and are generally about 25% below the

height of the market, but the trend is more positive

than it has been at any time since the end of the

seller’s market in 2007.

Regional Market Overview

Regional Rolling Year Average Sales Prices and Number of Homes Sold

20022003

2004 20052006

20072008

20092010

20112012

2013Q3

$200,000

$250,000

$300,000

$350,000

$400,000

$450,000

$500,000

$550,000

$600,000

$650,000

$700,000

4,000

5,500

7,000

9,000

10,500

12,000

13,500

15,000

17,000

18,500

20,000

Average Sales PriceNumber of Homes Sold

WESTCHESTER | ROCKLAND | ORANGE | Market Report

Real Estate

3RD QUARTER | 2013

T he real estate market in New York City’s northern suburbs

continued to surge in the third quarter of 2013, with sales up

dramatically throughout the region, reaching levels that we

have not seen since the seller’s market of the last decade. More

significantly, after over a year of sustained increases in buyer

demand, prices are finally starting to show signs of appreciation

for the first time since the market correction of 2008.

Going forward, we are cautiously optimistic

that the market will continue to grow through

the end of the year, leading to a strong spring

market in 2014. The reason for some caution is

that we question whether the surge in activity this

summer was spurred by perceptions about pending

interest rate increases. Historically, when purchasers

think that rates are going up, they often accelerate

their buying decisions to take advantage of rates

before they jump. Certainly, that might explain

some of the frenzied activity we observed over the

summer, with what seemed like a premature return

to multiple offers and bidding wars – behavior that

we would not normally expect in a market at this

early stage of recovery. So we do believe that the

market will cool a little in the fall and winter, not

just because of the normal seasonal slowdown in

the market but also because some of that “irrational

exuberance” has eased up. But overall, we believe

that the market fundamentals are very strong: prices

at 2003-04 levels are still very attractive for buyers,

interest rates are still near historic lows and have

drifted down after a summertime spike, and general

economic conditions are improving. We expect

that sales and prices will continue to exceed 2012

levels through the end of the year, and that we will

start to see some meaningful price appreciation in

what will be a strong spring market.

www.randrealty.com

©2013 Independently Owned and

Operated By The Rand Family.

Buyer Orientation Guide | CLOSING | Your Realtor for Life

most popular magazines in the country and the iconic source for information about everything having to do with maintaining and improving your home and life.

Why do we do all this? That’s a good question. Most agents don’t even consider providing these non-transactional services for a very simple reason: they don’t get paid for it. But we believe that we owe our clients a higher duty than just guiding them through a home purchase or sale. Moreover, we are thinking of the long-term, and the hope that you will someday need our services to sell that home that we just helped you buy. And in the meantime, we truly hope that you will recommend Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty and your agent to anyone you know who might need real estate services.

We believe we’re the only company in the country prioritizing the delivery of great service to clients, even non-transactional clients, as a foundation of our business. That’s what our CORE client care program is all about, and what this Orientation Guide has been about. We hope you’ve see the difference in the experience that you’ve had with us, and in the experience that you’ll continue to have with us.

From everyone at Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty and the Hudson United companies, we wish you the best of luck in your new home.

Keep in touch….

December 1, 12–3PM, Rye

A family festival which takes place on Purchase Street in

Rye, NY. Santa, train rides, horse drawn carriage rides,

holiday crafts, musical performances, food, fun and more!

www.ryechamberofcommerce.com

December 1, 6PM, Ardsley

Christmas Tree Lighting. Come watch as we light up the town

for the December Holidays, beginning at the Ardsley Firehouse

and end up at the Community Center. Music from Ardsley High

School, refreshments, and the man in red just might show up!

914.693.8012. www.ardsleyvillage.com

December 1, 3–5PM, Yonkers

Ridge Hill Menorah Lighting at Ridge Hill Blvd. At a time when

the world so desperately needs more light, Chanukah gives

us the opportunity to brighten up this world in a tangible way.

Light refreshments will be served. Free. 718.679.3614.

December 2, 6PM, Yonkers

Cross County Shopping Center Menorah Lighting. Center of

the mall between Adidas & Bebe. There will be, donuts, hot

latkes, chocolate gelt, crafts and music!

December 2, 1–3PM, New Rochelle

Christmas Tree Trimming Party. Join New Rochelle seniors as

they decorate the Seniors Christmas Tree. Bring an ornament

and enjoy some hot chocolate and cookies. Hugh A. Doyle

Senior Center, 94 Davis Avenue. Free. 914.235.2363.

December 5, 5:30PM, Yonkers

Annual Chanukah Celebration. Location: Sprain Brook Manor,

77 Jackson Avenue. Chanukah music, hot buffet, latkes,

donuts, gifts for the children. Free!


The Chamber of Commerce in cooperation with the City of

New Rochelle is happy to sponsor the annual Holiday Lighting

Ceremony. Memorial Plaza, corner of Main St. and Memorial

Highway. December 6, 5–8PM, Pawling

Decemberfest at the John Kane House in Pawling. The Colonial

era house will be decorated and open for tours. Donations

of $3 appreciated. Children under 12 free. 126 E. Main St,

Pawling.

December 6, 5PM, Scarsdale

Scarsdale Chamber of Commerce Tree Lighting at Boniface

Circle. www.scarsdalechamber.org

December 6, 6PM, Yorktown

Yorktown Tree Lighting. Location: John DeVito Park.

914.245.4599. www.yorkcounty.gov

December 6, 6:30PM, Hastings-on-Hudson

Friday Night Live Lights up the Night. Tree Lighting at VFW

Park. Holiday Show, life-size candy house, Hastings Friday

Night. www.rivertownsguide.com/fnl

December 7, 4:30PM, Brewster

Ornament Making Workshop. Hand make an ornament before

the light festival on Main Street. 845.279.7500.

December 7, 10AM–4PM, Mamaroneck

Christmas Fair and Auction. Fun for the entire family. Christmas

shop, homemade baked goods, lunch and other items for

sale. Silent auction and live auction. Net proceeds support

local community programs. Location: St. Thomas Church,

Heathcote Hall, 168 W Boston Post Road. 914.698.0300.

www.saintthomasmmrk.orgDecember 7, 4:30PM, Irvington

Holiday Tree Lighting. Music and refreshments. I.K Benjamin

Community Center, 71 Main Street. 914.591.7736.

December 7, 5PM, Dobbs Ferry

Holiday Tree Lighting. Intersection of Main Street and Cedar

Street. www.dobbsferry.comDecember 7, 5PM, Tarrytown

The 13th Annual Holiday Tree Lighting. Patriots Park.

914.631.1885. www.tarrytowngov.com

December 7, 2–6PM, New Rochelle

Seniors Holiday Luncheon and Dance. Feast on a scrumptious

lunch and enjoy the delightful sounds of the Peter Childs Band.

Hugh A. Doyle Senior Center, 94 Davis Avenue. Cost: $10 with

Omnicard, $20 without. 914.235.2363.


Pac House Theater, 311 Huguenot Street. Cost:

$10 at smartTix.com, $18 at door. 212.868.4444.

www.incomingtideentertainment.com

December 8, 6PM, Valhalla

Girl Scout Annual Tree Lighting. Valhalla Gazebo. For more

info, contact Caroline Baviello at 914.760.4095.

December 13, 5:30-7:30PM, Rye

Santa visits, drop by and say hello! Just enough time to give

him your list for Christmas. Have your picture taken with Santa

and make an ornament to take home. Refreshments will be

served. Free. Rye YMCA, 21 Locust Avenue. 914.967.6363.

www.ryeymca.orgDecember 14, 10AM–5PM, Poughkeepsie

Locust Grove Estate Holiday Tour. Expert guided tours

make the holidays come alive as you tour the mansion’s 25

decorated rooms with the theme, 12 Days of Christmas.

Last tour starts at 3:15PM. Cost: $10 Adults, $6 Children.

www.lgny.orgDecember 14, 10:30AM, Rye

Pancakes with Santa. Enjoy a hot buffet breakfast and have your

picture taken with Santa. Advanced registration required. Santa

requests that parents supply gifts for him to distribute, dropped

off at Rye Recreation by Dec 12th. Cost: $14 Rye Residents,

$16 Non-Residents. Rye Recreation Park, 281 Midland Avenue.

914.967.2535. www.ryeny.gov

December 14, 8:30AM–1PM, Harrison

Westchester Jingle Bell 5K Run/Walk. Purchase College

Performing Arts Center, 735 Anderson Hill Rd. Fun, festive

event for the whole family! www.wcjbr.kintera.org/faf/home/

default.asp?ievent=1078201December 15, 3PM, Yonkers

Yonkers Male Glee Club with Robert Sonnenberg, Music

Director. Location: Saunders High School, 183 Palmer Road.

Free Admission. December 15, 5:20PM, Yonkers

Holiday Skating Party and Skating Exhibition. For the 1st hour,

skate with Santa, Mrs. Claus and Swizzle the Skating Polar

Bear. The 2nd hour, enjoy the Holiday Ice Skating Show. E. J.

Murray Skating Center, 348 Tuckahoe Road. Free admission,

$4 rentals. Doors open at 4:45PM. 914.377.6469.

December 15, 2013 & January 26, 2014, 9AM–

3PM, White PlainsWestchester Toy and Train Show. Come and see

this incredible display of trains made by Lionel, Ives,

American Flyer, MTH plus K-line Trains. Cost: $9

Adults, Free for children 12 & under. 914.995.4050.

www.westchestertoytrain.comDecember 16, 3PM, Yonkers

Reading of the Christmas classic, A Christmas Carol. Hudson

River Museum, 511 Warburton Avenue. 914.963.4550.

Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty is delighted to present its annual Winter Events Guide, a listing of local community events throughout New

Jersey and the Hudson Valley. The events are organized by region, and then by date, and we have also listed ongoing events in a separate section to

make it easier to fi nd great ways to celebrate the season. This year we’ve also included a list of area ski resorts. For updated lists of events, go to

www.randrealty.com and look for our weekly events guide. Have a great holiday season!

Westchester, Putnam

& Dutchess

2013–2014

HUDSON VALLEY & NEW JERSEY

Winter Events Guide

www.randrealty.com

Regional Market Overview

WESTCHESTER | ROCKLAND | ORANGE

Market ReportReal Estate

4TH QUARTER | 2013

Sales activity was up again throughout the

area, reaching levels we have not seen in years.

Regional sales in the fourth quarter of 2013 were up

over 16% from the fourth quarter of 2012, and up in

every county in the region: Westchester up almost

17%, Putnam up almost 18%, Rockland up over 10%,

Orange up over 25%, and Dutchess up over 9%. As

we predicted in the last Report, sales receded just a

little bit from the frenzied levels of the summer, but

they were still well above last year. Indeed, this was

the seventh straight quarter of year-on-year regional

transactional increases, the fi rst time we have seen

this kind of sustained growth in buyer demand in

over ten years. For the year, the region was up 19%

from 2012 and a whopping 34% from 2011. Indeed,

the 11,603 total regional single-family sales was the

highest in any calendar year since 2007. Although

we are nowhere near the transactional levels from

the height of the seller’s market, when the region

was closing 15,000 to 16,000 sales every year, we

are certainly moving in the right direction.

These sustained increases in buyer demand

are fi nally starting to have an impact on pricing.

The regional average sales price rose to just about

$525,000, which was a 1.8% increase from 2012 to

2013, even while falling back just slightly from the

levels reached in the third quarter. The pricing was

mixed across the region, with some counties down

slightly and some others up slightly, but the overall

trend was defi nitely positive. Essentially, this is what

we have been waiting for over the past two years,

as buyer demand clearly started to recover from the

aftermath of the market correction precipitated by

the fi nancial crisis of 2008. But as we have noted

before in this Report, it takes time for changes in

buyer demand to have an impact on pricing. For

example, sales started falling back in late 2005,

but prices continued to go up for another two years

as buyers and sellers slowly came to grips with the

new market realities. Similarly, it’s been almost

two years since sales started going back up, so it’s

not unexpected that prices have started to come

back a little.

All that said, prices still have a long way to

go. The regional average sales price is up over 10%

from the $475,000 market bottom reached in 2009,

but we are still well below the regional price levels

from the height of the seller’s market in 2005-07,

when prices topped out at over $600,000. Basi-

cally, we are back down to 2004 prices – we gave

back the appreciation from the overly exuberant

height of the seller’s market from 2005-07, but we

at least retained the gains homeowners achieved

during the more traditional phase of the seller’s

market from 1998-2004.

Regional Rolling Year Average Sales Prices and Number of Homes Sold

REGIONAL ROLLING YEAR AVERAGE SALES PRICES AND NUMBER OF HOMES SOLD 2002

20032004

20052006

20072008

20092010

20112012

2013Q4

$200,000

$250,000

$300,000

$350,000

$400,000

$450,000

$500,000

$550,000

$600,000

$650,000

4,000

5,500

7,000

9,000

10,500

12,000

13,500

15,000

17,000

18,500

20,000

Average Sales Price

Number of Homes Sold

Average Sales Price

Number of Homes Sold

20022003

2004 2005

20062007

20082009

20102011

20122013Q4

$200,000

$250,000

$300,000

$350,000

$400,000

$450,000

$500,000

$550,000

$600,000

$650,000

4,000

5,500

7,000

9,000

10,500

12,000

13,500

15,000

17,000

18,500

20,000

The real estate market in New York City’s northern suburbs

finished the 2013 year strong, with sales up significantly

across the region and prices continuing to show the first

small signs of appreciation. Given the trends over the past two

years, it’s increasingly clear that the region is poised to begin a

new market cycle that will likely drive both sales and prices up

for the next few years.

Going forward, we believe that homeowners

have reason to be optimistic entering 2014.

It’s become increasingly clear that the buyer’s

market precipitated by the 2008 fi nancial crisis

has come to an end. Looking back, it appears

that the bottom of the market was in late 2009,

with prices falling 20% over an eighteen month

period – a decline arrested only by federal support

in the market through the home buyer tax credit of

2009-10. For the four years from 2009-2012, we

had a fully-blown buyer’s market, with low levels

of buyer demand, rising inventory, and downward

pressure on prices. But that has turned around.

Buyer demand has come back strongly for almost

two years now, accelerating over this past year,

and now seems poised to start driving appreciation

for the fi rst time since the end of that last seller’s

market in 2007.

Accordingly, we expect that sales will continue

to grow through 2014, with a particularly robust

spring market driving sales well above 2013 levels.

And we also expect that these increases in buyer

demand will ultimately start pushing prices up by

the summer, with meaningful price appreciation

by the end of the year. Ultimately, based on the

historical trends we have seen in prior transitions

from buyer’s markets to seller’s markets, we are

projecting a regional 15%–20% sales increase and

2%–3% price appreciation for 2014.

www.randrealty.com

©2013 Independently Owned and

Operated By The Rand Family.

HUDSON VALLEY & NEW JERSEY

2013 FA LL

EVENTS GUIDE

Westchester, Putnam and

Dutchess County Events

September 6, 7PM, Mamaroneck

Mamaroneck Shares Block Party. Food, drink, music and outdoor

fun for everyone. Supporting 4 great local charities. Location:

Mamaroneck Avenue in the heart of the village. Free. For more info,

visit www.mamaroneckshares.com

September 6–8, White Plains

White Plains Jazz Fest. September sizzles with a three-day celebration

of jazz in downtown White Plains. See top performers take the stage

at several venues, culminating in the outdoor International Food and

Jazz Festival on Sunday! Free. Refreshments available for purchase.

For more info, visit www.artsw.org/jazzfest

September 7, 12–4PM, Cortlandt

Annual Cortlandt Family Fun Day off Memorial Drive next to the

Cortlandt Youth Center and the Cortlandt Train Station. This will be

followed by musical bands and ending with a terrifi c fi reworks display.

September 8, 11AM–5PM, New Rochelle

New Rochelle is celebrating its 325th anniversary of the founding of

our great city with year long events. The New Rochelle Street Fair on

Main Street from Centre Avenue to North Avenue will feature all kinds

of booths with games, food, arts and crafts and live entertainment

for children and adults.

September 20–22, 10AM–5PM, Tarrytown

Falls Crafts at Lyndhurst returns to Tarrytown for its 29th year. One

of-a-kind and limited edition jewelry, fashion and accessories, furniture,

home decor pieces, as well as functional and sculputral artwork.

Visitors can also eat in the new expanded food court, purchase

specialty foods and participate in children’s activities throughout the

weekend. Lyndhurst, 635 South Broadway, Tarrytown, NY. Adults $10,

Seniors $9, Kids (6-16) $4, Under 6 free.

September 22, 2–5:30PM, Tivoli

2013 NYSDEC Canoe Program. Paddle through this marshy maze

with Reserve naturalists. Boats provided, bring a lunch. Advanced

registration is required. For more info and to register, visit

hudsoncanoeprogram2013.eventbrite.com

September 22, 12–5PM, Ardsley

Ardsley Day is a community festival with something special for people of

all ages. Come join us for a great day full of music, fun and community.

Free. For more info, call 914.693.1550 or visit www.ardsleyvillage.com

September 28, 1–5PM, Larchmont

Larchmont Arts Festival - Being held in Constitution Park (next

to Village Hall). Rain date: September 29th. Free. For more info,

visit www.villageofl archmont.org

September 29, 8AM, Yonkers

Yonkers Marathon and Half Marathon. Start and fi nish on Yonkers

Waterfront. Offi cial clock runs 5 hours until 1:00 PM. Gatorade/water

provided on course. Participants receive t-shirt, medal & more! $60

to register. For more info, visit www.nycruns.com

October 4, 12–6PM, October 5, 10AM–6PM, October 6,

10AM–4PM, White Plains

Stamp, Coin & Paper Money Show – 49th year at Westchester County

Center. There will be over 100 dealer booths including postcards.

Free. For more info, call 914.995.4050.

October 5, 1–8PM, Dobbs Ferry

This year’s Ferry Festa promises to be bigger and better than ever.

A group of Tactical Urbanists will descend on the Village and will

be promoting bikeability, walkability, and place making. Free.

For more info, call 914.231.8500 or visit www.ferryfesta.com

October 6, 10AM–3PM, New Rochelle

5th Annual Hounds on the Sound, Dog Walk-a-thon & Festival. Enjoy

a leisurely 1.5 mile stroll with your dog on a path bordering the Long

Island Sound, followed by a fun day at the park. Vendors, refreshments,

activities for kids, demonstrations, dog contests, photo booth, music

& more. Dogs and cats will be available for adoption. Glen Island Park,

Pelham Road. Email: [email protected]

October 6, 11AM–6PM, Mahopac

The Greater Mahopac-Carmel Chamber of Commerce presents

the 11th Annual Street Fair. Exhibit booths abound with displays of

everything from trinkets to major appliances. There will be games and

rides for the children, two bands and a DJ, a car show featuring both

classic and new cars, and food from a variety of our local restaurants

and delis. For more info, visit www.mahopaccarmelonline.com/

the-mahopac-carmel-street-fair-2013

October 13, 11AM–5PM, Yorktown

5th Annual Yorktown Festival and Street Fair. Come join in the fun as

downtown Yorktown gets fi lled with over 250 vendors with something

for everyone. This year’s event will have fun kids’ rides, activities,

demonstrations, concerts, clothing, jewelry, food, and more. Stop

by the BHG Rand Realty booth in front of their new offi ce location!

For more info, call Diane 914.245.4599.

October 17, 9AM–2PM, White Plains

Senior Law Day in the Westchester County Center. Attorneys, certifi ed

fi nancial planners and others lead more than a dozen workshops on

wills vs. trusts, estate planning and fi nancial planning. Free. For more

info, call 914.995.4050.

October 19, 9AM–4PM, Somers

Saint Luke’s Harvest Festival & Super Tag Sale. Rain or shine. Rte

100 & 202, Saint Luke’s & Bailey Park. Fun for all ages. For more

info, call 845.628.0578.

October 19, 12:30PM, Larchmont

The Rag-a-Muffin Parade. Children should gather at Palmer

Avenue and Larchmont Avenue at 12:30PM to show off their

Halloween costumes. They will parade down Larchmont Avenue

to Village Hall beginning at 1PM. Refreshments and music will be

provided at the end of the parade. Rain date: October 26. Free.

For more info, visit www.villageofl archmont.org

October 20, 1–4PM, Larchmont

The Sheldrake Environmental Center located at 685 Weaver Street,

Larchmont, NY is hosting a day of fun for the entire family. Join in

the fun with pumpkin painting, live animals, music, arts and crafts

and much more!

October 20, 9:30AM, Purchase

Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk. Join us and support this incredible

Westchester cancer fundraiser. Location: Manhattanville College, 2900

Purchase Street. For more info, visit www.makingstrides.acsevents.org

October 26, 8PM, Valhalla

Atlantic City Ballet “Dracula” at the Academic Arts Theatre at

Westchester Community College, 75 Grasslands Road, Valhalla. This

three-act ballet tells the hypnotic tale of the notorious Transylvanian,

Count. Set in the 15th century, this not-to-be-missed classic takes

audiences on a supernatural journey from London to Romania. Come

in costume, or simply come, “at your own risk,” to be transfi xed by

this Transylvanian tale! Adults $24, Students/Seniors/Fac-Staff $22,

Children under 13 $18. For more info, call 914.606.6262.

October 27, Yonkers

Yonkers Downtown 6th Annual Pet Parade. Dress your pet in your

favorite Halloween costume! Parade starts at the Yonkers Pier. Free.

For confi rmed time, visit www.yonkersdowntown.com

October 27, 2–3PM, Somers

Musical Concert - for all ages. Sponsored by the Friends of the Somers

Library. Located in the Program Room.

October 31, 4–6PM, Dobbs Ferry

Trick or Treat on Main Street and Cedar Street. Both are closed

off to cars allowing children to walk store to store for a safe trick

or treating experience. Free. For more info, call 914.693.6614 or

visit www.dobbsferry.com

Novermber 9, 2PM, New Rochelle

The New Rochelle Public Library located at Lawton Street will host

an adult concert in the Ossie Davis Theatre presenting music from

around the world. This exceptional program will be presented by the

talented husband-wife due of guitarists, Mark Levesque and Judy

Handler. The audiences will enjoy a jam session at an Irish pub, the

warmth and passion of Brazil, a sweet love song from Taiwan and

much, much more. Suggested donation is $2.

Rockland and Orange County

Events

September 1, 10AM–5PM, New City

More than 100 vendor booths will line the street from Congers Road

to First Street selling, books, health and beauty products, handmade

crafts, jewelry, photography sessions, sports memorabilia, clothing,

tie dye items. A myriad of activities to entertain children from bounce

houses, colorful sand art, bubbles, glitter tattoos and prize wheels.

Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty is proud to present our sixth annual Fall Events Guide, featuring over 100

local community events, and a special listing of farmers’ markets and apple picking throughout the region. For a

weekly update of events, go to www.randrealty.com and look for the events’ listings on the blog section. We wish you

and your family a wonderful autumn season.

www.randrealty.com

WESTCHESTER, PUTNAM & DUTCHESSMarch 8, 12PM, White PlainsSt. Patrick’s Day Parade. Over 90 Participating groups

and 26 musical performances. Come join the fun and stay to enjoy the celebration on Mamaroneck Avenue. Free.www.whiteplainssaintpatricksday.com March 8 & 9, White PlainsJournal News Golf Show – latest equipment, apparel and

accessories, work with area pros to fi ne tune your game. Westchester County Center, 198 Central Avenue. Adults $10. www.countycenter.biz March 15, 11AM–6PM, March 16, 11AM–5PM, White PlainsThe Westchester County Home Show is the largest and longest running regional Home Show in the area. Located at the Westchester County Center this home show boasts an elite attendance from one of the wealthiest enclaves in the metropolitan area. Adults $10, Seniors $8, Children 12 & Under Free. For more information, Christopher Thomas 860.563.2111 ext. 307,Toll Free outside CT 800.955.7469. E-mail: [email protected]. Website: www.jenksproductionsMarch 17, 11:30AM–3PM, New Rochelle

St. Patrick’s Day Luncheon at the Hugh Doyle Senior Center, 94 Davis Avenue, New Rochelle, NY. Wear your green and celebrate all things Irish. Lunch will include corned beef and cabbage. There will be musical entertainment by Ina Watters in Song. Suggested donation is $2.00. March 22, 1PM, Yonkers59th Annual McLean Avenue St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

Free parking and Shuttle Bus Service compliments of Empire Casino in Yonkers Avenue Lot at the Casino! Free. www.yonkersstpatricksparade.orgMarch 26, 7PM, YonkersBernie Wides will have a presentation which will focus on the

latest research about Whales as well as the central role they have played for thousands of years in human cultures and the rise in laws protecting them. Refreshments precede the program. Free. Lenoir Nature Preerve, 19 Dudley Street. Call Michael Bochnik 914.237.9331.

March 28 & May 18, 3PM, YonkersSunday Free Concerts at Saunders HS, 183 Palmer Road. Presented by Fine Arts Orchestra Society of Yonkers/Yonkers Philharmonic Orchestra! Enjoy totally enchanting and inspired performances! www.yonkersphilharmonic.org/calendarMarch 29, 9AM–5PM, Larchmont2nd Annual Larchmont Brickfest: A Festival Built from LEGO®

Bricks! All Ages. Meet in the Village Center. Come explore a world created out of LEGO® Bricks. This visually interactive 300-sq.-ft display, fi lled with whimsical scenes bursting with puns hidden surprises, is sure to entertain kids (and adults) of all ages. Along with the display will be “Seek and Find” challenges, Premium LEGO® Sets for raffl e, LEGO® building events and a LEGO® creativity corner. Tickets go on sale in February and cost $5.00 each for ages 3 and up. Sponsored by the Friends of the Larchmont Public Library with proceeds benefi ting the Larchmont Public Library.March 29, White PlainsWHUD’s Kids Fair. A day of education and fun with programs,

services and entertainment for kids of all ages. Admission Adults $10, Children $5. Westchester County Center. 914.995.4050. www.whud.com/promotions/kidsApril 1, 10–4PM, YorktownEaster Egg Hunt at Downing Park and Breakfast with the Easter

Bunny. For more info, call Denise 914.962.5876. April 9, 6–9PM, MahopacJoin the Hudson Valley’s fi nest restaurants, wineries and food & beverage producers for a tasting as the come together and share their masteries to benefi t the Putnam/Northern Westchester Women’s Resource Center. Putnam/Northern Westchester Women’s Resource Center is a non-profi t organization providing education, advocacy and services to the community in order to create a safe, supportive environment that eliminates violence and promotes gender equality. Cost $75. www.pnwwrc.orgApril 12, 10:30AM, 12PM, Mt. PleasantHop on over to Broadway Field for the Spring Egg Hunt.

Preschooler - 2nd graders. Bring Basket and search for plastic eggs, candy and other surprises. A visit from the Bunnies tops off this event. This event is for children. In case of inclement weather please call the Recreation Hotline at 914.742.2364 for updates, times, and location.

April 12, 2PM, BeaconKirsten Swenson will discuss the works of Sol LeWitt. Part of Dia:Beacon Gallery Talk series. Free with museum admission. No reservations required. 3 Beekman St., Beacon, NY 12508. 845.440.0100. www.diaart.org/gallerytalk April 13, 7–9PM, Mt. VernonTribute to Thelonious Monk. PJS Members $14 Non-members

$22. Concerts are held in a cabaret setting – Free Wine, Coffee & Tea available – Bring your own food & snacks or buy our famous hot dogs, snacks and sodas. Additional Parking is available at the Holmes School (entrance on Columbus Avenue). For more information call Greg at 914.793.7179. April 14 & 15, 7PM, April 28, Mamaroneck

Mamaroneck High School Senior Musical “CHAT”- Mamaroneck High School, 1000 West Boston Post Road. Call 914.220.3100 for admission fees. www.mamkschools.org April 19, 9AM–6PM, PawlingKessman Farms - Easter egg hunts for toddlers, children, and

for all ages (includes adults), The Easter bunny will make an appearance, Visits and photos with the Easter Rabbit. Free. Other activities for children, Bring a basket to collect the eggs! Farm animals are present, fresh eggs, snacks and refreshment stand. 83 Route 22, Pawling. 845.878.7492. [email protected]. April 19, 10AM, YonkersAnnual Easter Egg Hunt! Redmond Field on Cook Ave. Free.

Sponsored by City of Yonkers. Ages 4-10 years old. Eggs are hidden on the fi eld. Bring your baskets and your cameras! Come and meet the Easter Bunny. 914.377.6450.April 19, 7–10PM, YonkersBeczak Environmental Education Center on the waterfront.

Urban H2O – The Folkadelics – they are anything but a folk band! $10 at the door. Check schedule here: www.beczak.org/eventscalendar.htm April 21, 10AM–12PM, RyeBird Hike and Egg Hunt at the Rye Nature Center. Join us for

a morning hike as we explore our backyard forest looking for local birds. Bring your own binoculars. Hike will be followed by an egg hunt at 11AM. Bring your own baskets to collect eggs. Bird Hike: Free. Egg Hunt: Child Members $8, Child Non-Members $10. www.ryenaturecenter.org

Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty is delighted to present its annual Spring Events Guide, a listing of local community events throughout New Jersey and the Hudson Valley. The events are organized by region, and then by date, and we have also listed ongoing events in a separate section to make it easier to fi nd great ways to celebrate the season.

Hudson Valley & New Jersey

2014

www.randrealty.com

Documents

Buyer Orientation Guide · real estate agent, and gives you a a general overview of the purchasing process. Next, Stage One covers your initial agent consultation, and provides you