Luxury Real Estate

Courtesy of Frederick Peters, President of Warburg Realty

Without fail, I have the same conversation with every new Warburg agent after they have spent about a year in the business. They say to me, “I had no idea it would be so hard.” Well, I knew it would be hard! When I interview prospective hires, I try to warn them. Success in residential real estate requires a multi-faceted approach. A number of skill sets must be developed simultaneously. Nonetheless, newbies tend to project their own romantic notions onto the business: they will be earning six figures in no time; they will show fabulous properties and collect big checks. And all the while, they will be making their own schedule.

The reality they discover is substantially different. Despite our extensive internal training, there is still a very steep learning curve. New agents must get to know the inventory, which is extensive, diverse, and filled with subtle yet significant distinguishing characteristics. They must learn (and they can only learn by experience) the processes involved in shepherding a sale from its inception to its closing. Their first deal falls through. Their second deal falls through. Maybe they are fortunate enough to assist a senior broker, thus accelerating their experience and receiving some mentoring. And all the while they are trying to figure out how to generate a steady stream of their own clients and customers.

For all agents (and for everyone in sales everywhere) success at creating a pipeline of future business determines the arc of your career. Your skills, important as they are, are only meaningful if you have someone on whom to deploy them. Successfully developing your sphere of influence, and making that sphere work for you, are the critical elements to building a sales career. Like charm, if you have it, nothing else matters. And if you don’t have it, nothing else matters!

In every interview, I say to the eager person across the desk from me, “Everyone you know knows someone else in real estate. So why are they going to hire you?” Mostly I am met with a blank stare. But this is the crux of the matter. Who do you know, and how can they help you generate leads?

Here’s what I have learned about creating business: you have to ask for it. You have to overcome your feeling that it is crass, or embarrassing, or too aggressive. You have to cultivate people everywhere you go. You have to know the business well enough so that you can talk about it knowledgeably whenever it comes up (and in New York, it ALWAYS comes up.) You have to have cards with you at all times. You need a broad enough economic perspective so you can help prospective clients put their contemplated transaction into a larger financial and global context.

You have to accept that, more often than not, the people closest to you will break your heart. Your brother, or your stepmother, will buy through someone other than you. Your best friend will hire you, then complain about everything you do. I figured out early on that people in my second circle of influence, the friends of friends, the referrals I knew slightly, were going to be the ones whose recommendations built my business. And I stay in touch with everyone, because only when I am top of mind and putting myself regularly before them are they likely to remember me when the moment to make a purchase or sale arrives. Best of all, over the years many of them have become friends.

Real estate in New York State has a very low bar for entry. But there is a high bar for success, and many people don’t make it. It takes years of cultivation, of dedication, often of frustration. You do make your own schedule: often 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

When it works, it’s the best job on earth. It’s no surprise to me that Forbes recently noted, based on interviewing thousands of Americans, that real estate agents are the happiest of any workers. As an agent, your fate is in your own hands. After 5 or 6 years, you have the skills in your fingertips – at a certain point, pricing and Board package prep and financial review becomes like muscle memory. But no matter what, you always have to be out in the world, meeting people, making connections. Till the day you retire you are always feeding the pipeline.

You can read more on www.warburgrealty.com/blog.

Courtesy of Frederick Peters, President of Warburg Realty

I read an interesting opinion piece about compromise in this Sunday’s Times. Tip O’Neill’s son, Thomas, wrote about his father’s working relationship with Ronald Reagan; how the two men, who disagreed about practically everything, learned to work together for the good of the country. This successful collaborative effort was based on compromise. In addition to being a serious indictment of TODAY’s governmental process, the piece made me think about the real estate business. Buyers and sellers so often get in their own way, shooting themselves in the foot by their inability or unwillingness to reach for common ground. As agents, we see this at every step in the process.

1. Pricing All too often, a seller has a price already fixed in his or her head. This price may be based on other asking prices for similar properties (never a reliable gauge, since selling prices are often so different) or it simply may be based on what the seller would like to believe the property is worth. We often hear, “Oh, I was told I could get ten million for it.” Brokers all tend to have the same internal response to that statement: by whom? A dinner guest? An inexperienced agent trolling for the listing? No suggested asking price is meaningful unless it is presented with comparables which justify it. As an opening salvo in the negotiating process, a distorted asking price is highly counterproductive. Even in this tight environment, many fine properties linger on the market month after month. It is always about price. Buyers will rarely return to a property once they have decided against it. There is interesting psychology at work here: when buyers see a property which could be right but is priced wrong, they often convince themselves of its deficiencies so as not to feel disappointed. Then, when the price comes down to the appropriate level, it is too late. They have already talked themselves out of it.

2. The opening offer Here we see the buyer equivalent of the excessive asking price: the aggressively low offer. Sellers (and their agents, who should know better) can be offended and put off by a really low offer. Frequently they refuse to counter. This offer can also prejudice the seller against the buyer in further negotiations. Very low offers are worse than a waste of time. They create a setback to the negotiating process, reducing the likelihood of a positive outcome.

3. The line in the sand Agents experience this snafu with deal after deal. The negotiation proceeds, either smoothly or otherwise, to a point at which the parties are less than 1% apart. And neither side will budge. Each tends to become self-righteous about how they have given up more than the other side. Sellers feel that they have dropped too far from their asking price, while buyers fear they have offered more than the market indicates the property is worth. And there the deal sits. Each participant has drawn a line in the sand; neither is willing to cross over.

In each of these situations, the participants hang on aggressively to the fantasy of being right. Other forces are at fault: the buyer, the seller, the broker, the environment. This is only human. We all do it. But only in letting go of our need to feel right can we once again see the goal – a fair transaction for all. We must compromise to arrive at the best outcome. The details drop away once we attain the desired conclusion. Did I pay a half percent too much? Did I sell for a half percent too little? Six months later, no one remembers. But in the moment, we tend to compromise our own ability to get what we want as ego, or a sense of the rightness of our position, blind us to the need for give and take. When we hang on too hard to our own positions, everyone loses.

You can read more on www.warburgrealty.com/blog.

Courtesy of Frederick Peters, President of Warburg Realty

Warburg Realty’s third quarter sales upend the conventional wisdom about real estate in the summer months. Traditionally, the summer is always the weakest quarter, with August the weakest month within the span. This year, the third quarter burned hot! With 30% more sales than in July, and 140% more than in August of 2011, Warburg saw more contracts signed in August than during any other month of 2012 so far (as the attached chart indicates, the market overall had a slightly different experience.) These results for the summer months are extremely unusual, as a look at 2010 and 2011 in the chart demonstrates. What is going on?

MONTHLY CONTRACT ACTIVITY

Data provided by Urban Digs

First, a word about the deals themselves. The conventional wisdom about summer sales did prevail when it comes to dollar value. While the market was extremely active in August, most of those deals were not big deals. Those big deal buyers actually ARE at the beach. But all summer long we have seen acceleration in the market for $2 million and under. These buyers, more than any others, are influenced by low interest rates and how the resulting cheap money and low monthly payments, not to mention the tax benefits which no one really believes are going away no matter who wins the election, make buying more attractive than renting. Add to that a continuing ultra tight rental market and you have an active summer on your hands.

Equally interesting, and more unexpected, is the acute lack of inventory throughout the sales marketplace. It has been true for some time that foreign money is snapping up the high and mid priced condominiums all over Manhattan. But the profound shortage of inventory which has developed in the co-op market defies expectations. Throughout the city, resident New Yorkers are hamstrung month after month in their new home searches. At $20 million, at $10 million, at $5 million, at $1 million – few new listings appear. The customers, hoping that there is still seasonality in the market (in my observation, there really isn’t!) ask, “Won’t there be a lot more inventory hitting the market in September?” Sadly, the answer was no. Many of these customers asked the same questions in April. As you can see in the attached chart from Urban Digs, my favorite source for analytical data, there was no major spike in inventory in the spring and not much more in the fall. And I don’t anticipate one any time soon, at least not on the resale side, not even with the almost certain increase in the capital gains tax burden for sellers looming on the 2013 horizon.

ACTIVE INVENTORY

Data provided by Urban Digs

What we will see however, on the Upper East Side, is a remarkable number of new construction and conversion projects coming together this fall. Two beautiful new buildings on East 79^th Street, two major conversions on Park Avenue and one on 72^nd and Lexington – these are the headliners for this uniquely large crop of new condos available to buyers as the fourth quarter begins.

As I have suggested in the past, I believe a significant part of this tight market relates to consumer perception of our product. Six or seven years ago, real estate in New York (and throughout much of the country) was the lynchpin of everyone’s get rich quick scheme. Clearly that is no longer the case. No one, thank goodness, buys real estate these days because they hope to flip it and make a quick profit. But it has emerged as a hedge. Buyers, both foreign and domestic, see real estate as a safe place to park their money. As I have noted often before in this blog, bricks and mortar are, well, bricks and mortar. They exist. You can touch and feel them. And when they are in New York, one of the world’s truly international cities, with an ever expanding population – probably there will always be demand.

Some caveats still apply. While all the new condos in Williamsburg are long since sold, and most of the inventory in Harlem has been snatched up, while more and more younger people are exploring Bed/Stuy and Inwood, and artists are all over Bushwick, price sensitivity still defines most markets (townhouses in Brownstone Brooklyn may be the only environment where it seems that almost anything goes). In general buyers, even the most eager, don’t want to overpay. That’s something everyone learned from the recession.

In conversation this week with a Warburg buyer, she expressed her fear, fueled by many of her Wall Street friends, that the market would plummet if Obama gets re-elected. Don’t believe it! I have heard this refrain countless times during my 32 years in the business. Regardless of your political persuasion, the fundamentals about New York will remain the same no matter who is President. New York will still be a world commercial hub, attracting people from everywhere. It will still offer its uniquely wonderful quality of life. There will still be more demand than supply for the foreseeable future. While we are certainly not immune to the play of market forces, I don’t see this election, however it comes out, as significantly impacting the value of our real estate.

For up to the minute information, please visit the Warburg Blog.

Courtesy of Frederick Peters, President of Warburg Realty

21 years ago I assembled the shareholders and signed the papers which created Warburg Realty. Then, as now, we were emerging from a severe recession. I still believe in the future to which I pledged myself and the company in September of 1991. As a token of that belief, Warburg has just signed leases to expand and move our headquarters to a full floor at 654 Madison Avenue, on 60^th Street. How the future shapes up will depend on many factors outside any of our control, but New York possesses a number of essential attributes which protect our real estate sales market against the worst sorts of adversity. Here they are:

· The city never stops growing. For a variety of reasons, from economic opportunity to energy efficiency, from artistic freedom to racial heterogeneity, America’s great cities are magnets whose attraction just grows greater from one year to the next. And what city is greater than New York? People from all over the country and the world flock here to live every year, eager to make our city’s energy and excitement work for them.

· There is little housing available. Every year, our housing shortage becomes more acute. The rental market is tighter than it has ever been, converting many would-be renters to would-be buyers. And according to the most recent census, rentals account for 70% of Manhattan’s housing stock! No wonder so many would-be buyers feel there is nothing for them to look at. With only 30% of Manhattan’s housing stock in the sales pool to begin with, there is never more than 1.5% or 2% available at any one time.

· The city is an incubator for business growth. An August 19th Crain’s article points out the discrepancy between the stubbornly high unemployment numbers about which we keep reading and the actual rate of job growth in the city, which has seen 200,000 new jobs added since the recession ended in September of 2009. Gradually, such job creation leads to business expansion, which in turn leads to increased commercial leasing, residential rentals, and residential sales. If more people are employed, those people need to actually live and work somewhere.

· Quality of life throughout New York continues to improve. Crime remains at historic lows relative to other U.S. cities, and New York has never looked more beautiful. We have green space extending up the Hudson Riverbank from the Battery to 125^th St, we have the High Line, and our parks are oases of tranquility, magnets for New Yorkers of every income and age level. We have spectacular new residential buildings designed by the world’s greatest architects. Broadway, Lincoln Center, BAM, countless galleries, and hundreds of small cutting edge venues in every borough provide display and performance opportunities for artists of every variety. There is no more exciting place to live.

For 21 years we have built a business based on integrity, product knowledge, negotiating expertise, and a deep belief in the city we inhabit and serve. These qualities have made Warburg a force in the marketplace as we come of age. Who knows what our marketplace will look like 21 years from now? My colleagues, my shareholders and I look forward to finding out.

You can read more on www.warburgrealty.com/blog.

Courtesy of Frederick Peters, President of Warburg Realty

August was remarkably busy at Warburg Realty. Formerly the month when nothing happened, when buyers were "out of town" and sellers did not want to list, August morphed this year into a bonanza, with more contracts signed for more money than during almost any month since 2008. This phenomenon has led me to think about how this busyness differs from the busyness of five years ago, and how it is the same. These two eras, separated by only a few years, stand on different sides of the serious recession of 2008-2009. So in spite of the competitive bidding, the scarcity of inventory, and the harried buyers, the landscapes seem to me more different than similar. Here's how:

1) First, the active market of today does not carry with it the sense of optimism which characterized the middle years of the past decade. Although people are buying, they do not sense limitless possibility in the world or the economy. For some real estate is a hedge, for others just a decision to focus on enhanced quality of life. But today's New York buyers, as a rule, don't feel like residents in a world of endless growth.

2) Probably as a result of this guarded perspective, most buyers don't anticipate a big windfall in the value of their purchases. Yes, they believe it is appropriate to hope for appreciation keeping pace with and maybe even exceeding the Consumer Price Index, but unlike the buyers of 2006, they do not believe they could turn right around and sell their property for 15% more the week after the closing. And generally, they're right.

3) The upper end of our market is far more dominated by high ticket condominium purchases made by non-Americans. It is an ironic fact that just as the high flying Wall Street bankers of the early 2000s faced a day of reckoning, our market has been flooded with Asian, European, and South American buyers with vast purchasing power and a desire to park part of their wealth in New York condos.

4) Competitive bidding has resurged in 2012. But in spite of that resurgence, American buyers remain cautious with their dollars. The desire NOT to overpay has never been stronger, and most multiple bid situations are created by the perception of real value in the property on offer. Importantly, even with many bidders, prices rarely stray much outside appropriate price parameters.

5) While co-op boards have always been stringent, the recession has made them particularly anxious about new applicants and their overall profile. Throughout the industry, agents are reporting a higher incidence of board turndowns than ever before; one of my colleagues at another firm has referred to 2012 as “the year of the turndown.” Buildings are going through applications with a fine tooth comb, and every co-op package we submit elicits additional questions and requests for explanation from the members of the board. We have also seen multiple examples of extraordinary requests from boards: 10 years of maintenance in escrow, a multi-million dollar deposit until a renovation is complete. These requests are unprecedented in my long experience. And the condos are following suit. Since they cannot turn buyers down (in theory a condo’s only two alternatives are to permit a sale to proceed or to buy the unit themselves), they use delay as a tactic, requesting one piece of paper after another until the buyer (hopefully) gives up and walks away. At Warburg, where we are hyper-careful about the quality and content of our board packages and each is reviewed multiple times, our board turndown rate is up 40% over last year.

So we find ourselves in a strange positive/negative environment. The market is strong, but customers are not particularly optimistic about the future. They buy as a hedge or for quality of life reasons (always, in my opinion, the best reason to acquire a home) without anticipating a huge return on their investment. The really big bucks are spent more by foreigners than Americans. And the boards are tougher than ever, so skilled agents are more integral than ever to the process of shepherding transactions to a successful conclusion. In many ways, I prefer this environment. It feels rational. It moves (usually) at a reasonable pace. It expands our horizons. For 2012, this is the new normal.

You can read more on www.warburgrealty.com/blog.

Courtesy of Frederick Peters, President of Warburg Realty

When I travel around the country I am struck by the fact that most of our cities have turned into donuts. This is not an original thought. Many urban planners have noted the way downtowns are dying as cities are increasingly ringed by malls and big box stores where, more and more, everyone shops. Fortunately this fate has not befallen New York. Our downtowns and shopping thoroughfares remain vibrant and engaging in innumerable neighborhoods throughout the city. So how do we make sure they stay that way?

The excitement of New York reflects a mix of old and new. We have wonderful old neighborhoods filled with late19th century brownstones, we have iconic mid-century masterpieces like Philip Johnson and Mies van der Rohe's Seagram Building, and we have new luxury residential towers from Costas Kandylis, Jean Nouvel, Richard Meier, and Frank Gehry, not to mention the ubiquitous Robert A. M. Stern. This dynamic between old and new energizes our skyline and creates the complex poem of our urban life.

Preservationists and developers are often seen as antithetical groups. Actually every city needs both. On the one hand we ARE our history. No urban area can be at peace with itself unless its history is cherished. The designation by the Landmarks Commission of such iconic areas as the Central Park West skyline and the homes on Hamilton Heights and in Ditmas Park remind us of our city's cultural heritage as well as the sweeping changes in how we live over the past 150 years. By the same token, cities either change or they die. Without new buildings, especially those by significant architects, a neighborhood can become a mausoleum, a tribute only to its past and not an open door to its future.

So we as citizens need to support the need for appropriate landmarking while at the same time recognizing that age alone does not create value. Not every item in a junk store is an "antique", and not every building built in the 1890s or 1920s should be preserved. Cities, like businesses, or people, have to change or get left behind. We need buildings and businesses, old and new, which create a vibrant street life and keep pedestrians interacting with their environment and each other. We need innovative ideas like the High Line and the wonderful Hudson River greenway stretching up Manhattan's West Side. We need support for business, small and large, since these businesses are the engines driving New York into the future.

And most of all we need to remember that the ecosystem of cities is fragile. They can die from the center out as so many have across the United States. My job, and that of every urban citizen, is to make sure that doesn't happen. I shop and dine locally, often in small owner operated stores and restaurants; as a small business owner myself, I strongly believe in the job and buzz creating power of small businesses. I support preserving the historic legacy of New York while at the same time making way for transformational change. There is no either/or choice between the past and the future. To keep the hole in the donut full we need both!

You can read more on www.warburgrealty.com/blog.

Courtesy of Frederick Peters, President of Warburg Realty

I have spent the last few days visiting friends in coastal Maine, where there are wonderful summer "cottages" and antique houses, often cheek by jowl with newer homes both beautiful and not so beautiful. The trip has led me to ponder again the aesthetics of housing. What are the qualities which make one space welcoming and appealing while another leaves us uneasy and on edge? Here are some ideas about the confluence of factors which inform our perception of interior space:

1. LAYOUT - Perhaps the most influential of our perceptions of the space around us pertains to its organization. Human beings are drawn to symmetry. We like it in architecture no less than in the faces of those we perceive as beautiful. So the way rooms are organized around the central axis of the space is critical to our enjoyment of them. That said, absolute symmetry can lack originality or any element of surprise. Thus the layouts, be they in apartments or houses, to which people are most often drawn are those with a sense of balance and symmetry in the enfilade of rooms-but nonetheless enlivened by asymmetrical touches.

2. PROPORTION - Proportion enhances the sense of comfort and pleasure introduced by a good layout. The golden mean, which mathematicians have defined as a ratio of 1/1.6, is most easily rounded off in architectural terms to a 2/3 ratio. In other words, the eye and the senses are pleased by a room of 20' by 30'. If you increase the smaller proportion, the room becomes more and more square, which continues to please the senses. If on the other hand the larger proportion is extended, the room becomes a longer thinner rectangle, increasingly losing its sense of balance with each additional foot.

3. VOLUME - Ceiling height must scale to both the overall size of the property and each of its rooms. On the one hand, large rooms with low ceilings can create a claustrophobic experience for the user. But it is equally true that small or narrow rooms with excessively high ceilings can generate a spatially disorienting "wind tunnel" effect. While most people prefer a high ceiling to a lower one, more is not always better. In a welcoming space the volume is generous but balanced with the other architectural elements.

4. OUTLOOK - Even the best proportioned spaces can be compromised by a poor outlook. For most people the critical component in outlook is light. Natural light creates resonance in an interior, adding its luminous glow to all the architectural elements. And the quality of the light in New York seems to change around the tenth floor, becoming whiter and more penetrating. View also enhances any outlook. For those who can afford it, nothing extends interior space outwards like a view. The majority of people with whom I have dealt over the years prefer a mid floor, to preserve the human scale, gazing at water and natural elements such as trees or flowers.

5. DETAIL - Every space is enhanced by detail, from the most elaborate cornice to the simplest baseboard. To the modern eye, less is usually more when it comes to detail. Many of us find the deep elaborate moldings of the late Victorian era overwhelming; we tend to be more comfortable with the simpler Classical sensibility evident in the New York apartment buildings of the mid to late 1920s. Details influence the eye; when well done they can visually raise a ceiling or square a room. The best architects always use (and used) detail to enhance a space's best qualities while minimizing its drawbacks.

The great architects are magicians. They brilliantly deploy the tools in their toolbox to create living environments which subtly draw us in and make us feel at home. The world over, the spaces which please us have elements in common; the deployment of layout, proportion, volume, outlook, and detail chief among them.

You can read more on www.warburgrealty.com/blog.

Courtesy of Frederick Peters, President of Warburg Realty

I have spent the last 25 years working on how to be an effective leader. I always knew that integrity and honesty mattered to me more than anything, but I wasn’t sure how to build those into a corporate culture based on collaboration rather than fear. An inspiring recent interview in the Times helped me crystallize some of my thoughts and got me thinking more proactively about what I believe. The article can be read at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/business/bill-flemming-of-skanska-usa-building-on-leadership.html.

Here’s what the years have taught me:

There is, as Bill Flemming notes in his interview, a great distinction between being a leader and a boss: a leader helps people figure out what to do while a boss tells them what to do. This resonates strongly for me. People will often come to my desk looking for solutions. Increasingly, I am out of the solution business. I try to ask “What do you think is the best way out of this situation?” I am a guy with a lot of opinions, but these days I try to bite my tongue. More often than not I find that people already know the best solution. They are looking more for affirmation than problem solving.

An important corollary of this is the discovery that people solve problems in different ways. My agents and managers often arrive at solutions I wouldn’t have thought of. Sometimes I think my solution would be better but usually I find that this interaction can be a significant learning experience for me. I often don’t have the best answer. My job, I increasingly understand, is to bring out the best in those around me.

This brings me to another great statement of Flemming’s: “I work for the people below me.” I think this notion lies at the heart of the management philosophy of any successful leader. As the president of Warburg, I am only as successful as the agents and staff working for the company. And their success, in turn, depends on my leadership. How well do I empower them to make good decisions? How well have I communicated my vision for the company? How good am I at listening to suggestions and complaints? Do I facilitate teamwork?

I did not set out to be a business owner; as I have noted before in this blog I began my adult life as a musician. I never went to business school. I am pretty bad with Excel and PowerPoint and my main arithmetical skill is a lightning-fast ability to compute 6% of any sales price! But over the two plus decades during which I have led Warburg Realty, I have learned that this business, probably like every business, is a people business. I strive every day to NOT be the leader who feels entitled because my name (or my middle name, actually) is on the door. I know today that respect may or may not accompany a title; if it does it is only because it is earned. And I know that while I may be impatient, if I lose my ability to listen and really HEAR what my colleagues are telling me, my organization suffers. I may not agree, I may not do what is suggested, but I need to pay attention to it.

I don’t much like being criticized or having people disagree with me. I can get my back up. But it is my obligation, and that of every leader in my firm and every firm, to get over it. We work for our agents, and they often know more than we do. We cannot continue to do what we do because we have always done it. I trust my team: staff, agents, and managers alike. With their guidance, I know Warburg will move confidently into the future.

You can read more on www.warburgrealty.com/blog.

Courtesy of Frederick Peters, President of Warburg Realty

In real estate, technology is our future. Or is it?

This past week, we talked a lot about technology at our management retreat. How 85% of home buyers begin their search on line. How many buyers feel they don't need an agent because all the information on every property is right there at the touch of a keystroke. So much information is now on line that buyers view properties virtually, through photos and video; they can eliminate many properties without ever seeing the actual bricks and mortar, thus making themselves much more efficient.

These buyers are right; there is a LOT of information on line about properties. But does information actually drive purchases? Does anyone really want to buy a home based on information alone? Are the facts about a property (or a person) and its essence the same?

I love Facebook. I check it every day, often several times a day, to see what's new in my newsfeed and who has been reading my posts. I post regularly on Facebook, though not multiple times a day as some of my colleagues do. But if you read about me on Facebook - if you and I become Facebook friends - what you know about me is carefully curated. I make conscious decisions about what to post and what not to post. I create a context for myself around the areas I write about on Facebook: real estate, cooking, a little music, my children and grandchild. Knowing me on Facebook is not actually knowing me. To a certain degree I actively avoid nuance. I want to create an appealing distillation: these interests, this focus, these ideas. I avoid controversy in my Facebook self.

I believe this is the paradigm for responsible, professional on line interaction. And I think the implications spread far beyond Facebook. We are all curating a projection of ourselves, be it curmudgeonly, friendly, wise, or funny. And the goal is always attraction.

The same paradigm holds for on-line real estate. Every agent tries to put his or her listing's best foot forward. The on-line projection reflects careful editing. It lacks nuance. And that is where agents come into the picture. Frequently the property the buyer has rejected based on its on-line depiction is precisely the one he should be seeing. You can only imbibe the feeling of a place - the light and air, the way the space flows, the detailing - as you walk through it IN PERSON. What looked small on your iPad may look just fine when you are there, and vice versa. Buyers know just where they want to live, and they refine their Internet searches accordingly. But agents know that time and again people end up enthusiastically buying in neighborhoods they had never even considered until their agent led them there.

I say often in this blog that we as agents sell both a property and a sense of home. Anyone can buy a condo on line. But to find a home requires your presence in the space to soak up the intangibles. That reality can never go virtual.

You can read more on www.warburgrealty.com/blog.

Courtesy of: Luxury Homes in Spain 

 A local chef from a town in the Alicante region of Spain is conquering New York without leaving his home town of Denia. The Michelin star's dishes are overstepping the borders to delight the most demanding palates. An article published in the “New York Daily News” chooses the Alicante chef Quique Dacosta as the best European chef according to a consumer interview. The results arise from a blog that the prestigious British gastronomical critic Jay Rayner and the famous chefs Tom Colicchio and Anthony Bourdai took part in, testing the opinion of the net users.

Dacosta's menus combine local produce with creativity, obtaining Mediterranean flavours, according to the New York press.

The Alicante chef leads the list, followed by other renowned Spanish chefs and these, in turn, are followed by French chefs.

Dacosta's restaurant, that bears his name (Quique Dacosta Restaurant), is located in the region of the North Costa Blanca, an area which is fast becoming a popular destination for luxury tourism and the construction of exclusive homes.