Selling, buying and renting in the Five Towns

     A home seller may have a buyer for their house, a person looking to rent will more than likely find an apartment, but for house buyers the inventory – the amount of homes available to buy – is not as plentiful in the Five Towns, according to area real estate brokers.
      Susan Pugatch, a broker with Pugatch Realty Corp. in Woodmere, said that for people buying homes, more inventory needs to be available for them on the market. “What we need is more houses for people to buy,” she said. “We do have a busy rental, co-op and condo market. The rental market is always busy.”
      Marsha Ander, a broker with Coach Realtors in Hewlett, said that she is also seeing a decrease in available homes for purchase this spring, and attributes the trend to the weather. “We had an expanded winter, and the supply was low,” Ander said. “The weather could have stopped people from listing homes because of the snow, or the potential of cold weather conditions on the ground. People generally don’t want to show their homes in cold weather.”
      Real estate developer and Lawrence resident Uri Kaufman said that for his agency, The Harmony Group, the market is stable. “The market for multi-family homes, which is what I sell, has held steady for the past few years, but it is also a nervous market,” he said. “Interest rates are lower now but might be increasing by 50 basis points, or one-half of a percent, by the end of this year. This percentage increase can be a big difference in monthly mortgage payments.”
      Prospective homebuyers are searching for homes with specific criteria, like location in a specific school district, according to Pugatch. “People are looking for the right amount of living space in a home,” she said. “They’re concerned with property taxes in a certain neighborhood or area. They also want to live near houses of worship and friends.”

      For the first time, Ander is seeing multiple offers on properties. “I’m noticing a closer margin between asking and selling prices,” she said. “I would estimate it’s about a three percent margin. I’ve even seen some houses going for their asking prices. It’s a sellers’ market, due to the lack of listings, and the number of days a home is on the market is decreased.” What real estate people call DOM (days on the market).
Kaufman noted that in his selling area, the number of days on the market has also decreased this year. “The margin between asking and selling prices is usually closer to ten percent,” he said. “A rate of a three percent margin indicates a seller’s market.”
      Open house showings are popular with potential buyers, Pugatch said. “They are a very good opportunity for people to see a house they’re interested in buying.”
      Applying technology is helping to expand Coach’s reach and bridge the gap between buyers and sellers, Ander said. “Our buyers are Internet shoppers,” she said. “We use professional photographers to take pictures of the homes we sell. We do online virtual tours, where buyers can look at homes right on their computers.”
      Using all the tools available to them Ander said everything is done alluding to an old fashioned phrase. “To sell a home, we bring in the cavalry,” she said.