Mike Luchen is permanently optimistic about the White Plains home market.
Photo credit: Staff

Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage realtor Mike Luchen’s perspective on the White Plains market for single-family homes as they relate to Westchester in general is that the market is “unbelievable across the board,” he said in a recent interview. “Manhattan’s gotten so expensive and White Plains is going to get even more expensive,” he added. Asked how the market is in White Plains for sellers—a question that came up repeatedly at a recent Council of Neighborhood Associations meeting—Luchen pulls no punches: “The market’s going to do great even though homeowners are scared and there is a lot of uncertainty. If history tells us one thing, it’s that you’ll never lose money selling in White Plains. It’s always the right time to buy and it’s always the right time to sell. There are no fortune tellers in the real estate business.”

With interest rates beginning to go down, a lot of people are wondering if now is the time to sell their home or if they should wait. Luchen’s response is, “The last ‘good market’ was in 2005, and we could possibly be looking at a stagnant market until 2011 or so. And by the way, not everything is overpriced. Most sellers have adapted to today’s market.”

And what about condos? Luchen explained “Condos and co-ops will take off faster right now because they’re the prospective homeowner’s next-best choice when looking to buy.” He also believes condos and co-ops will “skyrocket in value sooner rather than later.”

Luchen believes the average real-estate agent “messes the market up. What worked three years ago doesn’t work now.” Agents need to be more accountable to prospective clients, he believes. For the approximately 140 properties he’s listed in the past year, Luchen claims he’s sold 56 of them and says he has had a total of 97 transactions. “The average is eight for other agents,” he said.

Luchen claims marketing is a huge priority for him. He places ads in over 43 regional real estate Web sites—at his own cost, he said—every time he posts a new property for sale. Additionally, he sends out between 500 and 1,000 cards to his mailing list for every listing he promotes.

One of Luchen’s biggest pet peeves is the open house. “Stop open houses in White Plains now,” he said. “It doesn’t work. Real buyers call agents, they don’t casually drop by an open house. It just doesn’t happen that way. You’re only going to get nosey neighbors and people with no resources coming to open houses. When selling your home, only deal with pre-approved buyers.”

When you’re buying or selling a house, Luchen emphasizes the need to ask a lot of questions of your broker and recommends being wary of agents that may try and “dazzle you,” he says, with unimportant chitchat. “Nice doesn’t sell,” he said.     

5 Things to Know Before Listing Any Property

• What is your prospective agent’s sell-price-to-list-price ratio? How close an agent comes to the asking price is very important to know. This will tell you that your listing agent knows how to price correctly, which means you won’t be sitting on the market for a year unsold.
• Every agent will tell you they are the best; they are salespeople, after all. Ninety percent of real estate business is done by only 10 percent of agents, so they all can’t be the best. Ask the agent you are interviewing to back up his or her claims and show why they are the best. Ask them not to go on for an hour about their company, which will tell you nothing about why they sell your home. It’s not the company; it’s the agent you are hiring.
• Sales for the prior year and current year are a good indication of an agent’s performance. Ask for details about this, and don’t get sucked in by guarantees and other promises.
• Many agents feature properties for sale that are not even listed with them, but with other agents in their office, giving the appearance that they have many more listings than they actually do.
• Many listing agents take listings they can’t price right or simply can’t get sold. You should have a true understanding of his or her full track record. Remember to ask the agent how many total transactions they have personally completed. Some agents might say they have been in business for 10 years but also may have done only 150 transactions in that time. Experience is built by doing.
    —Provided by Mike Luchen, Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, White Plains