A question that people often ask – Why do some homes spend up to 200 days on the market?

I’m sure you’ve heard it happened to somebody you know. A person lists a home for sale and it sits on the market for a very long time. Why is this? While there is no one answer for every solution, in 90% of the cases it’s the seller’s inability to accept the reality of the current real estate market.

It’s a blow to your ego to realize that your home is not worth what you think it is. You’ve put a lot of work and love into it and naturally you want to receive top-dollar. But with market fluctuation, your home may have been worth more last year and less this year. Sometimes it’s all a matter of timing. The buyer base just may not be there right now.

In such a situation, it’s dangerous to leave your home on the market at the higher price. This often results in a very long time on the market, which makes potential buyers even more skeptical of your home. A listing that’s been around for too long is a red flag in people’s minds. They assume – rightly or wrongly – that there’s a hidden problem with it. You have to ask yourself, “Am I willing to see things for how they really are or cling on to what my ego tells me my house is worth?” Reality is reality and there’s nothing any of us can do about it. On the Raveis.com site you can access listed and sold homes in a designated neighborhood. You can access neighborhood mapping from the homepage of raveis.com by clicking on the Mapping link.

For accurate, thorough and detailed property values in your neighborhood, or for any real estate questions, give me a call.

Anne Scott www.RidgefieldRealEstate.com H. 438 – 2284 Office 431 - 8850

today we have 231 homes for sale and 48 condos. We’re seeing more inquiries and hopeful we’re turning around in the housing market. 5400 students start school here next week - schools are a big part of the resale here.

I learned today that if you send $5 to Direct Marketing Assoc. you can get off the junk mail list. That mail takes l/4 of the landfill. Direct Marketing can be found at www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailinglist and complete the online opt-out form. Then click the “Register Online” button. This is the fastest way of adding your name and address to the DMA’s Mail Preference Service (essentially a “do-not-mail” list), but it costs $5, payable by credit card.

For all the latest happenings in town I have added a link to American Towns. For more specifics, feel free to call me at 733-4796 cell.

The Farmers Markets in Georgetown by the train station and the Hickeries on Lounsbury Road are opening this weekend. Even though it doesn’t feel like spring, the gardens are growing and strawberries are waiting to be picked at the Hickeries. For now they are only open on the weekends but shortly it will be every day. Lots of good entertainment at the Chirps concerts at the park on Tues. eves and also this Thurs. there is a band concert at 7 at Ballard Park.

Housing market still dragging unfortunately.

At present we have 239 homes on the market. There are 15 under contract now and 37 closed sales since Jan. There are also 45 condos for sale. Market news is getting better but so far our numbers are way down for the year. Hopefully we’ll see a pick up as predicted the second half of the year.

Today it’s what the buyer is willing to pay. Prices aren’t forever. Buyers determine the value. Sellers determine the price. Today with refinancing booming due to low interest rates, based on the lack of sales, appraisals are coming in very tight and in most cases lower than people expected. It’s just a sign of the times of the market at this time.

This Saturday from 9 - 1 is free and worth checking into for screening for many different health issues. Held at the VNA on Prospect St.

The Senate last night passed an expansion of the tax credit proposal. The proposal would be available to all purchasers (not just first-time homebuyers). NAR was instrumental in getting this provision passed by the Senate. The key elements are:

· A tax credit in the amount of $15,000 or 10 percent of the purchase price (whichever is less), with the option to utilize all in one year or spread out over two years
· The tax credit is available to all purchases of any home from date of enactment for one full year.
· Able to claim the credit against the 2008 tax return
· Buyers must occupy the homes for two years as their principal residences
· Purchases of homes by investors are ineligible
· Terminates the previous $7,500 Housing Tax credit on the date of enactment

We have been told the Senate is likely to pass its entire Stimulus Bill by this week-end. The House and Senate will then have a conference next week to work out the differences.
Call me with any questions. Cell 203 733 4796

Below is an article that appeared in the Ridgefield Press about my connecting with my biological sister after both of us were separated via adoptions many eons ago - enjoy!

Anne Scott and her new sister, Nancy Young Cumming, in Ridgefield Press January 17th 2009

Ridgefield Woman Opens Mail and Finds a Family
Written by Kate Czaplinski, Press Staff
Saturday, January 17, 2009

Ridgefielder Anne Scott (right) was adopted as a baby and recently discovered she has a sister, Nancy Young Cumming, living in Georgia. Ms. Scott visited her “new” sister there this past December.

Like the plot of some fascinating television movie or a 20/20 special, Ridgefielder Anne Scott was home with her foot in a cast this past October when she received a letter that changed her life.

It was addressed from New York state.

“I thought ‘Oh no, it’s some kind of bill,” Ms. Scott recalled laughing.

Meanwhile, below the Mason-Dixon Line, another woman who shared Ms. Scott’s shade of golden blonde hair and has similar facial features, was opening the same letter. The woman, who Ms. Scott would soon know as her biological sister, was coincidentally home with an injured foot when she opened the identical letter.

Ms. Scott, who was adopted from the state of New York as a baby and raised by a family in Westchester, learned from the letter that a woman named Nancy Young Cumming shared the same biological parents. Neither knew about the other until they received the letter four months ago.

The 30-year resident and vice president of sales with William Raveis in Ridgefield, met her sister, Ms. Cumming, for the first time in December.

“It was such a shock and you just don’t know what to do,” Ms. Scott said of learning the incredible news. “I was home alone when I opened the letter. I just kept shivering. I had to put my coat on.”

She describes her adoptive family as very loving and she never had more than a passing curiosity in finding estranged biological family members.

After an untimely death in Ms. Scott’s family, her daughter encouraged Ms. Scott to request her medical records from the state of New York. The New York Health Department sent her a letter stating that nothing was in her file. It was two and half years later when she received a second letter informing her that she had a living sister.

As it turns out, Ms. Cumming had been looking for potential siblings for 18 years before she found Ms. Scott. The state of New York kept the identity of birth parents and information on potential siblings confidential until the law changed, Ms. Scott said. Today, the information is available if the siblings have registered to find out such information. Ms. Scott’s call to the state to check her medical records registered her to find such information out.

“My sister Nancy had been searching for years,” Ms. Scott said, “but when an untimely death in our family occurred, a gift was passed along and prompted my search.”

As soon as she received her sister’s number in Georgia, she picked up the phone and dialed.

The fact that both women were home wearing foot casts was the first in a long line of coincidences and similarities between the two. Ms. Scott was recovering from foot surgery and her sister had injured her foot on a plane.

“We have found a lot of coincidences like that since,” Ms. Scott said.

The two started to e-mail each other regularly and planned that Ms. Scott and her husband would fly to Atlanta to visit her sister and family in December.

Some of Ms. Scott’s friends and acquaintances in town warned her to be careful before the trip.

“I heard some really funny things,” she said. “People told me ‘Maybe they want a kidney’ or ‘They might be in jail, you don’t know these people.’”

Ms. Scott was surprised to find a deep connection with the stranger who was suddenly her sister. The two had made similar career choices and even had similar families. They learned a lot about each other through e-mail.

As it turns out, by either fate or coincidence, the two came in close proximity to each other over the years.

“Both of us lived in Michigan at the same time,” she said. “Her family spent time in the Cape (Cape Cod) very close to where we have a house.”

Ms. Scott and her husband met her sister at the Atlanta airport for the first time last month.

“Coming through that large terminal and up the escalator was the person who was as close to a carbon copy of me as you can imagine,” Ms. Scott said.

The two share several physical similarities and are only a year apart in age.

“I was very nervous right before we got there but then I was just excited,” Ms. Scott said. “It wasn’t tearful, just happy and exciting.”

Ms. Scott hopes to tell her story to children who have been given up for adoption. Her experiences have taught her that adoption is an opportunity for children to have better chances for a good life. Finding a sister was a bonus she never expected.

“I never had a lot of issues surrounding my adoption but I just thought some things were better left alone,” Ms. Scott said.

Ms. Cumming is meeting the Scott family on Cape Cod this summer and the two talk regularly. She is still surprised that two people who spent their entire lives apart could be so much alike.

“I don’t even think my children have as much in common as I do with my sister,” she said laughing.

“One day you open up the mail and your life has changed.”