Joe Rand, our Editor-in-Chief and lead contributor is the Chief Creative Officer at Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty.
He is the founder of the “Client-Oriented Real Estate” (“CORE”) school of real estate education, based on the idea that real estate agents should build their business by learning how to be great at the job of helping clients buy and sell homes.
He has been a featured speaker and moderator at Real Estate Connect, the RIS Media CEO Conference, the Women’s Council of REALTORS Annual Conference, and many other industry events.
He is a regular contributor to Inman Media, writing about industry issues mostly relating to agent education and client service.
He is a graduate of Georgetown University, Georgetown Law Center, Stanford Law School, and a former law professor at Brooklyn Law School and Fordham Law School.
He lives in Nyack, New York with his wife and two children.
The housing market in Westchester and the Hudson Valley surged forward in the third quarter of 2015, with sales up dramatically throughout the region. More importantly, several counties showed signs of “green shoots” of meaningful price appreciation, reflecting the impact of the sustained increases in buyer demand that we’ve seen over the past few years. Home sales continued to spike, rising 19% throughout the region. This continued a trend we’ve been tracking for several years, with year-over-year regional sales now […]
Read MoreI was thinking today about our local communities and the challenges we all face from changing demographics, economics, and consumer behavior. Take traditional “local” supermarkets, for example. I live in Nyack, which has a great walkable downtown but doesn’t have a supermarket in the village – and now has seen both an A&P and a Stop & Shop close in the local area. What’s happening is that “traditional” local supermarkets are slowly getting displaced by centralized mega markets like Fairway, […]
Read More“Co-op,” which is short for “housing cooperative,” is one of those real estate terms that I have heard about in passing, but never really had a full understanding of what it meant. I knew a co-op was some kind of apartment, but that’s about it. If you have never owned a co-op, there’s the possibility that your understanding of what it is might be a little vague. This week, we will talk about what a co-op is and the pros […]
Read MoreYou’re almost there. You’re just about ready to close on your new home. While this should be a cause for celebration, you’re not exactly out of the woods just yet because there’s still the matter of having to do the final walk-through to make sure everything is how you want it to be before you close. As you’re doing the walk-through, here are some things you should keep in mind as you’re making sure everything is in order. One very […]
Read MoreHomes in Dutchess County are about as affordable as they have been in over 13 years. What do I mean by that? It’s simple. Basically, the monthly mortgage payment it takes to purchase the average-priced home in Dutchess is about as low as it’s been since 2002 – and probably well before that. If you look at the attached graph, you’ll see what I’m talking about. On that graph, we’ve plotted the monthly payment that a purchaser in the county […]
Read MoreHomes in Putnam County are about as affordable as they have been in over 13 years. What do I mean by that? It’s simple. Basically, the monthly mortgage payment it takes to purchase the average-priced home in Putnam is about as low as it’s been since 2002 – and probably well before that. If you look at the attached graph, you’ll see what I’m talking about. On that graph, we’ve plotted the monthly payment that a purchaser in the county […]
Read MoreHomes in Orange County are about as affordable as they have been in over 20 years. What do I mean by that? It’s simple. Basically, the monthly mortgage payment it takes to purchase the average-priced home in Orange is about as low as it’s been since 1994 – and probably well before that. If you look at the attached graph, you’ll see what I’m talking about. On that graph, we’ve plotted the monthly payment that a purchaser in the county […]
Read MoreHomes in Rockland County are about as affordable as they have been in over 13 years. What do I mean by that? It’s simple. Basically, the monthly mortgage payment it takes to purchase the average-priced home in Rockland is about as low as it’s been since 2002 – and probably well before that. If you look at the attached graph, you’ll see what I’m talking about. On that graph, we’ve plotted the monthly payment that a purchaser in the county […]
Read MoreHomes in Westchester County are about as affordable as they have been in over 30 years. What do I mean by that? It’s simple. Basically, the monthly mortgage payment it takes to purchase the average-priced home in Westchester is about as low as it’s been since 1981. If you look at the attached graph, you’ll see what I’m talking about. On that graph, we’ve plotted the monthly payment that a purchaser in the county would have to make to purchase […]
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