How Much Can You Cover in a Day?

New second home buyers from the city, particularly if they're not that familiar with "upstate", often want to cover way too much ground on a single trip. It's understandable. People have busy schedules and it can be tough to carve out time to go house shopping. And if you're schlepping two hours up and two hours back, you want to get in as much as possible.

I frequently find myself in a tussle with buyers, who've picked out a dozen houses they want to see, from Livingston Manor to Glen Spey. They want to start in the morning and go for 7 or 8 hours. Commonly, they underestimate the distances involved and overestimate their stamina. From experience, I try to limit appointments to about four hours. That translates into a max of about 5 houses. I don't try to limit the appointments because I'm lazy. It's just that's what I've found to be the most that buyers can absorb in a single day trip. At five hours, and the sixth or seventh house, and everything starts mushing together. People also get tired and grumpy, too. Five hours of looking, added on to two hours of driving in each direction, makes for a VERY long day.

Occasionally people want to "do" Delaware or Greene county in the morning, and then swing through Sullivan to see some houses in the afternoon. I usually won't agree to schedule a Sullivan appointment with folks who've spent the morning in another area. It can be tough saying 'no', but I've learned over time that it just doesn't work. Occasionally I do agree, and it always ends up badly. The buyers end up getting to Sullivan much, much later than they expected, or they end up canceling the Sullivan end altogether — because their appointments further north took longer that expected, or they underestimated distances. If they do make it over, they're usually plum tuckered out and don't have much attention left for any more houses.

It can be so tempting to try to fill a day as full as possible. But there are just diminishing returns. Its like the old saw about data versus information — too much data can result in actually less information. Buyers coming up from the city should think about breaking down the areas they're considering into chewable chunks, and plan trips to include a few hours of house hunting and a few hours of something else enjoyable — a nice lunch, a hike, or a dip in the Delaware River.

Comments

[Nest Dweller]

As a second-home owner in the area, I highly recommend that your customers make the trip special and spend the night (before or after shopping) at Ecce Bed & Breakfast in Barryville. That way, even if they don't find anything while shopping, they'll still have a memorable and relaxing trip.

[Seymour Williamson]

Heck Dave, that's nothing.

I remember the time when I picked up the call from a lady from Brooklyn that saw an ad in the paper and wanted to take a look at it.

Great, I said. The house is reasonably priced and in good condition. Would you like directions? By the way, it's close to Roscoe.

Problem.

She didn't drive and lived in the city.

No problem.

She took the bus from Port Authority up to the Catskills where I met her and showed her that house along with others throughout the county adding on miles and paying for gas.

Our house hunting went on towards twilight and by the time we got to the bus depot, that was it for the day since they had changed their schedule.

Gave her a lift back to the city and then I had to head back up to the Catskills.

SEymour

[Ken Steinberg]

Real estate chart from Shiller and Barry Ritholtz.

Boom and Bust - 1800's through today.

http://bit.ly/c7z5ev

[mofat]

this is what you have to put up with as a second home owner in Sullivan....

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100728/NEWS/7280343/-1/COMM04

"But on a recent Sunday, they came up from their home on Long Island to find the door busted through and the stove gone. There are fresh tire tracks in the woods where the thieves drove up and lugged the stove out of the shed."

[Bix]

Fallsburg is an awful area. I'm surprised they didn't steal the roof.

Dave, on the point of your post: that problem goes both ways. I remember when I was looking for a house in Orange County about twenty years ago, a real estate guy was driving us around, and he took us to place after place into the evening for hours, even after we said we were tired. We never went back to him and didn't buy a house (a shame, as that was a great time to buy).