Selling your home during the holiday season?

Too Much Holiday Cheer Could Prevent Your Home From Selling, Experts Warn.

December 5, 2012 6:54am | By Victoria Bekiempis, DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

  

NEW YORK CITY — These real estate agents are no Grinches, but they do want to strip your home of every ounce of tinsel, oversized Christmas trees, and reindeer sleighs in the windows.
If you're trying to sell your home during the holiday season, unpacking that big bin of holiday decorations could prove to be a big lump of coal for house hunters, experts warned.
"Try not to get a huge, huge Christmas tree," said Jennifer Lee, of Charles Rutenberg Realty, who said an oversized tree only works to make your apartment look smaller. Instead, look for a tree that's smaller, to make the living space seem bigger, she said.
Sleighs in the window? Also a no-go.
"It's cute in a way, but I think it distracts from the light and obscures the view," Lee said, adding that the decoration also blocks light.


Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20121205/new-york-city/too-much-holiday-cheer-could-prevent-your-home-from-selling-experts-warn#ixzz2EI9k0sQx

Understanding the pros and cons of purchasing property with a landlease

The invitation for the cocktail party at the Azure, a new Upper East Side condop building, called for a celebration—“Una Gran Fiesta!”—but it was really more of an entreaty. Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Jacky Teplitzky, who’s marketing apartments in the building, had learned that only a quarter of the calls inquiring about the project were coming from brokers and their clients. (Usually, it’s more like three-quarters.) Soon she discovered that a major issue wasn’t the pThe invitation for the cocktail party at the Azure, a new Upper East Side condop building, called for a celebration—“Una Gran Fiesta!”—but it was really more of an entreaty. Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Jacky Teplitzky, who’s marketing apartments in the building, had learned that only a quarter of the calls inquiring about the project were coming from brokers and their clients. (Usually, it’s more like three-quarters.) Soon she discovered that a major issue wasn’t the project so much as its underpinnings. The building has a land lease, meaning that residents pay rent for the ground on which it stands instead of owning it outright, as most co-ops and condos do.roject so much as its underpinnings. The building has a land lease, meaning that residents pay rent for the ground on which it stands instead of owning it outright, as most co-ops and condos do.
READ THE FULL STORY HERE>>> http://nymag.com/realestate/realestatecolumn/land-lease-buildings-2011-7/