Market Mishegoss

Currently, we've abstention. An unintended consequence of the stimulus package, conforming and FHA loan limit increase, etc, is an extended holding pattern. Buyers, seeking optimistic economic news, the valley floor, and the magic handhold--cheaper money/cheaper jumbos, are staying put, implementations tantalizingly close, Fannie Mae the last domino to fall, further strafing an already distressed market. The hullabaloo, or the potential thereof, may be a double windfall for buyers. The lack of activity is pushing some prices still lower, toppling many sellers, undermining others, while discouraging a healthy few.

How long before the new products hit the streets, and will there be premiums or add-ons? Two to three weeks, according to some, and a few lenders are beckoning already. In the meantime, the car continues to idle, even as the tachometer builds. There's either going to be engine trouble, or a heap of burned rubber.

Dullsville

Thursday's open at Genevieve fell flat, three hours, two agents, a jogger. How to fill the time? A little house cleaning, sudoku, sit-ups. The open house party line.
"Any traffic over there?"
"Tons."
"I'm light."
"What d'ya expect Janeiro, workin' the bush?"
"It ain't the bush, it's L.A.'s historic core."
"Whatever. Whattaya gonna do, sell to Obama supporters?"
"Hey I'm an Obama supporter."
"Figures, any real edge and you'd of voted for Paul. Anyway gotta go, Pau Gasol just walked in."

Tomorrow, I'll be back at Eagle Rock's most affordable offering ($499K), 4943 Genevieve Ave. (90041) 1-4 pm.

Stood Up

That's me, cooling my heels. In the truck, waiting.

No-shows are so prevalent I plan for idle time, notebook in hand, cell phone at the ready. Agents seldom skip scheduled showings, but unattached "signers" or MLS junkies routinely bag appointments.

For this and other reasons, many agents resort to keysafes and lockboxes, or dispatch junior agents. I do not. I'm present for every showing, to augment observation, respond to inquiry, or recite knock-knock jokes.

Knock, knock
Who's there?
Old lady
Old lady who?
I didn't know you could yodel.

Still, I've even been stood up more than once at the same property by the same would-be buyer. Who's the glutton?

Some truants are so uncomfortable canceling showings--and potentially engendering disappointment--one presumes, they'd rather go AWOL. This type of avoidance is popularly referred to as "passive aggressive." Ever hear of it?

Flyer Boxes

One became a repository for chewing gum, another was tagged and stuffed with hamburger wrappers. Flyers are pilfered, folded into paper airplanes, handy message pads for the shopping cart sect.

Amazingly, my box at 2241 1/2 W. 24th St. also serves to exchange love letters. I found the second therein Wednesday, folded neatly and sealed with a blue-green sticker. The notes are hand-written, in Inglanol (not the converse Spanglish, wherein Spanish is affected by English), presumably the stuff of teens.

I can't remember writing love letters as a teen, though mustn't I have? I drew a menu once as part of a home-cooked, romantic dinner. Mostly, I just asked girls to the movies.
Time was, I mistakenly took a young lady to a rough-and-tumble Chuck Bronson cop caper titled Murphy's Law, rather than the Martin Ritt directed, lovey-dovey comedy, Murphy's Romance.

Multiplexes can be so confusing.

Schools Sell

Located in the coveted stopyourthinking school district. More and more, agents herald the promise, or the prestige, the status, of a lauded school district.

Meanwhile the academics disagree on how to evaluate schools and academic performance. Depending on the API scores? Please! College placement? How much is prep, how much is prop? How much is language homogeneity?

Mostly the herd goes on reputation. Repeat after me, in modulated tones: South Pas = good schools, Glendale = good schools, Culver City = good schools. LAUSD = bad schools. Your kid has personalized needs?! The cure all school district is the answer! Gotta move to Manhattan Beach!

Elsewhere the magnet and charter revolution is turning traditional buyer criteria on its ear. Districts what districts? My kid can go anywhere, provided he gets in. This flexibility and opportunity may be the most potent instrument of change in transitional neighborhoods, formerly indentured to iconoclasts and social-lib types.

But for many the price of relocation, despite often exaggerated academic claims, is preferable to the cost of private schools and the toil of negotiating a labyrinthian system. Really it makes you wonder why every small municipality (adjacent to a thriving population center) doesn't pursue the model. Fund your schools like crazy, raise scores, attract dedicated families, intensify real estate demand, prices will follow, raise the socio-economic profile of residents (which often acts to further boost scores), reap the collateral revenue from increased services, transfer taxes, etc.

In the end, most are looking for the proverbial service relationship: can I write a check, to ease my pain?

The Price is......Right?!? (Part 1)

I took these photos last night, in the dense fog that blanketed West Adams. They have no relation to the editorial.

In West Adams, Pico-Union, Westlake, and the like, pricing is all over the map. Some properties are shedding dollars like a ballooners' ballast, while others of dubious merit seek uncharted highs. Actually I like a little more spread in pricing, always have.

The hitch, I often contend, isn't too high highs, but rather too high lows. Which is still the case. The spread amongst similar product, one state of condition and another, superior and lesser features, isn't great enough.



The value of unpainted woodwork in a Craftsman for example might account for a 1% difference in asking price, whereas it should correspond to a 5 - 10% difference (given the cost to perform the work). A well-painted exterior might add only 10 grand, but merit closer to thirty.

Overpricing was less a problem in the past, values rose so quickly. The market might catch an inflated listing, even surpass it, given a long enough marketing period.

When determining an asking price based on comparable sales, I often use a method similar to Olympic judging, discarding the highest and lowest marks. Too often, sellers and the agents latch desperately to a "lightning strike" comp, some unaccountably high, one-time sales figure.

Last year in Harvard Heights an area business owner purchased an adjacent residential property, fusing the two into a quasi compound. The incentivised business owner paid an astronomical sum, perhaps in order to sway a reluctant seller. That fluke sales total continues to permeate sales discussions in the neighborhood a year later.

End Part 1

The Least Trusted (Part Two)

Agents are still highly valued by industry brethren, mortgage and escrow officers, retrofitters, pest control, and other support personnel, if only as ringleaders of the referral circus. Now more than ever.

I've begun receiving cold calls from young, husky voiced, incentive offering, female escrow agents. Little do they know that I already have a young, husky voiced escrow agent. (Before I had an older, husky voiced escrow agent. But she retired.)

At a recent open, marauding packs of mortgage toughs, cased my hand outs, looking for a space to infiltrate rate sheets and cross promotional materials. "Fewer buyers", I explained, cornered and forced to confess my recommendation loyalties, "are coming unattached. Even first-timers, have done more leg work, and are pre-qualified, with a lender of choice. It's not my place, unless I perceive gross abuse, to undermine that relationship." Dissatisfied, they mounted their Bradley fighting vehicle, prepared for another Caravan coldcock, and lunch at Taylors.

**************************************
Clarifying my inventory

I've a modest Adobe Revival coming, in Kinney Heights. Massive systems work: roof, total re-pipe, re-wire, new HVAC, exterior and interior paint, new wood windows, re-finished oak and fir floors. Here's a sneak peek of the living room. The property is two bedrooms, one bath. Price? Low to mid $500's.

I'm currently marketing 2361 W. 20th St., a Craftsman bungalow of superb proportions. Previously we accepted a full price offer, only the deal stalled, and we've returned to market. I will be showing it tomorrow (Sunday, November 11th) from noon - 4 pm. If you haven't seen it, you ought to. All compliment its' size (nearly 2000 square feet on a single level) and flow (long sight lines). The property, featured on a recent house tour, resides in one of West Adams' most prized Historic Preservation Overlay Zones, neatly defined Western Heights (East of Arlington at Washington, North of the 10 freeway). It too can claim electrical, heating and cooling, and plumbing upgrades--and knockout features (see photos left and at top).

The Least Trusted (Part One)

I've a running debate with a contractor, one my closest friends, over who's the least trusted, real estate agents or contractors? "Shoot", my buddy would lament, "you guys are up there with pediatricians and firehouse dalmatians. Whereas contractors are lumped with used car salesmen and big tobacco."

"Probably so," I'd allow, "but we're making up ground."

Sticker shock backlash and the sub-prime pratfall, have acidulated public opinion, as agents enjoy less influence and standing than before.

The (Very Little) Help You Sell-ers, are disappearing, replaced by full service agents with marketing experience and sales tested acumen. The industry is undergoing yet another grand personnel reorganization, last seen when Sotheby's acquired DBL and the Keller Williams recruitment blitz began. Osman Realty goes under, a new brokerage,Telis, is poaching some of Coldwell Banker's top performers, while Prudential evacuates the Larchmont strip.

I'm staying put incidentally, even if my brokerage is an unknown West of LaCienega. I haven't any designs on the Beverly Hills market after all, and I'd probably get lost driving to the Palisades.

***********************************
I received more than one comment on Palm Avenue.
Most wanted to know the price. I hadn't set one.
Another wanted to know in which MLS it was listed--it isn't.
It's all in the past tense because an offer was made and accepted, same day.

Another quick-hitter was our would-be showcase on Virginia in Lafayette Square. A preemptive offer took it out, slicing our prospective inventory yet more. I'll update our inventory in my next post.

I appreciate all the inquiries and interest.

Real Estate Agents and Slogans

Everybody's got a slogan. That's advertising after all, or marketing, or branding, whatever. Or strategic branding, which I guess is like branding only it's strategic.

Thumbing through a recent trade publication, I noted at least seven agent slogans:

1. Got so-and-so? (The agent's first name)
2. So-and-so knows the Westside!
3. Honest. Energetic. Proven.
4. Where do you want to live next?
5. Call so-and-so, and start packing.
6. So-and-so--an LA woman who knows LA real estate.

And my least favorite, the oft-occurring: Your Realtor for Life. I've happened upon a half-dozen industry professionals with materials bearing this motto. I suppose it beats, Your Agent Till the Check Clears, or Your Agent Whilst the High Rollers Summer in the Caymans, or....Drop Dead.

Isn't that every providers goal, duh? Sustained relationships? Simply, I hope you'll like me enough to use me again. Your Agent for Life has about as much separation as Your Agent With Gross Motor Skills.

I'm on my second go-around with some clientele. It's nice--flattering even, but catchphrase(s) aside, if I want there to be a third time, I'd better perform.

Current Events Part 1

My Century Heights listing/escrow has officially closed. The hardship wasn't finding a taker (a buyer was attached instantaneously, ergo the low blog profile), but rather traversing escrow, financing shortfalls, and the cockamamie rest. The escrow lasted nearly four months. Few escrows exceed three months because most appraisals, integral to the loan process, have a 90 day shelf life.

This transaction was only the second I've done, wherein I never clapped eyes on the reciprocal agent. We communicated by phone and e-mail, and fax. The buyer's agent never met the seller either. Personally I prefer meeting everyone, and a little civilizing face time for all.

I assume when one is buying new homes, buyer and builder seldom meet. I've never been involved in a "new-home" sale, only "existing-home" sales. As an aside, the media typically portrays a drop in new home starts as a real estate industry negative, partially as a barometer of consumer confidence. I think it's real estate homeostasis, at times bad for the homebuyer, governing or limiting inventory.

Amongst the quick-moving, our Hillcrest listing is unsurprisingly already in escrow, accepting an early pitch.
Whilst some inventories are growing, the number of quality offerings--like the number of top-notch backstops in baseball--seems fixed, regardless of expansion, er market conditions. As I've opined before, the number of quality offerings seems even to be dipping as some enfranchised, potential sellers (those most likely to own good product), abort (such is the case for my Craftsman duplex on 40th Pl.) or postpone listings.

To Be Continued.....
Reminder, I've an open tomorrow at 2361 W. 20th St. from 2 - 5 pm.

Mitt Readers

With purchase volume in steep decline, in a marketplace laden with challenges, real estate agents and financial services people are doing what they do best--rationalizing.

Many are championing the slowdown, with delusory party chatter such as, "I didn't care for that frenzied market, it was neither grounded nor compassionate"; or, "that time was unsupportable, bad for the industry, I'm better suited to a normalized market". Still others praise the current market conditions as,"clearing the gold rushers, returning quality and service to the marketplace, like a fire that reseeds the forest."

What a bunch of malarchy. "Absolutely," I want to respond dryly, "who needed all those quick-moving transactions and expense-less commissions--I sure didn't. Shoot, I'm not even sure if I cashed all those checks."

Of course, I mostly represented buyers before the last two years, so I didn't get to partake fully in the salad days. Now my representation is split more 60/40, buyers/sellers. Humorously some of the frightfully condescending listing agents (as in, "I handle only listings ahem"), conveniently remember me now, and my varied group of clients . "You always had buyers," their grovel begins, en route to a description of their 59 junker pieces of inventory.

Of course the prophets, sibyls, and gurus are full of hooey too. Some were predicting a market collapse as early as 2002. Now that the storm clouds have finally amassed, the new headline grabbing targets the market nadir. Housing horoscopists, harnessing the shock factor, and pandering to media's extremist impulses, offer absurdly wide-ranging value loss predictions.
Some augurs are trying to redeem their horrid handicapping, with righteous claims of vindication. As if predicting change is any big deal. Things always change, it's about knowing when.

Just ask a bookie.

Inspectors

Property inspectors can perform the most critical service in a transaction. Their findings and reporting can cinch a purchase or derail an escrow. It isn't simply about structural analysis, and honest reporting, it's about providing a context, sometimes demystification, and a standard appropriate perspective.

Some inspectors are deal killers, pure and simple. Afraid of liability, they assail the smallest shortcomings, and while the information they dispense may be credible, even accurate, it often exaggerates risk or lacks a real market perspective that less experienced, or unprepared agents can neither temper nor support. They may even think their role is to provide the buyer's agent with additional negotiation buckshot.

Oh yeah and some inspectors are just plain ol' wrong. One, noting the steep peak of a finished attic ceiling, decried the lack of a specific structural member. Fortunately, the seller was able to produce photos of the space whilst unfinished, its framing, and the plainly visible, structural element (in this case, collar ties).

I've seen all types of inspectors on the old house trail: soft ball artists who wouldn't note dry rot if they stepped through a hole in the floor, suburban goofballs who've never seen a clawfoot tub and run from masonry like a centerfielder after a shallow pop fly, the editorialists who pepper in nasty asides about the neighborhood and its family unworthiness. Some impose a new home standard on 100 year old product, foster an innate hostility towards the old, and a false hierarchy that champions the new. Old systems, for example, are often taken to task, but seldom is dense, old-growth, full dimension framing celebrated--though it should be.

Some brokerages discourage their agents from recommending inspectors, preferring the client pick their own (another liability stopper). Most buyers have neither the tools, nor the experience to differentiate or vet inspectors properly, often asking for random referrals or making blind selections from an on-line database.

Some buyers mistakenly tab contractors, salespeople who shamelessly hawk their product or service, often at usurious rates. A foundation contractor once sought to manipulate a buyer with a haggard Clint Eastwood line, "Do you feel lucky?" Often when cornered, or challenged, they'll offer discountingly, "it's only my opinion." Naturally, but to an besieged buyer it's frequently received as scripture.

Regarding modus operandi, I prefer those who generate a hard copy report on-site, rather than the delayed, everyone on pins and needles, e-mailers who take days to respond. I also prefer inspectors who provide a verbal summation, working through the printed report, fielding questions, even those unrelated. This is especially valuable because many inspectors are not particularly good writers, organize material awkwardly, or distinguish built states without criterion.

There's plenty of capable inspectors of course, to deliver determinations good and bad. I've a few regulars and I often share resources and recommendations with other area specialists. Mostly, I try to help clients identify condition issues before the offer writing phase, so the physical inspection is less about startling revelation and more about helpful direction.

New and Reduced

Hilariously in a recent real estate e-flyer, a day old listing was touted as "reduced". Reduced, right out of the shute! Canny marketing acumen? Perhaps. Kooky salesperson typo? Possibly. Everybody loves a bargain? Surely. In what has become a comic buyer/seller dance. Listings debut, undergo a three week hazing, reduce, and then sell. Buyers, looking to tear the initial price down, feel triumphant. Sellers, having priced for a subsequent reduction, feel triumphant.

But what a way to get around that, newly listed properties heralded as reduced. I've decided therefore that my next listing will be promoted as "Twice Reduced!" Or "Savagely Reduced!" "Ruthessly Reduced!" Reductio ad absurdum?

Speaking of reduced, the duplex at 1114 W. 40th Pl. in underrated West Park, USC close, has reduced to $549K and is open today from 11: 30 am - 2 pm. My associate Suzie Henderson will be there to meet and greet.


Elsewhere, I'm holding my second brokers open at 2361 W. 20th St. from 11 am - 2:30 pm. If you're cruising, stop in.

Real Estate Agents, Go Figure

In a new twist, some buyers agents are now installing their own post-sale signs. That's right, after the listing agent removes his/her sign, the buyer's agent installs their own, complete with a prominent rider that reads SOLD.


(Remember this beaut, and my dark green signage?)






Self-promotion, I concede, is a necessary evil of the practice, heck I do my own chest-beating now and again, not to mention RecenteringElPueblo; still, this tactic put me a bit off-balance, and it enraged my seller, "the neighbors'll think you lost the listing, and this other person represented me in the sale."
"They might", I answered, considering appearances.
"This other agent has absolutely no presence in this neighborhood", my seller continued, "she's a carpet bagger."
"It is a bit misleading," I agreed, "but most of your neighbors know me."
"All the more reason why", the seller persisted.

Ultimately, my seller called the other agent's office manager, complained, and the sign was removed.

One Way to Loosen this Market Up

What isn't about supply and demand? In the case of a little thing like shelter, people want to own, only there's very little to buy; ergo, it sets you back a few semolians.

There's no drawbridge to pull up either, "Ok, enough folks in Southern California, would the rest of youse please go repopulate a rust belt city?"

What are we to do, torpedo our local economy? Start ugly online rumors about the Golden State? Taunt the tectonic gods? Nah, we need to create more housing inventory, and I'm not one of these go-go development types, willing to put the Mojave desert under blacktop.

But how else to do it? Here's an idea:

Liberalize commercial lending. Sure we've got these mixed-use ordinances, and there is protocol to convert commercial to residential. Only thing is, you've got to qualify for a commercial loan first--easier said than done. Buyers that would qualify for hefty residential purchase loans are oftentimes ineligible for commercial loans altogether. Most commercial deals require a down payment starting at 30% (which given the cost of things now days, means you're walking around with a lot of jack. Which begs the Q: If you've got that kind of jack why bid on a dumpy nail salon?) Did I mention that commercial closing costs are higher as well? Let's just shed the mid-century underwriting model.

In Los Angeles there are commercial corridors that look like backgrounds in "Fort Apache The Bronx", sometimes laced through otherwise resplendent residential neighborhoods. Would I mind, if disused commercial got swallowed up by single hipsters and artist live/work types? Would I mind if important neighborhood services were eclipsed by surging residential demand? What, you mean a little competition for the 99 cent stores, the storefront churches, and the recycling yards? Puh-leeeze!

If that were to happen maybe we'd get true mixed-use impetus, developers would embrace the model, freed from financial disincentives and fities ideology, crusty grass rooters would recognize its balanced, restorative contribution; moreover, the added density might entice better services to underserved areas.

Every new commercial project in Los Angeles should have a residential component.
We can't exhaust increasingly limited infill possibilities with retail-only projects like, for example, Hollywood & Highland. Consider how desirable condos might've been there? With ground floor retail, sitting atop a red line station, in a flourishing entertainment district, with immediate proximity to the 101 freeway? (This isn't to suggest that developers are wholly responsible for the state of things; in part, that which they do is a reaction to systemic impediments, building requirements, and leadership forces.)

Still, it'd be pretty cool to call mom and say, "I have a view, it's of an elephant."

What's Really Going On

There's a lot of noise out there.


A lot of competing viewpoints, optimists and pessimists, critics of the lending industry, champions of the real estate industry, greedy speculators, the disenchanted.

Would-be buyers are paralyzed. The market they're told, is going down, is going to go down, might already be down. Last year they were told: it's going up, it's still going up. Many buyers have lost a sense of urgency, flummoxed by these rivalrous declarations.

I can't tell you what's going to happen tomorrow, but I can tell you this: the market is still going up, steeply in some places. Ask anyone in the Kinney Heights/Western Heights grapevine, where a million dollar price tag is still the exception but no longer unheard of. In the Jefferson Park neighborhood, where the $600K barrier was shattered and is now ubiquitous. Talk to the diehards in Boyle Heights, where Four-fifty used to deliver something special.

So we're in a slow groove? Perhaps, but does it matter? The numbers are so friggin' huge, like the snowball that becomes an avalanche. Five percent appreciation on a $600,000.00 house is 30 grand! Seven percent is 42 grand!

The idea that you can time a real estate purchase is likely fallacious. Who really knows when they're buying at the bottom, or buying at the top? When rates are at their lowest? Or at their highest? Statistically speaking, nearly everyone buys or sells somewhere in between.

Ultimately, every client has a particular and unique circumstance. My job is to help clients figure out what THEY want, absent from industry jangle, and pop media babble. Does it make more sense to spend $18,000/year on rent, or $22,000/year on a mortgage payment with a tax write off? Is paying $400,000 at 6.25% equivalent to $370,000 at 7.25%? What does it mean to any one of them to own a home? Investment? Short term? Long term? Goal fulfillment? Artistic canvas? Housing payment stabilization? The answers are different for each. If I can't know all the answers, I'll start by trying to know most of the questions.

Waiting for the Crash

Yep, those are my clients--the ones waiting for the crash. They've read the Los Angeles Times, the on-line pundits, ignored the demographics, and noted the ominous financial trends. They've been waiting since 2004 and it's a matter of principle now, of moral superiority. They will be rewarded by waiting, and virtue will be theirs, or so promises their financial faith. In the meantime, the market sprints off, like Greyhounds chasing a mechanical bunny.

It's the biggest question really. Is Los Angeles in a real estate bubble, and will it burst? I've got more to say regarding this than I can fit in a single submission, or write in a single sitting, but let's just keeping pecking away.

To those that are concerned with a loss in value, what're they doing now? About shelter I mean, sleeping along the embankment? In a pup-tent by the river? In a comfy tree house? Presumably they're paying rent. Hopefully it's cheap rent, but even $800 a month is nearly ten grand a year. Isn't that a loss?

Buy a house because you want to. Because it's a step forward. Because it's a way to optimize your environment--whatever. Since when did home buying become mere speculation?

Do I like the housing market? I like being a homeowner. I like working on my bungalow, and I know that I'm going to be in it long enough to ride out any market rough spots.

100% Financing

There's much concern about the possible housing market destabilization of ARMS (adjustible rate mortgages), interest rate hikes, and the equity re-fi cycle heading south. While I don't want to sound pollyanna-ish, it isn't just the belt-tighteners resorting to non-fixed rate and interest-only financing, and isn't the case that the market'll be capsized solely by a few non-traditional loan products.

Mac-daddy flippers and make good home restorers, amongst others, also seek short-term, low re-pay periods. Either to minimize carrying costs, or to keep cash free for incoming repairs and improvements. These aren't always the loan products of last resort, for the financially flaccid. The popularity of these products were in part borne by housing's bear market: the best investments are often defined by the highest return with the least expenditure.

As rates creep up, and borrower's rates re-set, I'm sure they'll be overextended home owners (or 'note payers') bailing out. Foreclosures, a favored gauge, are "up"; and yet, they had nowhere to go but up, having hit historic lows. Their current levels account for scarcely more than a blip on the inventory radar.

Is the worst ahead? It likely is. After all, we've passed through a period in the housing market when there was "no worst", no downside, and no risk. Homeowners, to a man, made a lot of money on paper in very little time. Those gains may now become less: less frequent and less lucrative, and interrupted by periods of loss.

Should our money go instead into baseball cards or Cabbage Patch dolls? Not necessarily, but buyers may need to think about longer carrying periods, not just six-month springboards; and, investors may have to earn their heavy lettuce by doing more than just paint touch-ups and Pergo.

Real Estate Snipers

Frequently I'm asked by clients whether they can bring a friend or family members to see a house they're considering for purchase; often, during the escrow period. To which I always respond in the affirmative. The support and approval of friends and family is an important thing, sometimes a necessary thing--particularly when la suegra's footing the closing costs. Everybody's going to spend time in the new house right?

Still, there are those friends that act as snipers. Mostly they fit into three categories.

A) The DINC's: double income, no clue. They've got ample means of support, a swank hillside pad, and a frayed connection with the real estate realities of common folk. They think themselves well-meaning: they want good for their friends. Only their idea of good comes in a zip code or a price range that just isn't accessible without a bank heist.

B) Retired hound: a recent home buyer, only not too recent, who's idea of the market is frozen in time. They're sure your client can do better, if only they look longer. After all, their Venice casita was only $415K--in year 2001!

C)The BB's: better than their britches. Frequently renters, who cling to some ill-deserved self-worth based on their entrenched presence in a neighborhood in which they could not afford to buy, generally made possible by mama rent control. They resent the intrepidity of their homie, trolling the buyer's beat, and the sorts of latte-less neighborhoods in which they'd never consort. Maybe they're afraid of losing their friends to the home-buying cabal. Maybe they resent their own meager stakeholding being laid so bare. Either way, if you're a block too far south, if a car three blocks away is parked on a lawn, or if a newsstand with European dailies isn't within walking distance, the ruling is thumbs down.