Went to the Irish Festival tonight

I drank beer for the first time in years.  Usually I drink cider or vodka.  I saw the band The Elders.  I had a good time.  Irish festival is a great place to people watch.

The Elders.  One of them is so elderly that he is in fact, a ghost.

I forgot the name of this band but I really enjoyed their music.  Someone tell me in the comments, please!

Second North Deli

London Broil Sandwich 

I've always wanted to try the Second North Deli at the corner of Second North and Wolf Streets.  Today my car was overheating and I had it towed off to Dr. Fish the Mechanic.  I was in Mattydale and decided to walk as far as I could down Route 11, which is Wolf Street in Syracuse.  I made it for 1.7 miles, just as far as the deli.

It's a place where you order at the counter and they bring it to your table.  I got the house specialty, a London broil sandwich for $6.95.  It comes with sauteed onions, bell peppers and mushrooms on top, though you can easily leave any of those off.  There is a small container of au jus gravy.  This is what I would call a French Dip sandwich.  It was a guilty pleasure.  I loved it.  Meat was tender, the peppers, onions and mushrooms were cooked just enough that they were nice and mellow.  Bread soaked up the juice nicely.  I would go here again.

They also have a full bar!

A lot of people get takeout here, while I had lunch they were doing a steady business.

They have a web page Second North Deli which is pretty good.  It's actually a blogger blog, and they just have photos, their menu (in HTML), their hours, their location and phone number.  That is important because if you are on your phone you can still read the menu and call them!

They have a link to their youtube ad and their facebook page.  The photo slide show on the first page takes a little too long to load but other than that it's perfect.

The other thing that is perfect is this local commercial for them, which shows people who probably really eat there and gives you a very good idea of what it is like.

Second North Deli Is Open:

Mon-Sat: 11:00-7:00

Sun: Closed

*Extended Bar Hours on Friday

You can call or fax ahead your orders:

Phone: 315-472-7429

Fax:      315-473-9923

Free Delivery Mon-Fri,  11-2 for all orders over $30

Second North Deli | 625 Wolf Street, Syracuse, NY 13208

Big Dip and Big News

This is up the street from my new office in North Syracuse. I was enticed in by the sign that said Pumpkin soft serve ice cream. I had the pumpkin and vanilla swirl. Next time I would just get the pumpkin because it was so good!

Our whole office is moving. We are going to be the McKenzie Group at Syracuse Realty Group. So instead of being a tiny stand-alone company we will be a team in a small office. I think it's a great new step for us. Nothing else will change, Christopher Moreland and I will still work together and I will still be in charge of marketing our listings. I will continue to work with buyers in the same way. I'll just have a fancier office with more parking!

Taste of India buffet restaurant coming soon

This is on Dell right off Wescott- it says GRAND OPENING on the sign but it doesn't say when.  It doesn't look ready yet, but the chairs and tables are there so probably wont be too long.



Taste of India Syracuse is now open - click here for Taste of India Syracuse Restaurant Review

Regulate Bank's Behavior in Short Sales

Once again, I have a client who wants to buy a short sale property. I spoke to the listing agent about it. There was accepted offer on it before, and the bank got back to them quickly on it - only one month!

That's right, responding to a purchase offer in one month is considered fast.

Why is this? I don't think banks are that inefficient that they couldn't deal with this in a reasonable amount of time.

The more time you leave a short sale hanging the worse it is for the owner, for the neighborhood and for property values.

Most buyers can't wait that long or deal with the uncertainty.  Anyone who is moving to a new area or has a lease needs to have a set date range where they can expect to take possession of a house.  This means that short sale properties are mostly bought by investors.  If the banks were forced to get their act together and had a time limit to reply, owner occupants could purchase short sales easier.  Since they usually pay higher prices than investors it would actually benefit the banks.

Short sales are frequently vacant, and empty houses deteriorate much faster. They get broken into and have copper pipes and appliances stolen. No one is there to notice the small leak that turns into the big leak that brings down the bedroom ceiling. The house gets damp, moldy and musty. It's a downwards spiral.

Once the house goes into foreclosure it really hurts property values. Plus now we have another former home owner with a foreclosure on their record. One who is probably pissed off at the bank and may damage the house on the way out.

It seems reasonable - more than reasonable - to give banks a time limit to reply to a short sale contract. One month is more than enough time. I think banks should be regulated on this.

You might also want to read: What is a Short Sale

Chinese Lantern Flowers out in Pompey

I took this out in the country, at our listing in Pompey, NY. It's a 5 bedroom 3.5 bath house on three levels! The lot is set back away from the road and is surrounded by woods on three sides. That is a good feature in an area where a lot of the houses are close to the road on busy roads. People want to go out to the country for peace and quiet and they end up with traffic noise instead! In addition to being away from the road, Cemetery Road is pretty quiet.

In the yard there's this huge patch of black eyed susans and Chinese Lanterns. They are the orange pod-shaped flowers like papery balloons. I have never seen them growing before, just at the florist.

The house is about a half hour drive from Syracuse.

It looks small from the photos, but it actually is three stories - it's on a slight hillside so the lower level is walkout and has big windows.

It's $129,777. It is a short sale, so the property will take longer to close.
Update: 
Property has an offer on it and is now pending!  

The House We Didn't Buy

New House, originally uploaded by Melsky.

Don't get too attached to any house until you have closed on it and the keys are in your pocket.

If you are too attached it's easy to rationalize away any defects or problems. You can end up making a decision based on emotion instead of logic and financial sense.

Almost exactly three years ago, I was so excited about our new house. Our offer was just accepted and I was already planning what I would do to it.

In New York State most contracts have a home inspection contingency. That means you get to hire an inspector and they will give you a report on the condition of the house. If the house has problems, you can ask the sellers to fix them or to give you money off the price of the home.

So we had the home inspection. First we find out that the roof was bad. It had 5 layers of previous roofs on it, and they would all have to be removed and then a new roof put on.

But the real deal killer was the two story garage. The top floor of it was totally unstable, to the point where it shouldn't be walked on. It also needed a new roof.

We didn't think the sellers had been honest about the condition of the property. There were a lot of places where they had tried to cover up problems like water stains.

We were already suspicious of them because there was a city code problem with the sidewalk. You are not allowed to put asphalt over your sidewalk, though many people in Syracuse do. Somehow, these people had gotten tagged for that and the city was requiring them to put in a new sidewalk, which was several thousand dollars. They neglected to tell us this for the first week, though they had known for months. They did not intend on paying for it so basically it added the cost to the price for the home. This is something that should have been disclosed in the listing.

We opted not to buy the house and used the home inspection contingency to cancel the contract.

It's not that far from my current house and I always wonder what it would have been like if we bought it. I think not buying it was a good choice and I'm glad I wasn't too emotionally attached to it.