MORE KEY FACTS

Features:

- 5 bedrooms plus a 2 bed loft
- 4 1/2 baths
- playroom with loft and radiant heat floor (22'x28')
- living room (23'x23')
- formal dining room (23'x25')
- family room adjacent to expansive kitchen which has radiant heat floor
- media room
- specialty cabinets
- 3 working fireplaces
- fenced-in garden with pond
- sprinkler and termite precaution systems
- outdoor playhouse with electricity
- oversized 2-car garage
- miniature greenhouse
- built on a stone foundation in 1940; renovated and expanded in 2002
- granite countertops

MORE COMING (including the stories that make these rooms more than just a floorplan...)

KEY FACTS

One of my best friends (who is much better at this than I am!) suggested that I post the floorplans and key facts about the house. I am still getting my hands on the floorplans but here are the FACTS:

- Over 4000 square feet
- 5 bedrooms
- Newly re-done kitchen
- Lofted recreation/family room
- Two minute WALK to "famous" Tuxedo Club: tennis courts, squash court, pool, etc.
- Two minute WALK to three different lakes
- 35 miles from New York City
- Surrounded by state parks: Harriman State Park and Sterling Forest State Park, with Bear Mountain just up the road

Day Two

Started the day off running to Glendale to touch base with the newspaper I'm freelancing for. Driving through the town I saw numerous for sale/rent signs--the news might be saying the market's improving but so far reality has yet to catch up.

One of the friend's I emailed mentioned that her sister (who works for a hedge fund) was looking for a summer house. Unfortunately our prices didn't match up but it made me wonder if I should post an inquiry on Facebook. Normally I'm against that sort of thing (I've defriended over spamming...) but it might be a new way to raise awareness. Can you "raise awareness" about a house or just a cause? Could I make this into my own cause?

More updates as the day progresses...

Good News?

Who says no news is good news??

Apparently listing our house in Sotheby's and similar catalogs didn't do much--a friend suggested it's because people flip through those magazines "to look, not to buy".

So as Day One comes to a close, I have good news about the rebound and sent letters to friends.



Tomorrow? Making calls to similar friends with similar questions. Hopefully a more comprehensive plan will reveal itself as the week goes on...

PRESS

Just found this article from Financial Times calling Tuxedo Park New York's "best kept secret"...Maybe I can use it as one of my selling points? Suggestions? Going to try and get in touch with the magazine to see if I can post an ad on their site (that links directly from the article).


So far, I've written a few friends, asking if I can put an ad in their company newsletter (or something of the like).


Going through pictures of the house and found this one of my mom. This winter, Tuxedo saw dozens of feet of snow. My mom and brother went snowshoeing and this picture came out of that.

Help Me Sell My Childhood Home

While visiting this past week, my mother gave me an interesting proposition: help me sell her home. It wasn't only her home, it was the house I grew up in, a structure that had survived fire and divorce and seen graduations--high school, then college--and countless Thanksgivings.

Real estate is all about "location, location, location". Location factors into our plan as my childhood home--the house in question--is located in the historic village of Tuxedo Park and I am located 3,000 miles away in Los Angeles.

Our goal was to clearly impart the value of our newly redone kitchen and proximity to the famous Tuxedo Club in a way that real estate agents in the past had failed to do. We thought that pairing those features with our memories might paint the picture for a potential buyer vividly enough to create another pairing (of the financial sort).

So here I am. Day one. The goal of this blog? Chronicling the journey of selling my childhood home.