Jan. 1, 2008 - top 10 clicked Manhattan Loft Guy posts of 2007
My Ohio blog-buddy Maureen McCabe showed me a way to check for the blog posts that have been viewed the most times (THX, Maureen).
Turns out I should have sent Lockhart Steele at Curbed a Christmas present, as at least 4 of the top ten for 2007 got some link love from Curbed, one other was itself linked in a post that Curbed linked to, and one was published the same day as one that Curbed linked to.
10. the unloftiest loft ever – 28 W 38 is over-the-top October 1, 2007
a big boost when Curbed featured this one; I should check if it has sold
I guess I will have to do my favorite posts from 2007 soon. (Pardon the navel gazing, but it seems to be endemic to the season)
© Sandy Mattingly 2008
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Dec. 31, 2007 - enough about me / what do YOU want from me for 2008?
what do readers want from Manhattan Loft Guy?
This blog has grown organically since its quiet launch in March 2006. I write mostly about things that interest me about Manhattan lofts, or NYC, or (sometimes) whatever. It seems that enough people are interested to keep clicking, but I wonder what else I can do to engage or serve you readers better.
Feel free to tell me here, or by private email [Sandy (dot) Mattingly (at) CBHK (dot) com].
open house reviews, up or down?
The one repeating topic that takes a lot of time but is not 'worth it' to me if it is not 'worth it' to you is the Sunday open house thread. I have had time to do something about open houses most weeks, on Thursday, Friday or Saturday, but sometimes it is a strain. Please weigh in on whether this is a useful use of time or something you can easily replicate on NYTimes.com or elsewhere.
I have a to-do list of posts I mean to do, but my history is that many to-dos never get done. I expect I will post a Year in Review soon, and possibly a look ahead. I have been cogitating for weeks about a post (or series) on who should be buying or selling now, and who should be waiting. Perhaps that will be birthed soon.
Happy 2008
Personally and professionally, 2007 was a pretty terrific year. I am very optimistic about my personal and professional prospects for 2008.
I wish for you all the best that 2008 can offer you.
As always, THANKS FOR STOPPING BY. One of you became on Monday afternoon my 50,000th visitor for the month of December -- my first month with that many visitors. Onward and upward!
© Sandy Mattingly 2008
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Dec. 16, 2007 - AWOL / reporting back for duty
I did not plan to be away from the blog
When I left the office on Thursday afternoon for an appointment and 2 holiday parties, I intended to be back Friday morning, ready to blog a bit before driving 5 hours Friday afternoon for a 7 PM dinner to celebrate the graduation of our youngest at Cornell. Indeed, I left a 95% compete open house review on my office PC.
But I never made it in Friday, as we decided to head north immediately early Friday because (a) weather was iffy, even after the anti-climax of Thursday's 'wintry mix', and (b) The Youngest was (ahem) not quite packed and ready to end her college career smoothly. So I never posted that open house review, and have been away from a computer since.
Look for a 7 day update of new listings and closed loft sales, either late tonight or Monday morning. And, yes, the graduation was wonderful and we made it home despite The Youngest being nowhere near ready to leave.
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Nov. 6, 2007 - thx, 200,000 times
was it you just now?
Whoever just clicked on here a few minutes ago was the 200,000th visitor to this site since it launched in March 2006.
I promise not to do this very time the odometer clicks over again (July 18 was the first: more than 100,000 served), but I am pretty jazzed about hitting the 2s 16 weeks after it took 16 months to hit the 1s.
I am sure it has something to do with the fact that I am posting much more often since the Spring. Having fun. Learning. Hope some of you can say the same.
To all: THANKS FOR STOPPING BY!
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Oct. 21, 2007 - my FCK editor is a problem (really)
broken links breaking my heart
If you've been frustrated by trying to follow corrupted Internet links
in recent posts, I feel your pain. And your frustration -- especialy when (as happened repeatedly yesterday) I would fix
links and return to find the links broken again.
didn't even know I had a FCK edotor
The fabulous folks at Internet Crusade who provide this blog platform tell me that they have identified the technical
problem (it really has to do with the FCK editor; whatever that is), that a permament fix is in the works, and that they
will work with me starting tomorrow on fixing links that float off into "/_fcksavedurl=" garbage. THANK YOU Hector and the IC team!
In the meantime, please continue to identify any bad links you come across in reading a post by making a comment. In doing
a post like the 9-stop Tribeca open house tour, there can be as many as 12 to 15 internet links -- none of which can be
counted on to be stable as of now.
Hoping for a prompt and effective fix as soon as possible....
(C) Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Jul. 18, 2007 - more than 100,000 served
big round number for this blog
Some time after midnight, the cumulative number of visitors to this blog since it launched in March 2006 clicked the odometer over at 100,000. Indulge me for a moment….
I am perfectly willing to believe that the big real estate blogs have much more traffic than this (800 to 1,000 hits a day of late), but One Hundred Thousand is such a nice round number that I wanted to comment. And to admire the string of zeros.
When I was a kid, the local McDonalds had a sign between the arches “more than xxx million served”, which changed periodically (I was a kid a long time ago). I can only hope….
slow blogging ahead?
As it happens, I may not post much the next few days, as I am in sunny Las Vegas (!) for a Mike Ferry Superstars retreat. With a pretty full schedule of sessions and the inevitable networking opportunities in the evening, blog time may be limited until I get home late Friday night.
tip for tourists
Next time you want a good meal in Vegas off the strip, check out Lotus of Siam at 953 East Sahara, in a little commercial center (702.735.3033). Truly terrific Thai food. THX to Henderson NV Realtors® Lisa and Bob Lundt (and their lovely daughter whose name I cannot spell) for taking me out there last night for dinner.
To all who find this blog: THX for stopping by!
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Jun. 17, 2007 - back, if not on-line
do your own recycling; my week of recycling is over
This one is timed to coincide with touchdown at Newark from Charles deGaulle. So I am back.
Won’t it be ironic if it now takes me a few days to start posting again, as I dig out from a weeks’ vacation?
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Jun. 16, 2007 - recycling week / your faithful correspondent gets chewed up
(I am still in France; you are still in Manhattan Loft Guy’s week of recycling.)
I will close Recycling Week with the post about my personal experience with an Angry Agent who was upset that I had the gall to comment about his/her listing (giving full attribution to his/her firm and website).
That was on January 16, with please don’t bite the blogger. I suppose I should be grateful that it has not happened since. Or I should be upset that I don’t have more readers who might be upset with me talking about their listings.
Whatever.
Hope you enjoyed recycling with me this week.
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Jun. 13, 2007 - recycling week / rerun of a rehash (look back at MLG 2006)
(I am still in France; you are still in Manhattan Loft Guy’s week of recycling.)
blogging about blogging about blogging
Still like them. Still need to edit. Still trying to get the hang of it, as I said then:
At this point [January 31, 2007] – and perhaps for a long time to come [January 31, 2008??] – my blog is a way for me to think out loud and to draw connections between things I see in the media or in the market. Because it is a blog, I don’t edit as much as I should, so most posts are looong. I am sure that I have still not gotten the hang of it…
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Jun. 10, 2007 - recycling is good, right?
off to France for a week
This post is timed to hit the web when I am supposed to land in Paris. Our youngest has a job in Paris for two months starting Monday (how bad is that??), so we are taking the opportunity to get her settled.
And to have a vacation. (not bad at all) We’ll spend most of the week with former loft neighbors who cashed out their loft (five?) years ago and bought a 16th century house in Saintes, in the west, 300 miles from Paris. (not bad at all)
Back in New York June 17, with only sporadic internet access (or interest) before then.
But I will tee up some postings for this week that will recycle Long Ago Time (at least in the life of Manhattan Loft Guy). Long time faithful readers (if any) will recognize them, without being bored, I hope.
I will be having a great week. Hope you do too.
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Jan. 31, 2007 - Manhattan Loft Guy looks back at Manhattan Loft Guy, sees 2006
Since it is still January as I write this I can (just barely) take up the suggestion of Maureen McCabe, my Ohio blogging buddy (Discover Columbus nee Columbus Best Blog) and look back at my blogging year 2006 – obviously, my first year of blogging.
First, I would like to thank the members of the academy … errr … The Three Amigos (and the cast of thousands) at Internet Crusade, who do so much for real estate professionals all over the country.
At this point – and perhaps for a long time to come – my blog is a way for me to think out loud and to draw connections between things I see in the media or in the market. Because it is a blog, I don’t edit as much as I should, so most posts are looong. I am sure that I have still not gotten the hang of it, but it wasn’t until nearly Labor Day that I began to fill comfortable doing it.
Without further ado, here is a collection of favorite posts, in reverse chronological order.
On November 8 I wrote comparing lofts and lofts ain’t so easy / 718 Broadway as lab. It was about the kind of experience that one would never hade in an “apartment” building: I visited three lofts in the same building that are very different from each other (one is “a million miles away” from the other two). I guess the subtext is that it is hard to value lofts.
On Halloween I offered Curbed means never having to say you're sorry, in which I got to comment on Curbed.com – the big kahuna of the Manhattan real estate blogosphere. The good news is that I got a response from Lockhart Steele (Mr. Kahuna?) that scratched the itch I was feeling.
On September 16 I tested as assumption I had about one way in which Manhattan loft buyers are different from “apartment” buyers. The result was loft owners open their own doors, in which I reported that an unscientific survey of open houses for lofts priced from $2.4mm to $3mm showed that two-thirds of the buildings did not have doormen. Of course, I then went on – in my anal way – to analyze the one-third with door people. How many Upper Buyers (east or west) would pay that kind of money without getting a full door? Not many….
On August 12 I attacked one of my pet peeves in the media – the tendency to talk about The Real Estate Market as if it were The Stock Market, Timing the market when timing is everything / CNNMoney on ‘bubble-sitting’. All these seemingly smart well0intentioned people giving advice that is impossible to apply. I had a little fun (in my pedantic way) tweaking the main guy quoted. What I should have said was “the fact that I know (100%assurance) that I am going to die doesn’t help me, since I can’t tell when”. So too with an analysis of “over-priced” markets that “must” fall.
Last but certainly not least was my most pithy entry, on June 21, about how obsessed all us New Yorkers are about real estate, 'nuff said.
Indeed, ‘nuff said.
© Sandy Mattingly
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Jan. 16, 2007 - please don’t bite the blogger
Angry Agent attacks author with animation and ardor, but no ammunition
I picked up the phone one day last year to catch an earful from an Angry Agent. After the (anonymous, here) AA identified him or herself, I barely got in a “how are you?” when I got blasted, starting with a heated “where do you get off talking about my listing?”
I have no idea how the AA knew I had blogged about his/her listing, but the AA did not seem to be in a mood to chat. (I had used a loft listing of the AA to make an observation about pricing and the Manhattan loft market, using information from the inter-firm data base and the AA’s own web site.) Instead of answering me when I asked if I had gotten any factual information wrong, the AA sneered at an informal adjective I used in describing some aspect of the listing, called me “unprofessional” and a few other things, said s/he would call my manager to complain, and –despite my efforts to maintain an even tone and continue the conversation – hung up on me.
I immediately walked around to my manager’s office and discovered she was not there. By the time I completed a brief email to her about the call she was about to get, my manager had already spoken to the AA. (Suffice it to say – as between me and my manager – I am still blogging.)
As far as I can tell, the AA was angry because I talked about the listing in public. In re-reading my commentary, I don’t see anything I said that is critical of the AA, the owner, or the loft. (I would quote from my blog post, but I don’t need to make the AA any more “A” with me than s/he already is.)
to the Principal’s office
I was a bit taken aback by the hurried call, as it was like being called in to the Principal’s office to get yelled at without being given a chance to explain, and having your parents already knowing everything (from the Principal’s side) before you got home. Puzzling and unfair, but not so bad (once the onslaught wore off). It is not like I missed dessert or anything….
I sent the AA an email that afternoon, saying – among other obsequious things – “I certainly intended no disrespect to you or your seller in my blog commentary and – so far as I can tell from our listing information – I provided no information that was incorrect. The one thing you quarreled about (my reference to “[adjective deleted]”) is a fair characterization on my part – I believe – considering … [explanation of adjective omitted here]”. I invited the AA to call or email me back to discuss, but the AA has declined to do so.
I conclude that some people don’t get “blogging”. I conclude that the AA is not among my target audience. I worry that the next time I have a buyer interested in a listing from this AA, I will have trouble getting an appointment (how unprofessional would that be?).
what might the Anons of Curbed do to the the AA?
I conclude that the AA will go ballistic if ever one of the AA’s listings is discussed on Curbed.com, but that is not my problem.
Mostly I conclude that I need a thicker skin.
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Dec. 19, 2006 - how I love ya, how I love ya, my dear old Meme-y
getting memed in the blogosphere brings us all together?
A meme (rhymes with dream) is a catch phrase representing a contagious idea that spreads virally in a culture, like transparency, Web 2.0, Long Tail or maybe unzillowable. The word comes from the Greek meaning “mimic”. In the blogosphere, it’s a game of topic tag. You answer the topic question and pass it on to others to do the same. Either way, I’m game and thank you Jim for thinking of me. The meme is 5 Things You May Not Know About Me:
Here are my Five Things You Do NOT Know About Me
1. also the product of Catholic school education (Sisters of [no] Mercy) but I never got the penmanship thing. Handwriting has gotten worse and worse with all the keyboarding I do, and it was never pretty.
2. my Catholic school education was tempered at a Jesuit high school, Fordham Prep (honk if you know what I mean) followed by Oberlin College (I am all but certain that I am the only graduate of my HS founded in 1841 to attend my college founded in 1833, but if there is another one, pleaser call!).
3. I am not generally a snob but am proud to have a direct (patri-) lineal ancestor who arrived in Maryland in 1634.
4. OK, maybe I am a snob, but I am proud to be one of the few Manhattan real estate agents born in Manhattan (St Vincent’s in the Village, about a million years ago)
5. I bought the very first apartment to close in the first great Tribeca residential loft conversion, the American Thread Building at 260 West Broadway on December 31 in either 1980 or 1981 (the short-term memory ain’t so good sometimes, either). Guess I am a snob :-(
And I will meme Jonathan Miller at Matrix, Noah Rosenblatt at Urban Digs, new-kid-on-the-blog-block Stephanie in 11211 at New York City Housing Bubble, and across the river to Jon “Brownstoner” at Brownstoner. I hope they don’t get hurt -- but if anything bad happens, I am blaming Sellsius.
© Sandy Mattingly 2006
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on matters of interest to Manhattan coop or condo loft apartment dwellers, buyers, sellers, and others, especially about New York City real estate
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