We Include the “Personality” of a Town in Our Housing Search
By Bill Primavera
The Home Guru
Published in The Examiner, The Putnam Examiner and The Yorktown Examiner, December 15, 2009
As I write this, it has just been announced that The Examiner is introducing a new newspaper, The Yorktown Examiner, to Yorktown, which just happens to be my town. I say, welcome to a great and interesting place, with plenty of good things to enjoy and report about.
But here in Upper Westchester and Putnam Counties, all of our towns are interesting, each with its own individual features that make it an attraction for homebuyers.
Maybe it’s not articulated by buyers exactly as I say it, but it seems that we all seek out a town’s “personality,” its distinct DNA if you will, before we look for a home within its borders. And, to guarantee a good match, a town’s personality traits should include all the elements that are most important to us as individuals.
When I asked our Yorktown Supervisor-Elect Susan Siegel which features were most significant to her when she decided to buy a home, she replied with her own order of priority: “A good school system, recreation program, the mix of open space and convenient shopping, and an affordably priced house.”
When I engage buyer clients for the first time, besides asking them about the kind of house they’re seeking, I ask them about the lifestyles options that are important to them. One of the first features usually mentioned is the desire for an easy commute to work, which our towns handily offer whether that commute is to New York City, White Plains or points north, either by car, bus or train.
For parents with children, the most important feature is the school system. As realtors, we cannot give our assessments of which school systems may be better than others but, rather, send homebuyers to the New York Department of Education website to do their due diligence. Parents then seek a neighborhood with other children on the block, sometimes specifying a road with “no double yellow lines” (although that doesn’t necessarily dictate a busy road) and preferably a cul-de-sac or dead-end road.
Another reason for picking a certain town is that buyers may have friends who already live there and like it. An immediate social circle in a new town can definitely be an advantage.
Housing density is also discussed. Some people who come from the city want to replicate some of the advantages of that, like “over the side fence” socializing with neighbors, while others seek relatively private locations after having lived in a fishbowl environment.
Affordability is certainly a concern and that is easy to determine by checking the list prices of houses for sale in each town. When I was younger, I loved the look of Bedford Village and Garrison, but knew that what I could afford at the time was more in the mid-priced range of Yorktown.
Taxes are a very big issue, and the main gripe I hear about that in Westchester and Putnam is that the taxes are all too high. I respond by pointing out the services received in exchange for taxes, hoping that will help ameliorate the concern. I also underscore the fact that most of the tax bill goes to support the schools, so it’s a good investment for a family with children. As a grandparent, I no longer enjoy the benefits of our school system, but console myself with the fact that a good school system helps sustain my property’s value.
Shopping convenience is a feature that buyers seek, especially for grocery shopping. I believe that my town offers some of the best shopping to be found anywhere in the county, with two shopping centers right in the middle of town, actually defining our town center for better or worse, the Jefferson Valley Mall in the northern end and, just over the border, the very large Cortlandt Town Center, with all the big box stores you would expect.
Most buyers ask whether a neighborhood of interest has municipal water and sewer, which is not available in some of the northern reaches, prompting questions about maintaining wells and septic systems.
Are you old enough to remember Petula Clark’s big hit, “Downtown?” The downtown or town center of each town helps define it and attract the personality types who are drawn to it. I once lost an upscale buyer to another state entirely because, when she surveyed the downtown area of the town in which we had found a perfect house, she said simply, “No, I’m sorry, this town doesn’t give me the ‘warm and fuzzies.’”
Aesthetically, Westchester and Putnam offer a broad range of interesting downtown appearances, and some offer no downtown at all, such as Putnam Valley, which is built around five “corners.” Fortunately, I fell in love with my historic house before I saw the downtown of my own town which in 1972 didn’t look particularly inviting. At the time, there were buildings on the main street that were in poor condition because the town was on its way to being almost totally re-developed. In the 1950s and 60s Yorktown had suddenly transformed itself from a farming area to a suburb, and the downtown needed to catch up. Now, those old buildings have been replaced with two attractive business/residential developments that look like a modified Williamsburg, and the business community there is healthy and vital.
There are other towns that always had good bones and kept looking better and tonier through the years, such as Katonah, Bedford Village and Chappaqua. And just look at the good things that have happened to downtown Pleasantville since the creation of the Jacob Burns Film Center.
I was particularly impressed some years ago when Mahopac in Putnam spruced up its look by applying for a grant that enabled store owners to modify their exteriors, awnings and signs in a unifying way. Even though the downtown is basically the intersection of Route 6 at a Y in the road, it now looks more like an inviting town center.
And finally, foremost in consideration of a town’s “personality” is its good, neighborly people, which is really what Dorothy was seeking when she clicked her heels to get home.
Bill Primavera is a Westchester, NY-based realtor ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) and marketing practitioner ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) who can be reached for questions or comment directly at 914-522-2076.
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