Think about Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. This is the burial place for many illustrious people, among them is Andrew Carnegie, Samuel Gompers, Walter Chrysler, William Rockefeller, Elizabeth Arden, Brooke Astor, Leona Helmsley, and Washington Irvington.

Washington Irving the author of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, has many of the characters in his stories buried near him. Of course they have fictious names in his stories. The setting for some of his stories is Sleepy Hollow.

Leona Hemsley’s mausoleum is a large structure with beautiful stained glass windows, and Andrew Carnegie’s burial site is a simple, hard to find marker.

The grounds are beautiful. Dogwoods are about to bloom, and are really glorious. The cemetery gates open M-F 8am-4:30, Saturday and Sunday 8:30-4:30.

If you are visiting this weekend, come to my open house on Sunday April 26, time 1-3 at 9 Hemlock Drive in Sleepy Hollow Manor. I will tell you about some wonderful walks, and wonderful properties in this area. Also there is a book fair at the Warner Library, where you can find books on almost every subject.

Posted By: Barbara Eisert

Lately I’ve had buyers tell me they’ve heard that if they spend more than 10% (or 15% or even 20%) of the asking price for a house in today’s market they are not getting a good deal. This may be true in some parts of the country, but not in Westchester, at least not in my part of it. In fact, my impression has been that houses are still selling at close to the asking price, as long as the price is right. Overpriced houses tend not to sell at all. They have to lower their prices to a point where they are a good buy for the market, and then they sell fairly close to the final asking price.

To see if this impression was correct, I looked at sales figures in two of my primary markets, Briarcliff Manor and Croton-on-Hudson. Briarcliff and Croton are adjacent communities, about the same size in population and housing inventory but different demographics: in 2008, Briarcliff single-family homes sold at a median price of $942,450, while the median selling price of a house in Croton in 2008 was $520,000. I took all of the houses sold in both communities in the last six months and compared their selling prices with their final asking prices. In the period since Sept. 20, 2008, a total of 16 houses were sold in Briarcliff and 17 in Croton. In Briarcliff, the average selling price was 95.53% of the average asking price, while in Croton the selling price averaged 95.11% of the asking price. These numbers are remarkably consistent, both across the price range and across the two communities.

What lessons can we draw from this? For sellers, you need to find the correct price, the one that will attract buyers. Many sellers are reluctant to cut their price “too much,” fearing that buyers will simply low-ball their offers by the same margin they did at the higher price. But these figures suggest that the correct price will yield a selling price that is surprisingly close to asking.

For buyers, you need to adjust your expectations of what you may have to pay for the house of your choice. If a house is well priced, it is reasonable for a seller to expect to sell close to (within 95% of) the asking price. Anyone who expects to pay no more than 90% will probably be disappointed.

So how do you judge, whether you’re a buyer or seller, what the correct price is? This is where your agent comes in. It’s your realtor’s job to know the local market and to advise you when a price is right.

Posted By: Bruce Dollar