(305) 793-1365 restivomiami@gmail.com

Cooking up a Listing Price … Cookies and Milk … 375 degrees (Miami Real Estate Cafe Style)

December 7, 2009

P R O P E R T Y   S E A R C H

R E S T I V O – H E C H T M A N    T E A M

 Icebox Cookies

It’s hard for a property owner to take a loss, and sell their home or condo far below the price they paid for it… even when they have to. 

My sellers and I had already had every possible conversation.  At a minimum, they were looking at losing $100,000 … selling well below what they’d paid for the property (…  before renovating and upgrading it!).  After looking over the relevant properties (homes that recently sold, and those competitively priced to sell) our options were two:  price it to sell… or price it to sit.  Too high, and the sellers  risked ongoing expenditures (property tax, association fees, carrying costs) …  while the market teetered…  and they risked further disappointment (or possible foreclosure).

Mulling over selling one’s home sometimes calls for more than a glass of wine … and… something other than a quick caffe’.   Selling this particular Miami property called for Cookies and Milk… 

Being  that it’s the start of the holidays, and the  real estate market is tough to swallow right now, homemade cookies seemed like a reasonably “adult” way to weigh and measure our options. 

So, we headed over to my kitchen to whip up cookies.  There was nothing more to say.  The comparables spoke for themselves.  And it’s easy to laugh over cookies.  If you’ve ever read the book “If you Give A Mouse A Cookie”   you know that that little mouse just wanted something MORE … (Sometimes though, I think cookies and milk are just perfect… all by themselves!)

Anyway, I’d made cookie batter  Sunday morning…  enough for about 40 batches of family recipe holiday cookies – and thrown it in the freezer before showering off  the flour and sugar, wiping down the counters, and running out to “open houses”.  I  didn’t expect to be baking so soon… or with sellers…. but the ‘messy’ part of  baking was over and done with and there would be no  flour or powdered sugar, chopped nuts or butter to clean up, so it seemed like a good idea.   

We baked, made tea,  had fresh baked cookies and cold milk…  and laughed.  My sellers adjusted their expectations as low as they were willing to go.  And that was that!   While they boxed up cookies to take home,  and others cooled on the racks, I plugged in my laptop.

Life is about  more that just the bottom line.  It’s about how we get there.  Today was a day for milk and cookies:  375 degrees till done…. Cooking up a “listing price”  MiamiRealEstateCafe style.     

Among my favorite  recipes are  (Boller) Ice Box Cookies and Kourambethes … (both in my freezer),along with English Toffee  and Nana’s Fudge (not meant for the freezer).  This weeks MiamiRealEstateCafe Blog recipe… if you don’t have a lot of time and  don’t have cookie dough already in your freezer …  is  Nana’s Fudge …. compliments of  my mom, my grandma, my kids, my husband and me: 

RECIPE FOR NANA’s FUDGE:fudge

1 square of bitter chocolate (grated), 2 cups sugar, 1 (5 oz) can of evaporated milk, 10 marshmallows, pinch of salt.  Heat all the ingredients until the marshmallows are pretty well dissolved.  Then boil for 7 minutes.

Remove from heat. Pour the hot mixture over the following:

2 tablespoons butter (cut in chunks), 1 tsp vanilla, 1 (12 oz) package chocolate chips, 1 cup walnuts (chopped).

Stir and pour into buttered dish. Cool and cut. (If you double thisrecipe, boil 8 minutes after marshmallows dissolve). Bon Appetite … or… as theysay in Italy… Buon Appetito!

The Most Comprehensive Report On The Luxury Lifestyle

The Most Comprehensive Report On The Luxury Lifestyle

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, the defining voice in the luxury real estate industry, and The Wall Street Journal’s Mansion Global Custom Studios bring you the 2021 Global Luxury Landscape Report. The report delves deeply into the inner workings of the world’s...

error

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)

LinkedIn
LinkedIn
Share
Instagram
Follow by Email
RSS