The 30-Minute Interview - Robert A.M. Stern | Waccabuc Realtor
ROBERT A.M. STERN via nytimes.com
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Bedford NY Road Repaving - Traffic Advisory for Route 172 | Bedford Realtor
Traffic Advisory: The New York State Department of Transportation ( NYSDOT ) has informed the Town they will be paving Route 172 from Route 117 to Route 22, and Route 22 from Middle Patent Road in Armonk to the intersection of Route 121. This work will be performed by NYSDOT and their contractor, and is not administered or controlled by the Town of Bedford. The work started during the week of June 25th. The NYSDOT contractor, Grace Industries, will be doing preparation work for paving between 9AM and 4PM for the first two weeks. Residents should expect delays since lanes will be closed as needed. Roads will remain open, but may have single lane traffic. Starting the week of July 9, for two to three weeks night paving will occur from Sunday to Thursday 9PM to 6AM. Roads will remain open, but lanes will be closed and single lane traffic will exist. People should expect delays. The exact schedule depends on weather and other factors. Residents can contact the NYSDOT field o...
About to Buy a New Home? Don’t Show It to These People | Bedford Corners NY Realtor
A New Home via zillow.com
Bedford Corners NY Real Estate | Region's home prices and sales surge in May
It may not be 2006 all over again, but home sales in the region are booming this spring. Single-family house sales and median prices rose by more than 20 percent in New London County during May, according to a statewide real estate report released Friday. The $245,500 median price for a single-family house recorded in New London County last month compared with $204,250 during the same period a year ago, according to The Warren Group, publisher of The Commercial Record. May sales in the region totaled 174, an increase of 22.5 percent from the number of single-family house transactions recorded in the same month last year. "The spring market has been especially strong in Connecticut," Timothy M. Warren Jr., chief executive of The Warren Group, said in a statement. "We're expecting home sales to continue to soar this summer, thanks to low mortgage rates and affordable prices luring buyers into the market." Local condominium sales also were strong, up...
Chappaqua Real Estate | Speeding Up Refinances - Mortgage news
MANY large financial institutions are facing backlogs of mortgage applications as more homeowners take advantage of low interest rates and the government-sponsored Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP. Borrowers looking to accelerate the process are finding some relief from brokerages and community banks that are not servicing HARP loans . “We’ve heard stories about 60-day to 90-day loan waiting periods in some cases,” said Michael Fratantoni, the vice president for research and economics of the Mortgage Bankers Association , adding that larger banks are “running at full capacity.” According to the Mortgage Bankers Association weekly survey released Wednesday, nearly 80 percent of the mortgage applications were for refinancing; previous weeks’ surveys showed roughly a quarter of the transactions were HARP-related. HARP was created by the federal government to simplify the refinances of homeowners with mortgages owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddi...
6 Reasons To Believe The Real Estate Market Is Healthy Again | Armonk NY Homes
Southern California has served as a remarkable barometer for nationwide real estate trends over the past decade. This fact is in large part due to the widespread publicity and concentrated marketing efforts that come from the region, which tend to not only set the stage for public opinion, but also tend to exaggerate the peaks and troughs. This lead to the Southern California real estate market seeing some of the most stunning gains throughout the inflationary period of the housing bubble, as well as some of the most painful losses following the bubble's burst in 2007. However, the following 6 real estate market metrics are clear indicators that we have entered the light at the end of the tunnel. 1. No More Easy Money The single biggest factor that contributed fuel to the fire that eventually burned the nation in 2008, was easy money loans to under-qualified borrowers. Countless 3-5 year adjustable rate home equity loans were taken out by borrowers seeking to live above thei...
Bedford Hills Real Estate | Why Am I Blogging Anyway?
There’s value in a business blog. Real value. It’s so much more than a tool for getting traffic from Google (although that is a huge plus). But, have you ever asked yourself, “ Why am I blogging anyway? ” I’m willing to bet that a good number of you have asked yourself this question. Especially when you were first starting out or really busy and wondering if it is worth the time and effort you’re putting into it. So here’s a reminder as to why you should continue (or even start) to blog on a consistent and continual basis: Remaining Educated By default, when you research you also learn. So, when you are searching for content ideas and gathering information for your next post, you are not only providing for your clients, but continually educating yourself about your market. Expanding Your Knowledge Base Not only are you remaining educated, but you will undoubtedly further your knowledge base while you write new posts for your blog. While doing my research for this...
How To Find Compelling Ideas For (Video) Blogging | Bedford NY Real Estate
“The role of content excellence is to behave like a ruthless editor, otherwise we risk just creating noise” ~ Jonathon Mildnehall VP of Global Advertising at the Coca-Cola Company Inspiration. One of the toughest things for a writer or a video blogger is to find inspiration for their first or next post. When I started my video blog, and eventually my written blog, I wasn’t really sure where to look for content. It was tough, sitting down in front of my laptop and coming up with a new post. A post that I hoped would help to answer some questions. Then, I read Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk. If you haven’t read this book, I am convinced it will give you all you need in the inspiration department. In the book, Gary mentions that if you can’t sit down and write out 50 topics or ideas for your blog, then you probably shouldn’t start. I was able to write down 100, immediately after reading that section of the book! Turn Down the Suck, Turn Up the Good As I mentioned in my previous p...
Foreclosures Held Steady in May | Pound Ridge NY Homes
Though the level of completed foreclosures remains high, it is down 27 percent from a peak of 1.1 million in 2010 according to the latest data from CoreLogic. Inventories at the national level remain the same as a year ago. There were more than 819,000 completed foreclosures over the past year, or an average of 2,440 completed foreclosures every day over the last 12 months. The national foreclosure inventory levels remained steady at around 1.4 million homes, or 3.4 percent of all homes with a mortgage. The national foreclosure inventory in May 2012 was virtually the same as the 1.5 million, or 3.5 percent, in May 2011 and 1.4 million, or 3.4 percent, in April 2012. The foreclosure inventory is the share of all mortgaged homes in some stage of the foreclosure process. However, there have been dramatic shifts the state level inventories. Nevada, Arizona and Michigan each experienced at least a 20-percent decline in the foreclosure inventory from a year ago. While foreclosur...
5 Things Landlords Do to Attract Renters | Bedford Hills Realtor
Landlords Attracting Renters via zillow.com
The 6 Types Of Social Media Users | Cross River NY Real Estate
At this point, no single customer engagement channel can deliver marketers a complete picture of consumer behavior. Google knows what you’re interested in, but not what you’ve done. Facebook knows who your friends are, but not what you buy. Pinterest knows what you share, but not how you act on it. Foursquare knows where you are, but not what you like. You get the idea. Social media measurement is critical to success, but brands have been unable to get their arms around what it is and what it means. Aimia , a loyalty-management firm, has unveiled a new segmentation model that analyzes trust and control as drivers of 6 distinct social media personas. The model is detailed in Staring at the Sun: Identifying, Understanding and Influencing Social Media Users . The report argues that specific social media personas can be identified and directly engaged. “Today’s approach to social media measurement – racing to rack up the most likes, retweets, followers, and recommenda...
How to Water the Garden | South Salem NY Real Estate
How to Water The Garden At this very moment, somewhere on our vast planet, it's raining. But at the MOTHER EARTH NEWS EcoVillage garden, we're in the middle of a typical summer dry spell . . . so I've been busy soaking the bases of our tomato plants with a watering wand. Most of us — with the twist of a spigot — can turn a garden hose into an umbilical cord linking us to vast (yet not inexhaustible) underground rivers. And since many of us don't need to worry about the availability of water, being blessed with adequate supplies, we can often afford, instead, to fret about when to water . . . how much moisture to put down . . . what implements and techniques are most appropriate to use . . . and how to conserve as much water as possible while still nurturing the crops. These are the concerns we'll address in this article. But first, let's review some fundamentals about . . . Soil and Water Water provides more than just liquid ...
How to Build a ' Temporary' Microhouse | Waccabuc NY Real Estate
The foundations of the first true American microhouse—and of the philosophy that changed society's attitude toward personal freedom and man's relationship with Nature—were laid "near the end of March, 1845," when Henry David Thoreau, a Harvard dropout from Concord, Massachusetts, borrowed an ax, walked a mile and a half to Walden Pond, and began to build a ten-by-fifteen-foot one-room cabin of hand-hewn logs and recycled shanty boards fastened with salvaged nails and wooden pegs. In an era when a laborer earned a dollar a day, his total cash outlay for the house came to $28.12. He lived there for more than two years and from the experience wrote a book called Walden , which changed my life and the lives of many others. It can change yours as well. RELATED CONTENT From Shed to Microhouse Living in a very small house can free up time, energy and money spent on mortgage, upkeep and stori... The Microhouse: A Small Home You Can Build Coun...
Economists See Weaker Recovery and Declining Homeownership | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate
National median home prices will improve for the balance of the year and end with a slight annual decline before bottoming out by 2013, but homeownership will continue to drop over the next five years, according to a quarterly survey of housing economists and experts released today. A majority (56 percent) of experts also believe that in five years the U.S. homeownership rate will fall below 65.4 percent, the rate recorded in the first quarter of 2012. One in five believe the homeownership rate will be at or below 63 percent, testing or breaking the 62.9 percent rate established in 1965, the lowest on record, according to the June 2012 Zillow Home Price Expectations Survey, compiled from 114 responses by a diverse group of economists, real estate experts and investment and market strategists. The most optimistic quartile of panelists predict a 1 percent increase in 2012, on average, while the most pessimistic predict an average decline of 2 percent. The June survey results also i...
Move-in Ready Foreclosures Dry Up | Bedford NY Real Estate
Widespread shortages in housing inventories, especially in states that have experienced large price declines since 2006, are reducing the time homes for sale are spending on market, especially move-in ready foreclosures (REO) . REOs that need no major repairs or renovations to be resold or occupied are increasingly being snapped up, with an average time on market of just 10.6 weeks in May, the lowest of any property category, according to the latest results of the monthly Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. Inventory shortages are caused by homeowners holding their homes off the market while hoping for a rebound in prices, and by homeowners that are underwater on their mortgage and effectively locked in place. For the distressed property categories, a shortage of attractive inventory is caused by slow processing at mortgage servicers. Average prices for home purchases were mixed from April to May, shown in transactions reported by HousingPulse survey re...
Dead Listings Live Again in Tight Markets | Pound Ridge NY Homes
Record-low inventory levels are breathing new life into homes that were withdrawn from the market but now are finding buyers in markets across the country. Relisted properties make up a large part of her business, reported Denver Realtor Lydia Lin of One Realty at the National Association of Real Estate Editors conference last week. Reports around the country indicate that the inventory drought is reducing the number of expired listings and encouraging owners who took their homes off the market to relist them for sale. On the national level, the inventory of single family homes, condominiums, townhouses and co-ops for-sale was 20.07 percent lower last month than it was in May 2011 and declined in all but two of the 146 markets covered by Realtor.com. Since the beginning of the year, the total size of the inventory has averaged about 1.8 to 1.9 million units, the lowest levels observed since Realtor.com began collecting these data in January 2007. Though no one keeps national da...
Did Phoenix Overshoot the Downside? | Bedford Corners Homes
True to its name, Phoenix has risen from the ashes of its foreclosure-ridded real estate market to lead the nation in year-over-year price increases, up 32.63 percent year over year in Realtor.com’s May data. A new analysis of appraisal data from the Phoenix market, which has puzzled experts and delighted local homeowners, suggests that its prices overshot the downside and fell further than warranted due to the appraisal methods used to set values: replacement cost and income capitalization. Home prices in Phoenix reviewed by economists at Home Value Forecast suggest they are selling at significantly below their replacement costs and the rental yields generated on these homes are far above historical levels. Based on employment growth and affordability they argue the Phoenix market is detached from economic fundamentals. “Phoenix provides a good case study of a market which has been in transition over the past year,” said Tom O’Grady, CEO of Pro Teck Valuation Services. “Market...
House Poor: Big Losers and Short Sales | Chappaqua NY Homes
In Mirage Mills, we’ve seen it all when it comes to the housing mess. Entire neighborhoods are so run down you would think Home Depot went out of business. Our kids think “bank owned” is an invitation to invite their friends to a weekend blow-out and trash a vacated house. The black market in copper stripped from hot water pipes and gutters is a major source of local employment. They don’t call my town the Chernobyl of American real estate for nothing. So it’s no surprise that Mirage Mills was the birthplace of the short sale. Back then, we didn’t call it a short sale. We called it the Big Loser. The Big Loser was the brain child of Ernest S. Crowe, the smartest mortgage guy in town. His friend, Ziggy Callamitti, was farther underwater than Jacques Cousteau in a National Geographic special. The monthly payments were killing him, so Ziggy decided to walk away from his home and mail the keys to the bank. Today they call that a “strategic default.” In those days we called it being a ...
Higher Rents Don’t Faze Tenants | Armonk NY Homes
Even though 92 percent of property managers report rents are rising or the same as they were a year ago, property managers are attracting residents more easily than a year ago. A new TransUnion survey found that nearly half of respondents (48 percent) said rental prices on the majority of their units had increased since this same time last year. Approximately 44 percent said rental prices remained the same. In the 2011 TransUnion rental survey, only 39 percent reported an increase while 48 percent said prices remained the same. “Data throughout the last year has pointed to a healthier rental market, and our survey helps validate the current strength of the rental industry,” said Steve Roe, vice president, TransUnion Rental Screening Solutions. “The rise in rental prices, coupled with a decrease in vacancy rates and the ability to attract new residents with less effort are all positive signs for the market and rental property managers.” Despite increasing rental prices, more ...
Mortgage Rates for a 30 year loan are now 3.66% | Bedford Hills Realtor
Fixed Mortgage Rates Match All-time Record Lows MCLEAN, Va., June 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Freddie Mac (OTC: FMCC) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing average fixed mortgage rates largely unchanged helping to keep homebuyer affordability high for those in the market to purchase or looking to refinance. Both the 30-year fixed and 15-year fixed rate mortgages matched their all-time record lows. News Facts 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 3.66 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending June 28, 2012, the same as last week. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.51 percent. 15-year FRM this week averaged 2.94 percent with an average 0.7 point, down from last week when it averaged 2.95 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 3.69 percent. 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 2.79 percent thi...
Manhattan Real Estate Feels Neurotic, Worried | Pound Ridge Realtor
While there are those who will steadfastly claim that Manhattan real estate is virtually bullet proof, many are worried that modest second-quarter gains in apartment prices augur a possible drop-off in demand during the second half of 2012, according to The Wall Street Journal . Economic and political uncertainties are paradoxically believed to be both a driver of demand and inhibitor of decision making by buyers. Economic turmoil in Europe may be driving sales of higher-end properties as a New York is seen as a safe haven for capital. But worries over Europe's debt situation and uncertainty over the U.S. presidential election may be giving some buyers pause . Others feel that perhaps a drop in the latest median price of sales indicates that demand is being driven by first-time home buyers and that an uptick in prices has others concerned about buying into an up market. As usual there is conflicting evidence supporting both worry and confidence. People are feeling antsy thoug...
Beach Boy Would Love to Sell Tuscan-Style Pebble Beach Estate | Waccabuc Real Estate
Beach Boy Would Love to Sell Tuscan-Style Pebble Beach Estate Next Previous Picture 1 of 19 | Toggle Loading beach boys side front Date: June 27, 2012 | Author: Laura Vecsey | Category: Eye Candy Response: ( 8 ) 0 comments Email this inShare 2 Mike Love and The Beach Boys played the Bonnaroo festival in Tennessee. SOURCE: Rolling Stone Mike Love has not changed his mind. The Beach Boys’ baritone front man still wants to sell his Pebble Beach, CA, home, which has been re-listed for $5.995 million . The Tuscan-style home has been on and off the market since 2008, when it was first listed for sale at $7.875 million. Love’s California crash pad is up the coast from where he and his cousins Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson, along with Al Jardine, created the lush sounds that changed pop music. With 7 bed...