Bedford NY Real Estate | Robert Paul Talks Life in Bedford NY

23 images <div class="gallery loaded"><a href="http://curbed.com/archives/2014/07/29/16thcentury-castle-comes-with-a-tiny-replica-of-itself.php"><img src="http://cdn.cstatic.net/images/gridfs/53d7a142f92ea169f80294f6/imagereader.jpg" width="500" height="334"></a><br /><a href="http://curbed.com/archives/2014/07/29/16thcentury-castle-comes-with-a-tiny-replica-of-itself.php" style="font-size: 9px; text-align: center;">Click here to view the full photogallery.</a></div> Plunked right down in the middle of two canals in Gestel, Belgium, the elaborately-moated Castle Gestelhof is newly on the market for a regal $27M. Called "a work of art you can live in" by the excitable brokerbabble, the 20,989-square-foot, 12-bedroom kingdom harks back to the 16th century, according to Architectural Digest, but underwent a series of renovations in 1796 and a few additi...

Prospective buyers aren’t even going through the motions of applying for financing as applications for purchase mortgages weakened in May. Most housing markets remain stalled largely markets moved into their stable range of housing activity according to Freddie Mac’s Multi-Indicator Market Index (MiMi). The national MiMi value stands at -2.64 points indicating a weak housing market overall with only a slight decline (-0.05 points) from April to May and a 3-month trend change of (+0.06 points), which is considered flat. However, on a year-over-year basis, the U.S. housing market has improved by 0.86 points. The nation’s all-time MiMi low of -4.42 was in November 2010 when the housing market was at its weakest. Thirteen of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia are in their stable range with North Dakota, the District of Columbia, Wyoming, Alaska and Montana ranking in the top five. Eight of the 50 metro areas are in their stable range with San Antonio, Austin, Salt Lake City,...

Freddie Mac ( OTCQB : FMCC ) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS ® ), showing average fixed mortgage rates largely flat for the week, remaining just above their lows for 2014 and helping to support homebuyer affordability. News Facts 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.13 percent with an average 0.6 point for the week ending July 24, 2014 , unchanged from last week. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.31 percent. 15-year FRM this week averaged 3.26 percent with an average 0.6 point, up from last week when it averaged 3.23 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 3.39 percent. 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 2.99 percent this week with an average 0.5 point, up from last week when it averaged 2.97 percent. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 3.16 percent. 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 2.39 percent this week with an average 0.4 point, unchanged from la...

To be a successful real estate investor you have to keep your business growing. That means finding real estate to invest in and not just any real estate will do.We investors have to find real estate deals! We have to find properties where the numbers make sense, properties which will provide a decent return for our investment. Finding these deals however is not always easy. In fact, sometimes you really have to search for them. But that is just the way this business is. If this business was easy and deals were a dime a dozen, then everyone would be investing in real estate. What I am saying is that finding deals takes work and effort.It takes work and effort each and every day. As an investor, you need to be tuned into and looking at many various sources to find potential deals. Just one will never be enough! Here are some thoughts on where you might want to focus part of your daily efforts to find deals: 1. The Realtor’s Multiple Listing System (MLS) This is the databas...

New foreclosure activity data from June, when a total of 107,194 U.S. properties had a foreclosure filing, fell 2 percent from the previous month and was down 16 percent from a year ago to lowest level since July 2006, before the housing price bubble burst Total foreclosure activity in June was the lowest since the housing bubble burst in August 2006 in 10 states, including Texas, Georgia, Colorado, Tennessee, Arizona and Nevada, according to the latest foreclosure report from RealtyTrac. “Nationwide foreclosure activity in June reached an important milestone, dropping to levels not seen since before the housing price bubble burst in August 2006,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “Over the next six to nine months nationwide foreclosure numbers should start to flat line at consistent historically normal levels. “There continue to be concerning trends in some states and local markets that clearly indicate those markets are not completely out of the woods when it ...

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Nobody likes a house with an outdated bathroom. Of course, you can use a blue toilet and bathe in a pink tub, illuminated by eight naked light bulbs shining on a stained 1970s laminate countertop. But do you really want to? Building the spa bathroom of your dreams may cost more than you want to spend. But you don't have to empty your wallet to improve your bathroom. A little bling and a few luxurious touches can give you a big impact for a small amount of money, and that's a good place to start. "One little thing creates that luxury instead of worrying about everything else," says Laura Redd, an interior designer in Greensboro, North Carolina. "I think sparkle is a big thing." The easiest way to cut costs on a bathroom renovation is to keep the old bathroom footprint. Keep the toilet, sink and tub or shower in the same locations, just replacing the old with the new. That saves the thousands it costs to add to the footprint of the house...

Earlier this morning we saw that housing starts unexpectedly plunged 9.3% to an annualized rate of 893,000. On the face of it, the report was ugly, considering all the talk about the recent housing snapback. It's important to note that the miss was entire due to one region: the South. Housing starts plunged 29.6% in the South, driven by weakness in single family units. "All the hit is in the south, where starts plunged by 29.6%, the biggest ever monthly drop, despite gains in each other region," wrote Ian Shepherdson at Pantheon Macroeconomics. Starts were actually up in the rest of the country. In the Northeast, housing starts were up 14.1%, driven mostly by multi-family starts. In the Midwest they were up 28%, and in the West they were up 2.6%. It wasn't immediately clear what was behind the sudden plunge in the south. "But homebuilders are being constrained by a shortage of labour and lots," Paul Diggle at Capital Economics. "...

Demand for real estate is growing in many markets across the country. That’s great, but it creates competition in the form of all-cash offers, offers for thousands of dollars over list price, and a growing gap between affordability and prices in a given area. This dynamic only adds to the frustrations many buyers face in the market. If you are a part of the majority who are buying a home with financing, these following tips can help you solidify the deal. Note that price is certainly a factor — if not the factor — most sellers are concerned about. However, while price is crucial, there are other factors that can give you an advantage when you’re trying to secure an initial commitment from the seller.   1. Get the Right Lender Gone are the days when you could simply get pre-approved to buy a home , use that pre-approval letter to make offers and expect to get into contract quickly. Your loan officer’s reputation in the community is critical, especially among the agent...

Q: Is it true that the New York State Thruway Authority is catching speeders with E-ZPass? Please let me know so I can get rid of the damn thing. —Bill Marcella, New Rochelle A: Not only can they track your speed, give you a ticket, and fine you, the system also has a way to determine if you’re a registered Republican, in which case the current administration will have you detained and most probably waterboarded. Kidding, kidding. The theory behind this fear is that the E-ZPass system can determine how fast a car on the Thruway outfitted with its device has traveled by measuring the distance and time it took to get from its point of entry to its point of exit. The E-ZPass system could do the calculation and bust your speeding butt without having to pull you over and listen to your weak sob story—Big Brother at its finest. Some folks even claim they’ve received such tickets from E-ZPass in the mail. Well, Illuminati fans, I’m sorry to report that the Thruway Authority as Orwel...

Homebuyers held off purchasing homes in June due to rising home prices, Credit Suisse reported in their monthly traffic survey of real estate agents. "Comments from agents in June suggest that buyers are growing increasingly discouraged by economic and employment conditions, and as a result, have made the decision to hold-off on purchases—particularly at current prices," the company reported. Out of the 40 markets surveyed, 32 saw lower than expected traffic, five were in line with expectations and three saw better than expected traffic. Those numbers were all a decline from May, when only 28 were below expectations and five saw better than expected traffic. The only three markets that saw better than expected traffic last month were Columbus, Ohio, Ft. Myers, Florida, and Dallas. Some of the weakest markets were San Diego, New York/Northern New Jersey and Phoenix, which all saw Buyer Traffic Index levels below 30 (50 is neutral, where the traffic met expectations)...

The folks in Conecticut will be unpleasantly surprised to learn they beat out Vegas and Miami as the riskiest market to buy a home. Zillow set out to look at the markets where housing prices have declined the most over the past 35 years and chained the Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI) backward in time to 1979 Q4 using the FHFA Home Price Index. For each of the 50 largest housing markets, we analyzed the change in median home values over 117 rolling five-year periods since the end of 1979. The “risk of loss” is the percentage of those periods that created negative returns for homeowners. In the case of ties between markets, those with the bigger drop in their worst years were ranked as riskier. The housing markets with the highest percentage of negative five-year returns are Hartford (37 percent risk of loss), Providence (32 percent), Riverside (31 percent), Boston (30 percent) and Los Angeles (29 percent). The five least risky metro areas by the same metric are Buffalo (0 percent ...

All of us who have a career in real estate sales or financing should be aware of common credit issues our clients face since our businesses usually depend on specific credit scores for loan approvals. By understanding and educating we may be able to avoid a potential failed transaction or higher pricing for our clients. Medical collections are one of the most popular causes of credit score drops that we see for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately they are also very misunderstood. A recent study by Trans Union revealed that 54% of insured individuals are confused about medical bills. Since collection agencies are usually small companies they save in expenses by only reporting delinquencies to two of the three major credit bureaus. Although they usually don't report to all three bureaus, the middle score can still drop dramatically and change pricing or approvals on a loan. Credit scores can drop hundreds of points from one collection, and most people do not understand h...

If you ever wanted a little slice of Italy, here's your chance. An entire alpine village is up for sale on eBay . The auction for the town of Borgata Calsazio, just a few ski runs away from Turin, is real, with a "Buy it Now" price of a mere $333,057. But it's also a fixer-upper. The National Union of Mountain Communities, which is assisting the town's few remaining inhabitants in the sale, told La Repubblica newspaper that any buyer would have to restore the stone and wood homes under a master plan provided by the organization. While the hamlet may be one of the most picturesque Italian municipalities for sale, it's not the first. In recent years, the Italian state has turned to auctioning off monuments and properties to escape its crushing debt and the mounting expenses of maintaining these historic locales. In 2012, a Tuscan village went up for sale for $25 million. And earlier in 2014, the " most haunted island in the world ," off the shore fro...

A guide to cultural and recreational events in the Hudson Valley. Items for the calendar should be sent at least three weeks in advance to westweek@nytimes.com .   Comedy ROSENDALE Rosendale Theater The Gang Show, variety. July 12 at 9:30 p.m. $5. Rosendale Theater, 408 Main Street. (845) 658-8989; rosendaletheatre.org . TARRYTOWN Tarrytown Music Hall Sinbad. July 12 at 8 p.m. $35 to $48. Tarrytown Music Hall, 13 Main Street. tarrytownmusichall.org ; (877) 840-0457. WEST NYACK Levity Live John Moses, Mark DeMayo, Meghan Hanley, Derek Gaines and Jon Fisch. July 3, 5 and 6. $20. Greg Stone. July 9 at 7:30 p.m. $15. Steve Trevino. July 10 through 13. $17 and $20. Levity Live, 4210 Palisades Center Drive. (845) 353-5400; levitylive.com . Film ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, Bard College “Schubert and the Long 19th Century,” film series. Through Aug. 3. $8 and $10 per screening. The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Perf...

6 images <div class="gallery loaded"><a href="http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/07/03/what_3100month_can_rent_you_around_new_york_city.php"><img src="http://cdn.cstatic.net/images/gridfs/53b584eaf92ea146a3004b2e/78604185.jpg" width="500" height="333"></a><br /><a href="http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/07/03/what_3100month_can_rent_you_around_new_york_city.php" style="font-size: 9px; text-align: center;">Click here to view the full photogallery.</a></div> ↑ In Clinton Hill , a floor-through garden apartment with two bedrooms (one of which is very small, but features a skylight) is asking $3,175/month . It has a washer/dryer, a dishwasher, and a concrete paved backyard that does looks like it's probably shared with the rest of the building, but hey — outdoor space is outdoor space. read more.... http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/07/03/wh...

Apartment landlords continued to push through hefty rent hikes in the second quarter, squeezing U.S. households that already are struggling financially after four years of steady increases. The average monthly rent for an apartment rose to $1,099 in the second quarter, up 0.8% from the first quarter, according to data to be released Wednesday by real-estate research firm Reis Inc.             That was the 18th consecutive quarter of rent increases. For the 12-month period ended in June, rents rose 3.4%. Effective rents—which tend to be lower than asking rents—were up in all 79 U.S. metro areas tracked in the Reis report. West Coast cities that have been the model of recovery continued to top the list of highest rent growth for the quarter and over the past 12 months. read more... http://online.wsj.com/articles/apartment-rents-rise-as-incomes-stagnate-1404273662?ru=yahoo?...

For the ultra-wealthy, New York City is becoming an investment haven, a place to store cash in a stable commodity with the promise of long-term growth and the opportunity for near anonymity, according to a detailed feature in New York Magazine chronicling the new trend. “There’s really no safer way to get that kind of return than in New York City real estate,” Santo Rosabianca, a broker with Wire International Realty, told New York Magazine writer Andrew Rice. The privacy that Big Apple real estate affords through limited liability corporations and other buyer-obscurity measures also lures investors to the market, Rice reported, especially with recent efforts to increase transparency of overseas’ bank accounts including those notoriously secretive repositories: Swiss bank accounts. Source: New York Magazine