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

Life was different when this traditional foursquare home near Boston was built in the early 1900s. Back then, rooms were separate and had clear assignments: The kitchen was for cooking, the dining room was for eating and so on. In those days, windows let in cold air during the winter, so they tended to be smaller and less embracing of a view.  This home had been remodeled over the years, and each refresh had added details that were not age- or architecturally appropriate and took the home away from the plain-spoken look of an American  foursquare . The new owners wanted to bring back some of the original details (or what could have been original) and add modern touches, so they hired Robert S. MacNeille, design principal and president of Carpenter & MacNeille. Carpenter & MacNeille Photos by  Michael J. Lee Houzz at a Glance Who lives here:  A couple Location:  A coastal community north of Boston Size:  2,900 square feet (269.4 squ...

Housing starts slumped in February by the most in four years as bad winter weather in parts of the U.S. prevented builders from initiating new projects. Work began on 897,000 houses at an annualized rate, down 17 percent from January and the fewest in a year, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday in Washington. The median estimate of 80 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for 1.04 million. “It was just the weather, basically,” said Richard Moody, chief economist at Regions Financial Corp. in Birmingham, Alabama. Still, “my view of the recovery in single-family housing is that it’s coming more gradually than others think.” An increase in building permits was driven by applications for multifamily units, indicating single-family construction, the biggest part of the market, will keep struggling. While stronger hiring and low borrowing costs have helped the industry advance, sales remain challenged by limited supply of cheaper homes and sluggish wage growth. The median e...

Which of the following statements were made today by Standard & Poor’s David Blitzer about the December Case Shiller price indices? “Gains are slowing from month-to-month and the strongest part of the recovery in home values may be over. Year-over-year values for the two monthly Composites weakened and the quarterly National Index barely improved. The seasonally adjusted data also exhibit some softness and loss of momentum.” “The housing recovery is faltering. While prices and sales of existing homes are close to normal, construction and new home sales remain weak. Before the current business cycle, any time housing starts were at their current level of about one million at annual rates, the economy was in a recession” Actually, both of them were.  Can you guess which quote was an analysis of December 2013 and which was an analysis of December 2014? The first was 2013.  Despite Blitzer’s warnings, Case Shiller indices went on to record annual gain ranging from 4.3...

Brooklyn  townhouses  don't come cheap. In fact, they often come with  $3 million price tags , according to the latest market reports, but even that is a lot less than many mint condition homes . So in search of the best bargains ( once again ), we scoured  StreetEasy  to find 10 of the best (mostly) move-in ready  single-family homes * in Brownstone Brooklyn (plus the neighboring areas) and North Brooklyn for  less than $2 million . *It should be noted that there are dozens of good-looking two- and three-family homes in prime areas for less than $2 million, but we wanted a challenge. ↑ The most expensive offering on this list may also be the smallest. The listing for this  $1.8 million  townhouse in  Williamsburg  doesn't list the square footage, but the floorplan shows the house to only be about 25-feet deep. But it's brand new construction, and it was built to Passive House standards read more... htt...