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

Town Comptroller Edward Ritter presented a bleak financial outlook for the Town of Bedford at a recent work session. At the Aug. 20 meeting, Ritter presented a financial outlook for the town for the next five years that showed Bedford facing rising pension and benefit costs that will be hard to keep up with. Like most municipalities, Bedford has seen pension and health care costs skyrocket over the past few years while they try to keep budgets within the 2-percent cap on the tax levy. The board is already working on its 2014 budget, where, according to Ritter, the town faces a $692,082 budget  gap for 2014. The gap could reach $2.6 million by 2018. Municipalities are required to pass balance budgets. Ritter said the town’s fund balance is also running low. Municipalities often use fund balance to help mitigate two percent. Ritter said employee benefits will rise from $5.7 million this year to more than $8 million in 2018. At the work session, the town board discussed p...

Bedford NY Real estate sales down 19% - Prices down 25% | RobReportBlog Bedford NY Real Estate Sales Report  -  last six months 2012 29     sales $986,000   median sales price $418,500   low price $4,450,000   high price 4056   Ave. size $321   Ave. price per foot 200    Ave. DOM 93.13%   Ave sold to ask $1,328,948   Average sold price via trulia.com

via housingwire.com

via motherearthnews.com

October 1, 2011 was a dark day for the nation’s most expensive housing markets.  That’s the day higher loan limits expired and the sky was expected to fall. Terrible things were supposed to happen with loan limits raises on a temporary basis three years earlier expired thirteen months ago.  “Housing markets remain fragile and cannot handle a mortgage disruption like lower loan limits.  With tight underwriting already constraining mortgage availability, lowering the loan limits will only further restrict liquidity,” warned a coalition of the nation’s most powerful housing lobby groups in a desperate but unsuccessful eleventh hour effort to keep the higher limits in place. Limits on the size of mortgages that conform to the mortgage underwriting guidelines of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac are set by law. Mortgages meeting these criteria are securitized on Wall Street as mortgage-backed bonds, making them slightly less expensive to borrowers.  Loan limits had been temp...

Ringo Starr and his wife, Barbara, are asking $4.5 million for their three-bedroom vacation home near Aspen, Colorado. The 70-year-old Beatles drummer, who continues to tour with his All Starr Band, bought the home in 1990. The wood cabin sits on about 16 flat acres in Woody Creek and has frontage on Roaring Fork River. The roughly 3,200-square-foot cabin was built in 1987 and is surrounded by unused horse paddocks. Full Article Luxury Homes Bedford Luxury Homes

Barring unlikely last-minute changes, Bedford property taxes will climb 2½ percent next year despite across-the-board cuts in the town's discretionary spending. At a public hearing Tuesday, the town board formally unveiled its tentative 2011 budget, which calls for $25.1 million in spending, largely financed by a property-tax rate of $29.38 and higher fees for town services. The budget presented Tuesday night would automatically take effect Jan. 1 if the town board does not act on it by Dec. 20. It cuts all departments' spending, as it has for the past three years. In 2011, however, the departmental funding reductions, averaging about 10 percent, will extend to the town's three libraries, which had been spared in the earlier economies. Saying he spoke for all the libraries, Ed Baum, president of the Katonah Village Library board of trustees, told the board, "We are living in an atmosphere of great uncertainty." Besides Baum, only Fiona Mitchell of Bedford ...

Home-mortgage rates climbed this week, with the average rate on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at its highest since the end of June, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey of conforming mortgages, released on Thursday. Rates on the 30-year mortgage averaged 4.61% for the week ended Dec. 9, up from 4.46% last week. It is the fourth week in a row that the mortgage rate rose; it averaged 4.81% a year ago. "Interest rates for 30-year fixed mortgages are now almost a half percentage point higher than the record low set in mid-October, which for a $200,000 conventional loan amounts to $50 more in monthly payments," said Frank Nothaft , chief economist, Freddie Mac, in a news release. Fifteen-year fixed-rate mortgages also rose this week, averaging 3.96%, up from last week's 3.81%, according to the survey. The mortgage averaged 4.32% a year ago. Meanwhile, adjustable-rate mortgages also moved higher, with the five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortg...

Customer loyalty matters, because selling more to current customers is easier and cheaper than finding and selling to new ones. Loyal customers tend to buy more, more regularly. And they will frequently recommend your business to others. A Clear Eye for Branding     . Successful marketing also requires being relevant and unique, which brings us to Tip 2.   Here are 10 tips for you to consider if you are sincerely interested in having a business that is notable for its customer loyalty and referrals. I propose that these tried-and-true tactics with interpersonal strategies can deepen relationships with customers, establish greater levels of trust, and build stronger customer loyalty. 1. Understand the true purpose of marketing Effective marketing is in large part about building trust and developing relationships.The purpose of marketing is to "create and maintain a strong feeling with customers so they are mentally predisposed to continually choose ...

County Executive Rob Astorino was peppered with questions about his proposed $1.78 billion 2011 budget at Monday night's Bedford Armonk Rotary meeting, even as he was exiting the room to attend another community meeting in Somers. Though the atmosphere was not as charged as previously held public hearings on the budget, attendees challenged Astorino on several proposed cuts—including reductions in child care subsidies and the elimination of $1.3 million in funds to the Cornell Cooperative Extension—and demanded explanations on costs associated with employee contracts. Astorino's proposed operating budget calls for a decrease in spending of $33 million from the $1.819 billion budget of 2010. If no cuts were made, this year's budget would have increased by a projected $116 million. When crafting the budget, he and his staff focused on providing essential services, he said. Approximately 85 people attended the meeting, hosted by the recently formed Bedford ...