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

All photos by  Philippe Ruault  via  ArchDaily It was pretty impressive to see a  warm, expensive-looking Texas house  come together for just $175K, but it's also remarkable to take in the total nonchalance of this house in western France, completed for a tight  $128K  and proud of it. Tasked with completing a "big" home (it clocks in at  1,593 square feet ) with a relatively low budget, the designers at  Fouquet Architecture Urbanisme  served up pure utilitarianism: the wood-framed home wears a layer of polycarbonate panels and include wide openings and sliding doors leading out to the garden. Though the striking voids might  look  like some floors still need to be filled in, they're actually intentional: The empty spaces serve as a garage and interior terraces. It's hard to imagine that the greenhouse-like home will stay comfortable throughout the seasons, but the architects insist it will. The rooms are heated with a...

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.2% in February, and was unchanged over the past 12 months. According to the latest release from the  Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the seasonally adjusted increase in February was broad-based, including energy. The energy index increased 1.0% after seven consecutive monthly declines. The gasoline index, a component of the energy price index, increased 2.4% in February, but has decreased 32.8% over the past year.  The natural gas index, which was the only energy component to decrease in February, fell 2.0% and 3.4% over the first two months of this year, and has decreased 6.5% over the past year. The food index also increased 0.2% in February, and the index for nonalcoholic beverages had its largest increase since September 2012 at 0.6%. The index for beef and veal increased for the thirteenth consecutive month, while the index for dairy products has decreased in the first two months of 2015. Core...

Unlike the typical 10-foot by 10-foot kitchen or the 5-foot by 8-foot bathroom, laundry rooms have no standard size. That’s why many laundry rooms end up in awkward places or banished to a dark and dingy basement. “They become afterthoughts,” says designer Amber Linse. But if you’re lucky enough to have space for a washer and dryer in your home, it makes a job that everyone hates a bit more manageable. So homeowners and designers are always looking for the best solutions for where to put the laundry room. Should it be near the bedrooms? Or should it be off the kitchen? What about in a bathroom? The truth is, it depends on a variety of factors, including your lifestyle, how much laundry you do and whether you care if guests see your piles of dirty clothes come laundry day. “There’s never one be-all, end-all best spot,” says designer Joanne Padvaiskas. With that in mind, we wanted to explore the pros and cons of putting the laundry room in the kitchen, bedroom, closet, bathroom and mor...

Location:  Smyrna, Delaware Price:  $1,175,000 The Skinny:  Like Dylan's goofy picaresque ballads, this estate in Smyrna, Delaware, mixes eras all over the place. You've got a lot of updated but historically rooted spaces—check the herringbone floors in the  formal dining room,  the columns and french doors in the  less-than-formal  (but still pretty fancy) one, or the accented ceilings and crown moldings in both—and then there's rooms like the theater or the  studio space  in the guest barn, which went a bit off the rails in search of modernity. The original section of this handsome chimera was built in 1740, and there was a large addition in 1800, which features like the timber beams in the  stone-heavy den  date back to. There have been smaller updates and additions since then, but features like the fireplace in the  sitting room  have been maintained. As of a recent renovation, the space leads into an expanded ma...

Property sales in New York City are likely to hit $63 billion by the end of 2014, topping the record $62 billion during the 2007 peak. Photo: Buck Ennis   Property sales in New York City in the first three quarters of the year totaled $39 billion—more than the total in 2013. Sales will likely hit $63 billion by year's end, topping the record $62 billion in properties that changed hands in the peak, precrash year of 2007, according to a report released Wednesday from Massey Knakal Realty Services. 2014 figure is a forecast That feverish buying drove prices higher all across the city. On a per-square-foot basis, the biggest increases were in Manhattan this year. There, the average price per square foot jumped to $1,629 in the most recent quarter, up a whopping 90% from the trough in 2009, and 24% from year-earlier levels. That increase puts it slightly above the 23% gain in upper Manhattan, the second-hottest market, where average pric...

Metro Phoenix's housing market didn't heat up in July. Both sales and prices dipped. Home sales fell 4.5 percent and the median home sales price inched down to $210,000 compared with June, according to the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. The housing market's moderate slowing is proof another housing bubble isn't about to pop anytime soon in the Phoenix area, said Mike Orr, director of the Center for Real Estate Theory and Practice at W.P. Carey. "Usually when demand is weak for an extended period, supply starts to grow, as it did in the second half of 2005 and throughout 2006 and 2007, heralding the collapse of the housing bubble," he said. "However, this summer, supply is slowly weakening. "It appears that the lack of enthusiasm among buyers has spread to sellers, instead of causing them to panic. Many sellers clearly have the patience to wait for better times and are unwilling to drop prices to dispose of their ho...

For many people, renting instead of buying proves to be a cost-effective way to put a roof over their heads. Renting certainly has its potential benefits. For some people, the lower cost of renting allows them to save up to buy a home. In other cases, renters have no choice but to rent. And even for others, renting allows them to flexibility to move from place to place without the pain of buying and selling a home. Sometimes it's a combination of many factors. The truth remains, for many Americans, paying the rent is an unavoidable reality in their monthly life cycle. These days, being a renter means facing a cyclical reality of maybe never owning a home. That's because it becoming increasingly more difficult for renters to save any money to buy a place of their own because their rent continues to rise. read more.... http://www.housingwire.com/blogs/1-rewired/post/30992-rising-rent-squeezes-middle-america

1930s Biscayne Boulevard, looking south. 18 images <div class="gallery loaded"><a href="http://miami.curbed.com/archives/2014/06/17/old-photos-of-miamis-skyline.php"><img src="http://cdn.cstatic.net/images/gridfs/539a116cf92ea153bf001a57/BISCAYNELOOKINGSOUTH.jpg" width="500" height="324"></a><br /><a href="http://miami.curbed.com/archives/2014/06/17/old-photos-of-miamis-skyline.php" style="font-size: 9px; text-align: center;">Click here to view the full photogallery.</a></div> Downtown Miami's skyline has evolved quite radically over our city's 100+ year history, from a collection of low buildings tightly huddled around Flagler Street, to a disbursed jumble of boxy towers with large empty parking lots in between, to the dense (and rapidly growing ) agglomeration of condo towers that we know today. Courtesy of the ever popular 'Miami's Often For...

see more...... http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/06/15/best_of_the_curbed_photo_pool.php

Santa Ynez, Calif. Stats : 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, 2 half baths Size : 7,000 square feet Price : $7.5 million Pedigree: In 2006, architect Frederick Fisher conceived this modernist house on a former cattle ranch north of Santa Barbara. Corrugated Cor-Ten steel clads the single-story structure, whose floor plan is based on a grid of 25-foot squares punctuated by a central courtyard. Interior designer Brad Dunning collaborated on the dwelling. read more... http://realestate.msn.com/incredible-homes-for-sale-this-month

reat gardeners are great planners. However, there is an unknown variable that occasionally interjects itself in our most logical equations, that unpredictable thing called serendipity. It’s defined as luck in the form of a happy accidental discovery, and most of us intuitively recognize it when it happens to us. It puts a smile on our faces. It causes us to slow down and ponder what is really important in life. It causes the rose gardener in each of us to actually stop and smell the roses. For those new to gardening, serendipity can shock and surprise when it happens. For the artist or garden designer, the stage can be set through thoughtful placement of plants, beds and accessories. Still, serendipity is one of life’s fleeting mysteries. Embrace and celebrate it when it occurs. My goal in writing this ideabook is to encourage you to open your eyes to serendipity so that you don’t miss it when it next happens to you. Let us know what you see. Jay Sifford Garden Design Sav...

From new countertops to energy-efficient appliances, these projects will add the most value to your home. Spring is coming and you’re dreaming about tackling some home improvement projects that have been weighing down your wish list. But, while that swimming pool you’ve always wanted is something your family will enjoy, it might not be the right project to add value to your home. Any home upgrades should fit your lifestyle, add comfort — and give you a good return on your investment. Below are three home improvement project ideas that will help you learn how to increase the value of your home: 1. Kitchen and Bath Facelifts Replacing cabinet door fronts, hardware, countertops and appliances will give you the best bang for your buck. The national average ROI for that kind of minor remodeling project is 82.7%, according to Remodeling magazine’s 2014 Cost vs. Value Report . For the bathroom, “keep the tub and tile, but change faucet fixtures, medicine cabinets, ...

As the host of DIY Network's "I Hate My Bath," licensed contractor Jeff Devlin has seen his share of renovation missteps both big and small. "I see mistakes all the time," he confirms, "and most of them are so easy to prevent!" Read on to find out the five most common problems Devlin encounters—and how you can avoid them in your own home. 1. Ignoring the Bathroom Fan "Overlooking your bathroom fan is a huge mistake," Devlin observes. "Sometimes people don't install one or they don't clean the one they have." Without proper ventilation, he explains, humidity builds up on surfaces, and over time this moisture will cause paint and grout to deteriorate and mildew to form. Vacuuming the vent on a regular basis will help keep the fan clean. To determine if your fan is overdue for a cleaning, turn it on and hold a square of toilet tissue up to the vent. If the tissue stays up on its own when you let go, air is still flowing. [...

10 images <div class="gallery loaded"><a href="http://curbed.com/archives/2014/04/09/richard-landrys-illfated-le-grand-reve-now-asks-1875m.php"><img src="http://cdn.cstatic.net/images/gridfs/5345bf06f92ea123920012fb/Screen shot 2014-04-09 at 5.39.24 PM.png" width="499" height="373"></a><br /><a href="http://curbed.com/archives/2014/04/09/richard-landrys-illfated-le-grand-reve-now-asks-1875m.php" style="font-size: 9px; text-align: center;">Click here to view the full photogallery.</a></div> It's a story with a plot you predict in the opening credits: renown megamanse sire Richard Landry (who boasts clients like Tom Brady and Mark Wahlberg ) builds a typically exorbitant, overbuilt megamansion in the suburbs (in this case, just outside of Chicago), it gets a silly name like Le Grand Rêve —that's French for "The Big Dream," an estate name that's...

The beginning of the last decade saw an unprecedented spike in real estate prices, which culminated in the bursting of the real estate bubble in 2006 and a financial crisis to boot. Then came the crash, and prices fell precipitously, with the Case-Shiller Housing Index losing 33% from its 2006 peak to the 2012 trough. But nearly just as quickly, investors flocked back to real estate as they realized that getting in at the bottom could be a great source of profit. Since the beginning of the housing recovery two years ago, the Case-Shiller index has regularly shown the national real estate market getting more than 10% pricier on a year-over-year basis. This rapid appreciation in prices has caused the inventory of homes on the market to shrink, as prospective sellers are wary of jumping into what looks like a buyers' market. This dynamic can be especially frustrating for first-time homebuyers who face the double threat of banks wary of lending to anybody but the most creditworthy an...

Entering the 2014 spring buying season, the U.S. housing market faces an unusual dilemma: Too few people are selling homes. Yet too few buyers can afford the homes that are for sale. "Both sides of the equation are in a funk," said Glenn Kelman, CEO of the real estate brokerage Redfin. A 13.4 percent jump in the average price of a home sold last year, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city index, hasn't managed to coax more homeowners to sell. And combined with higher mortgage rates, higher prices have made homes costlier for first-time buyers as well as for all-cash investors. Average prices nationally are expected to rise by single digits this year. The gains could be strongest in areas with solid job growth, such as Seattle and Austin, Texas. And while construction will put more homes on the market, lack of affordability could keep sales flat to falling. On the other hand, many lenders are easing the barriers for those with less-than...

Slick and uncluttered countertops and cabinetry create a minimalist look in this kitchen by RI Kitchen & Bath . “Less is more.” That’s the mantra of minimalists, who are drawn to styles and designs that use the fewest elements to create maximum effect. Clean lines and clear colors can lend a modern, sophisticated look to bedrooms, living rooms, dining rooms — and even kitchens. Kitchens? Yes, but if you’re like most homeowners, you’re going to have to adjust your thinking to get there. Whether you need to chop, mix, steam, warm, broil, roast, blend, core, toast, slice, dehydrate, tenderize or even butter your food — there’s a gadget for that. Architect and author Sarah Susanka fears this obsession with small appliances and assorted doohickeys is more about cluttering countertops than it is about simplifying food preparation. Even worse, she says, is the fact that homeowners often believe they need gargantuan kitchens to accommodate all their culinary contraptions. What...

Is your goal to try to change the terminology, or is your goal to create a scalable business based on happy clients? Yes, this is another one of my “off my normal topic” posts …I’m so not into the altruistic idea that if we change the terminology we use — standardized terminology, by the way — that it will inherently change our industry. That it will change our mindset. It won’t. We will always have unethical agents, always have idiot agents, always have greedy agents, always have hobby agents. …There’s this “passion” that’s been around since the beginning of time — OK, maybe not the beginning of time — but definitely the entire course of my real estate career (spanning over two decades so far) that when we say the word “lead” we are some how demeaning, degrading and/or debasing an individual person. Oy vey. Seriously? Someone is a lead, until I get to know them a little bit and they get to know me a little bit. It’s that simple. You have to bring in a lot of “leads” and funnel the...

Home prices declined in January for the third straight month, slowing the pace of year-over-year appreciation, according to the key 20-city S&P/Case-Shiller survey of home prices. With the decline of -0.08% in January the index saw its longest consecutive streak of declines since March 2012. Economists rushed this morning to say the results do not mean there is a housing bubble and it is popping. Actually, they say, the opposite is true . Month-on-month, U.S. home prices inched down 0.1% in January, matching expectations and after dipping 0.1% in the preceding month. Fully 12 of 20 tracked cities posting drops. Year-over-year, prices increased 13.24%, a drop from the December year-over-year gain of 13.38%, indicating a general slowing of home price appreciation. "You may not realize it given the eye-popping levels, but today’s Case-Shiller numbers actually do represent a bit of moderation for the venerable index. The real pace of gains is probably really half that...

Southern California home prices held steady last month while sales tumbled to a six-year low, further evidence that the market has stalled after a torrid rebound. The median home sale price in the six-county Southland inched up 0.8% from January to $383,000, research firm DataQuick said Wednesday. Prices shot up in the first half of 2013, but the region’s median has been about the same since June. Still, the February median price was 19.7% higher than the same month in 2013 because of rapid price gains early last year. Buyers scooped up 14,027 new and resale condos and houses in February, 12% fewer than a year earlier. It was the fifth consecutive month that sales fell compared with the previous year. Sales were the lowest for a February since 2008. Sales continued to fall even though buyers have more homes to choose from. Though inventory remains tight across Southern California, there were more homes for sale in January than a year earlier, according to Realtor.c...