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

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...

The downsizing craze has spread to real estate, creating huge interest in petite homes all across the country. This week’s episode of “Portlandia” lampoons the fad. The “ Microhouse ” clip features Kangablue, one of the units in a tiny-homes hotel called Caravan. (Owners Deb Delman and Kol Peterson live in a 690-square-foot home next door that’s “teeny but not tiny,”  Delman says .) If the show’s parody doesn’t put you off small living altogether, here are homes to feed the frenzy. They measure 500 square feet or smaller, from old-fashioned cabins with beautiful natural surroundings to a pint-sized 2-bedroom, single-family home in New York City. Saltese, MT 7759 Forest Service Road, Saltese, MT For sale: $295,000 Size: 380 square feet This property includes more than 200 acres and is surrounded on all sides by U.S. Forest Service land. It’s for a true outdoorsperson, with a loft bedroom and a log-cabin outhouse. Shop for more  pro...

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...

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...

Although numerous theories exist on how to make something “go viral,” no scientific study has managed to reach a concrete conclusion yet. One thing is for certain – virality involves having others share your content, posts, or promote your website through their own social profiles. We live in an era of shares, tweets, retweets, pins and +1s; never has it been easier to express your appreciation for a company or service than it is today. Cracking the code of how to entice social media users to promote your company will result in increased brand awareness by orders of magnitude. So how do you get other people to do your social media marketing for free? 1. Tagging on Twitter Twitter’s tagging functionality offers a fantastic way to let thought leaders know that you’re talking about them – and flattery can go a long way. Tagging thought leaders, companies or journalists in your posts can undoubtedly motivate them to promote your company to their social connections going fo...

October 2013 Home Prices | FHFA Housing Stats October | Cross River Homes | Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor

Table and floor lamps look best with omnidirectional light. “You probably don’t want a big bright spot in the middle of your lampshade,” says Jeff Harris of the nonprofit think tank Alliance to Save Energy. “You’re looking for a nice, warm glow.” Halogen incandescents provide that, and are good with dimmers. You may be able to find a dimmable CFL, but it’s common to experience humming or flickering at low light levels. For non-dimming lamps, CFLs are great if you can find a color temperature you like. Color temperature is measured on a warmness (candlelight) and coolness (blue sky) scale. LEDs, CFLs, and halogen incandescents all come in a wide range of color temperatures. Buy covered globes or A-lamps — bulbs shaped like old-fashioned incandescents — rather than spirals if you can see the bulb and aren’t a fan of the spiral look. Otherwise, just go with halogen incandescents and don’t sweat the fact that CFLs are more energy-efficient than halogens. Your still savin...

Rising home prices continue to pull underwater homeowners into positive equity positions, with 791,000 additional properties returning to a situation in which the borrower no longer owes more than the home is worth in the third quarter, CoreLogic ( CLGX ) said Tuesday. The Irvine, Calif.-based research firm reported that as of 3Q, the total number of mortgaged properties with equity remains at 42.6 million, and of those, only 6.4 million – or 13% of all properties – remained in negative equity by the end of the third quarter. This is down from 7.2 million upside homes in the second quarter of this year. Negative equity is usually the result of declining property values or an increase in mortgage debt, CoreLogic points out. The overall national value of negative equity continues to fall as home prices rise, giving more homeowners a chance to benefit from refinancing or selling opportunities. Aggregate negative equity in the U.S. hit $397 billion in 3Q, down from $430 billion at t...

11 Reasons to Paint Your Ceiling Black | Cross River Homes | Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor

Like many house hunters in Los Angeles, actor, writer, director and producer Andy Berman ( Psych ; Mirror Mirror ) was looking for a midcentury modern home in the Hollywood Hills. He was fascinated by the famous Case Study houses and wanted a glass box of his own. But he couldn’t find anything. Frustrated by coming up short, he checked into the Biltmore Four Seasons hotel, a 1930s Spanish-colonial-revival-style building in Montecito, California, with plenty of plaster and arches. Looking around, he wondered what it’d be like to add modern design to such a classic setting. “Could I incorporate all those things I love into a Spanish style, and would that even be cool?” he says. Houzz at a Glance Location: Los Feliz, California Who lives here: Andy Berman and his Great Dane, Herschel Size: 2,500 square feet; 3 bedrooms, 2 ½ bathrooms Style De Vie Save to Ideabook Email Photo Berman bought a test subject, a 1930s Spanish home in Los Feliz, with the idea of mixing its r...

When Salim Medhi returned to his native Algeria after a five-year stint in Canada, he didn’t think he’d still be living with his parents eight years later. The 36-year-old accountant brings home 170,000 dinars ($2,000) a month, about four times the average household income in the North African country, and more in line with wages in Greece and Portugal . Yet with real estate prices rising by more than six-fold in the capital Algiers in 10 years to an average of 200,000 dinars per square meter, and no access to a mortgage, he can’t afford to buy his own home. “It’s crazy what is happening in Algeria,” said Mehdi, recounting his efforts to purchase his first home and marry his fiancée of four years. “With the current prices per square meter, I could buy a house with a garden in Montreal.” The shortage of affordable housing has sparked tension in a country ravaged by civil war throughout the 1990s, though Algeria so far has avoided the sort of unrest that spread across the Arab wo...

We love wool. We love sheep. That’s why we wrote The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook . Many readers have asked for a smaller book that they could carry with them or give to friends who are new to fiber arts. We listened! Why are we so fond of wool? Well, first, it is all natural. It’s also surprisingly diverse and exceptionally practical. It provides warmth in cold climates, while it also makes a great cool fabric for warm weather. Desert-living people — from Navajos to Bedouins — have long histories with sheep and wool. Not all wools are created equal! There are more than a thousand breeds of sheep, each with its own intrinsic wool characteristics. Some grow negligible wool, while others have superlong fleeces. Some fine wools can be worn comfortably by babies, while strong wools can last for centuries in heavily used rugs. Some wools felt readily, while others won’t felt at all. Some are springy, while others are dense and supple. For us, learning about these diversitie...

Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor » Blog Archive » Housing market gets some upbeat news | Cross River Homes

Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor » Blog Archive » Faucets at $1,000 Abound as Home Equity Spigot Opens | Cross River Real Estate

It's been more than a year since we turned our attention to the hottest rental buildings on the market, so in honor of Renters Week, we're once again updating our Rental Heatmap (inspired by our friends at Eater ). Rental inventory is tight all over the city, and buildings fill up quickly, so the map is a little sparser than it has been in the past. We chose only buildings that have come to market in the past year , and, of course, only those with availabilities. They're listed in no particular order, but their "hotness" factor was determined by how fast they've leased units, how much buzz they've gotten in the news, and/or how the amenities stack up against the competition. Is there a building that should be on the list but isn't? Leave a comment or send a note to the tipline . http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2013/11/18/updating_the_rental_heatmap_where_to_rent_right_now.php

Fossil fuels are going to run out. This much we know. No one is entirely certain when they will run out exactly, but we know it will happen eventually.   Some estimates suggest we have about 70 years of coal, gas and oil left ; the fossil fuel industry itself insists that we have significantly longer . But everyone agrees they will run out in due course. So how will the world be powered when we can't rely anymore on fossil fuels? Why with volcanoes, waves, wet wood and solar power from space.   To compensate for the decline of traditional energy sources, researchers around the world are developing innovative new technologies that -- between them -- may provide a long-term solution to our rapidly growing energy needs. Some are familiar, some may seem far-fetched, and some could potentially pose as much of a threat to the environment as fossil fuels themselves.   One man's waste, another man's energy     CNN takes a look through some of...

A New York penthouse is slated to go on the market Friday for $47.5 million, according to the project's developers. Called Penthouse Two, the 6,515-square-foot, five-bedroom, 5½-bath apartment is on the 23rd floor of Manhattan's Walker Tower, an Art Deco office building that was converted to condos by JDS Development Group and Property Markets Group. Penthouse Two has three wood-burning fireplaces and a 463-square-foot terrace. The ceilings are about 12-feet high and there is radiant heated flooring, said JDS founder Michael Stern. It also has a cast-iron bathtub that looks out over lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. See the Homes View Slideshow The former Dodgers CEO, Jamie McCourt, has bought a vineyard estate in Napa County, Calif., for $11.25 million. Jack Journey Penthouse Two is one of three units left for sale in the building, which als...

It’s a good time to sell a home in Dallas. According to new reports, prices are on the rise, and inventory is dropping. In a third-quarter report from Realtor.com , Dallas ranked sixth in the nation in the site’s "Turnaround Towns," an evaluator of acceleration in real estate markets. Citing a 10.6 percent increase in median listing price as well as a 15.7 percent drop in inventory in the city, Realtor.com found Dallas to be among the nation’s best in market acceleration. The median listing price for Dallas homes is now $210,000. What makes this noteworthy is that Dallas makes the list for the first time and joins a handful of other markets across the country that weathered the recession with relatively little volatility. That easier path to recovery has given Dallas a strong rebound, according to the website. It joins other cities, including Boston and Ann Arbor, Michigan, as stable markets starting to show up in the top 25 accelerating markets. "These marke...

Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor » Blog Archive » Greenwood Nursery Ideas for October | Cross River Real Estate

The economic recovery has been rather slow in 2013. The 1st quarter GDP growth was an anemic 1.1 percent GDP growth, with the 2nd quarter slightly stronger at 2.5 percent. Meanwhile, the real estate recovery has been on fire, reporting nine consecutive months of double-digit year-over-year increases, according to the National Association of Realtors . According to Springfield News-Leader , "The national median existing-home price jumped to $212,100 in August, up 14.7 percent from August 2012." So, how will a government shutdown affect real estate? With more people being furloughed, and with sequestration cuts, will the fuel of the strongest driver of the recovery this year be extinguished? For answers, I emailed Dr. Lawrence Yun, the chief economist of the National Association of Realtors . Natalie Pace: Will the government shutdown affect the real estate recovery? If so, how? Dr. Lawrence Yun: Not much impact in terms mortgage loan availability. Most mortgages will be p...