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

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...

Real estate has long been an Australian obsession and sharp spikes in house prices across Australia's major cities in recent years have fuelled the passion for property. But it is not easy working out who or what is to blame. Fluctuating prices, and what triggers them, are studiously followed in a country where two-thirds of the population own their own home. The most spectacular growth has been in the notoriously fevered Sydney market, which has grown 15% over the 2013-14 financial year, compared with a combined 10% across all the state capital cities, according to figures from property information firm RP Data. The median house price in Sydney has now reached a jaw-dropping A$800,000 ($697,000, £440,000), many times the average wage. Hardly surprising, therefore, that Australian house prices are among the least affordable in the economic bloc of more than 30 OECD countries, leaving a generation of renters with dwindling prospects of achieving the dream of ho...

Many homebuyers are drawn to the lure of the fixer-upper. And with good reason, at least on paper. But the “buy low, sell high” ethos of fixer-uppers isn’t exactly a guarantee. There are plenty of people who snagged the worst house in a great neighborhood and turned it into their dream home. You’re just as likely to find overworked and overspent homeowners ready to run from their money pits . Committing to a fixer-upper is a big decision, one that can impact your financial picture for years to come. Before you start swinging a hammer, you’ll first need to find a way to finance your purchase. You may need a specialized mortgage product to buy a fixer-upper. Some lenders and loan types want properties in “move-in ready” condition, which can obviously pose a problem. Here are a few options to consider. FHA 203k The Federal Housing Administration offers a government-backed rehab loan that allows buyers to finance renovations based on the property’s projected value. There...

In the home price race, Chicago is pulling up the rear, but it's one step ahead of New York. An index of Chicago-area single-family home values rose 3.9 percent per year from June 2011 through June of this year, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices. That was the ninth-smallest increase among the 10 U.S. metro areas in Case-Shiller's 10-city composite index. San Francisco had the biggest three-year annualized gain, 13.1 percent, followed by Las Vegas, 12.2 percent, and Miami, 10.2 percent. While modest growth may irritate homeowners in the Chicago area, where the Case-Shiller index is still 23 percent below its September 2006 peak, it isn't such a bad thing if you're not a seller. “If you want to sell your house and move to the Sun Belt, you're probably frustrated,” said David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. On the other hand, “you're not pricing people out of housing as fa...

Welcome to the million-dollar mansion that might just be one of America's most unsellable homes. In the Marengo, Illinois, mansion, there's an eagle painted on the ceiling. There's a dragon painted on the bedroom wall, and in the living room, a life-sized ostrich statue. Real estate agent Elka Roberts said she'd been trying to sell the property outside of Chicago for more than two years - and is still looking for that elusive buyer. Unlike the houses in the neighborhood, the mansion has a custom drawbridge, its own tower and a massive pool. But without any takers, the asking price has dropped by more than $200,000 to $ $1,099,000, Roberts said. According to the National Association of Realtors, 2.3 million existing homes are currently on the market, the highest number in almost two years. So, if you're looking to sell your home, Barbara Corcoran, a New York real estate guru who appears on ABC's "Shark Tank," says to keep some cardinal rul...

New Rochelle's Down to Earth Farmers Market is back And today is Opening Day, 8:30 am-2:30 pm! North Avenue, at Huguenot Park, in front of New Rochelle High School To celebrate the season, join us for great music by the band, John Whoever and Who Are They, Etc. from 11:30 am-1:30 pm . Vendors for 2014 Season: Alex's Tomato Farm: Father and son lead up this family-owned farm. They'll have strawberries, summer squash, kohlrabi, beets, hot house tomatoes, starter plants for the garden, and much more. Brookside Farm - Pasture-raised meat, poultry, and eggs. Dagele Brothers Produce : Seasonal vegetables from the renowned "Black Dirt" region of Orange County, NY. **NEW VENDOR ** - e-Desserts : Scones, cakes, and bars featuring what's in season from local farms. e-Desserts is named after the owner's two children who inspired her to ...

We knew we had a gem on our hands when we read the usually dry real estate description : "Absolutely dyno-mite pad with groovy vibes -- this never before seen generational home is a true prize in the Cracker Jack box of L.A. real estate." After our friends at the Curbed L.A. real estate blog made this fabulous find , Yahoo Homes talked to Hughes Estate Sales , which gave us a preview of items from the home that it will be offering on April 11 and 12 ( click here to see the gallery ; the items pictured at the end of the slideshow, after the historical photos, will be for sale). Hughes made sure we also knew the home's backstory, first reported by the wonderful Retro Renovation blog -- a tale that explains why the home seems to practically "vibrate with love." It starts when Albert P. and Gloria Martin, a commercial architect and an artist, respectively, moved to California in the early 1950s. "Depression-era folks," they paid cash for the lot ...

Pending Home Sales at 30-Month Low | South Salem Homes | Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor

South Salem NY Weekly Real Estate Report 2/24/2013 Homes for sale 50 Median Ask Price $732,500.00 Low Price $199,900.00 High Price $12,200,000.00 Average Size 3086 Average Price/foot $368.00 Average DOM 223 Average Ask Price $1,213,764.00

Consumer confidence, led by high hopes for the housing markets, has recovered from its doubts in the wake of the government shutdown last fall and is starting the new year on a tear. Two weeks ago economists at the Conference Board forecasted that for the year as a whole growth will accelerate markedly to 2.9% in 2014 from the subdued 1.9% pace in 2013. “The robust gains in household net worth, fueled by the 29% gain in equity prices and 16% rise in median home prices, boosted consumer spending to a robust 4% pace in Q4 2013,” they wrote and set a goal of 1.11million housing starts this year, up from .92 million in 1013. “On the labor front, we look for companies to continue to add to their payroll count at a sustained and healthy pace of around 200,000 per month. This along with the ongoing retirement of baby boomers from the workforce should allow the unemployment rate to continue falling at a rapid clip,” they wrote. The first returns of the new year support their predictions...

Just as walking through a kitchen doesn’t make you a chef, living in a neighborhood doesn’t make an agent a “neighborhood expert.”The information age is firmly ensconced in the real estate word. Long gone are the days when agents were the gatekeepers of the data. The days of multiple listing service books printed quarterly and carried around like bags of gold, only to be viewed by those with “access,” are a bad memory. For the most part, the public has as much or more information available for use as Joe Agent. And that is a very good thing. The real estate industry excels at public relations. Was there ever a time when any real estate organization, now or in the past, didn’t trumpet that “it’s a great time to buy”? Even during the crash and years of bottom scraping, that shrill message remained. - See more at: http://www.inman.com/2014/01/31/the-fallacy-of-the-agent-as-neighborhood-expert/?utm_source=20140131&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyheadlinesam#sthash.KhDB...

Purchase apps down 20 percent from a year ago | South Salem Realtor | Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor

Zig-zagging left and right through a maze of dark, narrow corridors in a high-rise's basement, 35-year-old kitchen worker Hu has joined the many thousands of Chinese fleeing fast-rising property prices by heading down - down underground. Hu lives here beneath an affluent downtown apartment building, in a windowless, 4 square-meter (43 square-foot) apartment with his wife. For 400 yuan ($65.85) a month in rent, there's no air-conditioning, the only suggestion of heat is a pipe snaking through to deliver gas to the apartments above and the bathroom is a fetid, shared toilet down the hall. "I can't afford to rent a house," said Hu as he showed off his meager appointments. Living in basement apartments isn't illegal in China , but like anywhere else it is nothing to brag about and Hu, who guts fish for 2,500 yuan a month at a popular Sichuanese hotpot restaurant on the street above, declined to provide his given name. "If I weren't try...

Housing market: Home price increases to soften | South Salem NY Real Estate | Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor

The latest figures come from Pew Research Center’s Internet Project. Unsurprisingly, Facebook continues to lead the pack: What may be surprising to some, however, is that more Americans who are online use Facebook than the next three most popular social networks. While Facebook has a 71 percent penetration rate, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter combined add up to just 61 percent. http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/12/30/73-us-online-adults-use-social-networks-71-use-facebook-linkedin-pinterest-twitter-combined/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily#!qZT5H

Twitter is reportedly working on an ‘Edit’ feature to let you make “slight changes” to tweets | South Salem NY Realtor | Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor

6 images <div class="gallery loaded"><a href="http://miami.curbed.com/archives/2013/12/12/tall-thin-tower-proposed-for-big-fish-on-miami-river.php"><img src="http://cdn.cstatic.net/images/gridfs/52aa0795f92ea12aed00ecab/Screen Shot 2013-12-12 at 1.36.33 PM.png" width="500" height="411"></a><br /><a href="http://miami.curbed.com/archives/2013/12/12/tall-thin-tower-proposed-for-big-fish-on-miami-river.php" style="font-size: 9px; text-align: center;">Click here to view the full photogallery.</a></div> An extremely tall and incredibly narrow condo designed by architect Luis Revuelta has been proposed for a sliver of land on the Miami River known as the Big Fish after the seafood restaurant that was once there. Although the project is called The Edge On Brickell, if the tower, which is going through the approval process, is built, we think the name Big Fish might stick....

Foreclosure filings plummet in November | Cross River Homes | Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor

How to Create a Social Media Strategy By Spying Your Competitors | South Salem NY Realtor | Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor

In the race to develop the West Side of Manhattan , Hell’s Kitchen can seem the tortoise to the Hudson Yards hare. Yet if Hudson Yards suddenly seems to be going up all at once, its neighbor to the north has been moving ahead in slow, deliberate steps, year after year. About a dozen residential projects are in the pipeline for the neighborhood — some finished, some underway and some in the planning stages. They include Gotham West, a rental complex with more than 1,200 apartments that recently opened on West 45th Street; 540West, a 114-unit condo under construction on West 49th Street; and, on West 50th, Stella Tower, a 51-unit sister building to the Walker Tower in Chelsea. The Chelsea version was named for its architect, Ralph Walker, and the one in Hell’s Kitchen for his wife.        These projects are being built in the area running from West 42nd to West 57th Street, and from Ninth Avenue to the Hudson River. When the name “Hell’s Kitchen”...