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

Gazing upon celebrity homes can be even more compelling than gazing upon the stars themselves, as this batch of celebrity homes for sale demonstrates. John Legend and Chrissy Teigen New York, NY For sale: $4,495,000 This 1-bedroom apartment where John Legend has clearly played a few tunes is small by celebrity standards — just 2,000 square feet — but big on charm. It’s in an old carriage house with exposed brick, big windows and a deep cast-iron soaking tub. Read more about  the couple’s listing , and see more homes for sale in  Manhattan . Michael Jordan Highland Park, IL For sale: $14,855,000 The gate to the 7-acre property says “23” — and so do the listing numbers when you add them up. His Airness lived here for almost 20 years, and has been trying to unload it for three. Read more  about the estate outside Chicago , and check out more listings in suburban  Highland Park . Denise Richards Hidden Hills, CA For sale: $7,749,000 If you’re...

US pending home sales slow a tick from July boom - Yahoo News

The median price of a single-family home on Oahu fell last month, two months after hitting a new record price, as sales in August dropped by 12 percent when compared to last year, according to statistics released Sunday by the Honolulu Board of Realtors . The median price of a single-family home in August was $650,000, which was 2.3 percent below the median price of $665,000 in August 2013. The median price in June set at record at $700,000. Sales of single-family homes on Oahu fell 11.7 percent to 323 homes sold, from 366 homes sold in August 2013. Condominium sales in August declined by 3.5 percent to 444 units sold, from 460 units sold during the same month last year. The median price of a condo on Oahu was unchanged at $350,000. “August was an interesting month for the Oahu housing market, Julie Meier , president of the Honolulu Board of Realtors, said in a statement. “While on the surface it may look like this past August was not on par with last August for sales of single-f...

All of us who have a career in real estate sales or financing should be aware of common credit issues our clients face since our businesses usually depend on specific credit scores for loan approvals. By understanding and educating we may be able to avoid a potential failed transaction or higher pricing for our clients. Medical collections are one of the most popular causes of credit score drops that we see for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately they are also very misunderstood. A recent study by Trans Union revealed that 54% of insured individuals are confused about medical bills. Since collection agencies are usually small companies they save in expenses by only reporting delinquencies to two of the three major credit bureaus. Although they usually don't report to all three bureaus, the middle score can still drop dramatically and change pricing or approvals on a loan. Credit scores can drop hundreds of points from one collection, and most people do not understand h...

Images via Dwell . 4 images <div class="gallery loaded"><a href="http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/06/19/this_240squarefoot_uws_studio_has_a_crawlin_library.php"><img src="http://cdn.cstatic.net/images/gridfs/53a305d7f92ea14b8e00438c/micro1.png" width="500" height="333"></a><br /><a href="http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/06/19/this_240squarefoot_uws_studio_has_a_crawlin_library.php" style="font-size: 9px; text-align: center;">Click here to view the full photogallery.</a></div> When an architect's client is an anthropology professor who has spent the past 30-some years living between a 240-square-foot New York City studio and a single-room hut in a West African village, where do they start? For Tim Seggerman , it was with the disorderliness and lack of visual simplicity of the rotting Upper West Side brownstone studio he was tasked to renovate. Seggerman...

25 images <div class="gallery loaded"><a href="http://curbed.com/archives/2014/06/04/seven-homes-promising-the-hamptons-of-everywhere-else.php"><img src="http://cdn.cstatic.net/images/gridfs/538f32f5f92ea1509a00d3bf/27_6214620_0_1368086735.jpg" width="500" height="375"></a><br /><a href="http://curbed.com/archives/2014/06/04/seven-homes-promising-the-hamptons-of-everywhere-else.php" style="font-size: 9px; text-align: center;">Click here to view the full photogallery.</a></div> When is the Hamptons most definitely not the Hamptons? When it's in Ventura, Calif., Delray Beach, Fla., or New Buffalo City, Mich. But concerns like "geographical location" sometimes must take a back seat when there's a house that needs hawking, as brokers have proven time and time again with their use of the phrase "the Hamptons of [som...

After rising at the end of 2013, for-sale inventory has fallen for four straight months to begin 2014. Inventory remains tight nationwide, with the number of homes listed for sale on Zillow down 0.4 percent annually in April and more than half of metros in the U.S. currently seeing a similar downward trend. In many metros, inventory is tightest in the lower-end of the market, which represents the homes most commonly sought by first-time home buyers. According to Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Stan Humphries this shortage of inventory is driven by a couple of factors, most notably by stubbornly high negative equity , particularly at the lower end of the market, which is preventing many sellers from listing their homes. National home values in April were also down 0.1 percent from March to a Zillow Home Value Index of $170,200, marking the first monthly decline in more than two years. Among the 35 largest metros covered by Zillow, home values in a dozen were down on a monthly basi...

Northern California’s Wine Country is heavily and magically populated with the most lovely array of tiny cottages. There are entire towns where every home sings a snug, cozy welcome, and they are omnipresent in the surrounding countryside. I’ll be driving down winding roads bordered by lush vineyards and I’ll pass a cottage so charming that I have to slam on my brakes, go into full reverse and jump out of the car to stare and covet. Honestly, I have made it clear to God that I want my home in heaven to be a cottage. With a red door. Or maybe sage green. While the term “cottage” has been used to describe everything from a contemporary faux chateau to the massive seaside sanctums of the uberrich, Merriam-Webster, quite pedantically, calls it “a usually small frame one-family house.” It is, however, so much more than that. Allison Ramsey Architects Save to Ideabook Email Photo If you were to peruse my ideabook titled “Becky’s faves,” this is the first picture you...

Death and taxes. Benjamin Franklin espoused their certainty, but it’s doubtful even he knew how difficult it would be to avoid the latter – especially property taxes. No matter where you live in the United States, if you own real estate, you must pay property taxes. According to a recent study by Zillow, a U.S. property owner pays an average of around $2,800, or approximately 1.4 percent of their home’s value each year in property taxes. Of course, that “average” figure indicates some homeowners pay more while others pay less. The counties with the highest averages are Westchester County, NY ($14,829 per year); Essex County, NY ($12,051 per year) and Bergen County, NJ ($11,172 per year). Do you know how much you pay in property taxes? Look up your home on Zillow – the information is there on your home details page. Deciphering how property tax rates are set is not easy. There is no single formula used by states and counties to calculate property taxes. In fact, more than 13,5...

Sales of existing homes fell 5.1% in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.62 million, the slowest pace since July 2012, the National Association of Realtors reported Friday. Sales have trended down since the summer, hit by declining affordability and low inventory. Unusually poor weather may have also a played a role in January's drop, NAR said. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected a January sales rate of 4.65 million, compared with a December rate of 4.87 million. The median sales price of used homes hit $188,900 in January, up 10.7% from the year-earlier period, supported by low inventory. January's inventory was 1.9 million existing homes for sale, a 4.9-month supply at the current sales pace.             http://www.marketwatch.com/story/existing-home-sales-fall-51-in-january-2014-02-21?siteid=yhoof2        

If you are walking on the street and someone's following you, maybe you get really scared and run away. But when it comes to social media, particularly on Facebook, you get very excited and try to engage with new followers. Every social media manager wants to get lots of followers, comments, interaction and ultimately more reach. But with the change in the Facebook feed algorithm, it's getting harder to get more eyeballs on your posts. So how do you craft engaging Facebook posts and what type of content can maximize your engagement? To help you out, our friends at We Are Social Media have created an infographic that breaks down some tips for writing Likey Facebook posts. http://socialmediatoday.com/irfan-ahmad/2119841/10-tips-maximize-your-facebook-engagement-infographic?utm_source=smt_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter&inf_contact_key=6d9c8e888379de9df9a9ff4fcbad64513e993fc6676d7e52b55f17af62630edf

Easy, Affordable Ways to Spruce Up Your Kitchen | Waccabuc NY Real Estate | Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor

recent_searches freddie / auction / rss feed / correspondent / nareim   John Williams, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve , told Lambda Alpha International and Arizona Bankers Association that he supports the decision by the Federal Open Market Committee to start tapering its policy of printing money to buy bonds, and that he expects an end to the easy-money policy by the end of 2014. The Fed announced in December that it would start easing back from its $85 billion a month bond-buying, cut the monthly pace of Treasury and mortgage purchases by $10 billion to $75 billion on an optimistic economic forecast. "We will likely continue to reduce the pace of those purchases, and eventually eliminate them, over this year," he said. Williams said it was a straightforward decision, even though he was a supporter of the money printing that added $4 trillion in debt to the balance books. "With the economy having improved so much and the ...

Philly Fed’s Plosser warns of rapid rate rise | Waccabuc Real Estate | Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor

Should You Invest in Residential Real Estate? | Waccabuc NY Homes | Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor

Housing Outlook 2014: 10 Predictions From The Experts | Waccabuc NY Real Estate | Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor

Housing starts jump to near 6-year high in good sign for economy | Waccabuc NY Homes | Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor

The 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.42% this past week, down slightly from 4.46% in the prior seven-day period, according to Freddie Mac’s latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey. A year earlier, the same rate hovered at 3.32% on average as the economy lingered at higher unemployment levels. The 15-year, FRM also came in at 3.42%, down from 3.47% in the prior report, and up significantly from 2.66% last year. The 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage averaged 2.94%, down from 2.99% in the last report and 2.70% a year earlier. The one-year Treasury-indexed ARM came in at 2.51%, down from 2.59% in the prior report. "Mortgage rates were little changed amid a light week of economic data releases. Of the few releases, total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 203,000 in November and the unemployment rate declined to 7.0 percent,” said Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist of Freddie Mac. “Also, single family mortgage debt outstanding inc...

China's red-hot property market likely will face new pressure next year, as local governments move to cool the market and developers build on new supplies of land. A slowdown in house-price increases—which have posted double-digit increases for months—could help Beijing in its campaign to keep housing affordable for its vast population. But it isn't clear whether either trend will be enough to tame the market in the face of strong demand to buy homes. Already the market, while still strong, is showing hints of moderating. Over the weekend, a private-sector survey showed that average new home price growth is slowing on a month-by-month basis, even as it set a record for growth compared with a year ago. The survey, by data provider China Real Estate Index System, tracks new home sales in 100 Chinese cities. It said on Saturday that the average price last month rose 0.68% compared with October. That marks a slowdown from 1.2% between October and September and the first de...

The New York Post today has a story on what it described as “new hipsters fight[ing] old hipsters in Brooklyn.” The gist of it is that a wave of relatively wealthy gentrifiers moved into the neighborhood of Bushwick a decade ago and now a second wave of even wealthier residents is flocking to the hip neighborhood, driving up housing prices. The first wave is not happy with the rising rents associated with the second wave, and is demanding “affordable housing” concessions from developers who dare build middle-upper income rental units. This response is sadly typical. Rising real estate prices are a natural consequence of urban redevelopment. But the real estate market in New York City is anything but natural and a large share of the sky-high housing prices can be attributed to land-use controls such as zoning and rent stabilization laws. Unfortunately, those who advocate for “affordable housing” (note: this is not housing affordability ) often make the problem worse by supporting po...