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

The Katonah-Lewisboro school board will vote Thursday night at John Jay High School on whether or not to close Lewisboro Elementary School for the fall 2014. A parent-led petition opposing the closure has hit 1,059 signatures. There have been five public hearings held since September, many drawing crowds of more than 100 parents concerned about how closing Lewisboro Elementary would impact their child. If the school board votes to close the school Thursday, 214 Lewisboro Elementary students would be moved to Increase Miller Elementary, and the remaining 136 would be moved to Meadow Pond, under a tentative redistricting scenario that may still be tweaked. In order to even out class sections under this scenario, 94 Increase Miller Elementary students would be moved to Katonah. http://bedford.dailyvoice.com/news/lewisboro-elementary-school-closure-vote-thursday

Solar Panels Could Help Power Future Ford Plug-In Cars | EarthTechling

[Approximate location of the proposed arena] New York's newest Major League Soccer team is reportedly very close to finding a permanent home. Capital New York got their hands on the details of a deal that would have the New York City Football Club , a franchise co-owned by the Yankees and Manchester City owner and Abu Dhabi royalty Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, build a new stadium near Yankee Stadium . The 10-acre site includes three bankrupt parking facilities, a portion of 153rd Street, and a commercial building that holds a 400-person elevator company. The club would likely pay $25 million to the Bronx Parking Development, which defaulted on a $237 million loan, and they are in talks to buy out the elevator parts company and relocate it. Negotiations are still underway and no one would comment on the possible deal.   The $350 million development would be financed with city-issued tax-exempt bonds, and the club would get $21.5 million in tax waivers. A 99-year lea...

It has been a slow and painful process, but the housing market is now in recovery and foreclosures have been dropping. Since the housing bust, regulators have focused on preventing borrowers from entering into potentially toxic loans. To help accomplish this, the government established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2010. As part of this effort, the CFPB has proposed new disclosure forms to help borrowers understand the real risks and costs associated with their mortgage. But many potential borrowers are still unsure about the type of mortgage that is right for them. Many borrowers may be attracted to 15-year mortgages, which have a shorter term and lower interest rates than 30-year mortgages. But this mortgage may not be right for their needs. Despite the rise in popularity of the 15-year mortgage, it is not necessarily for everyone. For borrowers, it is important to get as much information about the different common mortgages institutions offer — and to understand th...

The following is an excerpt from Cabins & Cottages (Fox Chapel Publishing, 2011). Ready to make the leap from sheds and chicken coops to larger-scale DIY projects? Or just looking to expand your repertoire of carpentry skills? Meet Cabins & Cottages , your comprehensive resource for building simple, affordable, permanent living spaces. From the woodworking and crafting pros at Fox Chapel Publishing, Cabins & Cottages leaves no know-how stone unturned, and it details how to design and build your structures to withstand some of the worst Mother Nature can dish out (heavy snow, flooding, high winds), making the book a worthy companion for any builder. This excerpt is from Chapter 3, “Four Simple Structures.” One of the sturdiest of all structures is the A-frame, whose skeleton consists simply of a row of triangles. The bases of the triangles are the joists that support the floor, and the sides are the rafters that hold the combined walls and roof. The simplicit...

Since 1973 a significant number of crises have occurred across the globe – many of them related to the real estate market. The primary event for the first major global crisis that began in the spring of 1973, was the crash of the housing market . This crash affected banks, as well as state economies extensively. Local economies such as the city of New York - which technically went bankrupt in 1975 – barely managed to remain “above water”. The Japanese development boom of the 1980s ended with the collapse of both the stock market and real estate market. The excesses in the real estate market in the Nordic countries, created the 1992 crisis in their banking system. The 1997-1998 collapse in eastern and southeastern Asia was triggered by excess urban development. The latest and most serious crisis began in 2008 and was due to the subprime market collapse. This crisis threatened the global financial system with chaos . Market participants who a few years earlier seemed to be swimming in s...

Over the past 15 years, I’ve performed energy audits in thousands of homes. I tell people energy efficiency shouldn’t be a hardship—in fact, it can be rewarding. Increasing your home’s energy efficiency lowers energy bills and makes your home more comfortable. It doesn’t take much to keep your heating costs minimal, although once you get started, you may want to dig deeper. Even if you must finance them, professionally installed, major energy improvements almost guarantee you positive cash flow. For now, here’s are simple energy saving tips you can do yourself. 1. Get Smart With Your Thermostat Your thermostat is a valve between your fuel supplier and your wallet. For every degree you turn it down, you use up to 2 percent less heating energy. A 10-degree setback overnight or while you’re at work cuts your heating bill by up to 10 percent. 2 Ways to Save • A programmable thermostat saves energy without you even thinking about it. Simply adjust the settings to turn down th...

October, despite the government shutdown, was still a strong month for the New Jersey real estate market, according to data released by the New Jersey Association of Realtors, in conjunction with 10K Research and Marketing. So strong, in fact, that closed sales were up more than 32 percent over the same time last year. “We’re continuing to see a lower number of properties for sale – just under 15 percent lower than last year – so it’s not surprising to see more closed sales since inventory is limited around the Garden State,” said Christina “Tina” Banasiak, 2013 President of NJAR. “It’s a competitive market right now for buyers, which means that sellers are certainly happier to see prices increasing.” While the trends do vary around the state since each market is different, the overall outlook is very good. Statewide, for single-family homes, though the total number of homes for sale is down 12.1 percent, there were 15.8 percent more new listings, indicating that sellers are feelin...

There are a zillion decisions to be made when you move a household. The first one seems simple: Do it yourself or pay for full-service movers to swoop in, pack up all your belongings and ship them to your new home? It may surprise you, though, to know that there is a broad spectrum of choices that you can mix and match. Moving is a big American preoccupation — 15% to 20% of the entire population was on the move yearly before the recession slowed things down. In response, the moving industry has come up with an array of ways to configure your move. You can do some jobs yourself and hire experts for others. Ultimately, your decision boils down to the classic tradeoff: spend your money or spend your time.   Before considering the options, a word about preparation: You can’t start too soon. That’s true especially if you are doing part or all of the move yourself, says Barry Izsak, a professional organizer whose Austin, Texas, company, Arranging it All , specializes in relocations....

Inside the 740 Park Avenue Apartment Nobody Wants - PriceChopper - Curbed NY

North Salem NY Real Estate Report RobReportBlog 2013 6 months ending 11/25 2012 28 Sales 20 up 40% $601,250.00 median sold price $537,000.00 up 12% $200,000.00 low sold price $330,000.00 $14,902,000.00 high sold price $1,662,500.00 3539 average size 3106 $263.00 ave. price per foot $218.00 207 ave days on market 248 $1,179,571.00 average sold price $696,320.00 96.03% ave sold to ask 94.29%

What is a contract? In real estate, it is a large pile of documents that require multiple signatures from multiple parties. Housing contracts are a pretty narrow view of contracts, though. According to Wikipedia and the New Oxford American Dictionary, a contract is “a written or spoken agreement having a lawful object entered into voluntarily by two or more parties, each of whom intends to create one or more legal obligations between them.” This is a pretty good definition, but it is also a little confusing. In a broader sense, a contract binds parties together in mutual obligation. A handshake could be a contract. This used to be, and in some parts of the world still is, the de facto contracting method. Can you imagine buying a house with a handshake? When agreements started to get more involved, they were put to paper and parties signed with a pen and ink. This is a process I am sure you all are familiar with. As the stakes got higher, more security was needed and notarization beca...

Freddie Mac recently released its U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook for November showing that the major shift for the coming year will be a transition from a refinance-dominated mortgage market to the first purchase-dominated market the industry has seen since 2000. Expect economic growth in the 2.5 to 3.0 percent range, more than 0.5 percentage points better than is projected for 2013 with the unemployment rate falling below 7 percent, perhaps by mid-2014. Interest rates are expected to rise gradually throughout 2014 with the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage ending the year near 5 percent with affordability still strong in most markets. However, rising rates will hinder affordability in high-priced markets. Projecting housing starts to rise to a 1.15 million pace in 2014, which should help to create around 700,000 new jobs and quicken the pace of economic growth. Gains in home sales will be limited by continuing tight inventory in many markets, but anticipate sales to rise ab...

Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor » Blog Archive » Monetize Your Social Media Campaigns With These Tech Tools | Mt Kisco Realtor

The National Association of Realtors reported that home re-sales fell 3.2 percent last month from September to a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 5.12 million. That's down from a 5.29 million pace in September and the slowest since June. A healthy pace is around 5.5 million. Sales of single family homes declined 4.1 percent, while condominium sales rose 3.3 percent. The median sales price of an existing home was $199,500 in October, up 12.8 percent from a year earlier and the 11th straight month of double-digit annual increases. The 16-day partial government shutdown pinched home sales last month by creating uncertainty about the economy and slowing loan approvals: 13 percent of real-estate agents reported that transactions had been delayed. "The uncertainty created by the government shutdown and debt ceiling battle in October left Americans more worried about the economy than they have been all year," Ellen Haberle, economist at online real estate-broker Redfin,...

WITH "BLACK FRIDAY" AROUND THE CORNER IT IS THAT TIME OF YEAR TO TALK ABOUT HOW "INQUIRIES" IMPACT CREDIT AND WHAT "EXCESSIVE SHOPPING" CAN DO TO CREDIT. Third party credit reviews or "hard inquiries" impact credit scores for 12 months from the date they occur even though they can be seen for 24 months. There are windows of time that a consumer can have multiple third party credit reviews and it will only impact the score as one inquiry. This happens only with mortgage, student loan, and car financing hard inquiries. Each of these categories has its own window where multiple credit reviews are considered as one. All other third party reviews can drop scores 2-5 points each time they occur. When an individual has many hard inquiries or third party reviews it can be considered "excessive shopping" and reduce scores dramatically. In many cases 6 hard inquiries (in total) ...

The numbers in San Antonio’s housing market continue to move in the right direction, according to Oxford, Miss.-based real-estate information technology company FNC Inc. , which recently released its residential price index (RPI) for the month of September. Between August and September of this year, housing prices in the Alamo City rose .9 percent, FNC reports. Nationally, home prices rose .5 percent between August 2013 and September 2013. Between September 2012 and September 2013, home prices in San Antonio were up 2.7 percent. Nationally, home prices rose 6.2 percent on a year-over-year basis. Since January 2012 , home prices in the Alamo City have risen 6.3 percent, according to FNC’s Sept. 2013 analysis. http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/blog/2013/11/housing-prices-up-nearly-3-percent.html

Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor » Blog Archive » What to Do in Winter to grow your garden | North Salem Real Estate

Applications for purchase loans dropped a seasonally adjusted 1 percent for the week ending Nov. 8 compared to a week earlier, and were down 6 percent from a year ago, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s latest Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey. Applications for refinancings were down 2 percent from the previous week.  The MBA’s survey showed interest rates climbing to their highest level in a month, with the average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with a balance of $417,000 or less rising to 4.44 percent from 4.32 percent a week earlier. Source: mbaa.org. - See more at: http://www.inman.com/wire/purchase-applications-still-lagging/#sthash.4R7gfTaY.dpuf

Yet another study shows how Gen Y wants to live and work downtown,” proclaims treehugger.com’s headline on a story about the Urban Land Institute’s annual study, “Emerging Trends in Real Estate.” The study shows that not only do those born between 1979 and 1995 drive less — and walk, bike and take public transit more — than older folks, but that they are more likely to rank living near work and school as a top priority. Interestingly, the study predicts that many baby boomers will also sell homes in the suburbs and move to urban locales with many of the same attributes that Gen Y finds desirable. Source: treehugger.com - See more at: http://www.inman.com/wire/psst-have-you-heard-gen-y-wants-to-live-near-work/#sthash.Jr6N1h6g.dpuf