Daily Archives: June 10, 2011

Mortgage rates continue to drop in Bedford NY | Bedford NY Real Estate

Mortgage rates have moved to new lows for the year following a weak jobs report for May.

A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.49 percent this week, down from 4.55 percent a week ago, according to Freddie Mac (OTCBB:FMCC).

A 15-year fixed-rate loan averaged 3.68 percent, down from 3.74 percent.

A five-year Treasury-indexed adjustable-rate mortgage averaged 3.28 percent this week. Last week it averaged 3.41 percent.

A one-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 2.95 percent this week, down from 3.13 percent last week.

“The housing market continues to be fragile across the nation,” says Frank Nothaft, chief economist for Freddie Mac. “In its latest regional economic review released June 8, the Federal Reserve board indicated that residential sales and home prices showed continued weakness in most districts.”

According to the latest figures from the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association, the number of Charlotte-area homes sold in May dropped 11.5 percent from a year ago to 2,194, when closings totaled 2,480. But May sales were up 16.6 percent from April, when 1,882 homes sold.

The average home price in May was $208,999, up 0.6 percent from May 2010 and an increase of 2.7 percent from April’s average sales price of $203,480.

The association reports 2,240 pending contracts last month, an increase of 13.5 percent from May 2010 and up 1.8 percent from April 2011.

The association compiles the data from a 10-county service area.

Put your child to work in real estate | Inman News for the Chappaqua NY Real Estate market

Put your child to work in real estate

 

Flickr image courtesy of <a href=

Summer jobs for young people have become increasingly hard to find. If your child is just sitting around this summer, think about hiring him or her to work in your real estate business. There are probably lots of things your child can help you with, such as answering phones, helping with your website, stuffing envelopes, or cleaning the office.

Believe it or not, your children’s employment can offer tax savings, too. If you hire your child as an employee to do legitimate work in your real estate business, you may deduct the child’s salary from your business income as a business expense.

Of course, you must take care to comply with all applicable child labor laws. The Fair Labor Standards Act generally “sets 14 as the minimum age for employment, and limits the number of hours worked by minors under the age of 16,” according to the U.S. Department of Labor website.

Your child will have to pay tax on the salary only to the extent it exceeds the standard deduction amount for the year, which was $5,800 in 2011. Moreover, if your child is under 18, you won’t have to withhold or pay any FICA (Social Security or Medicare) tax on the salary (subject to a couple of exceptions).

These rules allow you to shift part of your business income from your own tax bracket to your child’s bracket, which should be much lower than yours (unless you earn little or no income). This can result in substantial tax savings.

Rules to follow when employing your children

However, the Internal Revenue Service is well aware of the tax benefits of hiring a child, so it’s on the lookout for taxpayers who claim the benefit without really having their child work in their businesses.

If the IRS concludes that the child isn’t really an employee, you’ll lose your tax deductions for the child’s salary and benefits. And the child will have to pay tax on benefits received. To avoid this, you should follow these simple rules.

Rule 1: Your child must be a real employee

First of all, your child must be a bona fide employee. The work performed by your child must be ordinary and necessary for your business, and the pay must be for services actually performed.

Services performed by your child don’t have to be indispensable — only common, accepted, helpful and appropriate for your business. Any real work for your business can qualify. You get no business deductions when you pay your child for personal services, such as babysitting or mowing your lawn at home.

On the other hand, money you pay for yard work performed on business property could be deductible as a business expense.

You should keep track of the work and hours your child performs by having the child fill out time sheets or time cards.

You can find these in stationery stores or make a time sheet yourself. It should list the date, the services performed, and the time spent performing the services.

Although not legally required, it’s also a good idea to have your child sign a written employment agreement specifying his or her job duties and hours. These duties should be related only to your real estate business.

Rule 2: Compensation must be reasonable

When you hire a child, it is advantageous (taxwise) to pay the child as much as possible. That way, you can shift as much of your income as possible to the child, who is probably in a much lower-income tax bracket.

However, you can’t just pay any amount you choose: Your child’s total compensation must be reasonable.

Total compensation means the sum of the salary plus all the fringe benefits you provide, including health insurance and medical expense reimbursements, if any. This is determined by comparing the amount paid with the value of the services performed.

You should have no problem as long as you pay no more than what you’d pay a stranger for the same work — don’t try paying your child $100 per hour for office cleaning just to get a big tax deduction.

Find out what workers performing similar services in your area are being paid. For example, if you plan to hire your teenager to help answer the phone, call an employment agency or temp agency in your area to see what these workers are being paid.

To prove how much you paid (and that you actually paid it), you should pay your child by check, not cash. Do this once or twice a month, as you would for any other employee.

The funds should be deposited in a bank account in your child’s or spouse’s name. Your child’s bank account may be a Roth IRA, Section 529 college savings plan, or custodial account that you control until your child turns 21.

Rule 3: Comply with legal requirements for employers

Finally, you must comply with most of the same legal requirements when you hire a child as you do when you hire a stranger. This means you must fill out IRS Form W-4 and complete U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Form I-9: Employment Eligibility Verification.

You must also record your employee’s Social Security number. If your child doesn’t have a number, you must apply for one. In addition, you, the employer, must have an Employer Identification Number (EIN).

If you don’t have one, you may obtain it by filing IRS Form SS-4. You must also complete and file IRS Form W-2 showing how much you paid your child.

IRS Circular E: Employer’s Tax Guide, and Publication 929: Tax Rules for Children and Dependents, provide detailed information on these requirements. You can download them from the IRS website at www.irs.gov.

   
 
 

Email Review: ShareFile [Screencast] | Email Marketing Strategy for the Mount Kisco NY real estate market

Email Review 

Welcome to the Friday Email Review Series. If you’ve missed the reviews from the last few weeks, you can see all past Email Review blog posts here. Not sure what I’m talking about? Learn more about the free Email Review’s in this blog post.

Also, I’m always taking submissions. Be sure to fill out the webform and send in your email to be reviewed next week.

Today’s Email Review screencast is ShareFile (hat tip to Dan London for submitting). The 5-minute Email Review screencast is below.

 

Having trouble seeing? Try going directly to YouTube.

6 Comments About The ShareFile Email

The following points were all covered in the screencast above, but for those that like them written out, see below:

  1. Preheader: ShareFile includes a “view in browser” option in their preheader as well as the text “ShareFile May 2011 Newsletter.” It’s a good idea to include meaningful text in the preheader as this is what will appear as the “snippet text” in some email clients such as Gmail. However, I always recommend making that text clickable. Whatever the main call to action is of the email, link it in the preheader. Then, look at your click-through and conversion metrics to see if it’s working.
  2. Subject Line: I was not able to see the subject line for this email, but I’d recommend doing an A|B test to see which subject line performs best (see Five Ideas for Email Subject Line Testing). I’m always a fan of matching the main call to action of the email with the subject line, but again, TEST!
  3. Friend, Follow, Subscribe (Social Networks): ShareFile does a nice job of making their social networking icons/links stand out. I see many marketers simply slapping the social networking icons in their email and hoping subscribers will (a) know what they are, (b) know what do to, and (c) take action. While not ideal, ShareFile does take it to the next level by at least telling subscribers what to do (Friend, Follow, etc). The next step is the why. Why should I connect with your company on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube? What’s in it for me? Learn more in our Social Sharing eBook. Note: You’ll notice that ShareFile does a better job of promoting the WHY for their social networks near the bottom of this email. Yes!
  4. Clean Look & Feel: This email is very easy on the eyes. It’s broken up nicely into different sections. Great use of white space. I’m not normally a fan of big images, but I think it works in this case.
  5. Video: I love that they included a video in the email. Remember: Do not embed video into your email as many email clients will not be able to play it. It’s always best to include a clickable image, like ShareFile does here. As an added bonus, you can also then track the click-throughs! One tip for ShareFile is to make this image/video stand out a bit more. It seemed to get a bit lost in the sidebar.
  6. Clear Call to Action: Quick. Look at the email again. What’s it about? What does ShareFile want you to do? Pretty clear call to action, right? Notice how they also provide a few different ways to engage with the main call to action – image, links, etc. See #1 above about Preheader for another way to entice click-throughs.

Reminder: All comments, suggestions, and feedback in the email reviews are given without intimate knowledge behind the actual email or program overall. I am not privy to any testing or historical data that may be driving decisions. I’m simply critiquing what I see based on my 6+ years in the email industry.

What did you think of this email? (Pretty good, huh?). Do you have other suggestions? If so, please share below.

Want to have one of your emails reviewed for free? It’s simple. Just follow the directions here. Until next week!

DJ Waldow
Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory

Blue Sky Factory 17 Ways To Make Your Email Stand Out eBook 

Email inboxes are getting more and more crowded. How do you ensure that your emails get noticed? How to you make sure that they stand apart from the rest? If you want your emails to get opened and clicked on, we have just the eBook for you.In the 17 Ways To Make Your Email Stand Out eBook, we review strategy and tactics, creative and design, as well as unique campaigns. There’s a bit of something for everyone.

What are you waiting for? Download the eBook now

  

This entry was posted on Friday, June 10th, 2011 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Email Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Rules for asbestos removal | Inman News for the Bedford Hills NY real estate market

Rules for asbestos removal

Put safety first and know the laws

 

Flickr image courtesy of <a href=

Q: We were taught (in a safety class) by an environmental engineer certified to teach about asbestos in the workplace.

We were taught that the federal government allows the homeowner to abate the homeowner’s own asbestos-containing products.

We were taught the federal rules allow the homeowner to dispose of residential asbestos waste at the curb for pickup by the local city trash department without any special markings on the garbage bags as to the asbestos contents within the bags.

We were taught that any contractor for hire removing asbestos out of any home or commercial enterprise must follow numerous rigid and expensive safety precautions, (but) the homeowner is exempt from following if the homeowner does his own abatement. Is this true? –Peter V.

A: Asbestos removal is typically regulated by individual states, under departments of environmental quality or environmental protection agencies. Many states allow homeowners to remove small amounts of asbestos on their own.

And while you’re correct that homeowners typically don’t need to follow the same air scrubbing and air monitoring procedures required of professional companies, they do need to comply with a number of safety regulations for their own protection, and the protection of others.

To be honest, I’m really surprised that any safety trainer at a class you attended would have said it’s OK to leave asbestos in unmarked bags at the curb for trash pickup. To my knowledge, asbestos needs to be in clearly marked bags, and it needs to be disposed of at landfills that accept that type of material.

Leaving it in unmarked bags at the curb poses a potential hazard to sanitation workers and others, and should never be done.

The Ohio Department of Health website, for example, states, “Generally, asbestos-containing waste should be taken to a landfill that accepts asbestos waste.”

In your state, you could also contact the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency at www.epa.state.oh.us to obtain specific rules and requirements. And the Ohio Department of Health offers assistance at ASBESTOS@odh.ohio.gov or by phone at 614-466-0061.

Q: I have an existing 24-foot-by-12-foot-deep deck that’s attached to my house. We had to raise the yard grade to accommodate a new septic system. Our deck needs to be raised a foot so we can grade away from the house. The current deck has a step down from the house so raising it would still keep the deck below the entrance to the house. We took the boards off and the understructure is in great shape. The deck is supported by six cement footings across the front and middle, and the back is attached to the house with a ledger board. Is there any way we can raise the structure without taking it apart? Can we cut it in sections? –Glenn R.

A: Because you have already removed the deck boards, I would suggest installing a new ledger with new joist hangers in the desired location. Then transfer each of the existing joists from the current ledger to the new ledger — they will sit at an angle temporarily — then raise the opposite ends of the joists by installing temporary framing under them. That will allow you to then extend or replace the existing posts and girders up to the joists. Secure the joists back to the girders, remove the temporary framing, and reinstall the decking boards.

Depending on what type of access you have to the yard, you might also want to get a price on having a crane company simply lift the entire deck, allowing you to keep everything intact and just add new posts. In the right circumstances, this can be a very quick and cost-effective option.

Q: Does landscaping add to the value of your home? I mean, if you spend approximately $8,000 in landscaping, can this amount be considered when pricing your home for sale? –Gladys D.

A: Selling a home is all about appealing to the greatest number of potential buyers, and adding landscaping is certainly one way to do that. It makes the home considerably more appealing, especially from the front — that all-important “curb appeal” — and good landscaping adds to a buyer’s overall sense that the home has been well maintained.

How much value the landscaping adds from a monetary standpoint is dependent on several things, including the overall price of the home in comparison to others in the area; how well landscaped competing homes are; how fast or slow homes are selling in the area; and how quickly you personally need to make a sale. Your best bet is to talk with a real estate agent who’s experienced with homes in your area, and discuss exactly how much landscaping to add and how much you might reasonably expect to get back on your investment.

Don’t forget that the cost of adding landscaping, as with all other home improvements, should be deductible against any capital gains taxes you incur when you sell the home.

Remodeling and repair questions? Email Paul at paulbianchina@inman.com. All product reviews are based on the author’s actual testing of free review samples provided by the manufacturers.

   
 

Bedford Corners NY real estate is up 41% in 2011 | RobReportBlog | June 2011 | Prices down 22%

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Bedford Corners NY Real Estate Report    |  RobReportBlog  |    June 2011

 

Bedford Corners NY real estate has risen 41% in 2011.  Median price is down 22%.  Prcing your home correctly in Bedford Corners NY will get your home sold.

 

 

2011 Bedford Corners NY real estate sales numbers  (six months)

41   homes sold

$665,000   median price

$5,265,000   high price

$235,000   low price

2916  average size

$286  average price per foot

196  average DOM

92.36%   average sold to ask price

 

2010 Bedford Corners NY real estate sales numbers  (six months)

29  homes sold

$860,000   median price

$9,400,000   high price

$376,870   low price

3980   average size

$351   average price per foot

180  average DOM

93.28%  average sold to ask price

 

 

 

Buy a Bedford Corners NY home

REAL Trends: May Sales Show Surprising Strength | Pound Ridge NY Real Estate for sale

A third consecutive spring market report has May home prices rising in the wake of the double dip reported by S&P/Case-Shiller in the first quarter.

In a national survey of real estate practitioners, REAL Trends’ Housing Market Report says May sales are showing surprising strength, increasing from 4.730 million in April 2011to 4.860 million in May 2011. On a year over year basis, May home sales declined 8.6 percent compared to the May 2010 rate of 5.318 million.

The average price of homes sold continued to increase in May 2011 with a 1.5 percent increase over April. This follows an increase of 1.2 percent in average home sales price in March of 2011 over the same period the year before and represents three consecutive months of increases in the average prices of homes sold.

“The May 2011 REAL Trends Housing Report shows that housing sales show surprising strength considering the tough economic climate and comparisons to year ago sales that were significantly boosted by the 2010 tax credit program. A significant part of the decline as measured on a year over year basis is due to the Federal tax credit which significantly raised housing sales in the March through June period of 2010,” said Steve Murray, editor of the REAL Trends Housing Market Report. “The fact that the actual average price of home sales has now increased two months in a row, despite numerous analytic reports to the contrary is another bright spot in a housing market that seems to have found the bottom.”

Previously, Clear Capital and Altos have reported price improvement since the first quarter.  The National Association of Realtors reported that national median existing-home price for all housing types was 5.0 percent below April 2010.

The monthly REAL Trends Housing Market Report tracks sales from real estate brokerage firms on a national basis.

Full Story

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