Daily Archives: July 19, 2012

Record Low Mortgage Rates Helping To Stir The Housing Market | Waccabuc Real Estate

Record Low Mortgage Rates Helping To Stir The Housing Market

MCLEAN, Va., July 19, 2012  /PRNewswire/ — Freddie Mac (OTC: FMCC) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey®(PMMS®), showing the average 30-year and 15-year fixed-rate mortgage hitting new all-time record lows along with the 5-year ARM. The average 30-year fixed has been below 4.00 percent all but one week in 2012. The average 15-year fixed-rate mortgage has been below 3.00 percent for 8 consecutive weeks. Freddie Mac’s Chief Economist highlights how these record low mortgage rates are fueling housing demand in its July U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook.

News Facts

  • 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 3.53 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending July 19, 2012, down from last week when it averaged 3.56 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.52 percent. 
  • 15-year FRM this week averaged 2.83 percent with an average 0.6 point, down from last week when it averaged 2.86 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 3.66 percent. 
  • 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 2.69 percent this week, with an average 0.6 point, down from last week when it averaged 2.74 percent. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 3.27 percent.
  • 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 2.69 percent this week with an average 0.4 point, the same as last week. At this time last year, the 1-year ARM averaged 2.97 percent.  

Average commitment rates should be reported along with average fees and points to reflect the total upfront cost of obtaining the mortgage. Visit the following links for Regional and National Mortgage Rate Details and Definitions. Borrowers may still pay closing costs which are not included in the survey.

Quotes

Attributed to Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist, Freddie Mac.

“With little signs of inflation and the Federal Reserve’s “Operation Twist” keeping U.S. Treasury bond yields in check, fixed mortgage rates are remaining low and helping to stir the housing market. For instance, the 12-month growth rate in the core Consumer Price Index has been in a narrow 2.1 to 2.3 percent band over the past nine months ending in June. Meanwhile, new construction on one-family homes rose for the fourth consecutive month in June to its strongest pace since April 2010 with builders restocking their lean inventories of new homes.  In fact, homebuilder confidence for the next six months rose for the third month in a row in July to its highest reading since March 2007.”

Get the latest information from Freddie Mac’s Office of the Chief Economist on Twitter:@FreddieMac

Freddie Mac was established by Congress in 1970 to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the nation’s residential mortgage markets. Freddie Mac supports communities across the nation by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Today Freddie Mac is making home possible for one in four homebuyers and is one of the largest sources of financing for multifamily housing. www.FreddieMac.com.

SOURCE Freddie Mac

For further information: Chad Wandler, +1-703-903-2446, Chad_Wandler@FreddieMac.com

First Half Bedford area sales report. | RobReportBlog | Bedford NY Realtor

Armonk        up 5.5%

Chappaqua     up 8.8%

Bedford Corners    down 23%

Pound Ridge    up 52%

Bedford Village   down 11%

Bedford Hills    down 21%

Katonah        up 2%

South Salem    flat

Waccabuc    up 400%

Cross River   flat

North Salem  up 47%

Mount Kisco  up 27%

Overall are saw sales up 14% in the first hal of 2012 vs last year.

Top 10 metros with highest foreclosure rates in May | South Salem NY Real Estate

The month of May saw U.S. foreclosure activity fall 4 percent from May 2011, the 20th straight month to see a year-over-year drop, according to a report from foreclosure property marketplace RealtyTrac. Nevertheless, the number of housing units in some stage of foreclosure climbed above 200,000 for the first time in three months, the report said.

While certain hard-hit areas — in Arizona, California and Florida — are seeing a rebound in some aspects of their housing markets, such as increasing median list prices and dropping for-sale inventories, they are nonetheless struggling in other areas, including foreclosure filings.

For example, bruised California Central Valley metros Stockton and Modesto are still among the most battered by the foreclosure whirlwind — No. 5 and No. 6 on the May’s top 10 foreclosure rate list, respectively — despite more than 20 percent drops in their markets’ foreclosure rates from a year ago.

California metros, in fact, rank No. 2 through No. 6 on the top 10 list with Visalia-Porterville, Calif., which saw foreclosure filings occur at a rate of 1 in every 174 units in May, taking the California top spot.

The top spot overall, with a 231 percent foreclosure rate jump from a year ago, is Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, Fla., with a foreclosure rate in May of 1 in every 170 units.

Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, Ga., and Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Ariz., where housing markets have rebounded in some respects in recent months, stood at No. 7 and No. 8, respectively, on the top 10 list.

Sustained, nationwide foreclosure activity doesn’t necessarily mean that the inventory of banked-owned properties will swell.

“Based on the rise in preforeclosure sales we’ve seen so far this year, a higher percentage of these new foreclosures starts will likely end up as short sales or auction sales to third parties rather than bank repossessions going forward,” said Brandon Moore, CEO of RealtyTrac, in a statement.

A deflection of foreclosures from eventual real estate owned (REO) status might be good for the market, Moore said. “Our first-quarter foreclosure sales report showed that the average price of a preforeclosure home was more than $27,000 higher than the average price of a bank-owned home.”

See the pages below for the top 10 U.S. metros with the highest foreclosure rates

How Search and Online Reputation Management Impacts your Brand | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate

Appearing on the first page of a Google search can be the difference between the success or the failure of your business.How Search and Online Reputation Management Impacts your Business Brand

The smart business owners and the savvy operators of eCommerce stores know that the free traffic delivered by search engines is worth gold to a business.

Research shows that ranking first on Google produces over 40 percent of all clicks to websites. Listing on the first page of a search, results in over 90 percent of all clicks. Now that is important in a digital economy!

Also a Google search can produce a negative or positive impression about a brand depending on what content and links appear in the search results. So online reputation management is also an important activity.

For a long time, Search Engine Optimization and Online Reputation Management have been looked upon as two parallel services. Google recently has changed how it performs its search. These updates to the search engine algorithms were titled “Panda” and the most recent changes were called “Penguin“.

So with these changes where does the future of both these services lie?

Let’s breakdown each of the services.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

When SEO started, it was easy to do. There were guaranteed success methods and approaches such as the following produced great results.

  • Keyword density
  • Meta tags
  • Content

There were sites which went up overnight by acquiring links from questionable sources. Spamming an important keyword on the page was a very likely affair. People posted articles on blog networks, with each topic as unrelated as chalk and cheese!

The creation of low-quality, thin content was an easy option for a lot of people who were trying to gain success overnight! This list can go on and on!

Anything that is abused over time is likely to burn out. And so did these practices!

Google Wants Quality Content

Google’s Panda update was aimed at providing more relevant and quality content to users. This update was rolled out in the USA in February 2011, with various refreshes and updates over the course of the next 16 months. Panda 3.8 was released in the end of June 2012. While webmasters were still trying to come to terms with the Panda update (about 11.8% of all searches were affected with the first update.)

Google recently rolled out the Penguin update (about 3.1% of all search queries were affected). This update was aimed at keeping a check on

  • Link schemes
  • Exact anchor text linking
  • Blog networks
  • Duplicate content etc

Here is a great infographic comparing Google’s Panda and Penguin updates and how they affect your Brand’s visibility to the Google search engine.

The difference between Google Panda & Penguin Infographic

Infographic  by Reload Media – Difference between Google Penguin & Panda

Content Marketing is Vital to SEO

Post these two updates, the SEO world has started viewing the terms ‘content’ and ‘links’ differently. For an SEO guy, content started focusing more on pieces that were not only unique and engaging but also something that a user could associate with!

Content Marketing became a term that every SEO expert started relating with more closely!

SEO agencies have started rolling out extensive content marketing plans for their clients, focusing on the creation of detailed content plans including the following

  • Blogs
  • PDF documents
  • Whitepapers,
  • eBooks,
  • Presentations,
  • Image syndication

You name a medium, and they have targeted it! SEO started focusing strongly on content marketing, wherein content marketing has become the crux of any SEO campaign.

Online Reputation Management (ORM)

ORM is one of the most dynamic activities online and one of the most difficult too. It is the only activity where you have little or no control over different situations and/or circumstances which can completely turn around all the hard work invested into a campaign!

An outsider speaking about your brand, the brand’s offline activities, and the actions of an important entity associated with the brand, all these can completely change the statistics of your campaign overnight! Positive mentions, neutral mentions and negative mentions! These more or less rule the life of that person who is trying to protect your online reputation.

Let’s run through the aim of any ORM campaign:

  • Ensure that the client get as much positive exposure as possible. Try and get as many positive mentions up in the top 10/20/30 results!
  • If it isn’t positive, ensure that you have neutral content about your brand!
  • Neutralize the NEGATIVE content pieces!!!!

The easiest way to go about doing this is to ensure that you have positive/neutral content online talking about your brand. (Not that it is easy to do that!)

Also, since you work closely with the brand, you become the official channel of sorts, responsible for creating content and syndication across mediums and platforms! The content creation involves having an exhaustive content plan in place and using various mediums including videos, blogs, articles, etc.

Does this Sound Similar to SEO?

The lines distinguishing both these services are becoming less distinct by each passing day. The objective of both SEO and ORM now align towards the creation of good, unique and engaging content. Content marketing remains the focus of both services. Reaching out to new people, gaining greater visibility and creating a stronger brand presence are extremely important. The principle of SEO is now to ensure that not only is your brand reaching out to more people but also focus on creating a strong brand presence online.

SEO is Now Part of Brand Building

Brand building is becoming a more integral part of SEO activity! ORM has by principle always concentrated on promoting the brand!

It seems that a new service package offering Branding + SEO + ORM is the call of the hour. Anyone who has an online store, not only wants to increase their presence and standing, but also wants to ensure that their brand is being recognized by their target audience. It is essentially the first step to become a major player and stand out in a many player market! I can guarantee that this will not only be used by the big fish who are well established and will rely more on the monitoring and the reputation side of things but also by the small startups looking for a strong branding campaign to promote themselves and garner greater visibility!

The Marketer’s Ultimate Guide to Link Bait | Bedford NY Real Estate

Can we please come up with some better terminology for the concept of ‘link bait,’ already? It just sounds so … slimy. For me, it conjures up thoughts of those evil bait-and-switch advertising schemes.

But I’m going to say it loud and proud — “Not all link bait is bad!” So while it may get a bad rap as low-quality, lazy, or misleading content, I’ll admit that I support the creation of an awesome, white-hat link bait post from time to time. And heck … so does Google’s own Matt Cutts himself!

What Is Link Bait?

According to Matt Cutts, you can simply think of link bait as “something interesting enough to catch people’s attention…And that doesn’t have to be a bad thing,” he adds.

Now, if Matt Cutts’ endorsement isn’t enough to convince you that you don’t have to feel like a sleaze ball to create some link bait, I’m not sure what will. Maybe Brian Clark of Copyblogger can sway you with his stance on the topic? He believes that link bait is “just a sexy term for high-quality content that benefits the reader,” even if he does admit that the term is pretty darn “inelegant.” And I’m sure most experts would agree. Sure, the concept of link bait is a little bit subjective, and marketers should consider link bait as any piece of content that generates significantly more links and traffic than the average piece of content they publish. But more on that later.

The term seems to have originated from the SEO world, referring to content that is effective for attracting inbound links to your website, thus boosting your off-page SEO. But we’re not really here to debate the negative connotations or the history of the term ‘link bait.’ If you want a brief history lesson, check out Clark’s article. Instead, let’s use this article to talk about why link bait is so effective, how it can benefit your marketing, and how you can approach creating top-notch link bait content that your readers love … and value.

Why We’re Sold on Link Bait at HubSpot

At HubSpot, we’ve known for a while — anecdotally — that link bait content is extremely beneficial to our business blogging efforts. But we never really looked at the numbers. So I decided to dig into HubSpot’s Blog Analytics and do a quick and simple analysis on the success of what we can consider to be the ‘link bait’ content we’ve published on this very blog.

HubSpot’s Link Bait Analysis

I looked at all articles we’ve published to this blog during the span of 1 year — from July 2011 through June 2012. For the purposes of my analysis, I defined ‘link bait’ as any post that has generated at least 50 inbound links since it was originally published, but it’s important to note that you might define link bait differently depending on how much traction your blog typically gets. For example, if the average article on your blog typically gets 2 inbound links, maybe 15 inbound links would be your benchmark for link bait success.

Once I sorted the articles by the number of inbound links they’ve generated, I averaged the number of page views each category of articles (those with at least 50 inbound links compared to those with fewer than 50 inbound links) generated. What I learned was, articles that have accumulated at least 50 inbound links average 500% more views than articles that have attracted fewer than 50 inbound links. Not too shabby, huh?

link bait analysis resized 600

Why Link Bait Rocks

As is evident from our internal analysis, link bait content can be extremely beneficial to your marketing. Here are 3 powerful reasons why:

1) Increased Search Rankings

Because link bait content is so interesting, it’s usually very effective for generating inbound links (remember, it’s called link bait for a reason). After all, people are way more likely to link back to something if they find it interesting. As a result, link bait content is extremely powerful for boosting your website’s off-page SEO, which we know is the most influential way to increase your organic search rankings. So as you’re creating content you predict will make great link bait, be sure you’re optimizing it using the keywords you want to rank for in search. This will help you leverage your link bait content to boost your rankings for the keywords you want to get found for in search.

2) Tons of (Sustainable) Traffic … & Conversion Opportunities!

Because link bait content is interesting, there’s usually a level of virality to it, since people will naturally want to share it with their connections. As a result, link bait content is also usually a major traffic driver, as is evident from our internal analysis of HubSpot’s own link bait content. And the more traffic you generate to your blog, the more visitors you have the opportunity to convert into leads and customers! Just be sure your blog is optimized for conversion: use calls-to-action for your top marketing offers on every blog post as well as in your blog’s top/sidebar(s). 

As a bonus, because link bait content has the tendency to rank well in search, the traffic it generates is usually very sustainable, since searchers will continue to stumble upon your link bait content long after it was originally published. HubSpot’s blog, for example, still generates regular traffic and leads from link-bait articles we originally published several years ago. Talk about a return on investment!

3) Exposure to New Audiences

Remember how we talked about how link-bait content is usually very sharable? Because this is so, link bait has a lot of potential to expose your business and your content to entirely new audiences you might not have reached otherwise. Thus, it helps you grow the top of your funnel, expanding your reach and attracting new blog readers. And even if these new readers will never buy from you, increasing your reach and growing your following definitely has its benefits 

Link Bait: What Works?

As we mentioned earlier, what any given marketer considers to be link bait is going to vary from business to business, industry to industry, and audience to audience. The key is to experiment with ideas you suspect will be successful for your particular blog, regularly conduct analyses like the one I did above, and learn from what tends to work as link bait for you. And just like setting out to create something that will definitely absolutely “go viral” is unrealistic, setting out to create link bait is never a given. The best you can do is emulate the qualities of content that have typically led to tons of inbound links and traffic for you in the past … and cross your fingers. Only after your article has been published will you know if it was truly successful as link bait.

So if you’re just starting to figure out what has historically made successful link bait content for marketers, here are some ideas to get you going, each accompanied by a successful link bait example from the HubSpot blog:

1) Original, Striking Data

Publishing original data is not only a great tactic for earning media coverage — it can also make great link bait fodder. If you’re a business that has access to original data that you can analyze to expose, add to, or refute an industry topic or trend, take advantage of it! If not, maybe there’s an opportunity to partner with a research firm instead.

HubSpot Example: LinkedIn 277% More Effective for Lead Generation Than Facebook & Twitter [New Data] (41K views, 239 inbound links)

2) Controversial Content

Who doesn’t love a little heated debate? Controversial content usually garners a lot of attention, so if you have an opinion on a controversial issue, you might have some link bait fodder on your hands. Your content doesn’t even have to be centered around a radical opinion to leverage the power of controversy, either; it could just present a bit of data that refutes a common assumption your audience might have.

Just don’t go overboard with the controversy (you do still want to be likeable, right?), and don’t be controversial just for the sake of being controversial. Make sure you’re passionate about the stance you’re taking, and always try to lean on data to back up your claims, like the post below does.

HubSpot Example: 63% of B2B Companies Don’t Generate Leads From Social Media [New Data] (5K views, 53 inbound links)

3) Being the Most Comprehensive (Or First) Resource on a Popular Topic

Taking a topic you know performs well on your blog and publishing the most comprehensive post about it on the web (or at least attempting to) can make for a great link bait win. Is there a popular topic in your industry that few have written about (or written about well) where you see an opportunity? Jump on it! Even better if you can be one of the first to produce comprehensive content on a trending topic, as we did in our Pinterest example below, just as Pinterest was gaining traction as a marketing tool.

HubSpot Examples: The Ultimate Facebook Marketing Cheat Sheet (51K views, 4K inbound links); The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Pinterest for Marketing (36K views, 248 inbound links)

4) Visual Content

Visual content is all the rage in marketing these days, especially when it comes to social media marketing. So it’s no wonder it makes excellent link bait content. Just take infographics, for instance. When looking at the same set of HubSpot blog articles I analyzed in the beginning of this post, I also took a look at the performance of blog posts containing infographics compared to all other posts.

What I found was, blog articles that included infographics generated an average of 178% more inbound links and 72% more views than all other posts. And many of those posts contained third-party infographics that we simply shared on our blog because we thought our audience would find them interesting — in other words, they weren’t necessarily HubSpot-original infographics. And visual content doesn’t have to take the form of infographics to be link bait-friendly, either. Sometimes posts that consist of a curation of awesome visual examples (like the example we share below) can work out just as well. Other types of visual, link-bait content you can create include cartoons or content/concept visualizations.

HubSpot Example: 17 Examples of Creative Facebook Page Cover Photos (19K views, 56 inbound links)

5) Content That’s Creative, Entertaining, or Fun

This content goes far because it’s usually easy to consume, great fodder for sharing, quick to scan, requires little thought (on your readers’ end), and well … it’s FUN! Think music videos or just content that leverages pop culture references or emerging, mainstreamed trends, like our example below.

HubSpot Example: Memejacking: The Complete Guide to Creating Memes for Marketing (5K page views, 237 inbound links)

6) A Title People Simply Can’t Help Themselves From Clicking (Accompanied by Awesome Content)

Don’t gloss over the text within those parentheses. The important thing to remember about this one is, you can have a really intriguing title that people just can’t help but to click, but if the content within doesn’t live up to that title, it won’t achieve link bait status. If your title is overly sensational and hyperbolic, yet the content it alludes to is barely average, you’ll undermine your credibility and lose readers’ interest in your content altogether.

The HARP program for mortgage help | Pound Ridge NY Real Estate

Underwater on Your Mortgage?
HARP 2.0 is Here to Help
July 2012



According to online housing site Zillow, more than 30% of all homeowners — that’s about 16 million people — are underwater on their homes. Until this year, there wasn’t much these homeowners could do to bring their mortgages back into balance. But now, with the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) loan, you may be able to refinance no matter how upside-down your mortgage is.

 Homeowners who are making their mortgage payments regularly but owe more than their homes are worth are unable to take advantage of today’s historically low interest rates through traditional refinancing programs. But now, the HARP loan is providing the life preserve these responsible homeowners need. According to HUD, about 400,000 homeowners have taken advantage of the new program since it launched in April 2012.

 And that’s great news: underwater homeowners, who are continuing to make payments and are trying their best to stay current on their mortgages and to hold on to their homes, now may be able to lower their interest rates, decrease their monthly payments and start turning their finances around with this government-sponsored refinancing program. For Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that also means fewer defaults and more payments being made consistently and on time.

 HARP 2.0 offers a number of advantages to homeowners whose mortgages are held by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac:

  • Appraisals may be waived
  • Only 620 FICO required
  • No LTV/CLTV restrictions on fixed-rate loans of 30 years or less

The key point here is really the “no LTV/CLTV restriction” — that means HARP II can help millions of homeowners no matter how upside-down they are on their mortgages. The previous version of the HARP loan capped LTV at 125 percent of the home’s value, leaving millions of Americans unable to take advantage of today’s low interest rates.

 There are three main requirements to qualify for a HARP loan. First, your loan must be owned by either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. If you’re not sure, I can easily look up your loan for you and determine if you qualify. Second, your loan must have been sold to Fannie or Freddie before June 1, 2009. Third, the refinance must benefit you in one of four ways:

  • Reduction in your monthly principal and interest payment
  • Reduction in your interest rate
  • Reduction in your amortization term (moving from a 30-year term to 15 years)
  • Movement to a more stable product (i.e., interest-only to fully amortizing, ARM to fixed, etc.)

If you have a Fannie Mae- or Freddie Mac-owned loan that is underwater, or close to it, and you are hoping to find a life preserver, please contact me right away. The sooner we can meet to discuss your options, the sooner you can start getting back on track with your finances, reduce your stress and move toward more stability in your mortgage. Let me help you determine if HARP 2.0 can help you.

Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People | Bedford Corners Real Estate

RIP Stephen Covey: Here Are His Famous ‘7 Habits Of Highly Effective People’

intern working

Flickr/Barack Obama

In honor of renowned author Stephen Covey, who died this morning at age 79, we’ve decided to succinctly break down the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” from his all-time best-selling book, which sold 20 million copies. 

Here’s the short version, but we recommend you buy his book:

1) Be Proactive

As human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. We have the independent will to make our own choices and decisions, and the responsibility (“the ability to respond”) to make the right choices. You have the freedom to choose your own fate and path, so having the independent will, imagination and self-awareness to make the right move makes you a proactive, and not a reactive, person.

2) Begin With The End In Mind

Mental visualization is extremely important. Covey says that all things are created twice: first, the mental conceptualization and visualization and a second physical, actual creation. Becoming your own creator means to plan and visualize what you’re going to do and what you’re setting out to accomplish and then go out and creating it. Identifying your personal statement and your principles will help.

3) Put First Things First

With your power of independent will, you can create the ending you want to have. Part of that comes with effective time management, starting with matters of importance. Then tasks should be completed based on urgency after you deal with all the important matters. If you deal with crises, pressing problems and deadline-driven projects first, your life will be a lot easier.

4) Think Win/Win

If you believe in a better way to accomplish goals that’s mutually beneficial to all sides, that’s a win/win situation. “All parties feel good about the decision and feel committed to the action plan,” Covey wrote. “One person’s success is not achieved at the expense or exclusion of the success of others.” If you have integrity and maturity, there’s no reason win/win situations can’t happen all the time.

5) Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood

If you’re a good listener and you take the time to understand a concept, it will help you convey your opinions, plans and goals to others. It starts with communication and strong listening skills, followed by diagnosing the situation and then communicating your solution to others.

6) Synergize

Synergistic communication, according to Covey, is “opening your mind and heart to new possibilities, new alternatives, new options.” This applies to the classroom, the business world and wherever you could apply openness and communication. It’s all about building cooperation and trust.

7) Sharpen The Saw

Sometimes you’re working so hard on the other six habits that you forget about re-energizing and renewing yourself to sharpen yourself for the tasks in front of you. Some sharpening techniques include exercise and nutrition, reading, planning and writing, service and empathy and commitment, study and meditation.