| South Salem NY Weekly Real Estate Report | 8/21/2013 | |
| Homes for sale | 85 | |
| Median Ask Price | $629,000.00 | |
| Low Price | $205,000.00 | |
| High Price | $12,200,000.00 | |
| Average Size | 2863 | |
| Average Price/foot | $332.00 | |
| Average DOM | 161 | |
| Average Ask Price | $995,112.00 | |
Want to grow your email list or drive more people to your business?
Are you looking for ways to connect Facebook to your business goals?
In this article, I’ll show you common goals of four different industries and how Facebook apps are helping meet those goals.
What kinds of apps (also known as tabs) do you have on your Facebook page?
Are you using the right features on those tabs to support your business goals and Facebook strategy?
Goals can include having visitors sign up to receive emails, download a coupon or ebook, enter a promotion or make a purchase.
These actions need to be easy to complete. By making it possible for visitors to do this in tabs on your Facebook page, you can increase the rate of visitors successfully completing the desired action.
Using the right tab apps can increase your success!
Give visitors access on Facebook to key tools and information.
Below I reveal common goals of four different industries (restaurants, hotels and travel destinations, local retailers and professional service companies) and outline key tabs that these industry page managers should consider implementing on their Facebook pages.
As you’ll see, there are some commonalities of tab types that can and should be used to increase Facebook marketing success. So if your industry is not represented specifically, don’t fret—common threads do apply!
Just recently Barry Smith received a rather jarring voice mail.
“It is disgusting. It is almost like you are portraying the devil,” the caller said in a quavering voice, according to Smith, owner of Washington, D.C.-based Domus Realty. By Smith’s account, the caller later added: “You’re like the dark side, and the dark side does not see well.”
The message represents just one of many reactions to a colorful job ad that Smith, once a philosophy professor at Georgetown University, recently penned and fired off to what he said were about 10,000 email addresses.
Calling for an “agent-priest,” the job ad has struck a chord with some real estate professionals who say it has given voice to their disillusionment with broker culture. At the same time, some readers of the post, like the woman who seemed to view Smith as something of a Sith lord, have found its cynical tone deeply unnerving.
The second reaction may be understandable: Certain passages in the ad, titled “Domus Realty — From Agony to Ecstasy,” express approval of prospective agents who wish to hurl both gadgets and themselves out windows, “scorn happy faces” and may commit suicide if the world “does not soon remedy or cure its superficiality and shallow notion of freedom.”
But Smith, who once taught college classes with titles like “Nietzsche and Postmodernity” and “Freud and Philosophy,” argues that critics of the ad may not fully appreciate its tongue-and-cheek hyperbole, and also could be missing what he says is its ultimately redeeming message.
– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/08/19/broker-priest-gives-voice-to-disillusioned-agents/#sthash.9ptammcE.dpuf
After months of decline, foreclosure activity increased in July, led by Florida and six other judicial states where legal procedures delay foreclosure processing.
The top six state foreclosure rates in July were in states with a judicial foreclosure process, although two of those top six states posted decreasing foreclosure activity from a year ago: Ohio (down 18 percent) and Illinois (down 44 percent).
RealtyTrac reported default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions on 130,888 U.S. properties in July, an increase of 2 percent from the 78-month low in June but still down 32 percent from July 2012. The report also shows one in every 1,001 U.S. housing units with a foreclosure filing during the month.
Foreclosure starts increased from the previous month in 26 states and were up from a year ago in 15 states, including Maryland (up 275 percent), Oregon (up 137 percent), New Jersey (up 89 percent), Connecticut (up 37 percent), and New York (up 27 percent).
Bank repossessions increased from the previous month in 29 states and were up from a year ago in 18 states, including Arkansas (up 266 percent), Oklahoma (up 126 percent), Maryland (up 101 percent), New York (up 100 percent), Connecticut (up 67 percent), New Jersey (up 40 percent), and Ohio (up 20 percent).
Among the nation’s 20 largest metropolitan statistical areas, 10 posted increasing foreclosure activity from the previous month and five posted increasing foreclosure activity from a year ago: Baltimore (up 182 percent), Miami (up 58 percent), New York (up 42 percent), Philadelphia (up 11 percent), and Washington, D.C. (up 5 percent).
Nine of the nation’s 10 highest metro foreclosure rates in July were in Florida cities, and five of those nine Florida cities posted increasing foreclosure activity from a year ago. Florida also led the states in foreclosures for the third consecutive month.
read more….
Our first panel at the ReelSEO Video Marketing Summit was called “Creative Storytelling for Brands: Content Strategies that Resonate.” It starred Reed Lucas, Director of Channel Management at Channel Factory, who sponsored the panel, CJ Bruce, founder of New Antics, who moderated. The panel included Clayton Talmon de l’Armée, director and video producer at Salesforce, Peter Caban, Chairman of Mekanism, Zach Blume, partner and managing director of Portal A, and Chris Gorell Barnes, founder and CEO of Adjust Your Set.
On coming up with ideas to produce:
Barnes: How do you get the best ROI…we try to look for relevance. Context with the content. Find a way to get people talking about the product without overly mentioning the product. What kind of problems are keeping your audience awake at night, and does your product solve that problem? Creating stories around that. We try to get our clients to think more like a publisher, rather than an advertiser.
On whether they use focus groups:
Caban: Definitely not. When we do comedy and content , you just don’t want to see the humor get watered down. To do it to find an insight with a demographic you don’t understand, it can be valuable. So more for insights, rather than creative.
Clayton: We have a network of chatter that we can get feedback on. We’ve got 10,000 employees who can give us feedback, and we’ll know pretty quickly whether it’s crap or not. It starts with a small team, and then we move it up to chatter to figure out whether it’s viable.
On “boring brands” without a real story:
Blume: The first one that comes to mind was a mobile coupon company. What we did was make a purposefully over-the-top campaign with people in a supermarket. We made a campaign where the tone of the product didn’t dictate the marketing, but where the marketing redefined the product itself.
Caban: Yeah, that is interesting…whenever we have a topic that could be interpreted as “dry,” we try to turn it around and run it the other way.
Caban mentions a series Mekanism did for GE called “Datalandia:”
Barnes: The best success we’ve had is when we have a strategic approach before we shoot. A lot of people sort of shoot first, and ask questions later. Very few brands have a proper video strategy. Understand what content you’re going to make, where it’s going to go, what’s the measurement of success, how is it going to drive the right ROI. You need to think about the technology and the content, not taking a piece of content and hiding it on YouTube.
Clayton: It’s all about story, and as soon as we get to that point where we find that emotional connection, then we know we’re getting there.
What storytelling tips would you give this audience?
Blume: Know your audience. Another thing is we’ve created content when we’re not involved with a brand, so we get the chance to experiment, to test, and to try different things, and to learn from it.
Caban: Internally, I think of about 5 directors who work with us that are the right natural fit that can crack the code on the tone or the writing. Looking at the kind of director or writer will determine if it’s great. Many times, checking through their reels will determine who might be the right fit.
Clayton: Don’t be boring. We deal with a lot of stiff business types and we’ll pitch them an idea and they’ll be like, “Are you out of your mind?” and we say, “Yeah, that’s the point.”
What do you do when a client is stuck on being conservative?
Clayton: Ultimately, we make two cuts. Our cut and their cut. And oftentimes, they’ll take our cut.
Blume: I think it’s all about getting on the same level at the beginning of the project. When a client comes to us, they know what kind of content we create, which is edgy, fun stuff, so I think it’s about setting expectations at the beginning.
view more….
http://www.reelseo.com/video-storytelling-brands/
According to Trulia, another bubble is far away, with home prices still undervalued:
We estimate that national home prices are 5% undervalued in the third quarter of 2013. During last decade’s housing bubble, prices were as high as 39% overvalued in 2006 Q1, then after the crash fell to 15% undervalued in 2011 Q4. One quarter ago prices looked 7% undervalued; one year ago prices looked 14% undervalued, Trulia reported.
Wells Fargo and Chase traded positions as the industry leader in originations as new purchase mortgage originations edged up in the second quarter.
Wells Fargo maintained its standing as the biggest residential lender in the country. A distant second was JPMorgan Chase, while Bank of America regained its No. 3 ranking after falling behind Quicken Loans in the first quarter.
However, initial indications are that the current quarter’s production is on track for a decline according to Mortgage Daily.
Home loans funded by U.S. lenders totaled an estimated $502billion during the second quarter, according to Mortgage Daily’s Mortgage Lender Ranking. The estimate was based on earnings data, publicly disclosed statistics and a quarterly survey conducted by the trade publication.
Overall activity increased around 2% from the first quarter. Compared to the second-quarter 2012, production has risen more than 8%.
| Q2 2013 Originations | ||
Rank | Lender | Volume ($ billions) |
| Total. | U.S. (est.) | $502.0 |
| 1. | Wells Fargo | $112.0 |
| 2. | Chase | $49.5 |
| 3. | BofA | $26.8 |
| 4. | Quicken | $23.8 |
| 5. | U.S. Bank | $19.1 |
Walter Mortgage soared to $4.7 billion from the first quarter’s $0.4 billion – the biggest percentage gain of all lenders tracked.
Production at Nationstar Mortgage more than doubled from the first quarter — the second-best quarter-over-quarter performance of any top lender.
The biggest quarter-over-quarter loss was suffered by Ocwen Financial.
Nationstar’s business nearly quadrupled from the second-quarter 2012, the best year-over-year improvement.
With a 250% increase, Stonegate Mortgage delivered the second-largest increase from the year-earlier period.
United Shore followed with a 156% ascension, then 154% at PennyMac.
Based on the Mortgage Market Index from LoanSifter and Mortgage Daily, third-quarter originations from all lenders are likely to decline by around 22%.
Wells Fargo held on to its top-servicer standing, and BofA relinquished its No. 2 rank to Chase.
| Biggest Servicers as of June 30 | ||
Rank | Servicer | Portfolio Size ($ trillions) |
| 1. | Wells Fargo | $1.9 |
| 2. | Chase | $1.0 |
| 3. | BofA | $1.0 |
| 4. | Ocwen | $0.4 |
| 5. | Citigroup | $0.4 |
read more…..
http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/08/wells-and-chase-duke-it-out/
According to Supervisor Howard Arden, Harisch has done practically every job on the force as he has risen steadily through the ranks of the North Castle Police, “Geoffrey Harisch is taking the reins as our new Police Chief and we all look forward to working with him.”
Harisch is filling the position vacated by Chief Robert D’Angelo who retired in January 2013. D’Angelo worked his way up the ranks as well and was named Police Chief in 1991. Lt. William Fisher was appointed as Provisional Chief following D’Angelo’s retirement.
In March 2013, three department lieutenants were eligible to take the Police Chief examination. After the Police Chief test results were received, Lt. Harisch was the only officer eligible to become Police Chief.
Harisch said, “I’m looking forward to serving the town and have covered every aspect and done every task. A lot of people know me in this town and I intend to do my best.”
Harisch started as a patrolman for the North Castle Police Department in April of 1987. About four years later, he was promoted to the rank of Detective, at which he served for three years. During his tenure as a detective, Harisch was named youth officer beginning in 1991. He was then promoted to Sergeant, while retaining the youth officer title with those duties for five years.
During the time he was Sergeant, Harisch revamped the Department’s property management system of evidence and other items that were taken into the department. He also revamped the police candidate hiring investigation with the assistance of Sergeant Dennis Murray. Harisch ran the tours around the clock as all patrol sergeants do.
Harisch was involved with the first North Castle Police Department vehicle enforcement unit to safely move trucks within a five mile radius of North Castle. The truck enforcement officer has to be well versed in transportation law and tax law, said Harisch. “We still currently have a vehicle enforcement unit, but it hasn’t been active,” according to Harisch. He commented that he would like to get the vehicle enforcement unit up and running again. This would involve working with a certified person from the New York State Department of Transportation and using weighing scales from the State Police, County Police, or Yorktown Police.
read more….
http://www.allaboutarmonk.com/northcastle/
