| North Salem NY Weekly Real Estate Report | 8/28/2013 | |
| Homes for sale | 50 | |
| Median Ask Price | $799,000.00 | |
| Low Price | $250,000.00 | |
| High Price | $18,500,000.00 | |
| Average Size | 3413 | |
| Average Price/foot | $357.00 | |
| Average DOM | 167 | |
| Average Ask Price | $1,511,404.00 |
Are you wondering if Tumblr could help your business?
Are you unfamiliar with Tumblr and wondering how to get started?
Do you want to let a new set of customers share your brand or product on this social platform?
If so, keep reading as I reveal how to use Tumblr for your business.
Tumblr is a blogging and social platform that houses more than 132 million blogs and is among the top 15 websites in the United States.
It’s website explains, “Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos from your browser, phone, desktop, email or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors to your theme’s HTML.”
According to Quantcast, Tumblr received over 5.5 billion page views in May 2013 alone. With user numbers and popularity on the rise, it’s a perfect marketing tool for businesses that are trying to extend their reach and raise brand awareness.
Tumblr is quickly growing in popularity.
In this article I’ll show you how to get started using Tumblr in your online marketing strategy.
Signing up is easy and can be done in minutes. Enter your email, choose a password and select a username. Try to get an exact match for your brand name or primary website URL. Alternatively, if you’re already established on Twitter, see if your Twitter username is available.
Provide Tumblr with accurate, complete and updated registration information.
Consider using the same avatar image on your Tumblr page that you use on your Facebook Page, Twitter account and other social media channels.
First impressions matter. To build a solid brand presence on Tumblr, ensure you make a good impression and select a catchy design for your page.
There’s an abundance of free and paid themes on Tumblr. Choose from one-, two- and three-column or grid-style layouts and find a design that matches your image. Browse the available themes, select one that fits your business and install it in seconds.
Tumblr has a large library of free and premium themes to choose from.
Many themes allow for a considerable amount of customization to give you a unique look that’s perfect for punctuating your brand image. Compared to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest, Tumblr is much more customizable and doesn’t require any serious programming abilities.
read more…
The 52-acre Connecticut estate known as Le Beau Château—one of the many high-value real estate holdings of the late copper heiress Huguette Clark—may soon be subdivided under new ownership, after failing to sell intact. Currently listed for $15.9M, the estate was once publicly asking as much as $24M, but has seen swift price chops and some creative marketing following Clark’s 2011 death. Now the listing touts an approved “10-estate lot subdivision”—which the city signed off on back in 2008—along with the Voorhees, Gmelin and Walker-designed nine-bedroom mansion, which, curiously enough, Clark never moved into during her 60 years of ownership. Hopefully, the main house will not suffer demolition following a sale, but subdivision developers are generally not inclined to rehabilitate historic mansions.
read more…
http://curbed.com/archives/2013/08/20/huguette-clarks-legendary-estate-now-ready-for-subdivision.php
Is HUD’s Section 8 housing program about to go on steroids? That’s the question a writer for the Baltimore Sun alluded to over the weekend while outlining the Obama administration’s planned attempt to use the Department of Housing and Urban Development to “track diversity in American neighborhoods” and back policies to change any areas that look discriminatory from a data standpoint.
The editorial claims a discrimination database could be implemented allowing officials to “seek changes in (local) zoning ordinances, housing finance, infrastructure policy and transportation in order to remedy the alleged segregation,” the publication said.
It seems interest rate shocks may have finally taken a toll on the U.S. housing recovery. After a busy week on Wall Street, a new government report showed a 12.4% drop in seasonally adjusted new single-family home sales. The decline prompted market analysts to assume potential homebuyers are beginning to feel the pinch of rising interest rates, the Motley Fool noted. Rates have been edging higher ever since the Fed began teasing the markets with the idea that a curtailment of QE3, or massive Treasury and MBS purchases, could come as early as September.
New York City and the entire state of New York may have lost as much as $100 million in damages stemming from mortgage document fraud, the New York Post claims. The paper reported on an unsealed lawsuit filed by a whistleblower over the weekend. The whistleblower claims dozens of banks and servicers violated the False Claims Act when dealing in mortgage-backed securities during the years 2004 and 2007. The suit has already been partly settled, but the Post says attorneys are still trying to figure out which mortgage-backed securities were purchased in New York to continue on with another critical part of the claim.
A group of students who paid thousands of dollars to learn the art of real estate investing from Donald Trump want a refund, Reuters reports. And it seems New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is happy to oblige. The AG filed suit against Trump this past week, claiming Trump University, otherwise referred to as the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative, swindled students out of $40 million by offering courses in real estate investment that were costly and fell short of providing the type of education needed to enter the market as an effective investor.
The housing market has another week of key reports ahead of it, with the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index scheduled for release Tuesday, followed by the Pending Home Sales Index on Wednesday. Visit HW’s US Economic Calendar to track these reports and more.
Financial regulators in Arizona and the FDIC shut down Sunrise Bank of Arizona on Friday, Aug. 23, with all deposits transferred to First Fidelity Bank National Association. The former Sunrise branches will reopen as part of First Fidelity Bank.
The FDIC also announced the closing of Community South Bank in Parsons, Tenn., moving all brokered and account deposits to CB&S Bank Inc. in Russellville, Ala.
read more…
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/26414-rising-rates-take-toll-on-us-housing-recovery
For the past six years, mortgage delinquencies, often a result of homeowners losing their jobs, created employment among mortgage servicers who process delinquencies and defaults. Now the shoe is on the other foot as declining numbers of delinquencies are costing lenders jobs.
Declining delinquency drove mortgage servicers to reduce headcount in the second quarter. The biggest casualties were suffered by the nation’s largest servicers, while up-and-coming servicers added to their payrolls. Preliminary data for the current and upcoming quarters indicate the pain will deepen
There were 2,981 more mortgage layoffs than hirings during the three months ended June 30, according to the Second Quarter 2013 Mortgage Employment Index from Mortgage Daily.
The index reflects mortgage-related hirings and layoffs tracked by Mortgage Daily and is based on public company reports, state government employment data and quarterly surveys conducted by Mortgage Daily.
The second quarter net job loss in real estate finance contrasted the first quarter, when the industry had net gain of 5,129 jobs — the biggest expansion in nearly four years.
In the second quarter, mortgage lenders reported 9,950 layoffs — the highest level of layoffs since the first-quarter 2009, when mortgage firms laid off 10,953 employees. In the second quarter of last year, industry-wide staffing grew by 1,335 positions.
The Mortgage Bankers Association recently report that the percentage of home loans that were more than 90 days behind or in the foreclosure process fell to 5.88 percent in the second quarter from 7.31 percent a year earlier. That was the lowest since the third quarter of 2008, when it was 5.17 percent.
More second-quarter job losses were experienced by Bank of America Corp. than any other company: 5,000. BofA, the nation’s third-biggest servicer in the second quarter, has aggressively been unloading mortgage servicing rights. Staffing was also down at down JPMorgan Chase & Co., the second-largest servicer, where 1,826 jobs were cut.
However, Nationstar Mortgage Holdings Inc. expanded headcount by 2,300 employees during the second quarter, more than any other mortgage-related firm. Walter Investment Management Corp. grew its staffing by 1,400. A third mortgage company that has also been rapidly expanding its servicing portfolio, Ocwen Financial Corp., relies primarily on offshore employees and has had little impact on U.S. job growth.
read more…
http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/08/fewer-delinquencies-cost-lenders-jobs/
More than two years after a foreclosure notice was filed against the home of notorious former footballer O.J. Simpson, a Miami-Dade judge has ordered the Kendall, Fla., property seized by the bank.
Simpson bought the home in 2000 for $575,000, and was imprisoned for kidnapping and robbery in 2008. He stopped paying the mortgage in 2010 and now owes the bank nearly $900,000. The bank plans to sell the home at auction on Oct. 29.
Source: The Real Deal via Gossip Extra
read more…
http://www.inman.com/wire/bank-to-sell-o-j-simpson-home-in-foreclosure-auction/#sthash.F78K3LmA.dpuf
A rare house by “postfunctionalist” architect Peter Eisenman in the hills of Connecticut has been quietly listed for $1.4M. Despite the name, House VI, this was actually just the second structure built by Eisenman, who, at the time of the 1972 design, had spent much of his career on theory. Perhaps as a result, the construction of the compact house took three years and ran well over budget. In 1987, persistent issues with the structure meant it had to be thoroughly renovated, but the original clients remain satisfied with the result, so much so that they wrote a book in defense of Eisenman’s work. Set on six acres, the controversial house has been listed alongside a repurposed 1880s schoolhouse, now used as a guest cottage, and a lean-to barn
Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.
LinkedIn Introduces New Look for Groups: LinkedIn brings “a new streamlined look that will give group managers and group members the ability to customize and visually differentiate their conversation space.”
This new look is rolling out to English-speaking members.
Facebook Updates Mobile Login: “With this new update, mobile apps using Facebook Login must now separately ask you for permission to post back to Facebook.”
Facebook “has been working directly with popular mobile apps to help them create great Facebook Login experiences.”
Twitter Announces Related Headlines: “You will see a new ‘Related headlines’ section on tweets that have been embedded on websites. This section, which you can view from the tweet’s permalink page, lists and links to websites where the tweet was embedded, making it easier to discover stories that provide more context.”
read more…
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/linkedin-groups-get-makeover/
Purchases of new U.S. homes plunged 13.4 percent in July, the most in more than three years, raising concern higher mortgage rates will slow the real-estate rebound.
Sales fell to a 394,000 annualized pace, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. The reading was the weakest since October and was lower than any of the forecasts by 74 economists Bloomberg surveyed.
A jump in borrowing costs over the past three months may be prompting buyers to hold back, showing the difficult job ahead for Federal Reserve officials as they try to wean the economy from monetary stimulus while sustaining growth. The falloff in demand is in contrast to a surge in confidence among builders such as Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL), which suggests they remain optimistic about the long-term outlook as employment improves.
“It’s definitely a rate shock,” said Doug Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae in Washington. “You could see another month or two of weak sales or it could go longer. This is a sustainable recovery, but we’ve also said it’s not robust. Along the way, there will be some hiccups. This is certainly a hiccup.”
Stocks rose, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index’s posting its first two-day gain in three weeks, as investors weighed the housing data against signals from Fed policy makers on stimulus cuts. The S&P 500 climbed 0.4 percent to 1,663.5 at the close inNew York.
The median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a decrease to 487,000. Forecasts ranged from 445,000 to 525,000. The Commerce Department also marked down readings for each of the previous three months with June’s sales pace revised down to 455,000 from a previously reported 497,000 pace.
The difference between July’s outcome and the average estimate of economists surveyed was 7 times larger the poll’s standard deviation, or the average divergence between what each economist forecast and the mean. That was the biggest surprise since April 2010. The S&P Supercomposite Homebuilding Index, which includes companies such as Lennar Corp. (LEN) and KB Home (KBH), fell 1.5 percent in the first 30 minutes after the figures were released. It was down 3.1 percent at 1:12 p.m. in New York.
New-home purchases were 6.8 percent higher in July than the same period in 2012 on an adjusted basis, today’s report showed. The median price increased 8.3 percent last month from a year ago to $257,200.
That’s one reason builders are becoming more upbeat, with the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo confidence index rising this month to the highest level since November 2005.
read more…
Are you thinking about adding videos to your social media mix?
Do you want to boost your awareness and increase engagement?
Social media networks provide a lot of video options.
From Google+ Hangouts to Twitter’s Vine and Facebook’s launch of Instagram Video, video is fast becoming an essential part of any business’s online marketing strategy.
In this post, I’m going to show you how to incorporate video from 5 platforms into your social media strategy.
For those who aren’t into complex video production, Vine lets you create simple, six-second looping videos to share on Twitter and Facebook.
Showing off products at Walgreens in a Vine video.
Some brands on Vine include Xbox, HTC, Puma, Urban Outfitters and Walgreens.
Here are some ways businesses can use Vine to support strategic goals.
Tease or Demo a Product
In six seconds, you can show off the best features of your business’s products or tease a new product launch.
The Glitch Mob used Vine to tease the preview of their new album.
Preview an Event
Got an upcoming webinar or conference? Give people a quick snippet of what they can expect with a Vine video. Take them behind the scenes of the preparation and make video a part of your event marketing strategy.
Showcase Your Portfolio
Share a six-second video sweep of your latest interior design creations. It’s more powerful than a flat photo because potential customers experience your work in context.
Pulp Design Studio used Vine to showcase their new spring line of silk florals.
Take Fans Inside
Take your fans inside your office, your store, your restaurant or any other place they usually can’t go to help them get to know your business on a more personal level. Show employees at work, hanging out and having fun. Show that the people inside your company are passionate about what they do and customers will be more confident in your service.
