Daily Archives: September 17, 2013

North Stamford Home Rocked By Fiery Explosion | Pound Ridge Homes

An explosion ripped through a home in Stamford on Tuesday afternoon, causing heavy damage to the structure and spreading fire to neighboring buildings, according to Stamford Fire and Rescue.

Very little of the structure at 305 Webbs Hill Road in Stamford appeared to remain in a photograph taken by an eyewitness.

The cause was unknown as of Tuesday afternoon. No injuries had been reported as of yet.

UPDATE 4 p.m.: Yankee Gas spokesman Mitch Gross said that there is no natural gas service to that part of Stamford.

“Yankee Gas was requested to come to the scene by the Stamford Fire Department,” he said. “This is standard procedure.”

The Daily Voice will have more information as it becomes available.

 

 

 

http://newcanaan.dailyvoice.com/police-fire/

Three Cents Worth: Manhattan’s Middle Market Shows Life | Cross River Real Estate

This week I thought I’d take a look at the breakdown of sales by price in the most recently completed quarter.  Last year I was using a donut analogy to describe the Manhattan apartment market—weak in middle and strong on the outside (bottom/top). I wanted to illustrate how the mix in 2013 could be showing signs of change rather than continuing to see a disproportionate amount of activity on the margins. For reference I provided an inset in the form of a pie (sorry) chart to show a simple breakdown of the market in the second quarter of 2013.  The column chart was a bit more involved.  It represents the difference between 2Q 2013 and 2Q 2012 as measured by percentage to illustrate any market shifts that may be occurring. For example, the market share of the $1K-$500K was 21.3 percent (in pie chart), 4.1 percent less (in column chart) than 25.4 percent in the year ago quarter.

· Sub $500k market lost share (4.1 percent) likely due to lack of supply and tight credit.  Too soon in the data to see rise in mortgage rates but expect more weakness. · $501k to $4M or middle, upper middle of market showed slight gains from a year ago—something we haven’t seen in quite a while.  This is nearly 3/4 of the entire market so “middle” is quite a broad description. · $4M+ showed mixed results but generally unchanged.

With rising mortgage rates and little gain in supply across much of the market, I suspect we will continue to see an erosion in market share at the entry level sales as more first time buyers get shut out.  I’d like to think the middle of the market would continue to improve in share—a market starting to see more trade-ups and lateral movement but perhaps not at the pace we’ve seen year to date.  The overhyped high end will probably muddle along in balance with no real change in supply.

 

 

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2013/08/20/

 

 

 

52nd Armonk Art Show To Include 50 New Artists | Armonk Real Estate

The  Armonk Art Show, consistently ranked among the top “fine art and design shows” in the New York area by Sunshine Artist Magazine, returns for its 52nd season on Sept. 28-29.

The show, which benefits the North Castle Public Library, runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., at Community Park, 205 Business Park Drive.

More than 185 juried artists will be featured in the show, including 50 new artists. They will display a broad spectrum of media, including oils/acrylics, water colors, mixed media, printmaking/drawing/pastels, sculpture, photography/digital art, wearable art and fine crafts.

There is free parking, and a food court. The library will show a free-art-themed film on Sept. 27, and the Fishtank Ensemble will perform on Sept. 28, at Whippoorwill Hall.

A road race, Jamie’s 5k Race for the Library, will also be run in conjunction with the show. It begins at 9:45 a.m. on Sept. 22.

For complete information, or to register for the 5k race/walk, visit the event’s website.

 

 

http://armonk.dailyvoice.com/events/52nd-armonk-art-show-include-50-new-artists

Jersey Leads in Mortgage Fraud Factors | Waccabuc Real Estate

New Jersey was the only state to make it on all three top 10 lists for mortgage fraud and misrepresentation reported to MIDEX, potential collusion and property defaults, according to the LexisNexis® Risk Solutions 15th Annual Mortgage Fraud Report.

Five states appear on both the Investigation and Origination Mortgage Fraud Indices (MFIs) and the newly-established list of Property Default Rankings: Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Nevada and Ohio.1

Ohio, which ranked first on the Origination MFI list, with a ranking of 224, had more than two times the expected rate of fraud or misrepresentation based on origination volume.

“This year’s study suggests that the more shared problematic economic indicators a state has, the greater its financial challenges will be in the coming years,” said Tom Brown, Senior Vice President, Financial Services, LexisNexis. “With Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) mortgage regulations going into effect in January 2014, and demanding new rules for quality loans, it will be interesting to see what impact this has on overall mortgage defaults.”

Five states – Arizona, California, Florida, New Jersey and New York – occupy space on both the Investigation and Origination MFIs.

Eight states – Alabama, Delaware, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, New York and Vermont – rank highly on both Collusion Indicator Indices (CIIs) as areas with high percentages of potential non-arm’s length transaction activity.

Analysis of all loans investigated in 2012 and submitted to MIDEX shows a five-year high of 69 percent of all reports received having some type of application misrepresentation or fraud. Similarly, when focusing on just those loans originated in 2012, 61 percent report application misrepresentation and/or fraud. This is up from 49 percent of loans originated in 2011 and 43 percent in 2010.

For the first time in the study, a nationwide aggregation of available LexisNexis property data was used to determine states most likely suffering from the largest percentage of properties in default. Florida and Nevada experienced the most dramatic decreases in properties in default even though they were ranked first and fourth, respectively, on the list for 2012.

 

 

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/09/

Economists Expect Fed to Cut Asset Purchases Next Year | North Salem Real Estate

Businesses economists surveyed by the National Association of Business Economists believe there is an 80 percent probability the Federal Reserve will reduce its purchase of assets next year and 45 percent believe both purchases of Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities will be reduced this year.  The Fed’s asset purchase program has been keeping mortgage rates are record lows in recent years.

In light of their expectations the purchasing program will decline next year, which is likely to raise mortgage rates substantially, the economists’ expectations for slower home price growth in 2014 relative to 2013.

Home prices are likely to grow 6% in 2013, which is an upward revision from the last NABE survey in May, when panelists suggested a 4.4% increase. Moreover, panelists suggest that home prices will grow at 4.8% in 2014, which is an increase from their 4% estimate for 2014.

They estimate that real residential investment will grow 13.8% in 2013, which is an increase from the 12.1% increase in residential investment in 2012, and that it will grow 14% in 2014. Moreover, housing starts are estimated to grow at 0.95 million units in 2013 and at 1.16 million units in 2014, which is an improvement from 0.78 million housing starts in 2012.

Regarding asset purchases, the economists believe that there is a 45% probability that the Fed will reduce both the monthly purchases of $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities and the monthly purchases of $45 billion in Treasurys and a 19% probability that these monthly purchases of Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities will not be reduced.

They believe that there is a 20% probability that the asset purchases of the $45 billion in Treasurys will be reduced, with no change in the monthly purchases of the mortgage-backed securities; and a 15% probability that the asset purchase of mortgage-backed securities will be reduced, but that the purchases of Treasurys will be unchanged.

 

 

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/09/

Facebook takes on Twitter with new tools to give TV broadcasters access to its user data | Mt Kisco Real Estate

Facebook is rolling out a set of tools designed to help media and news organizations better integrate Facebook conversations into their broadcasts, such as displaying public posts in real-time of relevant topics. Starting today, the social network company is making available its Keyword Insights API and the Public Feed API — both are being made available to a small group of partners initially.

Screen Shot 2013 09 09 at 12.06.05 AM Facebook takes on Twitter with new tools to give TV broadcasters access to its user data

Conversations are certainly happening on Facebook and the company has been paying attention. In data it published today, it was revealed that between 88 and 100 million people in the US were logged into the site during television primetime hours of 8pm and 11pm.

What do these new tools do exactly? Facebook says that with the Keyword Insights API, news organizations can aggregate the total number of posts relating to a specific term within a given time frame. It can also display results based on gender, age, and location — and all done anonymously.

The Public Feed API gives access to a real-time feed of public posts for a specific word. Only those posts made public from Pages and Profiles with the “Follow” option enabled are available with the API.

Facebook is certainly mimicking what Twitter is already doing with news and media organizations. Just watch any show on networks like NBC, CBS, ABC, USA, Comedy Central, and the likes and you’ll see that they’re already integrating social media content, specifically tweets.

With Facebook launching hashtag support to unify topical conversations, along with testing trending topics, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to believe that producers would dive in to integrate discussions that people are saying right into their shows. For some, importing user comments from Facebook might be better than on Twitter — there aren’t any character limitations, opening it up hearing more significant discussions instead of trying to interpret the statement based on 140 characters.

 

 

http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2013/09/09/

Ex-Morgan Stanley CEO’s Penthouse Gets a Big Price Cut | Bedford Hills Real Estate

Former Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack has been hiding out in this 3,650-square-foot duplex penthouse in the Lenori while he waits for the renovations to be finished on his East 70th Street mansion (featuring a 12-car garage), which he purchased for $13.5 million in 2009. But now that it’s time to move out, Mack seems to be having more trouble unloading the Leonori penthouse than he thought he would. After listing it for $22.5 million in February, he’s had to chop the price twice, once down to $19.5 million and now to $16.25 million. Perhaps the decor, which one commenter described as being in the “Early Grandma” style, is turning buyers off, or maybe it’s just the fact that the apartment, which features a large terrace and solarium, was originally asking over $6,000 per square foot (it’s now down to a more reasonable $4,452/square foot). Mack also switched brokerages, from Sotheby’s to Elliman, meaning that we get some new pictures to gawk at, and, if we had to guess, we’d say that the man is running out of patience. Could further pricechops be in the penthouse’s future?

A Rustic Zero Energy Home | Bedford NY Real Estate

On the edge of Eagle Mountain Lake, just northwest of Fort Worth, Texas, sits  green builder Don Ferrier’s latest masterpiece — a zero energy home.  Sandwiched between trees and shrubs, the house is a rustic, two bedroom home  with a deep front porch. The exterior siding and interior beams are made of  reclaimed barn wood, giving the home a classic, aged look. This house, which  Ferrier calls the “zero energy casita,” looks like it has been here for years.  In fact, it’s a brand new, eco-friendly home thanks to the insulation, wind  turbine and many other influential features that leaves him with no energy  bills.

Ferrier is no stranger to green home building. His first green building was  an earth-sheltered home that he built in 1982. By 1985, he was designing green  homes and using structural insulated panels (SIPs), which are energy-efficient  building panels that are made by sandwiching pieces of polystyrene between two  pieces of oriented strand board (OSB).  He still uses these today to make  all of his buildings energy efficient.

“I stumbled into it and I can’t take credit for being a visionary,” he  says.

“Once into building green we were totally on board and passionate. I love it  that we have made such a positive difference in so many folks’ lives.”

In 2004, he founded Ferrier Custom Homes with his daughters and long-time  construction supervisor, Tom Grywatch. Ferrier went on to build the first LEED  platinum home in Texas, won the 2007 Green Building Advocate of the Year award  from the National Association of Home Builders and was named one of the “Godfathers of Green” by the Dallas Builder Association. Ferrier Custom Homes  only builds custom homes and the company is involved in the entire process. “Proper planning and design are essential to high performance building,” Ferrier  says.

When designing the zero energy casita, Ferrier’s No. 1 challenge was the hot  Texas climate. Ferrier designed the casita to be air tight and well-insulated by  using SIPS and low emissivity (low-e) windows. Ferrier also chose a galvanized  metal roof (because its silver color will reflect up to 73 percent of heat from  the sun), and installed a radiant barrier, Tyvek Home Wrap, to keep heat and  water out.

Because the house is tightly sealed and well-insulated, it holds in heat  extremely well. That’s an advantage in the winter, but during the summer it’s a  potential problem. However, the large front porch is designed to delay the sun  from hitting the windows until late in the day. A 50-foot oak tree and 40-foot  shrubs around the house also help block the sun in summer and keep the house  cool. Because of the hot climate, Ferrier also decided to install a high  performance air conditioner. He chose an air conditioner with a 16 seasonal  energy efficiency ratio (SEER), which measures the equipment energy efficiency  during the cooling season. This is higher than both the national requirement of  13, and Energy Star standard 14.

According to Energy Star, the average, non-Energy Star home in North Texas  experiences 13 air changes an hour, and the average Energy Star home has six air  changes an hour. Every time the air conditioner turns on in an hour indicates an  air change. In contrast, the tightly insulated zero energy casita, experiences  only one air change an hour. That improves the efficiency of heating and  cooling, but to be sure the home gets enough fresh air, it also has a fresh air  intake.

Ferrier knows the importance of good air quality, so a HEPA air filtration  system and central dehumidification system were also installed. He was careful  to use products without volatile organic compounds (VOC) and formaldehyde, so  the interior was painted with low- or no-VOC paint.

But to be a zero energy home, it must contain a source of power. Wind energy  was a natural choice for Texas, which has the most wind power potential of any  state, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. To utilize this  energy, a Skysteam wind generator was installed in the backyard of the  casita.

In addition to using recycled construction materials, 80 percent of the  construction waste from the casita was recycled. Tree trimmings were reused as  mulch for flower beds and newly planted trees.

Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/print.aspx?id={C04A19FF-F4F3-45CE-A035-58565FDEFA6A}#ixzz2f9n98hf3

Improved Equity Empowers Trade-up Buyers | Pound Ridge Real Estate

Housing demand by trade-up buyers is rising as the home equity available to these prospective buyers is improving as foreclosures sales decline nationwide and are in high demand in many fast-rising markets

According to FNC’s Foreclosure Market Report, the foreclosure market has rapidly improved in recent months with foreclosure rates approaching pre-crisis levels – an indication of strengthening supply-side conditions. On the demand side, steadily rising home prices and an expectation of continued recovery have stimulated housing turnover by prospective buyers who are in a position to take advantage of low home prices. In the meantime, higher home prices are bringing out trade-up demand from existing homeowners who are experiencing rising home equity, which supports a down payment on their next bigger house.

“We’ve seen hard data from the past 18 months that shows rising home prices and a foreclosure market with diminished impact due to decreasing foreclosure inventories and fewer new foreclosure filings,” said FNC Director of Research Yanling Mayer. “Meanwhile, a very encouraging trend that has been developing is the rising participation of trade-up buyers who are seeing improving home equity position and positive capital appreciation on existing homes.

“An important sign of a healthy and sustainable recovery is increased housing turnover driven by trade-up buying, which is more or less discretionary spending,” Mayer said. “These buyers are typically more responsive to market conditions and financial incentives.”

FNC’s report shows that foreclosure price discounts, which compare a foreclosed home’s estimated market value to the price paid by investors or home buyers, have dropped to a 10-year low at about 8.1% in Q2 2013, down from 12.5% a year ago. At the height of the mortgage crisis in 2008 and 2009, foreclosed homes were typically sold at close to 25% below their estimated market value. In many fast-rising markets, such as Phoenix, Las Vegas, and California, investor activity and low foreclosure inventory drove foreclosure prices up, frequently resulting in a price premium relative to estimated market value.

FNC publishes the mortgage industry’s first market-value based foreclosure price discount to gauge the degree of market distress. For more information about the foreclosure price discount, please refer to FNC’s March 2011 report located here.

According to the FNC report, investing in foreclosed property continues to be profitable with gross capital appreciation – the annualized percentage difference between a foreclosed property’s sales price and subsequent resale price – averaged at 7.8% on sales of homes previously purchased at foreclosure sales. In the meantime, ownership duration on distressed investment is up, along with the average ownership duration of all existing home sales.

More highlights from FNC’s Foreclosure Market Report:

  • Single-family REO and foreclosure sales are 12.2% of total home sales as of July, down from 17.3% a year ago.
  • The median foreclosure price is $98,000 or $67 per square foot, up 6.8% since the housing recovery began 18 months ago. In comparison, the median price on non-foreclosure sales is $205,000 or $118 per square foot, up 21.7% during the same 18-month period.
  • Foreclosure price discounts are typically larger for low-tier properties, averaging 13.7% in Q2 2013. One in four homes continues to be discounted heavily. High-end properties, on the other hand, are typically sold close to their market value.
  • At 86% of total foreclosure sales, low-tier properties continue to account for the bulk of foreclosure sales. Prior to the housing bubble, low-tier homes contributed more than 90% to foreclosure sales.
  • Collateral depreciation on foreclosure sales – the difference between a property’s prior purchase price and foreclosure sale price – continues to decelerate, down to 3.8% in Q2 2013 from 6.4% a year earlier. Among the re-sales of non-distressed homes, for 16 consecutive months the median home is sold at a price above its prior purchase price – enabling potential trade-up buyers to capture a small capital appreciation.

 

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/09/improved-equity-empowers-trade-up-buyers/

13 natural remedies for the ant invasion | Bedford Corners Homes

 

Little tiny ants have been spotted in our new home, and many people are suffering the same fate across the country. As much as I love spring, I don’t like bugs — especially bugs that can infest a house. Last week I asked for some advice in how to deal with ants naturally as I didn’t have time to research it myself since I just moved this weekend. I got such good advice, I had to share it with the readers here at MNN as well.
Some of these measures are deterrents. That is, they deter the ants from coming in your house. This seems to work well for those with a mild problem. Others found that they needed to use a method that kills the whole colony of ants. I’ve compiled the comments and suggestions by category, allowing you to compare the different methods a little more easily.
1. Lemon juice
Teresa: We just spray around the openings with pure lemon juice … and it always works for us … something about the acid messes up their sense of tracking…
2. Cinnamon
Shayla: We use ground cinnamon around where there are coming it. It works really well.
Peggy: We spray cinnamon essential oil all around the doors, windowsills, floors, etc. keeps them from coming in. I put the sugar water and borax OUTSIDE!
Letia: Another vote for ground cinnamon. Easy to clean up afterwards and worked great for us!!!
Jean: Cinnamon and cloves. Makes your house smell nice and the ants just hate it sprinkled right in their path.
Patricia: We also use cinnamon oil. We draw borders around everything with a Q-tip dipped in it. They won’t cross it.
3. Peppermint
Heather: My mother-in-law has success with peppermint essential oil around windows and doors (any entries). Plus her house then smells awesome.
Julie: Dr. Bonner’s liquid soap in the mint aroma. Mix 1 to 1 with water in a spray bottle. Spray on the ant invasion and watch them suffer.
4. Borax, water and sugar
Kristi: We use borax, sugar, water and a touch of peanut butter. It takes a couple of weeks but really works. We used it last year in our old house and are implementing it again this spring in our new house. Pesky ants! Here is the site where I found the recipe:http://naturalantkiller.blogspot.com/
Christy: I second Diana’s comment about borax and sugar. I’ve made a thin paste before with water, sugar and borax, then spread it on little pieces of thin cardboard or stiff cardstock and placed them near where it seems they are coming into the house. They’ll eat it and take it back to their colony (just like the Terro liquid you can buy). The paste will dry up in a couple days, so you’ll have to make more. But I think I only had to do it twice before they were gone.
Chookie: What worked for us was a mixture of borax and sugar in water. Several years ago, we lived in a house where there was an ants nest in the walls. Removing it would have meant virtually demolishing the entire front wall of the house (not practical!), so instead, after a year or two of having flying ants swarm into our bedroom every year we decided to go on an ant killing spree. Conventional ant killers didn’t work. Borax and powdered sugar didn’t work. But adding water to the borax and sugar mix to make a thick sugary borax-y syrup DID work…. the worker ants took it back into the nest and it positioned the queen – result = no more flying ants. OK, so borax does need to be kept away from pets and small children, but it is relatively safe beyond that as it is only toxic if you eat it. my solution was to put it somewhere where the kids and the cats would not reach it but the ants could.
BeverlyC: We live in China and had a HORRIBLE ant problem in our house. Tried cinnamon, black pepper, vinegar, etc. etc. We were concerned about the borax because we have guests in and out regularly and the little children are often, well, naughty and undisciplined. When someone suggested Terro liquid ant bait and we found it was just Borax and sugar, we asked someone to bring us some. We could pick the traps up and put them away when company came and put them back out after they left. They worked wonders!!