Tag Archives: Mt Kisco NY Real Estate

Residential home sales continue to climb: RealtyTrac | Mt Kisco Homes

Properties and residential homes for sale, including single-family homes, condominiums and townhomes, continue to rise, increasing to an estimated annualized pace of 5.649 million in October, a 2% hike from a month ago and an increase of 13% from October 2012, the latest RealtyTrac Residential and Foreclosure Sales Report revealed.

But despite the national trend, three top indicator states still posted decreases for the third consecutive month: California, Arizona and Nevada, which are down 15%, 13% and 5%, respectively, from a year ago.

Meanwhile, the national median sales price of all residential properties—including both distressed and non-distressed—sat at $170,000, unchanged from September, but 6% higher than October 2012. This is also the 18th consecutive month median home sales have increased on an annualized basis.

The median price of a distressed residential property, in foreclosure or bank owned, hit $110,000 in October, 41% lower than the median price of $185,000 for a non-distressed property.

“After a surge in short sales in late 2011 and early 2012, the favored disposition method for distressed properties is shifting back toward the more traditional foreclosure auction sales and bank-owned sales,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac.

“The combination of rapidly rising home prices — along with strong demand from institutional investors and other cash buyers able to buy at the public foreclosure auction or an as-is REO home — means short sales are becoming less favorable for lenders,” Blomquist added.

As a result, short sales made up 5.3% of all sales, a 6.3% drop from the previous month and down from 11.2% in October 2012.

Nevada, Florida, Maryland, Michigan and Illinois ranked as the states with the highest percentage of short sales last month.

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/28121

Good news for California homeowners facing short sales | Mount Kisco Real Estate

Under regular tax rules, when a lender forgives a debt — that is, relieves the borrower from having to pay it back — the amount of the debt is taxable income to the borrower.

A homeowner who has $100,000 in mortgage debt forgiven through a short sale, for example, would have to pay income tax on the $100,000.

This “cancellation of indebtedness” rule could have caused enormous financial hardship to the millions of homeowners whose homes were “underwater” during the home foreclosure crisis that began in 2007. To prevent this, Congress enacted the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007.

This law allowed homeowners to exclude from their taxable income up to $2 million of debt forgiven on their principal residence by a lender in a short sale, mortgage restructuring, or forgiven in a foreclosure. This law was never intended to be permanent. It was originally scheduled to expire at the end of 2009.

However, it was extended for an additional four years. It will now expire at the end of 2013. The law could be extended again, but there appears to be little urgency in Congress to do so. That means starting on Jan. 1, 2014, there is a good chance that the old rules on forgiveness of home loan debt will come back into force.

 

 

See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/11/25/good-news-for-california-homeowners-facing-short-sales/#sthash.WbCTNyDm.dpuf

New York could authorize seven Las Vegas-style casinos | Mt Kisco Real Estate

Voters are holding the cards as to whether New York will authorize seven Las Vegas-style casinos following months of debate over the benefits of expanded gambling and the rewording of Tuesday’s ballot question. Although there are many online casinos operating in the states as of now which allow people to play games like Slots LV free spins, a physical establishment of a casino would most certainly increase the economy on a financial level drastically.

One casino would be in the Southern Tier near Binghamton, two in the Catskills and Mid-Hudson Valley region, and another in the Saratoga Springs-Albany area. A New York City casino would be built in seven years, although some casino operators say the law could allow for a New York City casino sooner. People can also play online casino games at legal platform like https://clubvip777.com/web/dafabet/.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo didn’t allow specific sites to be chosen, saying that will be up to the casino developers. His budget office says the state will take in $430 million in new casino revenue, with $238 million for education in a repeat of the strategy that approved lottery games. If you like those kind of games you should check out these betting deals and find out more about this cool betting world. The rest would go to communities near casinos to compensate for public safety and social costs and for tax reduction.  These developments have the potential to allow people to invest in the crypto currency space without owning CC’s outright, or using the services of a CC exchange. Bitcoin futures could make the digital asset more useful by allowing users and intermediaries to hedge their foreign-exchange risks. That could increase the cryptocurrency’s adoption by merchants who want to accept bitcoin payments but are wary of its volatile value. Institutional investors are also used to trading regulated futures, which aren’t plagued by money-laundering worries. You can find more info here about the leading digital currencies news which is used in casino.

Boosters held news conferences statewide touting bipartisan support by local government officials.

“When you’re at 18% unemployment, you’ve lost your industry, the housing market has really taken a hit around here, the potential of 1,500 jobs — it can be a game changer,” Town of Wawarsing Supervisor Scott Carlsen told The Associated Press in an interview.

The latest Siena College-New York Times poll appears to show the efforts have paid off. After New Yorkers have spent years split over the notion of expanding casino gambling, the poll released a week ago found 60% of New York City voters — who are expected to dominate Tuesday’s turnout — support the question. However, in that poll they were still split over whether voters wanted a casino in New York City, which would be authorized in Tuesday’s referendum.

Critics including good-government groups, the state Conservative Party and the state’s Catholic bishops argue that Cuomo’s estimates of benefits are inflated and that the social cost to families and communities will be profound. They also criticized what they called the referendum’s unusually rosy, one-side view of casinos, since Casinos are really popular now a days, there are even some options online for this, and there are also other resources online where you can learn how to play craps and gamble in different sites on the web.

Opponents have little money to combat the multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns of a powerful mix of business, gambling and union interests. And Cuomo had sidelined much of the expected opposition.

He assured Native American tribes that they wouldn’t face competition to their five casinos now operating under federal law. Cuomo also assured no competition to horse racing centers with video slot machines and gave them a chance to pursue casinos. The Board of Elections also moved the casino referendum to the advantageous top ballot position.

If voters reject casino gambling, the law will automatically approve more video slot machine centers. As recent studies have shown, internet gambling is growing across the globe, specially when it comes down to sports betting, people love to bet on websites similar to FanDuel. Players from New York, just like those from the Philippines, Qatar or Kuwait join online casinos and play their favorite games. The state is losing $1 billion a year spent at these offshore because of these unfriendly laws.

Supporters say casinos will recapture more than $1 billion a year now spent at casinos out of state.

“Proposal No. 1 would start to bring that money back to New York and create over 10,000 good-paying new jobs in New York state,” states one of the statewide TV ads paid for by the NY Jobs Now Committee and featuring a hard-hatted everyman.

The key may be in the referendum’s wording.

The Cuomo administration rewrote the referendum from the straightforward form submitted by the attorney general’s office. The Board of Elections added disputed promises that casinos would bring more school aid, jobs and tax breaks, without mentioning the opponents’ concerns about crime, addiction or the declining casino market that has forced some states to subsidize casinos.

An October Siena College poll tested the impact of the rewording. Voters statewide were split on casino gambling in general. But when shown the promises in the rewording, approval reached 55% for the first time.

State Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long called the casino effort “the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the taxpayers of the state of New York,” while The New York Times called the rewording “advocacy, pure and simple.”

The critical wording was unsuccessfully challenged in court by Brooklyn lawyer Eric Snyder. The state Board of Elections won on a technicality that Snyder didn’t file his lawsuit by the Aug. 19 deadline, although the state didn’t post the rosy wording until Aug. 21. Powerful Republican Sen. John DeFrancisco is pushing a bill to prohibit rewording.

“I hope the voters send the Board of Elections the message that it’s wrong to stack the deck,” Snyder said

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20131104/POLITICS/131109963

Record $1.6 Billion Loan Approved To Build New Tappan Zee Bridge | Mt Kisco NY Homes

The Department of Transportation has approved a record loan of up to $1.6 billion for construction of a new Tappan Zee Bridge, Congresswoman Nita Lowey announced in a press release today.

The largest-ever loan is part of the DOT’s Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program.

“This is a huge milestone for the construction of a New Tappan Zee Bridge, a critical link in our region’s infrastructure system and lifeline for commuters and businesses,” Lowey said in the release. “I am excited that the DOT has approved the largest ever TIFIA loan for a transportation project and that the work on a new bridge can continue to move forward.

“The construction will continue to create jobs and help New York’s economy grow. I was very pleased to work closely with Gov. Cuomo and our federal delegation throughout this long process to bring a new Tappan Zee Bridge to the Lower Hudson Valley.”

 

 

 

http://mtkisco.dailyvoice.com/news/record-16-billion-loan-approved-build-new-tappan-zee-bridge

New York Third Safest In Country For Traffic Fatalities | Mt Kisco Real Estate

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, N.Y.– New York State is the third safest area in the country when it comes to traffic fatalities, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

New York had 6.19 traffic-realted deaths per 100,000 people according to the NHTSA data. The only two areas with lower totals were Massachusetts with 4.79 traffic deaths per thousand and Washington, D.C. with just 3.97 traffic deaths per thousand.

The three most dangerous states to drive in were Arkansas, Mississippi and Wyoming.

 

 

http://mtkisco.dailyvoice.com/news/new-york-third-safest-country-traffic-fatalities

U.S. Housing Starts Unexpectedly Tumble 9.9% In June | Mt Kisco Real Estate

U.S. Housing Starts Unexpectedly Tumble 9.9% In June

Housing starts in the U.S. unexpectedly showed a notable decrease in the month of June, according to a report released by the Commerce Department on Wednesday.

The report showed that housing starts tumbled 9.9 percent to an annual rate of 836,000 in June from the revised May estimate of 928,000.

The steep drop came as a surprise to economists, who had expected housing starts to climb to an annual rate of 951,000 from the 914,000 originally reported for the previous month.

While the report may raise some concerns about the outlook for the housing market, Teunis Brosens, Senior Economist at ING Bank, said the data is not as bad as it looks.

Brosens noted that most of the weakness was in the always volatile multi-family housing starts, which plunged 26.2 percent to an annual rate of 245,000 in June from 332,000 in May.

Single-family housing starts showed a much more modest decrease, dipping by 0.8 percent to an annual rate of 591,000 in June from the revised May figure of 596,000.

“While single-family starts are somewhat lower than earlier this year, they are up 11.7% from a year ago, indicating that the trend is still positive,” Brosens said.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department also said building permits fell 7.5 percent to an annual rate of 911,000 in June from the revised May rate of 985,000.

Building permits, an indicator of future housing demand, had been expected to rise to an annual rate of 990,000 from the 974,000 originally reported for May.

 

 

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http://www.rttnews.com/2152679/U-S-Housing-Starts-Unexpectedly-Tumble-9-9-In-June.aspx?google_editors_picks=true

 

Existing home sales dip 0.6% in March | Mt Kisco Real Estate

A low supply of homes for sale took a bite out of existing home sales in March while prices continued to climb, the National Association of Realtors says.

Total existing home sales declined 0.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.92 million in March from a downwardly revised 4.95 million in February, the Realtors reported Monday.

Wall Street had been expecting sales to rise in the month, and the miss is a sign that it’s been “overestimating the strength on the housing market recovery,” says Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist for Mizuho Securities.

Sales were still 10.3% above last year’s pace in March.

Despite the month over month drop in sales, there were more signs of a market recovery, says Jed Kolko, chief economist of real estate website Trulia.

For the second month in a row, inventory was up slightly. Also, the March drop in sales came from a shift of distressed home sales to more conventional sales. They were up 23% year-over-year. Increased sales of properties that aren’t either foreclosures or short sales is a sign of a market in recovery, Kolko says.

Inventory, though expanding, is still tight, says Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist. As a result, homes are selling fast and multiple bidding is more common. In March, the typical home sold was on the market for one month less than a year ago.