Daily Archives: May 7, 2013

THE MOST POWERFUL FACEBOOK SMART LIST | Cross River Realtor

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One of the most underutilized features in Facebook is the ability to create lists.  Lists can be an effective way to funnel the noise that seems to present itself every time you log into Facebook.  Let’s face it, we have all made regretful “friend” decisions on FB and for some reason those are the people that tend to dominate our newsfeed.

Lists can help us to listen and communicate with the people that matter to us most.  If you aren’t usingFacebook lists at all, then you might want to start here.facebook geographic smart list

However, one list in particular stands apart from the rest.  The geographic smart list can be an extremely powerful tool for engaging local connections with relevant targeted data about real estate, without spamming and perhaps alienating your other Facebook friends.

Watch the video below for some tips on how to use it.

 

http://techsavvyagent.com/text

Home construction continues to add jobs | Waccabuc Real Estate

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Builders continued to hire more workers in April, though employment among an age cohort important to household formation slipped, according to today’s jobs report, which showed more overall growth than expected.

Residential construction jobs are up 4.1 percent year over year, towering about the overall jobs growth rate of 1.6 percent, said Trulia Chief Economist Jed Kolko, citing data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics today.

Total residential-construction jobs moved up from a seasonally adjusted 580,200 in March to 586,400 in April, according to the report. In April of last year, the sector supported 572,000 jobs, the report showed.

But that jobs growth lags compared to actual construction growth. Kolko chalks up the discrepancy to the fact that the number of jobs for every construction project is more than normal.

At the same time, today’s report also showed that employment among a cohort that is crucial to household formation, 25 to 34-year-olds, has slipped recently, dropping from 75.6 percent in December 2012 to 75.2 percent in April, Kolko said.

But Fannie Mae Chief Economist Doug Duncan said that the report was positive overall and “better-than-expected.”

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/05/03/home-construction-continues-to-add-jobs/#sthash.c6qctOjM.dpuf

Property taxes are only part of the picture | South Salem Real Estate

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Cul-de-sac image via Shutterstock.Cul-de-sac image via Shutterstock.

Do you think your state’s property tax burden is too high?

Before you start complaining how high property taxes are in your state, take a look at the charts below to see not only property taxes are in your state, but total taxes.

Your property taxes may be high for a reason — for example, if, like Florida, your state has no income tax.

First, see how property taxes in your state compare with those in the other 49 states. The following chart shows the amount of local and state property taxes collected per capita in each state in 2009.

Property tax collections by state

StateProperty tax collections, per capitaRank
Alabama$50350
Alaska$1,72810
Arizona$1,11932
Arkansas$54949
California$1,46515
Colorado$1,27724
Connecticut$2,4732
Delaware$71243
Florida$1,58913
Georgia$1,09234
Hawaii$98335
Idaho$81340
Illinois$1,7829
Indiana$1,12431
Iowa$1,30522
Kansas$1,35319
Kentucky$66346
Louisiana$70245
Maine$1,64011
Maryland$1,20527
Massachusetts$1,8748
Michigan$1,45216
Minnesota$1,34620
Mississippi$79341
Missouri$92937
Montana$1,30123
Nebraska$1,43717
Nevada$1,31821
New Hampshire$2,2403
New Jersey$2,6631
New Mexico$60647
New York$2,1365
North Carolina$86738
North Dakota$1,16529
Ohio$1,13530
Oklahoma$59748
Oregon$1,17228
Pennsylvania$1,22725
Rhode Island$2,0187
South Carolina$97036
South Dakota$1,11133
Tennessee$74842
Texas$1,47514
Utah$86339
Vermont$2,0566
Virginia$1,43118
Washington$1,22626
West Virginia$70944
Wisconsin$1,63312
Wyoming$2,2854

Source: taxfoundation.org.

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/05/03/property-taxes-are-only-part-of-the-picture/#sthash.rztFC7l4.dpuf

NY losing all its old churches | Katonah NY Real Estate

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Neighbors and parishioners of an East Village church are steaming mad over a developer’s plans to demolish the 96-year-old building for market-rate apartments — and it’s just one of many historic holy houses in need of divine intervention.

Douglas Steiner, head of the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s Steiner Studios, bought Mary Help of Christians on East 12th Street for $41 million in November. Now he has permits to raze the sacred site, which includes a rectory, school and parking lot, for residential property with ground-floor retail.

But preservationists say the Roman Catholic church can be saved.

Mary Help of Christians, built in 1917 in the East Village, will be razed for residential.

Helayne Seidman
Mary Help of Christians, built in 1917 in the East Village, will be razed for residential.
The Church of the Redeemer, built in 1866 in Boerum Hill, may face the wrecking ball.

J.C. Rice
The Church of the Redeemer, built in 1866 in Boerum Hill, may face the wrecking ball.

“This is heartbreaking,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. “We hope [Steiner] can see the light and realize it’s advantageous to use something that’s special rather than demolishing it for something that’s a dime a dozen.”

The church closed in September as part of the Archdiocese’s plan to shut down 21 parishes due to declining attendance.

Nicholas Serracino, the Archdiocese’s chief architect at the time, styled the Italian Renaissance Revival church after Italy’s Basilica of Mary Help of Christians.

Also likely condemned to the wrecking ball is the 140-year-old St. Vincent de Paul on West 23rd Street in Chelsea.

The church’s former pastor, the Rev. Gerald Murray, told The Post the Archdiocese plans to sell the building, which was given a Classical Revival limestone façade in 1939.

In Soho, the century-old Our Lady of Vilnius is on the market for $13 million — more than a year after parishioners lost a lawsuit against the Archdiocese to stop the Romanesque Revival church’s demolition.

Boerum Hill locals have so far delayed the demise of Church of the Redeemer, which was rumored to be knocked down for a new residential building and church hybrid.

The 150-year-old Gothic Revival building closed last summer because it is structurally unsound. A spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, which owns the property, says church officials are still weighing their options for the site.

Meanwhile, Harlem residents are bristling at the partial demolition of St. Thomas the Apostle, a 106-year-old Roman Catholic parish on West 118th Street. The Gothic Revival church was first established for Irish immigrants.

Still, miracles do happen. St. Brigid’s Church in the East Village was spared the wrecking ball in 2008 after an anonymous $20 million donation. It reopened in January

 

 

 

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local

Positive Equity is Driving Down Defaults | Bedford Hills Real Estate

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Homeowners with positive equity in their homes have fewer problem loans and are outperforming the national average for defaults. Their default rates are close to pre-crisis norms.

The latest data from Lender Processing Servicers shows that the overall equity trend has been a very positive one. “LPS’ latest data shows that the share of loans with LTVs greater than 100 percent has fallen 41 percent from a year ago. In total, there were approximately 9 million such loans, or about 18 percent of active mortgages. Some states, including the so-called ’sand states’ (Arizona, Florida, Nevada and California), are still well above the national level, at an average 28 percent, but they, too, have seen improvement over the last year, with negative equity dropping over 40 percent across those four states since January 2012, said LPS Applied Analytics Senior Vice President Herb Blecher.

However, March data also showed that the further underwater a borrower gets, the higher those problem rates rise. Borrowers with loan-to-value (LTV) ratios of just 100-110 percent are actually defaulting at more than twice the national average. For those 50 percent or more underwater, we see new problem rates of 4 percent.

“There has always been a clear correlation between higher levels of negative equity and new problem loan rates,” Blecher said.

LPS reported foreclosure starts were down 8.2 percent month over month, while foreclosure sales rose 10.1 percent. LPS looked more specifically at that situation in California, where the recent passage of the Homeowner Bill of Rights (HBoR) appears to have slowed down the foreclosure sale process considerably. In Q1 2013, foreclosure sales nationally (excluding California) increased 13 percent from Q4 2012, whereas in California they fell 35 percent during that same period.

However, the HBoR does not seem to have had a similar effect on the state’s foreclosure starts which, while down significantly from 2012 levels, are in line with the rest of the nation’s decline in referral activity following the attorneys general mortgage settlement and FHA modification initiatives.

 

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/05