Daily Archives: December 10, 2013

Art Dealer’s Mott Schmidt Georgian Manor Asks $9.8M | Chappaqua Real Estate

Leave a reply

13 images

Location: Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. Price: $9,800,000 The Skinny: Built in 1929 for New York banker William S. Lambie, this Georgian manor was designed by architect-to-the-moneyed Mott Schmidt, whose work came into vogue when the tastes of the rich swung from Gilded Age opulence to something (relatively) more restrained. Despite its lack of garish flourishes, with eight bedrooms and 10 bathrooms spread out over 13,242 square feet the property still manages to announce the original owner’s wealth very effectively. Located on a 16-acre wooded lot not far from the Hudson River, it’s adjacent to the Sleepy Hollow Country Club, and actually sits on the road that inspired Washington Irving’s tale of the headless horseman. Schmidt, whose client list reads like a list of Who’s Who in early 20th-century New York, also designed homes in the town and country for the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, and the Astors. This home is currently owned by the art dealer Warren Adelson and asking $9.8M, a slight drop from the original $10.9M it asked was listed earlier this year.

· 842 Sleepy Hollow Road [Zillow] · 842 Sleepy Hollow Road [Coldwell Banker]

South Salem, Mt Kisco Have Lowest Ask Price | #RobReportBlog

Leave a reply
South   Salem, Mt Kisco Have Lowest Ask Price | #RobReportBlog
Katonah$359,000.00
Pound   Ridge$285,000.00
South   Salem$205,000.00
Mt Kisco$225,000.00
Chappaqua$380,000.00
North   Salem$235,000.00
Armonk$499,000.00
Bedford$415,000.00
Bedford   Hills$289,000.00
Bedford   Corners$495,000.00

Bob Vila’s 5 December ‘Must Do’ Projects | Armonk Real Estate

Leave a reply

This month is all about the holidays — from decorating the house inside and out to making sure you have everything you’ll need to keep warm and safe. With so much to accomplish, it’s best to develop a plan and stick to it. Here are my top-five “must-do” projects for December, with a Christmas countdown topping the list.

No. 1: Countdown to Christmas

The holiday clock is ticking and there’s so much to do, right? Pick up a fresh tree (or unpack that artificial one), untangle and test the strings of mini-LED lights that you hastily put away last year, and start looking for places to hide the gifts you’ve already started to purchase at stores and online. No! Stop! With a little smart planning, you can get all of your holiday activities done in record time — and still enjoy the season.

For starters, begin to clear away everyday decor from shelves, mantels and tabletops. If you are going to decorate for the holidays, it will be much easier to work with a blank canvas. Likewise, make sure you have sufficient room for the tree. A tree that looked to be a perfectly appropriate size at the lot may actually appear quite different once it’s made it through the front door into the living room. Consider rearranging the furniture — or even removing some — to give the tree the space it deserves. And, if it’s a fresh-cut tree, be sure to locate it away from heat sources and direct sunlight, and water regularly to prevent it from drying out too quickly.

Next, before the holiday cards begin to arrive, plan a spot to display them, whether on the mantel or in a decorative holder. Check the return addresses on the incoming envelopes against those in your address book to be certain you’re up to date, then recycle the envelopes. Before you start wrapping gifts, create a wrapping station where everything you need is in one place — scissors, wrap, ribbon, tape, tags and a pen. Once the gifts have been wrapped and tagged, be sure to designate an out-of-the-way spot to hide them, like in a guest room, under a bed or at the back of a closet shelf. You’ll probably want to find a different hiding spot from last year, just in case the kids are on to you!

Because food and entertaining are an important part of the holidays, be sure to create some order in the kitchen as well. Clean out the pantry and refrigerator before you start shopping for food and ingredients for your holiday meals and treats. If you bake, make sure countertops and work surfaces are clear and uncluttered. You’ll want to have space not only to roll out the cookie dough, but also to hold the cut-out cookies prior to and after baking. Take inventory of your containers to make sure you have enough on hand for storing cookies as well as keeping leftovers fresh and available.

No. 2: Firewood prep

Nothing celebrates the colder weather like the distinct scent and sound of a crackling log in the fireplace. A steady supply of firewood can help offset your heating costs, and unlike oil and coal, wood is a resource that can be replanted for future fire-burning pleasure. Before you start using your fireplace, make sure that your wood is properly seasoned and the right type for your heating requirements. Hardwoods, like oak and maple, burn slowly and steadily. They must be seasoned for at least a year, or you’ll be making more smoke than heat. Softwoods, like pine and fir, season faster and grow faster. They’re easy to split and easy to start but watch out for sparking and creosote buildup in your chimney. Because most firewood is seasoned outdoors, it will contain insects, so you don’t want to store more than a day’s worth inside your home at a time. You also don’t want to stack great piles of it against the outside of your house. To store a year’s supply, you’ll need a woodshed or some other covered storage area set away from buildings.

No. 3: DIY decorations

While there is an infinite supply of ready-made holiday decorations to purchase, there’s something about the season that heightens the appeal of handmade decor. A wreath form purchased at a craft or hobby shop can be transformed easily into a festive wreath to hang above a mantel or on the front door. Pinecones and evergreen branches can be woven into garlands to decorate the house inside and out. And if you are looking for a way to personalize your tree, there are an endless number of creative ornaments you can make. Here are 58 outstanding DIY ornaments to get you inspired. Make one for yourself — or as a gift to give.

 

 

 

http://www.zillow.com/blog/2013-12-09/bob-vilas-december-projects/

How to Create a Social Media Strategy By Spying Your Competitors | South Salem NY Realtor

Leave a reply

Are you struggling to create a social media strategy for your business?

Lacking insight into the social behaviors of your customers?

No data, no problem!

Chances are your competitors have done all the hard work and all you need to do is look for it.

In this post, I’ll show you how to research the competition’s social game plan so you can build a solid social media strategy of your own.

Finding the Fundamentals

When it comes to social media marketing, you need to answer a few fundamental questions:

  • Should your business be on social media?
  • What networks should you choose?
  • How do you create a great profile?
  • What type of content should you post, and when should you post it?

Everyone must answer these questions, including business owners who want to create a strategy for their own business, marketing managers who need to convince their CEO to invest in social media and consultants who create strategies for clients in a wide variety of industries.

Fortunately, you can find answers through the process of competitor research.

Keep reading to discover how to get insight on your competitors.

#1: Comparing Audience Size

While you shouldn’t obsess about how many fans or followers your competitors have, noting these numbers at the beginning of your campaign can help you answer the following important questions.

how many fans do your competitors have

Noting the number of fans your competitors have can help you answer a few important questions relevant to your own business. Image source: iStockPhoto

 

1. Should your business be on social media?

If your competitors have an audience on social media, whether it is 100 people or 100,000, the answer should be yes. Otherwise, your competitors are tapping into a customer base that your business could be completely missing out on.

2. Which networks should your business focus on?

Do all of your competitors have strong presences on some networks, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, but not others, such as Pinterest? If the answer is yes, then it means two things: 1) businesses in your industry do not do well on Pinterest or 2) with creativity, you have a chance to reach a group of customers with little competition.

3. Have you reached all of your target audience?

Competitor research isn’t just limited to businesses starting their social media strategy. If you have been using social media for a while, but not getting results, take a look at the size of your competitors’ social media audiences to help you gauge whether you are reaching as many of your potential customers as possible, or whether you still have room to grow your network.

 

 

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-strategy-competitor-research/

 

How to Package your Knowledge to Sell on Your Blog | North Salem Realtor

Leave a reply

How to Package your Knowledge to Sell on Your Blog

Do you have decades of experience and expertise that is worth something to a  knowledge hungry world? Is it locked up in your grey matter? Not structured or  packaged?

Today most of us are knowledge workers. It might be in finance, marketing,  technology or public relations. Have industry knowledge that is highly  valued? Businesses buy expertise and knowledge workers to add value to  their businesses.

Maybe its time to sit down, outline and unlock that knowledge for your  benefit. You may even have a part time hobby and passion that could be bundled  up into an online course or ebook to be monetized.

Blogs and the ability to self publish is opening up opportunities for “you” to be paid for your knowledge and creativity.

The rise of the online creative

The freedom to publish that blogging provides, is powering a new revolution  of knowledge sharing, expression and creativity that is unprecedented.

Closet cooks are both demonstrating and displaying their culinary skills via  video, recipes and teasing photos on foodie blogs.

Photographers are taking us on their local and world journeys. They are  revealing corners of the globe that are exposing hidden cultures, geography and  private lives for us to glimpse at like voyeurs. They are published to blogs,  Facebook and Twitter.

Even teenagers create fashion that surprise us and is uploaded to YouTube and  shared to a global audience.

Have a passion and some expertise and add a dose of technology and publish  online.  You can build an audience of thousands.

But there’s a problem

I was recently viewing a TED talk by Jared Diamond and he posed a question to  aproblem that is worth answering.

“How should we use our old people?”

This question was framed in a way that starts the journey in how we can come  up with solutions to help societies grow old better. This dilemma has  been created because modern society values youth and beauty over wisdom, age and  experience. This has in part been created by the rise of technology as wisdom  and knowledge in the past lay within the minds of the elders of the tribe

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/12/11/how-to-package-your-knowledge-to-sell-on-your-blog/#SrWkaw1I8XzdAG1U.99

October Prices Dip in 19 Markets | Mt Kisco Real Estate

Leave a reply

In the 19 largely West Coast markets tracked by the Redfin online brokerage, both home prices and sales dropped slightly in October.  But Redfin says no need to worry.

The median sale price dropped just 0.9 percent from September and was up 15.3 percent year over year from the same time last year. Home sales followed the same pattern, dropping 1 percent in October, but increasing 0.6 percent year over year. Inventory, on the other hand, dropped 5.5 percent month over month and 10.4 percent year over year.

Market-Specific Highlights and Lowlights:

  • All 19 cities measured saw home prices increase year over year; seven saw month-over-month increases.
  • Las Vegas, Sacramento, and Riverside, CA, led the price gains with 30% year-over-year median sale price increases.
  • Long Island saw the biggest gains, with home sales up 40.9% from October 2012.
  • Sacramento’s sales volumes took the hardest hit with an 18% drop from a year earlier.
  • Inventory came in at 245,875 total listings across the 19 metro areas studied.
  • San Jose had the largest monthly inventory drop at 17%. Phoenix and Riverside, CA, were the only two cities that saw a month-over-month inventory increase.

 

 

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/11/october-prices-dip-in-19-markets/

Prices Turn Frosty in First November Data | Waccabuc Real Estate

Leave a reply

National and regional rates of growth showed clear signs of winter chills in November, as summer buying activity gave way to the typical winter slow down.  Nationally, home prices cooled off to a 10.8% year-over-year growth, a slight tapering over the previous quarter’s 11.0% yearly growth.

More notable moderation took place in quarterly growth. November national quarterly growth of 1.8% was nearly cut in half when compared to the previous quarter’s 3.3% growth.  The regions experienced moderation over yearly and quarterly rates of growth as well, with few exceptions. The Midwest and the Northeast were the only regions to see slight gains in yearly rates of growth over the previous quarter, according to Clear Capital’s Market Report

While REOs and short sales accounted for 21.6% of all national sales over the previous quarter, it is substantially lower than peak rates of 41.0% in 2011Distressed sale activity, as a portion of total sales, can increase over winter due to some fair market sellers waiting for the more active spring season to list their homes.

Prior to the recovery taking hold, increasing distressed sale saturation rates pushed prices down. Yet, the First-In-First-Out recovery saw distressed markets drive gains, creating a new relationship between high levels of distressed sale saturation and price gains.

The Phoenix MSA has embodied this behavior as one of the first markets to exhibit a sustained recovery alongside its high levels of distressed sale saturation. After significant gains, the market’s growth is now moderating with quarterly growth of 2.4%, less than half of the current annual rate of growth when annualized. Having led the recovery for the better part of a year, Phoenix no longer sits on the top 15 performing list. Other metro markets also confirm higher levels of distressed sale activity can now correlate with higher price gains.

Average rates of yearly growth in the top performing markets were 19.2% in November, while average distressed sale saturation sat at a relatively high 24.5%.

Low performing markets, on the other hand, had average rates of yearly growth of 4.9% in November, while average distressed sale saturation sat at a relatively low 17.2%.

 

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/12/prices-turn-frosty-in-first-november-data/

Refined Casual Style for a Gracious Farmhouse | South Salem Homes

Leave a reply

This Georgia couple enjoyed their lakeside country vacation house so much that they decided to live there. While the rustic 1960s prefab cabin was all they needed for relaxed weekend stays, it was not suitable for full-time living, so they remodeled and expanded the house, making it look like a simple, rambling farmhouse that had grown over time. The new house is more refined than the original cabin but still lends itself well to casual living and maintains that familiar beloved feeling.
Houzz at a Glance Who lives here: A couple of empty nesters who love to entertain Location: Harris County, Georgia Architects: Historical Concepts Interior designer: Melanie Davis Landscape designer: Bill Lincicome Size: 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
Photography by Blayne Beacham

The idea was to make the house look and feel like a genuine rambling farmhouse with additions built over decades.
The cabin held many great memories for three generations of the family. Their first idea was to preserve the original cabin as a guesthouse and build a new main house. But the owners and designers realized that the cabin’s location atop the knoll was the most picturesque spot on the property.
AFTER: Creating more ways to enjoy the views of the 100-acre farm and lake was a priority. Each room now leads to a porch or is open to the pastoral views. This new front entry unites the original cabin (left) with the addition (right).
The metal roof of the old house was the right choice for the new farmhouse as well. “It’s about as indigenous to this type of farm as the local fieldstone seen on the old stone walls around the property,” says Historical Concepts principal Terry Pylant.
The shaded portion of the plan shows the footprint of the original house, which was kept intact. The placement of the new entry porch and hallways gives the interiors a comfortable flow.

Concern Grows that Aging Home Equity Loans Threaten New ‘Wave of Disaster’ | Cross River Real Estate

Leave a reply

Nearly half of the nation’s outstanding second lien home equity lines of credit (HELOC) will amortize over the next several years, raising monthly payments and increasing the risk of a rash of new delinquencies that could result in new defaults and foreclosures.

Lender Processing Services today joined Equifax in raising alarms about prospect that aging HELOC loans written in the final years of the housing boom could result in a huge number of defaults, creating a “wave of disaster.”

Some 48 percent of outstanding second lien home equity lines of credit, which were originated between 2004 and 2006, will begin amortizing on their tenth anniversaries.. As the payments on these HELOCs become fully amortizing, many borrowers may see monthly payments increase.  Recent increases in new problem loans among HELOCs originated prior to 2004 that have already begun amortizing indicate the huge wave of newly amortized loans poses increased risk of more delinquencies ahead, LPS said.

“In the aggregate, the home equity market is experiencing lower delinquencies,” said LPS Senior Vice President Herb Blecher. “However, among the HELOC population that has already begun amortizing, we are actually seeing an increase in new seriously delinquent loans. As of today, only 14 percent of second  lien HELOCs have passed this 10-year mark, leaving a very large segment of the market at risk of payment increases over the coming years. Nearly half of all of these lines of credit were originated between 2004 and 2006, with the oldest set to begin amortizing next year. If this trend toward post-amortizing delinquencies carries over, we could be looking at significant risk to the home equity market over the coming years.”

 

 

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/12/concern-grows-that-wave-of-aging-home-equity-loans-threatens-new-%e2%80%98wave-of-disaster%e2%80%99/

Fed Study: Hot Prices in 2013 Promise Better Inventories in 2014 | Katonah Real Estate

Leave a reply

This year’s hot price increases could be more important than rising rents, credit availability or even underwater homeowners in freeing up the inventories that stifled hundreds of housing markets last season and kept sales from reaching their potential, according to a new study by two Federal Reserve economists.

Price increases and job growth are more important than buyers’ access to credit, freedom from negative equity, owners’ decisions to wait to achieve greater gains and the loss of large numbers of owner-occupied homes to rentals in a market when it comes to building inventories.

Last season opened with  inventories at near-record lows in February, down by 15.97 percent nationally compared to a year ago and is less than half its peak of 3.1 million units in September 2007.  Inventories increased in 100 out of Realtor.com’s 146 markets and even markets, spurring price increases and seasonal increases in homes for sale.

“Current inventories of homes for sale are low given more than a year of house price appreciation,” concluded the study Fed by economists William Hedberg and John Krainer released recently.  “County-level data suggest that many homeowners are waiting for prices to rise further in their markets. Markets that have seen the strongest house price appreciation and job growth are the ones where for-sale inventories have declined the most.”

The economists analyzed a number of widely discussed causes of the inventory decline beginning with the transformation of about 3.5 million formerly owner occupied homes into rentals since 2007.  “It is impossible to say though whether declining sales are pushing down homeownership rates or falling homeownership is pushing down sales, or both are interacting with each other in a complicated feedback process,” they concluded

Nor could they find strong evidence that homeowners are keeping their homes off the market in hopes prides will continue to rise.  “On balance, counties that experienced relatively large increases in house prices over the past year also experienced relatively large declines in inventories available for sale,” they said.

 

 

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/12/fed-study-hot-prices-in-2013-promise-better-inventories-in-2014/