Monthly Archives: March 2014

Big Investors Boosting Home Prices, And Not Everyone’s Pleased | South Salem Real Estate

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It’s taken several years, but in many parts of the country, home prices are nearly back to where they were at the peak. In places like Florida, where the housing recession hit hard, home prices rose last year by one-fifth or more.

A major factor in the price rise is hedge funds, private equity firms and other large investors. They’ve moved aggressively into the residential market over the past two years, buying tens of thousands of distressed properties, often at bargain prices.

Some analysts are worried that those bulk purchases will leave middle-class buyers out in the cold.

One place where investors have been very active is Florida’s Palm Beach County. Jeff Lichtenstein is a real estate agent there, and he’s busy. He’s listing and selling homes at a pace reminiscent of the go-go days of the last real estate boom back in 2005 and 2006. “I have 19 or 20 under contract right now, which is the most I’ve had at any given time,” he says.

Lichtenstein is currently showing a home he has listed in PGA National, a resort and residential development with more than 5,000 homes. It’s a community of palm trees, lakes, golf courses and manicured lawns.

“This was built in ’92 or ’93. Three bedrooms, three baths,” he explains as he shows off the house, which has a back patio looking out onto a golf course. “The view is what people come here to Florida for.”

The home is listed for $499,000, a bit below what it would have sold for at the peak, Lichtenstein says. But in Florida, Arizona, Las Vegas and parts of California, prices are rising fast. In South Florida, home prices climbed 21 percent last year.

 

http://www.npr.org/2014/03/10/286261937/big-investors-boosting-home-prices-and-not-everyones-pleased

How to Convince Buyers Your Listing is a Bargain | Waccabuc Real Estate

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When you’re trying to understand or influence human behavior—as you might do when, say, listing and marketing a home for sale—it’s important to respect the distinction between what people should do and what they actually do do.

This is the difference between economics and behavioral economics. Classical economics theory is based on the belief that people will behave rationally and that we can use reason and logic to predict the movements of the market. But the fields of behavioral economics and behavioral finance were created in the hopes of gaining a better understanding of how real people actually make real financial decisions in real life.

Here are a handful behavioral finance must-knows for listing agents, to help manage your clients’ mindsets and help them understand why and how you’re marketing your home to buyers.

1. Don’t let overconfidence lead to overpricing.

Real estate agents are the only commissioned salespeople I know of who spend much of their time trying to talk their clients down in pricing their product. Why? Because we know that listing a home at too high a price causes unnecessary woe, drama and failure. Set the listing price too high and a home will lag on the market, attracting lowball offers. The end result is often a price reduction or can even keep a hope from selling at all.

Overpricing can result from the same overconfidence and overoptimism that causes buyers to make lowball offers on great homes in a hot market. It’s the same overconfidence and overoptimism that inspires investors to day trade, erroneously thinking they have superhuman stock picking skills. In fact, when you study up on successful amateur day traders, it becomes clear that what they have is less innate skill and more the willingness to voraciously, constantly research the companies and the markets—many, for hours every single day. Many have also placed rules on themselves and their trades specifically to counter their own human emotions and irrational tendencies.

That’s precisely how home sellers can and should deactivate overconfidence when it comes to pricing.  Urge them to commit to sitting down with you and pore over local market data, recently sold homes in the area, average days on market, and the local price-to-sale price ratios. While you’re looking through the comps together, take pains to point out the potential rewards of a disciplined, data-driven approach to pricing.

 

 

http://www.trulia.com/pro/buyers/how-to-convince-buyers-your-listing-is-a-bargain/?ecampaign=tnews&eurl=trulia.com%252Fpro%252Fbuyers%252Fhow-to-convince-buyers-your-listing-is-a-bargain%252F

Would You Rather be Social or Interesting? | Cross River Realtor

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The “Interest Graph” is not the “Social Graph”. But what does that mean  and why should you care?

Despite the rapid ascent of Interest-based platforms, such as Pinterest,  Sulia, WeHeartIt and Wanelo, we rarely see dialogue about the Interest Graph  except in a Social context. However, The Interest Graph and Social Graph are two  fundamentally different infrastructures with different underlying assumptions  for marketers.

Sure, they often overlap, but it’s time we come to appreciate their  differences, so that we can be more effective marketers on a social web driven  by people’s passions and interests.

So should you be social or interesting?

The social graph is about who you “know”

Friends, followers and connections represent some degree of familiarity,  ranging from a spouse to someone you met once at that thing you went to. If you  think in High School terms, the Social Graph is all about getting in with the  cool kids, so you can multiply your reach and borrow from their swagger.

The basic assumption of “Social  Marketing” is:

“If someone knows someone else,  they will be interested in similar things”

The interest graph is about “passions”

In high school, the “Interest Graph” is like clubs or sports teams- a group  of people coming together because they love to do the same thing. They may or  may not be friends, may or may not know each other, but they share a common  passion that brings them together. The more passionate they are the more likely  they are to create, share and comment.

The basic assumption of Interest  Marketing is thus:

“If someone is interested in  something, people who are interested in similar things will be interested in  that thing”

Social marketing is about reach

The more people who see your message, the further it will spread. This means  you will need to continue to grow your social networks on Twitter to remain  ahead of the competition. It’s about building an online distribution  network.

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2014/03/14/would-you-rather-be-social-or-interesting/#bLk7jqXUxfOvfP54.99

Metro-North Trains Running Smoothly After Harlem Explosion | Bedford Hills Real Estate

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Service on Metro-North has not suffered many residual effects Thursday as a result of the explosion in Harlem Wednesday morning.

The explosion that killed seven people occurred adjacent to tracks along Park Avenue at 116th Street, knocking debris onto the tracks and shutting down all service into and out of Grand Central Terminal. Metro-North crews were able to restore service to the New Haven, Harlem and Hudson Lines prior to the evening rush hour Wednesday.

Trains are being run through 116th Street as per usual, according to Metro-North spokesperson Aaron Donovan. While trains normally travel through the area, they are traveling at 45 mph through 116th Street instead of the normal 60 mph while work is being done at the site. This is causing some train delays of between 6 and 10 minutes.

Donovan said that the railroad was able to get train service back up quickly by coordinating with the New York City Fire Department, New York City Police and Metro-North Police.

“It was all hands on deck. We devoted as many resources as we had to,” Donovan said, adding that there were at least a dozen crew members out on the tracks clearing debris.

MTA crews were not out on the tracks while the fires were still blazing. Members of the FDNY made sure that the area was safe before allowing MTA crews to work.

“Once they authorized us to go in, we were able to begin the clearance of debris,” Donovan said. “Overall it went as smooth as one could hope given the tough circumstances.”

Service was first returned to the New Haven and Harlem lines because they run on the two tracks furthest from where the explosion occurred. While those trains began running, crews continued to clear debris on the closest two tracks, and were able to restore service to the Hudson Line about an hour later.

Debra Oria of Danbury, Conn., traveled to the city for a work meeting, and had to take a subway from Grand Central to Woodlawn Station in the Bronx to take a Harlem Line train home. She said the trip took twice as long as it normally would, but praised Metro-North’s efforts to make traveling as easy as possible.

“When we arrived at the Woodlawn station, there was a line of Metro-North workers eight across. They just kept talking to people, telling us what was going on,” Oria said. She said employees worked to direct commuters and ease the crowds. “I thought it would be crowded on the platform, but they had great crowd control. It was good communication.”

 

http://armonk.dailyvoice.com/news/metro-north-trains-running-smoothly-after-harlem-explosion

Metro-North Put On-Time Performance Over Safety | Mt Kisco Real Estate

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A review by the Federal Railroad Administration has found that Metro-North places on-time performance over worker and passenger safety, according to the New York Times.

Operation Deep Dive is a review of the railroad prompted by the Dec. 1 derailment in the Bronx that killed four people and injured more than 70 more. The 28-page report analyzes safety measures taken by Metro-North and suggests corrective actions that the railroad can take to improve safety.

The report also found that cell phone usage is commonplace among track workers on the job and that workers are pressured to rush to respond to signal failures, according to the New York Times. It also said that track inspectors receive inadequate training and that safety briefings are poorly attended.

The full report will be released Friday. Click here to see the full story in the New York Times.

 

http://mtkisco.dailyvoice.com/news/report-metro-north-put-time-performance-over-safety

Facebook Launches Video Ads TODAY! | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! The Jabberwock is, er, Facebook video ads are  here! Our news feeds will now be inundated with autoplay video ads. Yippee?  Well, it’s a big step forward for the world’s largest social network to say the  least. They’ve been working on video ads for what seems like years and now we  can all get them in news feeds. Don’t go overreacting (I’m just joking around)  there will be no more than three ads per day.

In terms of frequency, that is 90 ads per month per viewer. If there  are 600 million users and say 50% are in markets where the ads debut it comes  out to a massive 27 billion video ads a month. Ker-Pow! At the low  end of the price spectrum rumors of $1-2.5M per ad, that’s $27 billion in  revenue, per month, on the low end.

All That is Wrong with Video Ads – Auto-Play and Muted – But Wait!

I swear Facebook looked at the video advertising industry  as a whole and took the worst practices they could find to make their video ad  strategy. Get this, the videos will auto-play and the sound will be muted until  a user interacts with the ad. Next I think they will introduce video ads in the  side bar that play all the way through without ever showing up in the browser  viewable area.

Alright, maybe not. At least the video ads won’t take over your entire screen  as they won’t go full screen unless they are clicked or tapped. The videos will  only start to play when they show on screen, not when off screen as I just said  in jest. If you don’t like the video, just go past it and it will disappear. At  least they’re not keeping them on screen through the duration of the video  forcing us to watch.

Ace Metrix has been tapped to determine if a video ad is crap or not. If they  deem it worthy, as in, will people like it, then it will make it into the system  for display to users. If you don’t know Ace Metrix, they are the group that  rates success and perception of Super Bowl ads and pretty much every other TV ad  that airs. In other words, they know what they’re talking about.

Source:  Facebook Launches Video Ads TODAY! http://www.reelseo.com/facebook-video-ads-today/#ixzz2vwzzgPEH ©ReelSEO.com, All Rights Reserved Follow us: @ReelSEO on Twitter | ReelSEO on Facebook

Five Places To Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day In Westchester | Chappaqua Real Estate

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Westchester’s residents are bursting with excitement to honor their Irish heritage and celebrate in the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, Monday, March 17 — and so are its restaurants and bars. Here are five of the biggest St. Patrick’s food events coming up.

1. Yonkers Empire City Casino St. Patrick’s Day Celebration: Irish-American bands Black 47 and Shilelagh Law will be performing an outdoor trackside concert on Sunday, March 16 at 2 p.m. Jameson will be serving shots and cocktails, along with an Irish Beer tent serving Guinness, Harp Lager, Smithwick’s Irish Ale and Magner’s Cider. Corned beef and cabbage, bangers and burgers with Guinness onion rings will be served. $20

2. Burke’s Aishling Irish Community Center Fund-raiser: Burke’s Restaurant in Yonkers will be holding a fund-raiser on the night of March 14 from 8 to 10 p.m. for the Aishling Irish Center. It will additionally be having live Irish music on March 15, brunch on March 16, and March 17, St. Patrick’s Day will feature its traditional all-day corned beef and cabbage special. $30

3. Quiet Man Public House “Kegs and Eggs:” Peekskill’s Quiet Man Public House is getting an early start on St. Patrick’s Day with a “kegs and eggs” breakfast – which is exactly what it sounds like – from 7 a.m. until noon.

4. Ron Black’s St. Patrick’s Day Lunch: The local White Plains favorite will be opening at 11 a.m. on St. Patrick’s Day for lunch, and will be offering Irish beer and food specials throughout the day.

5. Molly Spillane’s All-Day Irish Music and Menu: Molly Spillane’s in Mamaroneck is throwing a reservations-only bash on St. Patrick’s Day, offering drink specials and an authentic Irish menu. Ireland native DJ Frankie Kennedy will be playing music all day, accompanied by bagpipers and step dancers.

 

http://chappaqua.dailyvoice.com/lifestyle/five-places-celebrate-st-patricks-day-westchester

 

Saving for a House: It’s More Than a Down Payment | Katonah Real Estate

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It’s easy to get caught up in credit scores when considering a home purchase. But as lenders continue to loosen requirements, the need to have money in the bank doesn’t get any less acute.

Getting prescriptive about how much you need in savings to satisfy a mortgage lender is tough business. The answer can depend on a host of factors, from the type of mortgage and size of the loan to the property itself and more.

You’ll most likely need a solid chunk of change upfront to cover a down payment and closing costs. Lenders might also want to see a stockpile of “reserves,” which often translates to a certain number of months’ worth of mortgage payments.

The bottom line is that it’s tough to talk specifics about your bottom line. That’s why it’s important to get a solid understanding of your mortgage options and seek clear guidance from lenders.

Credit scores are critical, but so are income and assets when you’re applying for a home loan. Here are some of the important savings you’ll need to accumulate first.

Down Payment Needs

Down payments are inescapable for the vast majority of non-cash homebuyers. Outside of state or local programs, only government-backed VA and USDA rural development home loans allow qualified borrowers to purchase with no money down.

Conventional and FHA loans typically require minimum down payments of 5% and 3.5%, respectively. On a $200,000 mortgage, that’s $10,000 for conventional and $7,000 down for FHA. But buyers often put even more skin in the game.

Conventional borrowers last month had an average loan-to-value ratio of 80%, according to mortgage software firm Ellie Mae. For FHA loans, it was 95%. That means buyers are putting down an average of 20% for conventional loans and 5% for FHA loans.

Existing homeowners often have an advantage because they’re able to put the proceeds of a home sale toward a new purchase. It can take first-time buyers years to scrape together enough money for a down payment.

That’s partly why home sales among first-time buyers hit their lowest point last month since the National Association of Realtors began tracking the figure in October 2008.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/kind-savings-mortgage-110023166.html

15 Small-space Decorating Tips | Bedford Corners Homes

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At the height of Seattle’s real estate market in 2003, when Leah and Chad Steen bought their first home, the property was far from picture perfect. “There was no landscaping; the previous owners even left us a note about the sad-looking Charlie Brown tree in the front yard,” says Leah, who owns Revival Home & Garden (revivalhomeandgarden.com), a shop in Capitol Hill. “But the house had tons of character, and there weren’t holes in the ceiling, like other places we’d seen.”

Inexpensive mingles with high-end Inexpensive mingles with high-end Mix high and low Inexpensive furniture mingles with high-end touches in the living room: Ikea curtains hang on plumbing pipe behind a $1,200 chandelier from Leah’s shop; custom pillows sit atop a bargain (at $579) settee from Urban Outfitters; a hand-painted chinoi­serie coffee table rests on an old Pakistani rug ($85 on eBay). How to decorate in a global style

High class with a couple of coats of paintHigh class with a couple of coats of paint Update secondhand furnishings

A $10 framed mirror from Goodwill reads “high class” with a couple of coats of high-gloss red paint. Decorating with second-hand finds

Just $2!Just $2! Find treasures at thrift stores

This large oil painting was just $2 from Second Use (seconduse.com).

 

 

http://shine.yahoo.com/at-home/15-small-space-decorating-tips-041200413.html

4 million renters want to buy. Can they? | Armonk Real Estate

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As the housing market moves slowly into recovery, more and more Americans are gaining confidence and hoping to jump into home ownership. The home ownership rate has been dropping steadily since its high of 69.2 percent in 2004 to now just 65 percent. Millions lost their homes to foreclosure and millions more never entered the market, fearing falling home prices.

Now, 10 percent of U.S. renters say they would like to buy a home in the next year, according to a new report from Zillow (NASDAQ:Z), which surveyed renters in the nation’s 20 largest housing markets. If all the renters who said they wanted to buy a home in the next year actually did, that would represent more than 4.2 million first-time home buyer sales, about twice the number of first-timers in 2013.

First-time home buying has actually fallen to the lowest level ever recorded by the National Association of Realtors, at just 26 percent of sales in January. These buyers usually make up roughly 40 percent of the market. Interestingly, the majority of the renters who said they wanted to buy felt they could afford home ownership, despite rising home prices and rising mortgage rates. The trouble is there is just not that much out there to buy. Home construction is still recovering at a slow pace, and prices for newly built homes are far higher on average than for existing homes.The number of homes for sale is rising slightly but is still well below historical norms across most markets.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/4-million-renters-want-buy-130353560.html