Category Archives: Bedford Corners NY

Rustic Cottage on 20 Secluded Nantucket Acres Wants $3M | Bedford Corners Real Estate

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Location: Nantucket, Mass.
Price: $2,999,000
The Skinny: On Nantucket’s sparsely populated southern shore—just down the beach from a bunker built for JFK during the Cold War—this 20-acre parcel seems even larger, thanks to the surrounding conservation land. Divided by a private road, the property enjoys 600-feet of oceanfront, but the existing house is set back from the beach, leaving a lot for possible development to the south. Conservationists would probably prefer that the buyer stick to the modest four-bedroom, but at these prices—the property is listed for nearly $3M—few would be surprised if a giant McMansion popped up on the oceanfront lot. In fact, it just happened next door. The sellers made such gargantuan oceanfront building possible by relocating the existing house from its waterfront perch in 2006.

 

Rustic Cottage on 20 Secluded Nantucket Acres Wants $3M – House of the Day – Curbed National.

Recovery Speeds Homeowners to Positive Equity | Bedford Corners Real Estate

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Four times more homeowners returned to positive equity in the first quarter of year as the recovery drove home values higher across the nation.

Some 850,000 more homeowners with mortgages are no longer under water, bringing the total number of mortgaged residential properties with equity to 39 million. However, 9.7 million, or 19.8 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage, were still in negative equity at the end of the first quarter of 2013 with a total value of $580 billion. This figure is down from 10.5 million*, or 21.7 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage, at the end of the fourth quarter of 2012, according to CoreLogic.

The national aggregate value of negative equity decreased more than $50 billion to $580 billion at the end of the first quarter from $631 billion at the end of the fourth quarter of 2012. This decrease was driven in large part by an improvement in home prices.

Of the 39 million residential properties with positive equity, 11.2 million have less than 20 percent equity. Borrowers with less than 20 percent equity, referred to as “under-equitied,” may have a more difficult time obtaining new financing for their homes due to underwriting constraints. At the end of the first quarter of 2013, 2.1 million residential properties had less than 5 percent equity, referred to as near-negative equity. Properties that are near negative equity are at risk should home prices fall. Under-equitied mortgages accounted for 23 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage nationwide in the first quarter of 2013. The average amount of equity for all properties with a mortgage is 32.8 percent.

 

Recovery Speeds Homeowners to Positive Equity | RealEstateEconomyWatch.com.

High demand, low supply driving up housing prices in Boston | Bedford Corners Homes

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The current housing market south of Boston is hot, with large numbers of buyers driving up prices as they compete for limited numbers of homes, realtors and others say.

“There’s unbelievable pent-up demand,” said Melvin A. Vieira Jr. of RE/MAX Landmark Realtors in Milton. “Everybody is out there. It’s a frenzy because there’s not enough inventory.”

“Properties are selling for full price or above,” said Steve Webster, owner of Success Real Estate in Braintree, which has eight other offices in Southeastern Massachusetts. “We’re getting multiple offers. It’s absolutely insane.”

For example, Webster said a client recently offered $40,000 above the $450,000 asking price for a home in Dedham — and was outbid. The house, he said, was “an average house — nice, but average.”

“It can be discouraging,” he said. “The best advice I can give people is be organized and be ready to make a decision — and bring your checkbook with you.”

In Cohasset, a house on desirable lower Sohier Street came on the market at 8 a.m. on a recent Friday and “we had an offer on it at 10 a.m. for $50,000 over” the asking price of $1.225 million, said Nancy Hamilton of Dean and Hamilton Realtors. The cash sale closed in 30 days, she said.

High demand, low supply driving up housing prices in south suburbs – South – The Boston Globe.

How To Use Pinterest’s Bold New Look | Bedford Corners Real Estate

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As we pass the halfway point of 2013, Pinterest’s rapid growth shows no signs of abating.How to Use Pinterests Bold New Look

According to Reuters, Pinterest has amassed 48.7 million users since its inception three years ago and a study by SimplyMeasured reveals that 69 of the world’s top 100 brands now have Pinterest accounts.

Hot on the heels of the Pinterest business-focused rollouts that we covered earlier, namely account verification, business pages, and the new web analytics tool,  there have been a flurry of updates in recent weeks that have left many business owners scratching their heads. So if you’re feeling a tad confused about Pinterest’s new look and its rich pins, you are not alone.

Here’s a whirlwind tour of the key features of both updates and some pointers on how to use them for your business.

#1. Navigating Pinterest’s New Look

Pinterest has been testing its new look since the beginning of the year but the fact that it isn’t permanent yet is telling.

When the new design first launched Pinterest received a flood of complaints from pinners for removing many of their favorite features, notably Mentions and the Pinned By feature that let you see who had pinned that item.

Many users were disgruntled that they could no longer see the pinning chain and felt that Pinterest was making it harder for them to connect with others.

Pinterest promptly did a U-turn and reintroduced some of the most popular features.

The new look is still being tweaked so certain functions don’t work quite as well as they should. You are not obliged to adopt the new look (yet), but each time you log in, Pinterest will nudge you with this reminder: 

Pinterest 10

Remember, once you hit Get It Now you won’t be able to revert back to the old look.

Why The New Look?

The aim of the new design is to encourage “discovery” through a bolder cleaner look and much bigger pins. Now that the frames between images have been removed, some people may find the close-ups too intense.  Depending on your screen size, it can certainly send your eyes funny!

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 The important point with the new look is to be extra careful when selecting images for Pinterest’s new look. Make sure they are big, bold and engaging. 

1. Pin Options On Home Feed

If you hover over a pin, you now have only 2 options not 3. The bigger Pin It button has replaced the previous Repin but the Like icon remains. You can still click the Like button twice to Unlike an image if you change your mind.

At the bottom of the image you can see who pinned the image and the board on which it was pinned. More than ever, you should take care to select an on-brand username and name your boards using catchy, keyword-rich titles that capture the essence of that board and encourage click-throughs. 

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The Comment feature has disappeared from the home feed entirely, but you can still access it when you click on the pin to enlarge it.

Remember that “pins” don’t just include static 2D images. Pinterest also lets you pin video from sites like Dailymotion, TED, YouTube and Vimeo using the Pin It button. 


Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/06/12/how-to-use-pinterests-bold-new-look/#08AEhw7ZqhabeHdV.99 

 

How To Use Pinterest’s Bold New Look | Jeffbullas’s Blog.

Prices Rose 12 Percent in April | Bedford Corners Real Estate

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Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased 12.1 percent on a year-over-year basis in April 2013 compared to April 2012. This change represents the biggest year-over-year increase since February 2006 and the 14th consecutive monthly increase in home prices nationally. On a month-over-month basis, including distressed sales, home prices increased by 3.2 percent in April 2013 compared to March 2013*, according to the April CoreLogic HPITM report.

Excluding distressed sales, home prices increased on a year-over-year basis by 11.9 percent in April 2013 compared to April 2012. On a month-over-month basis, excluding distressed sales, home prices increased 3 percent in April 2013 compared to March 2013. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions.

The CoreLogic Pending HPI indicates that May 2013 home prices, including distressed sales, are expected to rise by 12.5 percent on a year-over-year basis from May 2012 and rise by 2.7 percent on a month-over-month basis from April 2013. Excluding distressed sales, May 2013 home prices are poised to rise 13.2 percent year over year from May 2012 and by 3.1 percent month over month from April 2013. The CoreLogic Pending HPI is a proprietary and exclusive metric that provides the most current indication of trends in home prices. It is based on Multiple Listing Service (MLS) data that measure price changes for the most recent month.

“House price growth continues to surprise to the upside with an impressive 12.1 percent gain year over year in April,” said Dr. Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Increasing demand for new and existing homes, coupled with low inventory, has created a virtuous cycle for price gains, most clearly seen in the Western states with year-over-year gains of 20 percent or more.”

“The pace of the housing market recovery quickened in April as home prices rose across the U.S.,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “For the second consecutive month, all 50 states registered year-over-year home price gains excluding sales of distressed homes. We expect this trend to continue, bolstered by tight supplies and pent up buyer demand.”

Highlights as of April 2013:

  • Including distressed sales, the five states with the highest home price appreciation were: Nevada (+24.6 percent), California (+19.4 percent), Arizona (+17.3 percent), Hawaii (+17 percent) and Oregon (+15.5 percent).
  • ncluding distressed sales, this month only two states posted home price depreciation: Mississippi (-1.7) and Alabama (-1.6 percent).
  • Excluding distressed sales, the five states with the highest home price appreciation were: Nevada (+22.6 percent), California (+18.3 percent), Idaho (+16.4 percent), Arizona (+15.3 percent) and Washington (+13.9 percent).
  • Excluding distressed sales, no states posted home price depreciation in April.
  • Including distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the national HPI (from April 2006 to April 2013) was -22.4 percent. Excluding distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the HPI for the same period was -16.3 percent.
  • The five states with the largest peak-to-current declines, including distressed transactions, were Nevada (-47.3 percent), Florida (-40.5 percent), Michigan (-36.1 percent), Arizona (-36 percent) and Rhode Island (-34.7 percent).
  • Of the top 100 Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) measured by population, 94 were showing year-over-year increases in April, the same as in March 2013.

 

Prices Rose 12 Percent in April | RealEstateEconomyWatch.com.

Mortgae outlook: US bonds drop on renewed bets of less Fed buying | Bedford Corners Real Estate

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US Treasury debt prices fell on Friday as investors revived bets that the Federal Reserve could slow its massive bond-buying program later this year after data showed solid if not exceptional employment growth. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note rose for a sixth straight week, the first such gain since late March to early May 2009 when the US economy was bleeding hundreds of thousands of jobs a month during the depths of the recession. 

US payrolls rose by 175,000 in May, Labour Department data showed on Friday, more than the 170,000 expected in a Reuters poll but still not enough to suggest an immediate Fed exit from its buying of $85 billion per month in Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities. Still, analysts said the number was strong enough that a slowdown in Fed buying could be on tap in coming months as the economy proves resilient enough to stand without this support. 

“Our expectation would be that you still could have the Fed – starting in and around September – very moderately reduce the scale of their long-term asset purchase program, which generally has been the expectation of the markets,” Rick Rieder, co-head of Americas fixed-income at BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said in New York after the jobs data. But at least one Fed official made clear that he thinks the central bank should already hit the brakes. 

Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser, a longtime critic of the Fed’s quantitative easing program, told Reuters Friday’s jobs report showed that government spending cuts have not so far been as damaging as some had feared. Still, at 7.6 percent, the US unemployment rate remains above the 6.5 percent the Fed would like to see. And with economic growth sluggish – 2.4 percent in the first quarter – some economists still see a place for the current level of Fed accommodation. 

Fed policymakers next meet on June 18-19. In the meantime, the selling in Treasuries was compounded by investors closing Treasuries hedges on their mortgage-backed securities holdings. Any reduction in the US central bank’s third round of quantitative easing, dubbed QE3, will likely increase mortgage rates and slow refinancing, reducing the appeal of mortgage bonds, analysts said. 

 

Treasuries outlook: US bonds drop on renewed bets of less Fed buying | Business Recorder.

Home affordability not yet impacted by rising mortgage rates | Bedford Corners Real Estate

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Mortgage rates continuously shot up over the past several weeks. And, the recent increase in mortgage rates is raising some concerns for its impact on home affordability, but a report from Goldman Sachs ($158.30 -3.38%) downplays those worries.

Housing affordability is currently far above past average levels, showing that housing can remain affordable by historical standards.

According to data from the National Association of Realtors, the housing affordability index assumes the typical homebuyer makes $50,000 a year, pays a 20% down payment and obtains a 30-year fixed-rate loan.

Additionally, the company explains that a easy-to-handle house price is defined as a 25% debt-to-income ratio.

In result, Goldman Sachs said, “For a mortgage interest rate of 3.81%, the average homebuyer can afford to buy a house worth $279,000 — 45% above the current median sales price of existing homes.”

It expanded saying, “Put differently, even if mortgage rates continue to increase from here, the median home will still be affordable to the median borrower, based on the conventional 25% debt-to-income threshold.”

The company found that after combining real Gross Domestic Product growth, inflation and interest rates, house prices will grow about 4-5% per year in 2014-2016.

“As a result, rising interest rates will likely slow the strong house price appreciation observed over the past year, but the impact will likely be modest given the cushion provided by the high level of housing affordability at present,” the company explained.

 

 

Home affordability not yet impacted by rising mortgage rates | HousingWire.

Using home equity to fund a business? Good luck | Bedford Corners Real Estate

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In recent years, it has become gradually more difficult for business owners to tap into home equity lines of credit to fund their companies.

Small Business Trends writes that 17% of businesses with less than $100,000 in sales use home equity lines of credit to keep their small firms going.

The problem is it’s getting harder to do this.

Small Business Trends added that:

These 4 million business owners have had a tough time with their financing strategy in recent years because of the declining home equity loan market. According to the Federal Reserve of New York’s Quarterly Report on Household Credit, the number of home equity lines of credit fell from 23.9 to 18.7 million between the fourth quarter of 2007 and the fourth quarter of 2012. Moreover, the amount of credit available on home equity lines of credit declined 39.3, and the balance on these loans 24.1 percent, percent in inflation adjusted terms, over the same period.

 

Using home equity to fund a business? Good luck | HousingWire.

4 ways to create your social media strategy and wipe out 80 percent of your competition | Bedford Corners Realtor

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OK, the title is a little dramatic. But there is truth to this. 

Late last week, the 2013 Social Media Industry Report was released by Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner. The insightful, and sometimes surprising, 43-page report is packed with trends and statistics based on a 3,000-marketer survey that focuses squarely on the social media platforms commonly used in real estate marketing.

It’s quite clear that social media is still one of the most popular areas of marketing that businesses consider, but what is even more obvious is that most marketers are still quite overwhelmed AND confused with the number of platforms. They still are very unsure about how to use them, even though the list of platforms keeps growing. So what do these numbers and insights tell us about how we in real estate approach social media?

Here are some highlights I found interesting:

  • 90 percent of marketers still want to know which tactics work best.
  • 88 percent of marketers would like to know how best to reach and engage their audience.
  • 83 percent of marketers are thinking of social media differently. They are thinking about how it fits (under the larger umbrella called “marketing”) into their business by creating a social strategy.
  • Only 26 percent of marketers are measuring their social media activities.
  • Only 37 percent of marketers think Facebook is effective in their marketing, yet it is overwhelmingly the No. 1 platform of choice.
  • Only 26 percent of marketers are optimized for mobile.
  • Blogging and Google Plus are moving up the ladder in future plans for marketers.

Most of these numbers translate to the constant changes and confusion in social media, the pull of the distraction and noise, and lack of real understanding of how much time and energy social media should be part of your marketing playbook. So, without going too deep, here are some main things to keep your focus on when defining your social strategy for real estate.

 

4 ways to create your social media strategy and wipe out 80 percent of your competition | Inman News.

10 DIY Planters to Dress Up Your Garden | Bedford Corners Real Estate

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How do you can about your garden apart from watering? Are you sure it’s getting enough sunlight? Have you Use a Backpack Sprayer for Roundup to spray chemicals that kill weeds, pests or any kind of disease? How about its pot? Why put your plants in a boring pot, when you can make your own unique planter with materials you may already have on hand?

Not just for spaghetti

Source: apartmenttherapy.com

Source: apartmenttherapy.com

How many colanders do you come across at weekend yard sales? Fit one with a linked chain to create an appealing hanging planter for colorful pansies.

Radio flyer

Source: cre8tivedesignsinc.com

Source: cre8tivedesignsinc.com

A rusted wagon is reborn as a planter displaying pretty annuals. The wheels on the wagon mean the planter can be easily moved around the yard or garden to gather sun or serve as a showpiece.

Getting the boot

Source: trash2treasure.wordpress.com

Source: trash2treasure.wordpress.com

Pairs of red rain-boot planters parade across this porch. Though “made for walking” (as the song goes), these repurposed boots are filled with a variety of herbs and geraniums in a matching hue. Contrasting flower colors would create an equally pleasing look. If you want to see the interesting history of flowers, click here and see all the information related to flowers.

Wheel winners

Source: eatingrules.com

Source: eatingrules.com

This cluster of tires, all dressed up in show-stopping colors, makes for a fun and funky wall of flowers. Best of all, these tires won’t end up in a landfill.

Got oil?

Source: greayer.com

Source: greayer.com

In this bright and playful courtyard, recycled and painted oil drums provide new homes for trees as well as plants. Some of the drums are fitted with platforms to serve as benches. Who wouldn’t want to sit and stay awhile?

Cinder(ella) blocks

Source: lifewithoutexpectations.com

Source: lifewithoutexpectations.com

Stacked cinder blocks, with their readymade potting compartments, create a geometric platform to show off a variety of plants. Unfinished or painted in bold colors, cinder blocks make quick and easy planters with structural heft.

Teapots, short & stout

Source: recyclart.org

Source: recyclart.org

Cracked teapot got you down? Look at this charming, cheerful series of teapots adorning the railing of a stone staircase. Any cracks would be perfect for drainage!

Dressy drawers

Source: meredith.com

Source: meredith.com

Three stacked dresser drawers create a planter with stepped-up height and flair. Shabby chic makes its way to the garden!

Bountiful bathtub

Source: billbatesphotography.com

Source: billbatesphotography.com

A waterfall of petunias cascades out of an old cast-iron bathtub. So many of these antique beauties are discarded to make way for new fixtures, yet here this classic household icon is whimsically reborn.

Vibrant wheelbarrow

Source: myyardrocks.com

Source: myyardrocks.com

A flourish of flowering plants breathes new life into an old wheelbarrow. What a festive way to dress up a utilitarian tool!

10 DIY Planters to Dress Up Your Garden | Zillow Blog.