NEW CASTLE, N.Y. — New Castle Police are reporting Wednesday that electric power is out in the vicinity of Haight’s Crossroad and Breckenridge.
Haight’s Crossroad is closed at Breckenridge while utility workers repair the power lines, police said, adding that detours are in place.
Power outage and road closure are expected to last several hours, police said.
When this Minnesota family of four travels to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, they dive into all that valley has to offer, from skiing to rodeos, and they wanted their ski home to reflect how they spend their time there. “We talked a lot about how they wanted to live as a family out here before we started,” says their interior designer, Jennifer Prugh Visosky. Then they opened up the social spaces for a warm, contemporary feel that fits the wooded surroundings.
Kitchen of the Week
Location: Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Size: 750 square feet
Designer: Jennifer Prugh Visosky, principal at Grace Home Design
Visosky helped the family lay out a space to incorporate a large, casual dining area as well as an island with seating in the kitchen. Rustic touches warm the room and tie it to the surroundings. The backsplash tiles have a reflective quality, and close up they have a rustic design in a contemporary color scheme. “It’s a soft, contemporary tile that’s comforting,” she says. The very dark blue Paperstone countertops on the island play off the tiles. The other countertops are quartz.
The oversize counter stools are popular perches. “The kids practically live at this counter,” Visosky says. The easy-to-clean vinyl fabric adds a bold orange burst of color.
A tall cabinet and plenty of smart undercounter storage left room to keep this statement wall open and for Visosky to add two windows that look out to the forest. “There is a lot of wildlife activity out here — on delivery day there was a huge moose we were trying hard not to spook,” she says.
Backsplash tile: SC-510D 5-by-10 Scraffito D PW40 with Thyme, Pratt & Larson; drawer handles: Streamline Handle, Anthropologie; 44-Inch Legacy Dual-Fuel Range: Aga; paint: Simply White, Benjamin Moore
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Here’s one sign that the cooling off for housing appreciation has become widespread: The hot San Francisco housing market actually saw home prices drop in July, marking the city’s weakest result since early 2012, according to data released Tuesday morning.
Looking at a broader gauge of prices in 20 cities, July saw overall growth of 0.6% in July, slower than the 1% rise in June, according to S&P/Case-Shiller’s 20-city composite index.
After seasonal adjustments, home prices among the 20 cities fell 0.5% in July — the biggest drop since October 2011 — compared with a 0.3% decline in June.
Slower appreciation could encourage more buyers, though prices are still outpacing inflation. A larger number of homes on the market has helped cool down home-price growth. At the same time, demand has been somewhat curbed by increasingly pricey properties and mortgage loans.
Meanwhile, annual growth slowed down, with year-over-year home prices rising 6.7% in July — the slowest pace since late 2012 — compared with annual growth of 8.1% in June. Among the 20 tracked cities, 19 saw slower annual growth in July.
“The geographic breadth of the pullback in prices is noteworthy,” Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securities, wrote in a research note. “Apologies if you are looking to sell your home, but perhaps a bit of relief on the price side will help to bolster housing demand, which has been disappointing lately.”
read more….
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/house-prices-see-widespread-slowdown-in-july-2014-09-30
The agency responsible for levying a statewide surcharge on electricity rates to pay for green energy programs has proposed extending the tax for another decade.
NYSERDA, the state’s energy and research development authority, has raised more than $5 billion since 2008 via the surcharge, according to environmental groups. The money has gone to fund a long list of energy-saving programs, including subsidies for efficient building systems and payments to landlords for every watt of electricity they save when the grid is overloaded.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who controls the agency, is expected to approve the proposal. The money could help buildings in the city, where Mayor Bill de Blasio this week unveiled a plan to to push smaller buildings to become more energy-efficient, as larger properties have in recent years.
The electrical surcharge flows into the state’s Clean Energy Fund, a pot of money available to property owners who want to defray the cost of installing efficient boilers, lighting systems and other energy upgrades.
“NYSERDA is proud to provide long-term funding certainty for the transition to cleaner, more resilient and affordable energy systems,” an agency spokeswoman said in a statement.
The surcharge was set to sunset late next year. Environmental groups had said that threatened to undermine the growth of a green energy industry in the state.
“This new commitment is … a market signal that New York is open for business for renewable and energy efficiency,” said Lisa Dix, a senior New York representative for the Sierra Club. “We want those private-sector dollars here.”
According to Ms. Dix, the state fund has helped support energy-efficiency consultants, engineers, manufacturers and builders. It’s unclear how many property owners have used the assistance and how much money remains in the fund.
read more….
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/
For all the talk of expanding the credit box and opening up credit to previously underserved borrowers, there have been no significant fluctuations or improvements to mortgage credit availability since 2009, according to a new report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC).
In this week’s Securitization Weekly Overview, BofAML’s Chris Flanagan, Gregory Fitter and Mao Ding said that there has been little improvement there has been to mortgage credit availability in the last five years.
And the analysts write that the lack of available mortgage credit is holding down the economic recovery.
“We think tight mortgage credit and weak demand for mortgage credit are key driving forces behind the slow growth recovery story and the positive technical story for securitized products,” the analysts said.
“In turn, we think this mortgage production weakness will keep long-term interest rates biased lower and help drive the yield curve flattening process that started at the beginning of 2014 and should persist until the end of 2016.”
read more….
This chart proves mortgage credit availability isn’t improving
Millennials aren’t in a rush to buy their own homes. Heck, many of them aren’t in a rush to move out of their parents’ houses.
That doesn’t mean, however, that they’ll remain renters—or freeloaders in mom and dad’s basement—forever. And the housing and mortgage industries can’t wait.
“The story line has been that millennials are not forming households, they’re living with mom and dad,” said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist for Realtor.com. But this group’s usage of mobile real estate applications and websites is on the rise, Smoke says, up 61% year-over-year as of July based on his analysis of comScore data of people between the ages of 25 and 34. More than one-third of millennials used a mobile device in July to look at real estate data, he said.
That says to Smoke that millennials are at least thinking about buying or renting a home, and researching the market to learn their options.
What’s more, a recent Redfin survey found that 92% of people in this age group who don’t have a home want to buy one in the future, said Nela Richardson, the real-estate company’s chief economist. And there are some clear preferences in what they want in a home.
read more….
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-millennials-want-in-a-home-2014-09-15
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| Sale on Wave Hill Breads’ Roman Focaccia; Pledge to Support Ossining Farmers Market w/American Farmland Trust; Chef Maria Reina Hosts Cooking Demo in Piermont + MORE September 11-17th, 2014 DowntoEarthMarkets.com | ||||||||||||
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Click on a Market to see all vendor and event details…
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| Ossining On Saturday, join us at the market for an “I Love My Farmers Market Celebration” with the American Farmland Trust. The celebration will feature music by Les Tappan Zigues from 10 am to noon AND a free yoga class in Market Square from noon to 1 pm. The American Farmland Trust will encourage market customers to pledge their support for the market. A pledge is a commitment to shop at the market. They will record the dollars pledged and announce the total at the end of the market day. In exchange, shoppers will receive a “No Farms, No Food” bumper sticker, as well as a Made in the USA canvas tote bag. These reusable bags are the perfect accessory as the market strives to be free of plastic shopping bags by September 27th. Piermont AND for the talented bakers of the area, registration is now OPEN for the 2nd Annual Piermont Apple Pie Contest. The judges will be renowned Chef Peter X. Kelly, Mark Tasker, Head Pastry Chef of Balthazar, and esteemed Piermont community member, Sylvia Welch. For additional events, visit our Down to Earth Markets Event Calendar. Stay tuned to all market happenings via our Down to Earth Markets Facebook page | ||||||||||||
| Cardamom Summer Chowder by Calcutta Kitchens | ||||||||||||
At Down to Earth Farmers Markets, we love to bring together both local farmers and food makers who source locally. Aditi Goswami, the founder of Calcutta Kitchens, is an example of the latter. She grew up going to the fresh food markets of India, and now she’s dedicated to using local farmers’ ingredients in her Indian simmer sauces. She lets the changing harvest inspire her kitchen ideas and she recently shared this recipe for Cardamom Summer Chowder. For the late summer harvest, Aditi now gives us a delicious – and easy! – stage…ENJOY. Ingredients 1 16 oz jar of Calcutta Kitchens Bengali Cardamon & Coconut Simmer Sauce Directions Find Calcutta Kitchens at the Down to Earth Farmers Markets in Larchmont and Park Slope this weekend. | ||||||||||||
| Rotating* Vendors This Week *Vendors who rotate through various markets during the season. They enjoy getting to know many communities, and here’s where to find them this week: Croton-on-Hudson The Peanut Principle (Gourmet nut & seed butters) Larchmont Bombay Emerald Chutney Company Calcutta Kitchens Flourish Baking Company Maupston Design Studio (Handspun yarns & roving) Pie Lady & Son Robinson & Co. Catering (Locally sourced, British-inspired prepared foods) Trotta Foods Ossining Piermont Christiane’s Backstube (Locally sourced, German-inspired baked specialties) Rye Tarrytown | ||||||||||||
| Down to Earth Markets 173 Main Street Ossining, NY 10562 Phone: 914-923-4837 DowntoEarthMarkets.com | ||||||||||||
Continue reading the main story
A design for a home anchored to a sheer cliff face offers a striking vista. But what would it take to live in such a place, asks Jon Kelly.
For sale: distinctive seaside property with spectacular coastal views. Would suit high-value buyer untroubled by vertigo.
So far it only exists as a concept, but the design for the Cliff House by Modscape, an Australian firm that designs and builds prefabricated homes, is enough to give a lurch to the stomach of anyone uneasy with heights.
Here’s the pitch – it features three bedrooms (two doubles, the other en-suite), a stylish living space, a carport, separate bathroom and (tantalisingly or nausea-inducingly, depending on your tolerance of sheer drops) an open-air spa and barbecue area on the bottom floor. Artfully minimalist interior décor focuses visitors’ attention on “transcendent views of the ocean”.
According to the company’s website, the plans were drawn up after a couple approached the firm asking its designers to explore how to build a holiday home along “extreme parcels” of coast in Victoria.
read more…
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-29127057
