Category Archives: Chappaqua

Every Picture Tells a Story; A Beginning, a Middle, and NEXT | Cross River NY Real Estate

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Sept. 27 was a new beginning for me. It was the day I walked into Inman News to start my new position as social media director, and the day I met my new teammates. Katie Lance had just come off an extremely busy week of travel, and like old friends she welcomed me with a warm hug. With a deep breath, we were off.

Katie introduced me to everyone, and I received my first tour of the offices. In the back of the main office, something caught my eye: a row of vintage typewriters placed neatly next to one another. When I asked Katie why they were there, she said they belonged to Brad Inman.

Brad is Inman’s founder, and right away I wanted to know more about not only where I was going, but what got Inman News HERE. So much has changed in the years since Inman News started, so I asked Brad if I could get a starting point, a foundation. I wanted a place to spring from, in context, history, and Brad’s personal story. Every business starts with a vision, a passion, a need to serve, the love of someone or something. I asked Brad to add some of his words to my story. I asked the questions, and Brad shared his answers. The result is a connection, and an understanding.

A Beginning – The Love of a Craft … and Typewriters

Q: The typewriters: What do they mean to you?

A: “The vintage typewriters are beautiful, and, for me, symbolize the craft of journalism. I watched my father type in his retail store and wanted to be everything like him. I was a self-taught typist by about 6 years old. My dad’s typewriter is in the collection plus the one I had in high school when I wrote a weekly sports column for the local newspaper. My calculus teacher was the football coach. In 1968, he had a losing season and hated what I was writing about his lousy team. Though I was pretty good at math, he gave me a bad grade. It was my first lesson with angry story subjects. Now, what does that have to do with typewriters? Nothing.”

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A Middle – Journalism Meets Real Estate

Q: What came first: the love of real estate or writing?

A: “Writing, then real estate. In the 1980s, I was part of a band of writers including Ken Harney, Lew Sicheleman, Bob Bruss, Corrie Anders, Bruce Koon and many others who were working to make real estate sections credible with serious journalism about a serious subject. Before that, real estate sections were often held hostage by advertisers who provided content in the form of advertorials. UGH.”

When asked about what triggered him to create Inman News, Brad said, “There was no big vision. I was a consumer real estate writer and stumbled upon a tech mess-up at the National Association of Realtors just as the commercial Internet came out in 1996. I began posting stories about these events at NAR on Inman.com. I even had a secret source inside the ranks of NAR’s leadership. Suddenly, I had industry readers on this free site and I was in the online trade publication business without any real plan. I got lucky. My continuing inspiration came from my industry readers who were starved for a new voice around technology and innovation and a publication that had no fear about covering whatever I came across. As Inman News rankled many, we were cheered on by many more.”

NEXT…

Technology moves fast. I believe that humans don’t. We’ve moved well past typewriters, but we hang onto the things that are important to us. They remind of us of who we are and what we love most, and remind us that nothing ever stays the same. The stories that connect us are important to listen to and to share. The technology we use to build and advance the real estate industry, and our businesses, are simply the tools we use to make those connections to consumers.

For me, what’s next is refining and perfecting the craft of building businesses that are custom made for your consumer. The differentiation we can provide in mobile, social media, and technology strategies must communicate with and anticipate the consumer’s needs. Adopting and implementing these strategies are skills that we can all work on together. My hope is to continue to build a community that is ready to do just that. I’m looking forward to what’s next, and to joining you in that journey. I’m ready to dig in.

“The real estate industry is a very important industry that needs to be taken seriously and must be encouraged to do right by the consumer.” -Brad Inman

via next.inman.com

The Time-Honored Art of Splitting Wood | Chappaqua NY Realtor

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Chopping stovewood to size by hand may, at first glance, appear to be a ponderous, imprecise activity that requires little more than pure brute force. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. There is, instead, a distinct art to splitting wood. The skilled woodsman or -woman who works with — rather than against — the rounds he or she is handling can split up a lot more fuel in a given time than can some muscle-bound ox who tries to club the wood pile to smithereens. In fact, a great many experienced splitters (both chore-laden homesteaders and briefcase-laden urbanites) have honed their skills to such a point that they look upon billet-busting as one of life’s more enjoyable tasks.

Make removing ice from a windshield easier with an onion, keep a candle in the car for emergencAnd even if you’ve never split a stick, you can become an accomplished woodcracker yourself. To do so, you’ll need a few commonly available tools, the how-to basics I’ll share in this article, some rounds of ripe-for-the-opening wood — and practice.

The Tools

The instruments most often used for working up wood by hand are the single-blade splitting axe, a pair of three- to five-pound steel wedges, a middle-sized sledgehammer, and an eight-pound splitting maul. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Several manufacturers have devised variations on the standard hand tools — we’ve sized up a number of woodcracking aids in The Great Wood-Splitting Contest II]

However, it isn’t necessary to have all of these tools to begin work. I recommend starting out with a pair of wedges and that workhorse of the log-busting trade, the splitting maul (or “go-devil”). The blade of the latter implement can crack open many a billet, while the tool’s back end can be used for driving wedges. (By the way, never use the butt of an axe for pounding — its thin head may crack!)

The Technique

Probably the single most important wood-splitting rule is this: Always place your to-be-broken rounds on a short chopping block. Such a base will provide solid resistance to the blows, increasing your stroke’s penetration and guaranteeing that when your maul breaks through the billet, the tool’s blade will land in wood instead of slamming into dulling earth or stones.

Once you’ve set your piece of tree up on its chopping block, stand back with your arms extended and feet planted squarely apart. (And, for safety’s sake, be sure to wear boots and sturdy long pants!) Then line up the go-devil over its intended target, wind ‘er up and swing!

Now some folks go for pinpoint accuracy by lifting their mauls straight up overhead, while others feel they gain more power by swinging the implements back around their shoulders. And one person will let his or her top gripping hand slide up toward the splitter’s head on the upswing, but another will keep both hands clenched together in a grip similar to that used by a golfer. You’ll have to experiment until you decide just which technique is best for you.

via motherearthnews.com

Atlanta No. 2 most affordable housing market | Cross River NY Homes

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Metro Atlanta hasn’t been the greatest place in the country to own a home, as everyone with a devalued house in these parts knows.

There is some good news, relatively speaking, though.

It doesn’t cost that much to buy here.

Atlanta ranks second in the U.S. among the top 25 metro areas in terms of home affordability, new research from Interest.com, a Bankrate company, shows.

The median household income in the Atlanta area exceeds the income required to purchase a median-priced home here by 40 percent. That’s better than every other  big market except for Detroit, where it’s 45.32 percent.

The rest of the top five most affordable metro areas are Minneapolis, Phoenix and St. Louis.

Of course, Detroit is hardly the symbol of economic success, and Phoenix has had major housing issues.

The least affordable markets: San Francisco, New York, San Diego, Miami and Los Angeles.

Housing affordability is key concern nationally, and nationwide a  median-income household can afford a median-priced home in only 14 of the 25 largest markets, the study found.

Mike Sante, managing editor of Interest.com, said, “Despite all the talk about how homes are more affordable than they have been in decades, buying a home is still a big challenge for many American households.”

Sante continued, “Dealing with rising expenses and stagnant wages is a struggle. Even after years of declining home prices and record-low mortgage rates, median-income households are unable to afford a median-priced home in nearly half of the metropolitan areas that we looked at.”

via blogs.ajc.com

Carolwood Estate Hits Market for $90 Million | Cross River NY Real Estate

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TheAgencyRE.com

A new addition to the most expensive homes list just hit the market, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Listing a home for $90 million is a big deal — even in the pricey Holmby Hills area of Beverly Glen, where the median home value hovers around $1.4 million.

Perched on North Carolwood Drive, the Carolwood Estate is in good company; it’s located near Fleur de Lys (priced at a hefty $125 million), Michael Jackson’s final home (priced at $23.9 million) and the Owlwood Estate, which is rumored to be privately listed at a jaw-dropping $150 million.

Historically, the property is even more significant as it once was Walt Disney’s estate.

The media company mogul had a barn on his estate to hold his projects, in particular a miniature steam train that would eventually lead to his plans of Disneyland.

When Disney passed away, his wife, Lilly Disney, continued to live in the home on the property. When she died, the property was taken over by the Walt Disney Foundation, which eventually sold the home to investor Gabriel Brener.

Due to asbestos concerns, the Disney home needed to be torn down, but Diane Disney Miller, the daughter of Walt Disney, asked Brener if she could move the Disney barn off the property. The structure was dismantled and reassembled in Griffith Park, where it is now a museum.

Brener then began construction on his private home, Carolwood Estate. Measuring 35,000 square feet, the home was finished in 2001 and has 8 bedrooms and 17 bathrooms.

According to the listing by brokerage The Agency, the home opens with a “two-story oval foyer with plaster-veneered walls, crown molding, and statuary and verde jade marble flooring.” A grand staircase off to the side leads to rows of suites used as children’s rooms.

Each room in the main living area has 12-foot ceilings and 3-inch thick mahogany doors. Marble fireplaces, crown molding and other high-end details round out the rest of the home.

The listing is held by real estate agents Jay Harris and Mauricio Umansky of The Agency.

via zillow.com

Tory Burch’s Hamptons Mansion Sells at Deep Discount | Chappaqua Real Estate

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Source: Wikicommons

Eleven million may sound like a lot of money, but for a South Hampton waterfront mansion, it’s spare change.

Tory Burch’s home has finally sold after a series of price cuts, and it represents a steep loss: The apparel, shoe and handbag designer bought the home in the wake of her divorce for $22.5 million.

The deeply discounted selling price not only hurts Burch, but according to the NY Post, it hasn’t made some of her neighbors too happy either. The waterfront estate is located at 2080 Meadow Ln, Southhampton, NY 11968, a prestigious area that is home to big names like David Koch, Calvin Klein, Janna Bullock and Rachael Ray.

A source told the New York Post:

Everyone in the neighborhood is staggered that she sold it at such a low price. It has sparked a lot of worry if this will affect the market and their own homes, but also a lot of speculation as to why she sold it off so cheaply.”

The home did have water damage from burst pipes, and Curbed called the home a “tear-down,” but $11 million for the property, in an area where homes sell for $30 to $50 million, still has the neighbors concerned.

via zillow.com

3 Digital Marketing Strategies you Should Not Ignore | Cross River NY Real Estate

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Everyone loves something for free. The marketing message varies but the core tactic involves the word “free”.3 Digital Marketing Strategies you Should Not Ignore

Phrases such as “buy two and get one free”, “free holiday for purchases over $1,000″ and the online shopping favorite of “free shipping” are the bread and butter for all marketers.

When you are starting your blog, website or start-up you usually don’t have a big bucket of money to throw at marketing. Traditionally you did something like a letter box drop, a direct mail after buying an expensive list from a database marketing company or you hired a telemarketing company to call people and annoy them.

In the digital marketing world it could be buying Google Adwords and commencing a digital marketing campaign that uses key words and phrases that people would use to find your product or service when searching online, it could also be Facebook ads targeting your city and target demographic. At the end of the day it can cost a lot of money to mount a major marketing campaign unless your family is backed by Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates or a drug baron. The money pit is not a bottomless pile of gold coins produced by the golden goose. You have to get smart and savvy and find cheap or zero cost alternatives or otherwise start robbing banks.

So you have to be clever and work out ways to get free traffic that you can convert to leads and sales.

The three digital marketing strategies that can pay off and drive free traffic include social, search and the all important “unique” content that is the foundation element that facilitates and accelerates the sharing and lifts your search results.

1. Search is Changing

There are two ways people find your blog or website when searching online. They either click on the paid Google Adwords that are placed on the side or the top of the search results page  (that someone has paid Google to put there) or they clicked on the other links that are called “Organic Search Results”. These are earned through optimizing your website and blog for search engines.

Five years ago SEO consultants were all the rage. You hired them and put them in a dark room, fed them pizza and pasta and soon your site was ranking on the first page of Google. It was like magic. If you dug a little deeper they were doing things like buying links, setting up domains with the keywords in the URL that were important for your business and other tactics that gamed the search system.

But Google has started changing the rules. Strange sounding updates for Google that include the words “Panda” and “Penguin” are really code words for “watch out your site is about to drop from page one to page ten”

Plumbers, painters and podiatrists that were ranking on the first page of Google and had built booming businesses based on old school search engine optimization (SEO) tactics had dropped off page one and the inquiries and leads had dried up. This type of SEO didn’t require creating great unique content that the web needs and loves but just involved playing the SEO game.

The search game is changing with Google now putting major emphasis on content and social signals such as Retweets, likes, shares and the Google Plus one platform’s +1′s.

It is no longer about gaming the sytem but adding real value to the web through regular publishing of content that people love to share, link to and embed.

2. Content is the New SEO

Google’s updates have made content marketing the hottest trend since “planking”.

Create, publish and promote great content and Google (read search engines) will start to love you. That content can be a YouTube video, a blog post or a Slideshare presentation or any type of multi-media content.   eCommerce stores are hiring magazine editors to lead the creation of content that is visual, viral and valued by readers and viewers.

A word of warning here. Google does not like duplicate content (it has new ways of detecting that) so just copying and pasting someone else’s content into your website or blog is frowned upon. It needs to be unique.

The challenge is to make the content so enticing that people will share it with their friends, family and colleagues. This does take some thought, skill and creativity.

Content with a good headline or a captivating image will be shared much more on Twitter or Facebook than a bland bit of poorly written  text. You need to think about what sort of content captures your attention and then create that for your customers that is relevant and tempting.

3. Social is the Turbo Charger for Content

Social networks (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) and social media (YouTube, Slideshare and Pinterest) provide the platforms to turbo charge your content. It is how people share content.

Social accelerates the discovery of your content. Before the rise of social web, content was locked up in filing cabinets, hard disks and printed offline articles. Sharing online was limited to sending an attachment via email. This limited its spread as it was private.

Content needs to be re-purposed (Make a blog post into a Powerpoint presentation and put it on Slideshare or take a printed press release and turn it into a blog post), published online and it then needs to be set free. It needs to be built for sharing.

Google has created Google+ to measure these social signals of sharing and is embedding and weaving social into search results.

Content that is shared on social channels is your new SEO.

What About You?

The days of  single channel marketing are over. Combining and integrating social, search and content into your digital marketing strategy are now vital to move from visible to visible on a crowded and competitive web.

This blog was created on a foundation of consistent unique content that was shared on social networks. When I started, Google didn’t really know I existed. Today nearly 50% of my traffic (and it is free) is via Google organic search. That is over 160,000 page views a month. It doesn’t cost me a cent.

How are you playing in the digital marketing landscape? Is it social, search or content or have you moved to an integrated approach?

Which strategies and tactics are working best for you?

Look forward to hearing your stories in  comments below.

Want to Learn How to Market Your Business and Brand on Social Networks?

My book – Blogging the Smart Way “How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

It is now available to download. I show you how to create and build a blog that rocks and grow tribes, fans and followers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also includes dozens of tips to create contagious content that begs to be shared and tempts people to link to your website and blog.

I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 110,000.

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in Shar

via jeffbullas.com

Fitch Raises Housing Forecasts for 2012 and 2013 | Chappaqua NY Real Estate

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Year-over-year gains for single-family starts and new home sales have been sustaining the momentum of earlier this year and new homes and existing home sales have also been advancing. Year-to-date U.S. housing metrics are well above 2011 levels, according to Fitch Ratings.

Fitch has again raised its housing forecasts for 2012, but the ratings service still assumes a moderate rise off a very low bottom. Fitch projects single-family housing starts to improve about 19 percent, new home sales to rise approximately 19.5 percent and existing home sales to grow 8.5 percent in 2012.

Sales growth will be somewhat less robust next year, according to the rating service. 2013 single family-starts should expand 14 percent while new home sales grow 13 percent. Existing home sales should increase 4.5 percent.

“The major public builders generally realized much stronger results y-o-y in the first half and gained market share. On average net new orders were up 30.2 perce t. The unit backlog typically improved 41.3% (48.2 percent on a dollar basis). The implied price in backlog grew 5.4 percent (more from mix than overt price increases)” Fitch said in its Chalk Line report.

“The housing recovery had been long delayed, and has so far been somewhat irregular and below historic patterns… With the U.S. economy moving from recession to expansion in the third quarter of 2009, plus very attractive housing affordability and government incentives, housing was jump-started. However, faltering consumer confidence, among other issues, had largely restrained the recovery. New home sales and single-family starts retested the bottom during the summer of 2010 and in February 2011,” Fitch said.

“Challenges remain, including continued relatively high levels of delinquencies, potential of acceleration in foreclosures, and consequent meaningful distressed sales and restrictive credit qualification standards,” Fitch noted.

Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are more optimistic in their forecasts.  Fannie sees new home sales increasing 20.2 percent this year and another 17.9 percent next year, and existing homes rising to 7.8 percent by the end of this year and 3.9 percent next year.

Freddie’s economists see total home sales up 8.9 percent this year and 8.1 percent next year, with starts up 22.9 percent in 2012 and another 21.3 percent next year.

via realestateeconomywatch.com

How The Housing Recovery Will Take Shape In Coming Months | Cross River Realtor

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More good news on the home front.  The latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index indicates that home prices gained 1.6% in July compared to a year earlier. Every city tracked in the 20-City Composite has seen prices rise for three straight months and 16 of the 20 cities saw year-over-year increases. “The positive news in both the monthly and annual rates of change in home prices over the past few months signals a possible recovery in the housing market,” noted David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, in a statement.

Blitzer is the latest housing expert to toss around the “r” word.  Last week, for example, the National Association of Realtors reported that existing home sales climbed about 9%  nationally in August from a year earlier. “The housing market is steadily recovering with consistent increases in both home sales and median prices,” explained Lawrence Yun, chief economist of NAR.

A growing pile of data indicates that that national-level recovery is solidifying into a reality (albeit one taking dramatically different shape on a more local level across the country). In addition to the Case-Shiller index and NAR’s sales report, new home construction — a forward-looking indicator of housing market activity — is making a comeback.

August single family home starts are up a hefty 29% since last year, according to the Census Bureau, despite missing analysts’ estimates. Home-builders’ confidence hit its highest level in more than six years this month, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Companies like Lennar, the second-largest home builder in the U.S., have been reporting surprisingly positive quarterly earnings thanks to an uptick in both orders and selling prices, according to my colleague Abram Brown. And Fannie Mae economists estimate that residential investment in 2012 will positively contribute to gross domestic product for the first time since 2005.

All that good news begs the question: what can we expect from housing in the coming months?

“We got to the point where housing couldn’t fall any farther,” notes John Canally, an investment strategist for LPL Financial. “Seven years into it and we are finally seeing a turnaround — but it will be modest at best.”

Canally likens the national-level housing market recovery to a “crooked U” in shape: home prices fell dramatically from 2006 through 2009, then bounced along an uneven bottom (falling a bit more following the expiration of the 2010 home buyer tax credits) for three years before finally beginning to turn upward in recent months.

Lauren Pressman, director of real estate at Aspiriant, also believes housing is making a U-shaped rebound. “It does seem that we are on solid ground for a recovery, or least no more continued depreciation in home prices in most markets,” says Pressman. Yet she doesn’t expect prices to rise dramatically any time soon, thanks to the lackluster jobs market, an overhang of distressed shadow inventory, and ongoing credit issues.

Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow.com, has expectations that echo Pressman’s. “We think the bottom is going to be a long flat affair where home value appreciation over the next two to four years, depending on the market, will be in the 1-3%  range,” explains Humphries. Zillow’s formal home value projection (which includes all homes, listed for sale and off the market) entails a 1.1% rate of appreciation from June 2012 through June 2013. Humphries believes a healthy (non-bubble) 2.5-5% rate of appreciation won’t kick in until sometime between 2014 and 2016.

Yet housing inventory levels are down and new construction will take years to move through the development pipeline. Realtors in some markets, like Phoenix, Miami and San Francisco, even report bidding wars. The rapidly diminishing supply of sought-after inventory has some analysts making larger projections. NAR estimates prices of existing homes will rise 10% cumulatively over the next two years. Barclays equity research division warns that a possible shortage of quality inventory could even fuel a “dramatic, multi-year recovery in home prices that could drive prices up 5% to 7% per year through 2015,” according to my colleague Agustino Fontevecchia.

Still, a handful of factors arguably stand in the way. Down payments and tight lending standards remain huge hurdles for aspiring home buyers right now. So does job certainty.

And while the Federal Reserve’s recently announced plan to buy mortgage-backed securities will likely push mortgage rates lower, inspiring some prospective buyers to take the plunge into home ownership, other large policy issues still loom. If the so-called fiscal cliff, in which the Bush tax cuts expire and automatic spending cuts kick in, is realized at the end of this year, it could hamper home sales and new construction starts.  If economic woes worsen in Europe, the consequent downward pressure to the U.S. economy could impact housing similarly. The same could be said of spikes in inflation or energy prices

So how will this housing recovery take shape? It will be a localized recovery in which some markets clock bigger gains than others.  Markets like Phoenix and Miami will continue to log notable gains; markets like Chicago and Atlanta will continue to struggle as distressed inventory filters out into the market. Overall, however, many markets are stabilizing and beginning to reflect positive growth. That growth will translate into a humble increase in the annualized rate of national home price appreciation for 2012. In other words, the very worst of the housing recession is finally behind us but the recovery ahead is likely a long one.

via forbes.com