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The Perfect Length of a Tweet is 71-100 Characters | Chappaqua NY Real Estate

All Tweets are the same, right? Fewer than 140 characters.
It’s not readily apparent that the length of a Tweet has an impact on the number of people who engage with it. Advertisers who use Twitter to reach their customers need all the insights they can get, especially those who are paying for promoted tweets. A recent study by Track Social, a social media analytics firm, looks at the effect of Tweet length on response levels as measured by retweets.

On Twitter, smaller is not better.
On Facebook, engagement normally decreases as post length increases. Track Social found that the opposite happens on Twitter — engagement increases as Tweet length increases.
With an upper limit of 140 characters, shorter tweets don’t stand out from the crowd and tend to be overlooked. Engagement levels are rather flat between 71 and 100 characters, and decrease as the 140 character limit approaches. 71-100 characters is the sweet spot — enough space to say something that resonates with followers plus room for retweeters to add their own references and comments.
No guarantee of success
Writing a tweet that’s in the middle of the character range doesn’t guarantee increased engagement, and short or long Tweets aren’t doomed to fail. Responses to Tweets depend on many factors, including content, frequency, and timing.
Advice
Short, punchy statements don’t work especially well on Twitter.
Try using images to effectively increase Tweet length.
Avoid pushing up against the 140 character limit whenever possible.

via pamorama.net

Fiscal cliff will usher in profound change | Cross River NY Real Estate

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Most people seem to feel some sense of relief at the passing of the election, but markets are apprehensive. We need for big stuff to happen, and we know that more will happen now, faster than it has in years. But we don’t know what will happen, or to what effect.
The daily flow of economic data causes upsets, but reassures markets — at least we know where we are. For the next month Hurricane Sandy will distort to uselessness most of the usual reports, as it did this week’s shaky ones for retail sales, unemployment and industrial production. Maybe a new trend, maybe nothing.
Sandy had nothing to do with the rest of the world. Eurozone industrial production in September fell sharply, down 2.5 percent in the month. Third-quarter eurozone GDP fell by 0.2 percent annualized, negative for the second straight quarter and three of the last four. Japan’s third-quarter GDP sank 3.5 percent. China’s official reports cannot be trusted, not during a leadership change. Nobody outside the new Politburo Standing Committee knows what the change means — and maybe not even those seven men.
Against that backdrop the U.S. has embarked on the most profound change in its finances since the income tax began in 1862. The stock market had a bad day after Obama’s victory, but the cause appeared to be Europe. Since then, the straight-down stocks seemed to be anticipating his newly announced tax-negotiating position.
“The wealthy don’t need a tax cut.” Fair enough. However, the reversal of a tax cut made 11 years ago amounts to a tax increase, in every way and effect.
But because the president’s proposal affects only the top 2 percent of income earners, it’s a painless way to raise money. So those in favor say.
Over 10 years, increasing the rate on the top two tax brackets (from 33 percent to 36 percent, and from 35 percent to 39.6 percent) would raise $441 billion. Limiting deductions by these taxpayers, another $123 billion. Another $206 billion from new taxes on dividends plus an inevitable increase in capital gains taxes … the link to sinking stocks is unmistakable.
The very worst of the lies today about taxation: “We have had higher brackets for the rich and not hurt the economy.” We have had higher brackets, but nobody paid them in previous systems that were more loophole than collection. Pulling $800 billion-plus out of the pockets of 2 percent of taxpayers will have negative economic effect.
Some spending cuts will come soon, but very few. There will be no cuts in current social spending (Obamacare will add). The reductions will come in the form of promises, not taking effect until late in the decade. The front-loading of taxes and back-loading of spending cuts makes Republican negotiators nervous. And should, based on the history.
The great tax reform of 1986 removed many prior loopholes and reduced brackets to two: 15 percent and 28 percent. But by 1990 that reform was not generating enough revenue to fund social spending above forecast.
We raised brackets and closed loopholes. In 1993, President Clinton reached a grand deal: Raise the rate on the top bracket to 39.6 percent in exchange for hard limits on spending. That, along with a tech-fueled economic boom and a stock market bubble, created a budget surplus. Clinton’s deal was fair and effective, but that economy was not authentic, and we will be reapplying those brackets now to a far weaker economy.
The most extraordinary change in the works: For the first time since 1862, a no-loophole system. Thus at any given bracket, the effective rate of tax will be higher than ever.
Some think a “cliff” deal will reassure business and help the economy. More likely, everyone affected will know that austerity has arrived on our shore, and our hopes will rest on a far more adaptable economy than anywhere else. Good bet, too.
The prospects for a deal have improved now that two hardheads who, from a distance undermined House Speaker John Boehner’s efforts in 2011 — Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor — will now join the negotiating team. On the other side, all will depend on the extent of President Obama’s determination for righteous extraction of cash from people who neither need it nor earned it.
Temporary bad news today on another front: the bankruptcy of the maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread. (In my childhood, my mother said they called it that because we wonder if it’s bread.) Take heart: The brands will be sold and revived. Couldn’t make it through a time like this without an occasional smuggled Twinkie.
The National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Optimism Index is one of the very best economic measures, in part because the survey goes back almost 40 years. Small-business conditions have been unchanged since the end of 2010, stuck below any recession bottom since ’81.

Survey of 2,029 small-business owners conducted in October 2012. Source:NFIB.com.

via inman.com

Great News: Spotify Is Coming To The Web | Katonah NY Real Estate

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via readwrite.com

Report: Tampa Home of Socialite in Petraeus Scandal Facing Foreclosure | Katonah Realtor

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Scott and Jill Kelley’s Tampa home. Source: Google Maps
Jill Kelley, right, with her husband, Scott Kelley, and Holly Petraeus, wife of David Petraeus. Source: Zuma Press
As if it wasn’t enough to have sparked an FBI investigation that has exploded into an international scandal and brought down the head of the CIA, one of the women at the crux of the Petraeus scandal must now also endure intense media scrutiny about her imploding financial crisis.
Jill Kelley, the Tampa socialite and military booster who alerted the FBI about the threatening emails that led to the resignation of CIA chief David Petraeus, is facing foreclosure on her home.
Purchased in 2004 for $1.5 million after Jill and her physician husband Scott Kelley moved to Tampa, the 6-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom house is at least one asset that creditors are seeking to reclaim from the Kelleys.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, the couple’s financial spiral was under way by the time Jill Kelley first invited Petraeus and his wife, Holly, to their home in 2008, soon after the former general was stationed at MacDill Air Force Base.
“Lawsuits show the Kelleys were treading water by then, when Scott Kelley was making just the minimum payment on a Visa Signature card that had accumulated a balance over $70,000 and was taking on hundreds of dollars in interest each month,” the newspaper reported. “According to a lawsuit filed this year, Kelley defaulted on that card in 2010, the same year Regions Bank sued him and his wife over a debt in excess of $250,000. Chase sued for more than $25,000, and Regions Bank filed to foreclose on their Bayshore home. The bank said it was owed more than $1.7 million, and that it had not gotten any payments since Sept. 2009.”
Jill Kelley continues to be heavily scrutinized after it was revealed this week that she was the woman who reported threatening emails she had received to the FBI. The emails led the FBI to Petraeus biographer Paula Broadwell, who had an affair with Petraeus while he was serving as the military commander of U.S. operations in Afghanistan.
A second commander, U.S. Gen. John Allen, who currently oversees U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has also been implicated in the scandal. The Pentagon announced Tuesday that it is investigating “potentially inappropriate” correspondence between Allen and Kelley.
Reporters outside the Kelley home. Source: AP
While FBI investigators took materials from Broadwell’s home in Charlotte, NC on Monday, the media circus has set up shop outside Kelley’s home on Bayshore Boulevard in the Tampa neighborhood of North Hyde Park. The waterfront home was where Kelley hosted many parties for military personnel and other high-profile guests over the years. By many accounts, Kelley worked fast and furiously to ensconce her family in Tampa’s society circles.
“Determined to make her footprint, Jill Kelley knocked on doors up and down Bayshore Boulevard, asking homeowners if their house was for sale. She wanted the prestigious address, and she got it. In June 2004, the couple paid $1.5 million for a 4,800-square-foot brick mansion with stately white pillars and a view of Hillsborough Bay, just six miles from MacDill Air Force Base,” wrote Ben Montgomery and Amy Scherzer of the Tampa Bay Times.

via zillow.com

Apartment Where New Bobby Flay Show Filmed for Sale | Cross River Real Estate

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Source: FoodNetwork.com
Searching for a place with some good cooking vibes? Look no further than this Brooklyn townhouse, which was deemed perfect for filming a new cooking show, “America’s Best Home Cook,” hosted by chef Bobby Flay. The show pits “home cooks” in weekly competitions to determine the best in America.
The Bedford-Stuyvesant home, located at 44 Monroe St, Brooklyn, NY 11238, is all exposed brick and stone walls with an open floor plan that centers, of course, around a spacious kitchen.
The building was constructed in 1899 and was recently restored, adding another three stories to the original dwelling. The listing notes the home’s capacity for entertaining — which is likely why producers of Flay’s new show picked the property. According to Prudential Douglas Elliman director of PR Ashley Murphy, the home is being rented by the Food Network until the end of November.
After that, the townhouse is up for grabs for $1.65 million.
Besides a chef-worthy kitchen, the home has herringbone wood floors, exposed beams with walnut molding and a dining room closed off to the kitchen by glass French doors. Measuring 2,400 square feet, the home has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths and a generous terrace.
The listing is held by Jerry Minsky of Prudential Douglas Elliman.
According to Zillow’s home affordability calculator, a monthly payment on the home would be $5,751, assuming a 20 percent down payment on a 30-year mortgage.

via zillow.com

Inflation on the Rise Year over Year | Katonah NY Real Estate

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via economistsoutlook.blogs.realtor.org

Sandy States Get Clobbered with Foreclosures | Chappaqua Real Estate

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New Jersey , New York and Connecticut got hit with a storm of new foreclosures just days before Superstorm Sandy smashed homes and a knocked out power to missions of homeowners.
RealtyTrac reported foreclosure filings on 186,455 U.S. properties in October, an increase of 3 percent from September but down 19 percent from October 2011.
“We continued to see vastly different foreclosure trends across the country in October, depending primarily on how each state’s foreclosing infrastructure was able to handle the high volume of delinquent loans during the worst of the foreclosure crisis in 2010,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac.
“Unfortunately the three states dealing with the biggest rebound in deferred foreclosure activity — New Jersey, New York and Connecticut — also had to deal with the devastation to homes inflicted by super storm Sandy. The foreclosure moratoriums being put into effect as a result of the storm will likely extend the already-lengthy time to foreclose in these states, further prolonging a fundamentally sound housing recovery.”
The three states with the biggest annual increases in foreclosure activity in October were New Jersey (140 percent), New York (123 percent) and Connecticut (41 percent). Other states with sizable increases were Maryland (27 percent), Ohio (24 percent) and Illinois (19 percent).
An analysis of foreclosure activity and inventory in the counties most impacted by super storm Sandy in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York shows foreclosure activity in October was down 8 percent from September but up 92 percent from a year ago, and an estimated $41 billion in foreclosure inventory in those counties.
Florida posted the nation’s highest foreclosure rate for the second month in a row, with one in every 312 housing units with a foreclosure filing in October, followed by Nevada, Illinois, California and Arizona.
Scheduled foreclosure auctions in October increased 9 percent from September, while default notices and bank repossessions (REO) were virtually unchanged from the previous month.
Foreclosure activity increased on a month-over-month basis in more than half of the 212 metro areas tracked in the report, and jumped significantly in some hard-hit metro areas, including Modesto, Calif. (up 68 percent), Sarasota, Fla. (up 53 percent), Las Vegas, Nev. (up 45 percent), Columbus, Ohio (up 61 percent), and Columbia, S.C. (up 58 percent).
Analysis of foreclosure activity and rates in counties
In the 34 counties impacted by Sandy in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York that are being given individual assistance by FEMA, a total of 6,380 properties had foreclosure filings in October, down 8 percent from September but an increase of 92 percent from October 2011. Despite the sharp year-over-year increase, the foreclosure rate in those counties combined was less than half the national average: one in every 1,467 housing units with a foreclosure filing.
As of the end of October, total inventory of properties in some stage of foreclosure or bank owned in these counties was 124,608, up 15 percent from the previous month and up 54 percent from October 2011. The estimated combined market value of foreclosure inventory in the impacted counties was more than $41 billion.
Fannie Mae owned the biggest percentage of REO inventory of any lender in the impacted counties in all three states, with 29 percent in New York, 25 percent in New Jersey, and 22 percent in Connecticut. Other lenders with large percentages of REO inventory in the impacted counties included Wells Fargo, US BankCorp and Deutsche Bank.
Foreclosure starts up slightly
Foreclosure starts — default notices or scheduled foreclosure auctions, depending on the state — were filed for the first time on 89,209 U.S. properties in October, a 2 percent increase from September but still down 19 percent from October 2011 — the third straight month with an annual decrease in foreclosure starts.
Foreclosure starts increased from the previous month in 26 states, including Nevada (54 percent), Tennessee (52 percent), Minnesota (28 percent), North Carolina (26 percent), New York (17 percent) and Georgia (16 percent).
Foreclosure starts increased from a year ago in 15 states, including New Jersey (286 percent), Washington (163 percent), New York (163 percent), Pennsylvania (42 percent), North Carolina (38 percent), and Nevada (20 percent).
Bank repossessions decrease annually for 24th straight month
Lenders completed the foreclosure process on 53,478 U.S. properties in October, down less than 1 percent from the previous month but down 21 percent from October 2011 — the 24th straight month with an annual decrease in REO activity.
REO activity decreased annually in 37 states and the District of Columbia. Some of the biggest decreases were in Oregon (81 percent), Virginia (72 percent), Washington (56 percent), Nevada (50 percent), Texas (41 percent), Michigan (35 percent), Arizona (33 percent), and California (20 percent).
States with some of the biggest annual increases in REO activity included Connecticut (44 percent), Maryland (38 percent), South Carolina (37 percent), New York (33 percent) and Georgia (22 percent).
Florida, Nevada, Illinois post highest state foreclosure rates
Florida registered the nation’s highest state foreclosure rate for the second month in a row. One in every 312 Florida housing units had a foreclosure filing in October — more than twice the national average. A total of 28,783 Florida properties had a foreclosure filing in October, up 2 percent from the previous month and a 12-month high, but the October 2012 total was still 13 percent below the October 2011 total.
A 41 percent monthly increase in overall foreclosure activity helped push the Nevada foreclosure rate to the second highest in the nation in October, up from the nation’s fifth highest foreclosure rate in September. One in every 352 Nevada housing units had a foreclosure filing during the month, twice the national average. Foreclosure starts (NOD) in Nevada increased 54 percent from the previous month and were up 20 percent from a year ago — the first annual increase in Nevada foreclosure starts after 32 consecutive months of annual decreases. Nevada REOs increased 69 percent from the previous month but were still down 50 percent from a year ago.
One in every 356 Illinois housing units had a foreclosure filing in October, the nation’s third highest state foreclosure rate. A total of 14,899 Illinois properties had a foreclosure filing during the month, a 6 percent increase from the previous month and a 19 percent increase from a year ago — the 10th consecutive month where Illinois documented an annual increase in foreclosure activity.
Other states with foreclosure rates among the nation’s 10 highest were California (one in every 379 housing units with a foreclosure filing), Arizona (one in 420 housing units), Georgia (one in every 439 housing units), Ohio (one in every 476 housing units), Colorado (one in 563 housing units), South Carolina (one in every 601 housing units), and Michigan (one in every 607 housing units).
Foreclosure activity increases from previous month in 53 percent of metros
October foreclosure activity increased from the previous month in 113 of the 212 metropolitan statistical areas tracked in the report (53 percent). Six of the metro areas with the 10 highest foreclosure rates documented a monthly increase in foreclosure activity, including Modesto, Calif. (68 percent), Visalia-Porterville, Calif. (58 percent), Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, Fla. (71 percent).
Twenty-six of the metro areas with the 50 highest foreclosure rates documented a monthly increase in foreclosure activity, including Sarasota, Fla. (53 percent), Las Vegas, Nev. (45 percent), Columbus, Ohio (61 percent) and Columbia, S.C. (58 percent).