Category Archives: Katonah

What you can buy in the top 10 cities | Katonah Real Estate

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If you’re looking to buy a home, Michigan might be a good place to start — and California might be a place to avoid.

The Midwestern state boasts three metropolitan areas in the top 10 for highest homeownership rates in the nation, according to a recent report by the National Association of Home Builders. The metro areas of Holland-Grand Haven, Bay City and Monroe all reported more than 77 percent homeownership, compared to the national average of 64.7 percent.

California, meanwhile, has six metro areas in the NAHB list of 10 places with the lowest homeownership rates.

“As one might expect, the homeownership rate is linked to affordability,” the NAHB report says. “In general, homeownership rates are higher when homes are more affordable. Eight of the top 10 metropolitan areas have median home values below the national median home value of $171,900.”

The NAHB calculated the homeownership rate by taking the total number of owner-occupied units divided by the total number of occupied units for a chosen geography. Occupied units can either be rented or owned, so a high homeownership rate implies a low renter rate.

Here’s a look at the 10 markets with the highest homeownership rates and what’s for sale there.

 

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http://realestate.msn.com/what-you-can-buy-in-the-top-10-cities-for-homeownership

This $460,000 West 56th Street One-Bedroom Is … Something | Katonah Real Estate

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8 images

Well, there’s definitely a reason (more than one, actually) that this apartment, a one-bedroom co-op in Midtown West asking only $460,000, is so cheap. Let’s start with a quick rundown. Floors: tile throughout. Windows: two in the bedroom, around half of one in the living room. Painted wall murals: most definitely, although their precise location is not entirely clear. Living room curtains framing something that looks like a window but is definitely not a window: yup.

And if this place wasn’t confusing enough, there’s the cryptic brokerbabble: “The reasonably sized living room space can fix anything that you have.” Is the living room magic? If any living room is magic, it could be this living room. (Perhaps more importantly, is it reasonably sized?) There’s also this paragraph about the kitchen: “The special feature of this apartment including marble tiles in the kitchen I’m decorated wall. It was painted by a talented artist.” The identity of the artist, and what exactly he or she painted, remain a mystery, like most everything about this apartment.

 

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http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/04/21/this_460000_west_56th_street_onebedroom_is_something.php

Housing Starts Rise 2.8% In March | Katonah NY Homes

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Numbers released by the Commerce Department Wednesday suggest that last year’s rapid housing recovery is continuing to slow.

Housing starts rose 2.8% in March to a seasonally adjusted rate of 946,000. This is higher than the month before, but 5.9% lower than the rate one year earlier. Housing starts measure actual groundbreakings on new construction and are thus a timely measure of market conditions.

Other data also suggest a slowdown. Building permits, a good indicator of the future, were 990,000 (seasonally adjusted) in March. That’s 2.4% below the revised February rate, the fourth drop over the last five months.

The numbers missed expectations by economists surveyed by both Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal; economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicted housing starts at 965,000 and permits at 1.01 million.

Yesterday’s National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index showed builder confidence a bit slack; the index rose just 1 point in March to 47. A score of 50 or higher indicates that more builders view conditions as good than poor.

However, the March data shows starts of single-family homes at 635,000 (seasonally adjusted), a rate that is 6% above February’s revised figure. Construction of single-family homes dropped in January but has been steadily rising each month since.

 

 

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erincarlyle/2014/04/16/housing-starts-rise-2-8-in-march/

House prices in Britain are rising again | Katonah Real Estate

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AFTER their worst slump for a generation, house prices in Britain are rising again. In the 12 months to January 2014, the value of homes increased by 6.8% across the country and by 13% in London, according to the Office for National Statistics. In the capital, where cash-rich buyers have viewed property as shelter from economic turmoil in the euro zone and elsewhere, prices are now at an all-time high after adjusting for inflation. In his old job at Canada’s central bank, Mark Carney, the boss of the Bank of England, was accused of presiding over a housing bubble. But since the crisis the bank has a bag of new tricks it can use to steady the market (see print article).

With base rates at an all-time low, mortgage repayments as a percentage of income are near their historic lows for first-time buyers, according to the Council for Mortgage Lenders, a trade association. That has allowed homeowners to borrow ever larger amounts of money from the banks. If real wages continue to stagnate across the country, they may struggle when interest rates eventually start to rise.

Explanation:

This interactive chart allows readers to compare the ups and downs of Britain’s 13 regional housing markets as measured by the Office for National Statistics. The data begin in 1968 for nine regions and countries, extending to 12 from 1992 onwards. As well as prices in nominal and real terms (deflated by the retail prices index), we have presented affordability measures for first-time buyers compiled by the Council for Mortgage Lenders. There are five different measures:

• House-price index: in nominal terms, rebased to 100 at the select base date. • Prices in real terms: the house-price index is deflated by retail prices and rebased at 100 to take account of the effects of inflation on purchasing power. • Mortage payments as % of income: first-time buyers’ median mortgage interest payments as % of income (at the time of housing completion).

 

 

 

 

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/04/british-house-prices

7 beautiful rooftop gardens | Katonah Real Estate

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    Charlie Dresen, SteamboatsMyHome.com

Want to add value to your home? Plant a garden in the sky.

Rooftop gardens are quickly becoming one of the most popular ways to wow buyers and shore up the value of your home, real estate agents say.

Homes in big cities benefit the most from a rooftop garden, where homeowners sacrifice yard space for the urban experience. But even suburban homeowners are taking advantage of deck and roof space to grow gardens with an elevated view.

“It’s just such a luxury to have somewhere you can go that’s outside of your four walls,” said Leslie Piper, consumer housing specialist for the Realtor.com and a real estate agent. “Buyers really see it as something indulgent.”

That’s actually part of the reason why for a time interest in outdoor spaces like roof gardens had been withering. But as the housing market recovers, buyers’ appetites for these unique outdoor havens have returned.

When Realtor.com surveyed 1,000 buyers about what makes them fall in love with a home, outdoor living spaces came out on top, beating out their desire for open floor plans and curb appeal. About 51 percent of those surveyed said that outdoor space was the most attractive quality in a home.

“It’s certainly cropping back up as something that’s becoming more important to homeowners,” Piper said.

Buyers are specifically looking for outdoor fireplaces, wet bars and a lounge area for entertaining, as well as a place to grow their own fresh herbs and vegetables, she added.

Most of the amenities for an outdoor space can be added by the homeowner, so they tend to be a relatively inexpensive way to add value to a home.

“You can go online now and look at all these great resources that are out there, and in the past you didn’t know where to start,” Piper said. “That kind of access to ideas is really spurring these spaces.”

If you are looking for an attractive roof garden built in to a new home, check out these seven homes.

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/media/7-beautiful-rooftop-gardens/

 

13 riskiest cities for natural disasters | Katonah NY Real Estate

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Before you can fully enjoy the sunshine of summer, you have to get through the April showers, in addition to any other natural disaster that might come through your neck of the woods.

The weather is a common variable that plays into the success of housing, with this year being no exception.

“During the winter and early spring unusually cold temperatures and frequent, powerful snow and rain storms in various markets and even regions (particularly the Midwest) deterred potential homebuyers and delayed construction activities,” Fitch Ratings said.

Back in January, HousingWire published a list of the top 10 cities to avoid natural disasters, but if you are not fortunate enough to live in one of those weather havens, you still might be well off…unless you live in one of these cities.

 

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/29599-riskiest-cities-for-natural-disasters

Alternatives to Putting 20% Down on a Home | Katonah Real Estate

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It’s a mantra often repeated in the real estate industry: If you want to buy a house, you need a 20 percent down payment. But with the average house in the U.S. costing $311,400 as of December 2013, according to the Census Bureau, all one has to do is the math to get a coronary. Raising a 20 percent down payment isn’t an easy thing to do.

Fortunately, you don’t have to. “It’s a myth that all homebuyers must have a 20 percent down payment to buy a home,” says Nancy Herrera-Siples, a Riverside, Calif., branch manager at Primary Residential Mortgage.

“Putting less than 20 percent is OK with most banks,” agrees Christopher Pepe, president of Pepe Real Estate in Brooklyn, N.Y. So why do you constantly hear that you need to put 20 percent down? Because if you don’t, it usually means you’ll have to shell out money for either private mortgage insurance or government insurance, which is usually financed by the Federal Housing Administration. Mortgage insurance protects the lender in case you can’t make your payments and the house is foreclosed on. But PMI payments don’t last forever. When your loan-to-value ratio is 80 percent, you can ask the lender if you can stop paying PMI; at 78 percent, the lender is required to cancel it.

Still, PMI can easily cost a couple hundred dollars a month, assuming your house is valued in the neighborhood of $200,000. Pepe says the average he sees is $700 a month just for PMI. But keep in mind that he’s based in New York City, which boasts one of the highest costs of living in the country.

So if you really want a house and you’re looking for alternatives to putting 20 percent down, here’s what you need to know.

Figure out financing before looking for a house. There are numerous programs that will help you buy a home without 20 percent down, says Dan Smith, president of Private Mortgage Solutions, a mortgage bank in Atlanta.

 

 

http://news.yahoo.com/alternatives-putting-20-down-home-124500838.html

Londoners priced out of real estate market blame foreigners | Katonah Real Estate

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Protesters shouting “No more homes for millionaires!” outside London City Hall this week want real estate developers to stop pandering to wealthy foreign buyers and start building more housing that locals can afford.

Sparking the protest was a plan by Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. to build up to 3,500 new homes not far from London’s Canary Wharf financial district. Mayor Boris Johnson has approved the project.“These are the kind of homes that local people will never be able to afford,” said Cheryl Coyne, a 63-year-old semiretired schoolteacher.

“There are thousands of people in the borough who need homes, and instead they’re building flats for multimillionaires.”Average London house prices increased 18 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, the most since 2003, to a record 362,699 pounds ($604,000), the Nationwide Building Society said.

Much of that increase stems from wealthy non-British investors seeking assets that would hold their value. Builders use advance sales, often to buyers from Asia, to help finance new projects. Foreign-born buyers made 69 percent of central London new-home purchases in the two years through June 2013, with 28 percent living outside the U.K., broker Knight Frank LLP said in October.

When the Malaysian owners of the Battersea Power Station project, on the south bank of the River Thames, sold the first 866 homes in just three days in January, more than half went to foreign buyers.

 

 

 

Source: Bloomberg – See more at: http://www.inman.com/wire/londoners-priced-out-of-real-estate-market-blame-foreigners/?utm_source=20140404&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyheadlinesam#sthash.F8Or8wU6.dpuf

Charges in connection with mortgage fraud | Katonah Real Estate

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Government officials charged Poppi Metaxas, former president and CEO of Gateway Bank, in Oakland, Calif., with bank fraud, bank fraud conspiracy and perjury.

Christy Romero, Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, Loretta Lynch, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, George Venizelos, assistant director-in-charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office and David Montoya, inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General announced that an indictment was unsealed Wednesday.

In 2009, SIGTARP said that Metaxas fraudulently caused Gateway to execute a sham “round trip” transaction in which the bank self-funded a down payment to make it appear that Gateway had sold toxic, non-performing mortgage loans.

According to the indictment, in February and March 2009, Metaxas allegedly engaged in a scheme to defraud Gateway in connection with Gateway’s sale of non-performing mortgage loans to three entities in exchange for $15 million.

“Metaxas allegedly orchestrated a fraudulent scheme to give the appearance that the bank was shoring up its finances by selling problem loans to outside investors,” Romero said.

“Metaxas purportedly hid from the bank’s board and regulator the fact that she, with the help of others, made a sham loan to those investors to fund in secret the 25% ‘down payment’ of $3.64 million, a loan that was later written off.  Crimes related to TARP will be investigated and prosecuted by SIGTARP and our law enforcement partners,” Romero added.

 

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/29546-former-ceo-allegedly-faked-toxic-mortgages-to-get-tarp-bailout