Category Archives: Mount Kisco

Judicial foreclosures jump in December | Chappaqua Real Estate

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foreclosure.jpg Judicial foreclosures jumped in December, according to Eugene-based Gorilla Capital. The Associated Press

Court-supervised foreclosures — the alternative to the out-of-court system lenders have favored for decades — jumped in December, a reseller of foreclosed homes reported.

Lenders filed 681 judicial foreclosures in 24 Oregon counties where Gorilla Capital operates. The Eugene company buys, redevelops and sells foreclosed homes.

November saw 446 judicial foreclosures, a decline from 522 in October.

The number of judicial foreclosures has climbed over the past year as regulation and legal trouble for lenders complicated the nonjudicial foreclosure process. Nonjudicial foreclosure activity dropped to almost nothing in July, when a court ruling and a new state foreclosure mediation program simultaneously changed legal requirements to foreclose outside the court system.

Still, judicial foreclosure activity trails the nonjudicial foreclosure activity seen a year ago.

The Oregon Supreme Court and the Oregon Legislature may both make decisions in coming months that could shift foreclosures back to the nonjudicial process, which banks prefer because it is speedier and cheaper.

via oregonlive.com

Judicial foreclosures jump in December | Chappaqua Real Estate

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foreclosure.jpg Judicial foreclosures jumped in December, according to Eugene-based Gorilla Capital. The Associated Press

Court-supervised foreclosures — the alternative to the out-of-court system lenders have favored for decades — jumped in December, a reseller of foreclosed homes reported.

Lenders filed 681 judicial foreclosures in 24 Oregon counties where Gorilla Capital operates. The Eugene company buys, redevelops and sells foreclosed homes.

November saw 446 judicial foreclosures, a decline from 522 in October.

The number of judicial foreclosures has climbed over the past year as regulation and legal trouble for lenders complicated the nonjudicial foreclosure process. Nonjudicial foreclosure activity dropped to almost nothing in July, when a court ruling and a new state foreclosure mediation program simultaneously changed legal requirements to foreclose outside the court system.

Still, judicial foreclosure activity trails the nonjudicial foreclosure activity seen a year ago.

The Oregon Supreme Court and the Oregon Legislature may both make decisions in coming months that could shift foreclosures back to the nonjudicial process, which banks prefer because it is speedier and cheaper.

via oregonlive.com

Mt Kisco Realtor | 5 Cheap and Easy Fixes Before You List Your Home

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Thinking of listing your home? Of course, you’ll want to get the best possible price. Before you call a major renovation squad for a TV-style home makeover, try these cheap and easy fixes to increase your home’s appeal.

Declutter

Start with the easiest fix of all. Pack up and hide or store some of your possessions. Stash your collections of porcelain dolls or “Star Wars” figurines; the less of your stuff potential buyers see, the more likely they will be to envision themselves — and their stuff — in the home.

Add curb appeal

Next, take a look at your home from the street. Could it benefit from a little landscaping? Clear away any dead plants, trim back limbs and bushes, and check out your local home improvement store’s garden section. Small flowering plants and other foliage is very affordable and easily adds instant charm.

Deep clean

The next easy fix is to clean. No, really clean. Pressure wash the driveway, and have your tile and carpets professionally cleaned by carpet cleaners in Boise. Clean your window treatments and remove scuff marks around the baseboards. All the little things that may go unnoticed from day to day will make the home look much better when they are all sparkly-clean.

Go neutral

Watch about 20 seconds of any real estate reality show and you’ll surely hear a prospective buyer lament about the owner’s poor choice in color. “Oh, it’s so … blue.” This is like nails on a chalkboard to real estate professionals because it is literally one of the easiest things to change. The solution: Repaint some of your boldest walls a good old off-white or beige neutral. It will also help you start to detach emotionally from your home as you enter the sale process.

Kitchens and bathrooms

Kitchens and bathrooms are the two rooms that really sell a home. Give them a quick mini-makeover by making a few inexpensive hardware changes; towel racks, accent shelves, even light switches and utility plate covers are cheap and easy to fix. Also, refer to No. 1 and stash your family photos on the refrigerator and deep-six the extensive pile of magazines in the restroom.

With these five tips, you can give your home a major makeover on a budget in the hundreds versus the thousands and get it ready to list for top dollar.

via zillow.com

New Mortgage Rule Only a Start in Jump-starting Lending | Mt Kisco Realtor

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If the years leading up to the U.S. housing bust were rife with lax underwriting, the opposite problem has occurred in its aftermath: Excessively tight credit is making it impossible for many borrowers to obtain mortgages.

Enter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which this week unveiled a much-awaited rule intended to strengthen mortgage standards and provide more legal protection to lenders. In requiring that lenders verify the ability of borrowers to repay their loans, the CFPB aims to safeguard consumers against deceptive practices and provide legal protection to banks, which have been wary of lending, fearful that borrowers would eventually default and sue.

The CFPB’s qualified-mortgage rule, which goes into effect next year and was required under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, gets many things right: It requires lenders to consider specific factors in determining whether a borrower can repay a loan, including income, overall debt, employment status and credit history. Borrowers’ total debt payments — including car loans, school loans and mortgages — can’t exceed 43 percent of their pretax income.

The rule prohibits many of the exotic loan features, such as interest-only payments, that fed the housing bubble. It also smartly avoids being overly prescriptive. It doesn’t, for example, require a certain level of down payment, which could wind up denying credit to otherwise-qualified borrowers.

Missing Pieces

Yet the CFPB’s rule alone won’t open the lending spigot. Other pieces must fall into place, including finalizing — and harmonizing — a rule detailing which types of mortgages will be exempt from a requirement that lenders retain a 5 percent financial stake in loans that are packaged into securities and sold.

Capital levels for banks must also be firmed up so companies can determine how much they can safely lend. Most important, the U.S. must outline its plans for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own or guarantee about 84 percent of mortgages, including whether the U.S. will continue to offer a mortgage guarantee at all.

The latter question is crucial given the CFPB’s new rule, which will probably lead to fewer types of loans and a heavier reliance on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. That product, largely unique to the U.S., has traditionally come with a government guarantee.

The CFPB’s rule, intended to set the industry standard for mortgages, gives huge deference to Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac. For example, it grants legal protection to loans that don’t meet the 43 percent debt-to-income test if they satisfy the underwriting standards of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac (FMCC) and the Federal Housing Administration. The CFPB said this bypass, which could last as long as seven years, was necessary given the “fragile state of the mortgage market.”

As we’ve said, the time has come for a serious overhaul of housing finance, including limiting the government guarantee and adequately pricing it to reflect risk. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are profitable again and have stopped drawing on the Treasury. Housing prices are rising and foreclosures are beginning to stabilize.

If the roles of Fannie and Freddie aren’t soon clarified, the companies could become permanent wards of the state. Even Fannie Mae’s chief executive officer, Timothy Mayopoulos, said at a Bloomberg Government breakfast that the company’s mortgage dominance has reached an unhealthy and unsustainable level.

To bring back private capital, lenders need to know what constitutes a qualified residential mortgage and is thus free from risk-retention requirements, also known as the “skin in the game” rule. The rule, which six federal agencies are writing, is supposed to largely mirror the CFPB’s, yet a proposal last year differed in many ways, including imposing a 20 percent down- payment requirement.

The Federal Reserve and other agencies have rightly waited to finalize their rule until the CFPB completed its work, and they should now move quickly to synchronize.

Consumers deserve access to quality mortgages they can afford. The U.S. economy still suffers from the consequences of lax underwriting standards, yet the pendulum has swung too far the other way.

The CFPB’s rules strike the right balance between responsible lending and mortgage availability. Yet truly strengthening the housing market will require more effort by regulators and lawmakers.

To contact the Bloomberg View editorial board: view@bloomberg.net.

via bloomberg.com

Why new agents fail | Mount Kisco NY Real Estate

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What are the correlates of “new agent” success? Two studies from the Texas Association of Realtors reveal intriguing results for both new agents and those who hire, manage and train them.

On Aug. 28, 2012, the Texas Association of Realtors (TAR) sent a Zoomerang Web survey to 13,000 of its broker/manager members with the purpose of identifying how to improve the quality of the homebuying and selling experience for Texas homeowners. A second purpose was to assist TAR in identifying the factors that contribute to sales success of new agents, as well as those factors that result in agents leaving the business. A total of 277 brokers/managers participated in the study: 265 in the online survey and 12 in the one-on-one interviews.

Office size
The large majority of offices (70 percent) had 10 or fewer agents. Another 16 percent had offices with 11-25 agents. In other words, 86 percent of all offices had 25 or fewer agents. This matched a secondary finding that 71 percent of the respondents classified themselves as small independents, boutiques or family-owned businesses. Ten percent were virtual (no physical location), and 19 percent were affiliated with a national/international franchise.

Training
Seventy-two percent of all survey respondents currently offer sales training. Of that group, 43 percent created their training in-house. Another 47 percent relied on one-on-one mentoring/coaching. The remaining 10 percent relied on outside vendors or their local association to provide training. Only 7 percent charged a fee for their training vs. 93 percent that had no fee.

In 72 percent of the offices, the broker/manager was responsible for training. In the other 28 percent of the offices, GRI, CRS, and/or an outside training company provided the training. Of these, 8 percent relied on online (video and webinars) for their primary source of sales training. For those who did offer in-office sales training, 72 percent assigned a mentor, trainer or other point person to assist new agents.

Attrition
A major challenge nationally is the high turnover rate for new agents. Broker/managers cited the four issues below as the primary reasons new agents leave the business.

1. Lack of adequate startup capital
Broker/managers cited insufficient startup capital as the main reason new agents leave the business. Most new agents were uninformed about the initial startup costs that range from $1,200-$2,000. (This includes local association, MLS, state association fees, NAR fees, plus signs, cards, lockboxes, etc.) They also are unfamiliar with how commission splits work as well as how long it takes to ramp up a new business.

2. Unrealistic expectations
Many new agents view real estate as a job rather than starting a new sales-based business. They believe their broker will generate leads for them rather than having to do it themselves. They are also unprepared for how difficult the business actually is.

As one broker put it: “(New agents) are naive; they lack the knowledge of what it will take to succeed. They enter the business believing that real estate will be an easy way to make money, and the difficulty is way beyond what they expected.”

3. Part-time vs. full-time
The survey respondents were virtually unanimous on this point: Real estate is a full-time career that requires a full-time commitment; anything less usually results in failure. The challenge is that part-time agents represent a sizable proportion of all Texas agents. Fifty-five percent of the survey respondents replied that at least 25 percent of their agents were part-time.

4. Mindset/preparation/competence/confidence
Mindset is an important predictor of real estate success. The most damaging mindset is one were the agent takes shortcuts. This often starts with pre-licensing training. Ten of the 12 of the brokers who were interviewed on a one-on-one basis agreed that agents who had taken face-to-face training were much better prepared for the business.

As one manager observed: “Agents who took the shortcut versions of pre-licensing training or who attended online licensing training know next to nothing. They probably have never seen a completed contract. They come out of real estate school completely unprepared to work with the demands of buyers and sellers in today’s highly complex market.”

Previous careers
Overall, the people entering the Texas real estate industry come from virtually every walk of life. The broker/managers identified the top two careers that their two most recent hires had worked in as being either “teacher” or “homemaker.” Other high-probability hires were those who had been in sales-related careers or in another aspect of the real estate industry — i.e., title, new-home sales, or mortgage.

A number of broker/managers drew a distinction between those who had corporate sales experience and were accustomed to generating their own leads versus those who worked in retail sales positions in stores where they took orders at the cash register. Those who had the corporate sales background fared significantly better.

via inman.com

Chappaqua Realtor | 5 Great Social Media Networks You May Never Have Heard Of

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Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest.  These are some of the names in social media networking that you will be familiar with due to their global popularity.  These days, Facebook is pretty much ubiquitous with over 900 million users across the world actively using the site to keep up with friends and learn about their favourite celebrities.

Twitter, although relatively new to the social media scene, also has a massive following with approximately 500 million user accounts active on the site.  A much more recent addition to the top social networks is Pinterest, which has seen an explosion in the number of users and activity in the past year.

But if you’re looking to branch out, there are a few other social media sites that you may want to explore.  Take a look through our list of the top five social networks that you are as yet unlikely to have come across.

1) Tumblr

Tumblr is a blogging service that combines some of the most popular features of Twitter, Pinterest and other blogging sites such as LiveJournal.  Easy to sign up for and simple to use, Tumblr offers users the ability to “follow” other Tumblr users in a manner not dissimilar to Twitter and to “reblog” posts by other users in a similar way to Twitter’s retweeting or Pinterest’s repinning.

The ability to search Tumblr tags is one of the things that make it very appealing.  Its simple search engine allows you to trawl through all posts made on the site on a particular topic and quickly find interesting posts or inspiration.  It’s especially good for ideas about food, craft and interiors.

2) Goodreads

Goodreads as a social network is based around the enjoyment of literature.  The site allows you to build a virtual book shelf of books that you have read, are reading or wish to read in the future and see reviews of these books or contribute your own.  It’s a great way to keep track of the books you’ve enjoyed and share these with friends, as well as seeking recommendations for new books to read.

The site is very popular with up-and-coming authors, particularly those who are self publishing on sites such as Amazon or Smashwords, who use the site to contact potential readers and befriend them as well as market their publications.

3) Last.fm

This social media network has been quietly going about its business in the background for a number of years.  Users of the site are able to download a small piece of software that enables them to “scrobble” every piece of digital music they have to one of a variety of media players.  These records are then used to match you with other users who have similar tastes to your own, and recommend bands that are similar to those that you listen to but whose music you may not yet have heard.

Last.fm is particularly good for friends as you can see what your mates have been listening to and share tracks with them using the site’s messaging service.

4) GetGlue

Another network based on entertainment preferences, GetGlue enables its users to check in when watching a movie, TV show or listening to music and lets you share this activity with your other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

Similar to last.fm, GetGlue also makes recommendations for things you may like to watch or listen to based on your viewing or listening history.

5) 43 things

This network is simplicity itself.  43 things allows users to list their goals then share them with a community of over three million people who can cheer you on as you strive to accomplish them.

The site enables you to link with Facebook or sign up independently.  People who are working towards similar goals can encourage one another to hit their target.

Conclusion

There are lots of social networks outside of the big three that are just waiting to be discovered.  Whether you’re looking to find new material for enjoying your spare time or need that little bit of encouragement to finish your to-do list, take a look at some of these sites and get inspired!

via socialmediatoday.com

Mount Kisco Realtor | Fear of Fed reversal overdone

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First the real stuff, then the Wheelchair Accessible Fiscal Door Sill.

Long-term interest rates rose sharply this week, the 10-year T-note’s 1.93 percent the highest since last April, and mortgages above 3.5 percent, the top since summer.

Three forces are in play: First, December meeting minutes released yesterday suggested the Fed may scale back or end QE4 bond-buying this year; second, hints of a better economy; and third, markets less than thrilled by fiscal substance-abusers.

Fear of Fed reversal is overdone. It is buying $85 billion a month in Treasurys and MBS, a $1 trillion per year pace that was never likely to continue for long.

The Fed’s commitment to a zero percent cost of money stands unchanged, linked to a 6.5 percent unemployment rate (not soon), and that zero percent cash will hold down long-term rates. Nearly every Fed forecast for the economy since 2008 has been wrong on the high side, and the economy is now entering protracted period of fiscal drag.

As always the economy trumps all, and the first week of each month brings the freshest data. December payrolls grew on forecast — 155,000 jobs, but no change in trend.

The ISM manufacturing index in December flipped from just below stall speed at 49.5 to just above, 50.7; and its service-sector twin popped from 54.7 to 56.1. No recession, no acceleration; theories behind either are as suspect as ever since 2009.

The Cliff. The politics of this week’s resolution say a lot.

Imagine if in mid-November the president gathered the usual suspects and said, “We all know we’ve got to rig a miniature deal by New Year’s Day. We have a series of tough collisions ahead, ugly ones, but just this once, nothing at stake but easy horse-trades, how about we let the country think we know what we’re doing, smile a lot, say ‘bi-partisan’ in every other sentence, and carve this baby up by Thanksgiving?”

Our assessment of blame for bad politics is blinded by our biases: Boehner is impossible, or the Tea Pots are to blame, or Reid, or Obama. But how this week’s deal got done requires a lift of the ol’ eye patch.

At all accounts, by the Sunday before New Year’s Day, the only person able to get out of the box was anti-telegenic Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the tough and smart Minority Leader, who picked up the phone to Joe Biden and said, “Can anybody down there cut a deal?” (“Down” is the physical slope of Capitol Hill to the White House.)

Joe Biden has been treated from day one as the Official Fool by the court of Prince Barack. Funny Old Joe. Can’t stop talking, says crazy things, has impossible ideas, like Afghanistan is a bust to be escaped quickly. Cartoon-relic politician. Doesn’t get the transformational importance and infallibility of the Prince.

Within 36 hours and without a public word, Old Joe and McConnell had a deal. The Prince is a professor whose key skill is lecturing established wisdom. He has not progressed as a negotiator, although new opportunities lie immediately ahead in the debt limit and the State of the Union agenda. Also in the choice of a new Treasury secretary. We need someone like Erskine Bowles, but it looks as though we’ll get Jack Lew, current White House chief of staff, another lawyer/professor ignorant of markets.

In the last years’ fiscal arguments, the Right-side Republicans win the prizes for bad manners and stingy vision. However, the Left takes the overall crown for “Who took my cheese?”

Inclusive of this mini-Cliff deal, the 2013 federal deficit will remain about $1 trillion. As is, the deficit will fall by 2015 to $750 billion, but no Fed to buy the bonds. Then by 2017 the inexorable rise to $1.25 trillion in 2022, and $2 trillion and beyond by 2030, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security alone consuming all tax revenue in 2035.

If the economy does better, then tax revenue will go up. But this week’s all-tax-no-cut deal already includes a lot of those expectations for new revenue. Can’t jack ’em forever. Whether the economy does better or not, one year soon we’ll pay more to roll over five-year T-notes than today’s 0.75 percent. Each percentage point increase will add $150 billion to each of those future-annual deficit numbers, depending on how much we’ve borrowed by then.

And you, on the Left, think those debt-limit votes are a tiresome sham?

via inman.com

Katonah NY Realtor | How to Increase Blog Reader Engagement

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Companies are always excited when they increase in Google rankings or finally reach that PR 6 that puts them right in the rankings with all the rest. However, what many companies don’t realize is that PR isn’t always the best way to determine your place in your niche online. Page Rank and Google rankings prove to readers that Google has recognized your good SEO, but this doesn’t mean much if your readers don’t find your content engaging. One of the things (one of the very major things) that separates one PR 6 site from another, or even one PR 3 site from another, is blog reader engagement. It will take some time to gain these numbers, however, so it’s best to start creating a strategy and putting this at the top of the priority list as you enter into the New Year.

Top 5 Ways to Improve the Engagement on Your Blog

It might sound as though it’s easy to improve your engagement, but this is one area of your website that actually can turn quite difficult. It takes careful planning and even more careful analysis of your efforts to determine how to make your readers respond. A few ideas to get you started on the process include:

  1. Relevant Posts. This is first and foremost the most important thing to remember about reader engagement. If you’re not writing something that is current and you’re not writing something that is directly related to your niche or the keywords you are targeting, you’re going to find the wrong readers and give them the wrong information. Readers are far more likely to comment on something if it is relevant to them, so do your best to think about what is going on in the news and what advice you can give to really help.
  2. Related Post Plugin. On that same note, this is one of my favorite things as an editor and as a reader. This plugin is easy to use and will allow other relevant blog posts that you have written to show up on the bottom of the article. This will help readers find something that interests them by giving them more choices, and so you have a better chance that the person will respond to the text.
  3. Ask Questions. Giving readers a reason to respond is never a bad idea. End your posts with questions or offer a controversial or interesting thought that will provoke some responses. People are usually more apt to engage if they have a clear idea about how to really get the conversation (and even promotion) started.
  4. Be Readable. You want to make sure the font and size of your content is something easy to read. Not only that, but make sure that the article is formatted in a way that is easy to read—lots of bullet points, subheadings, italics and bold faced text, etc. You’ll also want to make sure that the article isn’t too long that it turns readers away. Keep it between 700 and 1400 words. There are certain instances where this may not be the case, but the majority of the time this will do the trick for your readers.
  5. Load Times. If your article doesn’t load fast enough, readers are going to leave and choose another one of the top ten results on Google. It’s easy, and the Internet isn’t the place to bother being patient. Google also likes to see faster load times for pages, so you’ll get an added SEO benefit. You can learn more about how to improve your load times here.

In the end, reader engagement often works like a domino affect. Once people see that hundreds of others are tweeting your articles, they will be more apt to do the same.

via socialmediatoday.com