Tag Archives: Armonk Homes for Sale

Armonk Homes for Sale

Home-price growth slowing, Case-Shiller says | Armonk Homes

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Home prices rose 1.8% in July, down from 2.2% in June, according to the Case-Shiller report. After seasonal adjustments, prices were up 0.6% in July, the lowest gain since September.

It looks like higher mortgage rates are hitting the housing market, said David Blitzer, index committee chairman at S&P Dow Jones Indices. Among the 20 cities tracked by S&P/Case-Shiller, 15 saw slower monthly price growth in July. Elsewhere Tuesday, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, reported that home prices rose a seasonally adjusted 1% in July, and were up 8.8% from the year-earlier period.

Mortgage rates started rising in early May on speculation that the Federal Reserve could start cutting its large-scale asset purchases that have helped keep home loans relatively cheap. The Fed announced last week that it is not going to start tapering these purchases yet, but that news is likely to have only a temporary impact on housing, Blitzer said.

“The rate of increase may have peaked,” he said.

A low number of homes for sale coupled with lots of pent-up demand from buyers have led to upward pressure on prices. Indeed, on a year-over-year basis, home prices grew 12.4% in July, the fastest annual pace since 2006. Still, home prices in July were about 21% below a 2006 peak.

“The latest rise in the annual rate of house price inflation in July may be the most eye-catching part of today’s Case-Shiller house price report. But the real story is a welcome slowdown in the underlying rate of house price gains in recent months,” Capital Economics analysts wrote in a research note.

According to details of the Case-Shiller report, Las Vegas saw the largest annual home-price growth in July at 28%, followed by San Francisco at 25%. New York had the lowest annual home-price growth at 3.5%.

Looking broadly at the housing market, recent reports have indicated that the rebound is slowing. Unemployment remains high and many can’t afford to establish their own household, meaning that pent-up demand may take a long time to translate into actual purchases. First-time buyers are having a particularly tough time, and make up a small share of existing-home sales.

 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story

 

Archbishop Stepinac Goes All-Digital With Textbooks | Armonk Real Estate

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Archbishop Stepinac High School introduced a new concept to its academic program on Tuesday as it rolls out a complete digital textbook library for its students.

This program will eliminate the need for the traditionally heavy and expensive books that students use for their academic courses.
In partnership with Pearson, a provider of educational materials, technologies, assessments and related services, Stepinac implemented the new digital library for its 675 students on their first day of the new school year. Stepinac has worked with Pearson for the past two years to offer select digital books to its students, but this is the first time all of its textbooks will be online.

“In keeping with Stepinac’s commitment to remain at the forefront of educational technology, we have moved to this digital library,” said the Rev. Thomas Collins, president of Stepinac. “We are thankful to Pearson, the world’s leading learning company, for working with us on this national pilot program that will set the trend for schools across the United States for years to come. The digital library will help keep our tuition affordable as well as prepare our students for their college careers.”

After a student is charged a one-time annual fee of $150, he can visit the 40-textbook digital library through a website or application for various Androids and iPads to gain access to its College Prep Digital Library and the Honors/AP Digital Library. Typically, students purchase seven hard copy textbooks for the school year, costing $500 to $600 on average.

 

 

http://whiteplains.dailyvoice.com/schools/archbishop-stepinac-goes-all-digital-textbooks

 

 

 

Donald Trump Strips Doral Golf Resort Down To The Rafters | Armonk Homes

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The Donald is well on his way to a full-scale renovation of the Doral Golf Resort & Spa, now the Trump National Doral Miami. (although we’ve heard murmurs that not even the $250 million he’s spending on the renovations alone will be enough. But hey, that’s just talk) Visible from a quick stroll around the property, the main clubhouse has lost both its front and rear facades, a bunch of the holes are dug up, the pool area is all torn up, and most of the hotel rooms – organized in blocks called ‘lodges’ are closed for business. In fact, most of the property seems to be shut down and mid-overhaul at the moment, except for the spa and meeting/convention spaces.

 

 

http://miami.curbed.com/archives/2013/09/05/trump-doral-golf-resort-construction-update.php

 

Armonk memorial brings out ‘silly season’ politics | Armonk Homes

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It’s been said that all politics is local. Here’s a corollary: All local politics is personal, especially at election time.

Such appears to be the case in the Town of North Castle.

You would think that politics would have nothing to do with honoring the memory of a beloved citizen, a woman who served on the Town Board for more than three decades and by all accounts personified the virtue of civic mindedness.

Becky Kittredge, who died Aug. 26 at the age of 69, was instrumental in getting the town recreation center built. She was a founder of the public library and was a devoted member of the historical society.

Machiavellian-style mischief does not readily come to mind upon consideration of the fact that Kittredge was instrumental in getting the hamlet of Armonk recognized, of all things, as the hometown of Frosty the Snowman.

A Democrat, Kittredge was born in North Castle. She knew everybody and apparently offended no one.

So once again, given her universal acclaim, it’s hard to fathom that Kittredge could be posthumously dragged into a partisan arena.

But that’s precisely what happened — and it has caused a huge outcry in this town of 11,840. And like all partisan disputes, it’s the “other guys” who are to blame.

From interviews and emails, it’s at least clear that the controversy centers on a split decision by the Town Board to not broadcast Kittredge’s memorial service on the town’s public service channel, NCTV. The service was held Friday on the steps of Town Hall.

The board’s decision arrived after an informal discussion and polling conducted through email by Anne Curran, the Democratic town clerk.

Against the broadcast were three Republicans — town Supervisor Howard Arden and Councilman John Cronin and Councilwoman Diane DiDonato Roth. Their reasons included the cost of paying for a videographer and an unelaborated feeling that broadcasting the service was somehow inappropriate.

However, Councilmen Stephen D’Angelo, a Republican, and Michael Schiliro, the board’s sole Democrat, were in favor of the broadcast.

 

Phil Reisman: North Castle memorial brings out ‘silly season’ politics (video) | The Journal News | LoHud.com | lohud.com.

Mapping 15 Manhattan Buildings Originally Built for Artists | Armonk Real Estate

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artistsmap_9_13.jpg

To do their work, artists need light and space—two things that can be hard to come by in Manhattan. In the early twentieth century, artists and their backers put up a number of buildings meant to meet those needs, with double-height studios, allowing for ample light, and low rents. Some of those buildings took advantage of the relatively new idea of co-op apartments and had artists buy shares in order to fund the buildings’ construction and maintenance. Artists’ cooperatives had occasional downsides—one resident of 130 West 57th Street filed a disorderly conduct complaint against a downstairs neighbor in 1921 over the “absolute riot” of ragtime music coming from her apartment. (The noisy neighbor in question decided to flee to Italy in search of “personal liberty” even once she was found not guilty.) But they were also home to the production of much notable work. We’ve rounded up 15 notable artists’ buildings for the map below. Most are still standing, though the prices for their apartments are no longer so artist-friendly.

Tenth Street Studio Building
51 West 10th Street, New York, NY 10011
Starchitect Richard Meier, before he achieved starchitect-dom, created the West Village’s Westbeth housing complex, meant for early-career artists who could hold onto their inexpensive rentals for about five years while growing their careers. The complex is now a landmark, and its residents have ended up having similar staying power. In fact, local politicians recently accused the complex of “stockpiling” apartments rather than allowing those on the waiting list to move in.
55 Bethune St, New York, NY 10014
Tenth Street Studio Building
Many of the buildings on this list date to the first decade of the twentieth century, but those structures were preceded by the Tenth Street Studio Building, which dates to 1857. Artists including Winslow Homer and Frederic Church had studio spaces there, and the building included a central gallery. (Some of the units were just studio spaces; others had bedrooms as well.) The building was demolished in 1956, and non-artist-oriented apartments now stand on the spot. (Photo courtesy the Museum of the City of New York.)
51 West 10th Street, New York, NY 10011
Gainsborough Studios
To address their needs for light and space, a group of painters and sculptors formed the Gainsborough Corporation in the early 1900s to build a building full of cooperative studios for artists. They purchased 222 Central Park South, then a millionaire’s mansion, in 1907, and replaced the mansion with the Gainsborough Studios. The 34 apartments at the front of the building have double-height living rooms. At the moment there’s one 2BR in the building for sale.
222 Central Park South, New York, NY 10019
Studio Building
The 1907 Studio Building, designed by Herbert Harde and R. Thomas Short, also had double-height studios intended for artists. But regular folk (i.e., lawyers and doctors) also lived there from the beginning. The building received some rave archicritical reviews: a “Brobdingnagian cathedral,” one magazine called it; the terra cotta decoration “appears to have been squeezed out of a pastry tube,” said an architectural historian. The building has one incredible penthouse on the market now.
44 West 77th Street, New York, NY 10024
Hotel Des Artistes
George Mort Pollard designed this building, which was built in 1917. As at other artists’ residents, a number of the apartments include double-height spaces, but not only visual artists lived at the Hotel Des Artistes. Noel Coward and Fannie Hurst, for example, were among the writers in residence. There is one $2 million 1BR on the market in the building now.
1 W 67th St, New York, NY 10023
Studio Building
This building—which shares the name the Studio Building with one of the Upper West Siders on this list—was architect Charles Platt’s first major city design. (He had previously been known as a country house architect.) Painter Gerald Murphy (a friend of F. Scott Fitzgerald) and baritone Lawrence Tibbett were among the early residents. There’s one two-bedroom on the market now in the landmarked building.
131 East 66th Street, New York, NY 10065
140 West 57th Street
Pollard & Steinam—who designed several other artist-oriented buildings on West 67th Street—were the architects of this structure, which was built in 1907-1908. The front of the building contained seven double-height apartments, and as the Landmarks Preservation Commission designation report for the building puts it, “the tall, projecting bay windows set in geometrically-ornamented cast iron frames bring in the north light so prized by artists.” 130 West 57th Street was designed by the same architects and was almost identical. (It was also the site of a disorderly conduct complaint over the “absolute riot” of ragtime.)
140 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019
80 West 40th Street
Painter (and naturalist) Abraham Archibald Anderson tried living in Connecticut so that he would have the space and light in which to work, but he wanted to be in the city—so he decided to buy four lots at 40th Street and Sixth Avenue and build a studio building there. Anderson and his wife occupied the top floor once the building was finished. Other artists took space, and eventually, Liz Claiborne had her first studio there. In the 1980s, the building received a restoration.
80 West 40th Street, New York, NY 10018
The Rembrandt
Carnegie Hall Tower now stands where the Rembrandt Studio building went up in 1881. Christopher Gray speculated in one Streetscapes column that the Rembrandt—along with the Sherwood Studio building at 57th Street and Sixth Avenue, since demolished—may have been one of the buildings that persuaded Andrew Carnegie that a concert hall would be the right fit for the neighborhood. (Photo via Museum of the City of New York.)
152 W 57th St, New York, NY 10019
Carnegie Hall Studios
Carnegie Hall kicked out its last artists several years ago in order to convert their live/work spaces above the famed concert hall into additional office and classroom space. One of the last residents, photographer/filmmaker Josef Astor, made the documentary Lost Bohemia about the end of the building’s artist housing era.
881 7th Ave, New York, NY 10019
(212) 247-7800
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Real estate brokers, fall into line: It’s time to let the MLS lead | Armonk Real Estate

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The power balance in the real estate world is shifting faster than ever. Travel titans, search engines, investment oracles and government entities all want to change the way we do business. Most just want to control a larger piece of the pie.

Real estate brokerages are often too focused on their day-to-day business of attracting and retaining agents to give an appropriate share of their attention to the greater direction of real estate. The reasons are fairly simple. Brokerages are deemed successful by their ranking vs. local competitors as opposed to the greater health of all brokers in their region. The ability of a broker or agent to increase sales production and income often comes at the expense of competing agents and brokers, especially in a down market.  This is not necessarily a negative, but the reality of competitive business and our natural motivations in these roles.

Then, there is the MLS. The multiple listing service could be called the referee for our regional activities. Some practitioners love the MLS for its standardization of practices. Some hate it for its plethora of rules impeding their business. Some brokers appreciate the MLS’s creation of a level playing field vs. other companies. Many brokers feel disdain for any organization that seeks to override its regulatory authority.

The nature of these differing opinions exemplifies the strength and value of the MLS to our industry. Whether it’s a parent, teacher, CEO or government regulator, any authoritative entity should wield enough clout to create useful standards. If it lacks the strength to create regulations that benefit its constituents as a whole, it is useless. At the same time, if its decisions lack the support necessary to regulate member policies, it is impotent.

An uncommon position of power

MLS organizations are in a uniquely powerful position in our industry today. The MLS is supported in some way by Realtor organizations, diverse brokerages, volunteer agents, and MLS staff. Their overwhelming strength is the nearly ubiquitous control of our most precious asset in the new media age: the real estate listing

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/next/real-estate-brokers-fall-into-line-its-time-to-let-the-mls-lead/#sthash.8EjSwnsr.dpuf

Armonk’s Mariani Gardens Granted Zoning Text Amendment For Café Plans | Armonk Real Estate

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Mariani Gardens in Armonk was recently granted a zoning text amendment from the North Castle Town Board to enlarge its café, according to a report by The Examiner News.

The text amendment would allow the Armonk nursery, located on Bedford Road, to enlarge its café from 1,000-square-feet to up to 3,500-square feet, and it would also be able to increase its seating capacity from 16 to 72, the report said. Certain home furnishing and luxury items, like soaps, lotions and jewelry, could also be sold at the business.

The final step in granting the zoning revision is approval from the North Castle Planning Board.

The text amendment was granted after two years of debate and revised proposals, according to the report.

North Castle Names New Police Chief | Armonk Real Estate

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According to Supervisor Howard Arden, Harisch has done practically every job on the force as he has risen steadily through the ranks of the North Castle Police, “Geoffrey Harisch is taking the reins as our new Police Chief and we all look forward to working with him.”

Harisch is filling the position vacated by Chief Robert D’Angelo who retired in January 2013. D’Angelo worked his way up the ranks as well and was named Police Chief in 1991. Lt. William Fisher was appointed as Provisional Chief following D’Angelo’s retirement.

In March 2013, three department lieutenants were eligible to take the Police Chief examination. After the Police Chief test results were received, Lt. Harisch was the only officer eligible to become Police Chief.

Harisch said, “I’m looking forward to serving the town and have covered every aspect and done every task. A lot of people know me in this town and I intend to do my best.”

Harisch started as a patrolman for the North Castle Police Department in April of 1987. About four years later, he was promoted to the rank of Detective, at which he served for three years. During his tenure as a detective, Harisch was named youth officer beginning in 1991. He was then promoted to Sergeant, while retaining the youth officer title with those duties for five years.

During the time he was Sergeant, Harisch revamped the Department’s property management system of evidence and other items that were taken into the department. He also revamped the police candidate hiring investigation with the assistance of Sergeant Dennis Murray. Harisch ran the tours around the clock as all patrol sergeants do.

Harisch was involved with the first North Castle Police Department vehicle enforcement unit to safely move trucks within a five mile radius of North Castle. The truck enforcement officer has to be well versed in transportation law and tax law, said Harisch. “We still currently have a vehicle enforcement unit, but it hasn’t been active,” according to Harisch. He commented that he would like to get the vehicle enforcement unit up and running again. This would involve working with a certified person from the New York State Department of Transportation and using weighing scales from the State Police, County Police, or Yorktown Police.

 

read more….

 

http://www.allaboutarmonk.com/northcastle/

 

Report: Office of the Supervisor- North Castle NY | Armonk Real Estate

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SUPERVISOR’S UPDATE August 12, 2013

I hope our North Castle families are enjoying the summer and getting some well-deserved time off with their families! As the second week of August begins, I would like to tell you about several improvements you will be seeing around town as well as update you on the status of several issues.

Ongoing Renovation of Winkler Park

As part of our commitment to take care of our parks, I am proud to report that we have made a lot of progress at Winkler Park.  Our wonderful Parks Department has been at work clearing brush, resurfacing the tennis and basketball courts, repairing and power-washing the playground, and cleaning up the parking lot.  The most exciting addition, however, is the new accessible fishing dock at the edge of the pond. The dock was built and donated to the Town by one of our very own Armonk Boy Scouts as part of his effort to become an Eagle Scout. The ramp to the dock allows easy accessibility and there is even enough room for a wheelchair to turn around. I have already seen a few people fishing there and enjoying the dock. Please remember that there is no swimming in the pond or jumping off the dock. If any other residents have ideas for community service projects, we are happy to help facilitate. Also if you are moved to new home or office, how long does mail forwarding last? You may expect that setting up a USPS mail forwarding is the exact opposite thing to stress over.

Road Repair/Paving

I have received several questions about the repaving of East Middle Patent Road, Byram Lake Road and others.   These roads were due for repair and we have resurfaced them using the industry standard method called “chip and seal” which includes several phases. This method is the ‘best demonstrated practice’ in rural road repair because it doubles the life of the existing road at a lower cost.   Instead of simply repaving with smooth blacktop, it includes the following steps: 1) a sticky blacktop slurry is applied which seals existing cracks, 2) loose “chips” are spread down and compacted into the slurry by auto travel, and 3) after a few weeks, the loose-remaining gravel is swept away by a sweeper truck. This method creates a slightly rougher but much tougher road: one that is able to withstand traffic and extreme weather better than smooth blacktop. In fact, it’s actually safer for cars in bad weather because it gives tires greater traction. I do apologize to all our North Castle bike riders for the interruption. Meanwhile, our Parks Department is working hard to bring our plan for a bike path to fruition!

CVS

As has been reported, the litigation against CVS and the Town by the Concerned Citizens was dismissed for lack of standing. Unfortunately, the Concerned Citizens have filed an appeal, increasing the Town’s already significant legal costs. CVS has decided to proceed with their redevelopment of the property in spite of the legal challenge and is now waiting to obtain D.O.T. permits to improve traffic flow into and out of their parking lot.

Litigation Report

Another legal matter has also been resolved in the Town’s favor. A former part-time employee had filed an employment-discrimination complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights (SDHR) after she was terminated last year.  The SDHR dismissed her complaint, finding no evidence of discrimination by the Town. The replacement employee’s salary was approximately half of the previous employee’s salary. In its decision, the SHDR recognized the legitimacy of the Town’s basis for her termination: financial savings to the taxpayers.

Brynwood

A group named Responsible Development North Castle has sent out several emails regarding their views on Brynwood.  Other groups who support Brynwood may follow with their own emails. It is the Town Board’s responsibility to address these issues within the context of our legal mandate and not to engage in a public relations “back and forth.” My only request would be that our citizens be wary of efforts to sway their perspectives in one direction or another before they have the facts.  As of this time, no decisions have been made; we are adhering to the town’s legal process for examining such projects.

As always, if you have any comments, ideas or suggestions, we are more than willing to hear them. Meanwhile, my fellow Town Board members and I wish you and your family a healthy and relaxing summer.

Howard B. Arden

Supervisor

Office of the Supervisor

Phone: 914-273-3001 | Fax: 914-273-6936 | Email: supervisor@northcastleny.com

Real estate investment trust yields robust rewards despite risk | Armonk Real Estate

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Sinking money into real estate investment trusts is considered to be one of Wall Street’s most complex investments.

Owning shares of REITs gives investors an opportunity to get investment exposure to real estate, including apartments, shopping centers and office buildings. But they’ve gained a reputation of being risky and confusing — especially after the industry was pummeled during the last real estate crash.

 

 

Real estate investment trust yields robust rewards despite risk – Los Angeles Times.