Tag Archives: Armonk NY Real Estate

Armonk NY Real Estate

Luxury Prices Lag Lower Price Tiers | Armonk NY Homes

Leave a reply

For nearly two months, through the heart of the spring buying season, the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing’s Market Action Index has stayed stuck at 29, one point below the official level designating a seller’s market.

Meanwhile lower priced homes have risen. The national median price on Realtor.com for all price tiers is up 2.63 percent in April over March and other listing-based market reports registered similar gains as slim inventories and a robust buying season combined to fuel the recovery. While the average price for ILHM’s market profile has risen to $1,266,086 through May 16, it’s only 1.6 percent above the ILHM average at the end of March.

Compared to lower price tiers, luxury demand is much weaker. Inventories in ILHM’s profile have increased 7.3 percent since the end of March, typical for this time of year and in line with monthly increases in the overall national inventory. However, time on market, which measures the balance between supply and demand, has been stuck on neutral like ILHM’s market index. The average days on market for luxury homes is 184 days, unchanged in six weeks. The median age of inventory on Realtor.com, however, was 81 days at the end of April, down 2.41 percent from March.

However, in the hottest markets in the nation, luxury sales have been doing as well as lower priced homes. In Denver, one of the best markets in the nation for all price tiers, luxury home sales skyrocketed in April, with sales of homes priced at $1 million or more rising almost 142 percent from April 2012, according to independent broker Gary Bauer. For luxury homes priced at $1 million or more, there were 87 single-family home sales in April, a 141.7 percent jump from the 36 in April 2012, according to the report based on Metrolist data.

Luxury home values increased in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego in the first quarter of 2013 compared to a year ago, according to the First Republic Prestige Home Index by First Republic Bank. San Francisco Bay Area values jumped 8.7 percent from the first quarter of 2012 and 3.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2012. The average luxury home in San Francisco is $2.82 million. Los Angeles area values rose 7.1 percent from the first quarter a year ago and 1.9 percent from the fourth quarter of 2012. The average luxury home in Los Angeles is $2.1 million.

 

RealEstateEconomyWatch.com » Luxury Prices Lag Lower Price Tiers » Print.

Google’s Blueprint for Search Domination | Armonk Real Estate

Leave a reply

Do you really think Google would reveal its plans on how they want search to evolve? I sure do. If you don’t believe me just ask Matt Cutts. Or better yet just watch him answering the question below.

Popout

After bypassing the cyborg comments he makes some pretty profound statements that Google should be a “good assistant,” “understand the context,” and “synthesize information.” But more importantly he goes on to say that Google should be able to handle difficult syntax not just by data or knowledge but towards analysis and wisdom. Now what does that mean?

Quick Algorithm Recap

In the famous words of Hitch “You can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been,” so to get a better understanding of the future lets back up a few years and look at what Google has done with previous algorithm updates. I am only going to hit on the high points, but if you want to go further I would recommend referencing SEO Moz’s Algorithm History.

  • Florida Update – November 2003
  • Paid Links – October 2007
  • Rel Canonical – February 2009
  • Social Signals – December 2010
  • Panda – February 2011
  • Google Authorship – June 2011
  • Penguin – April 2012
  • Knowledge Graph – May 2012
  • EMD Update – September 2012

Many of the previous algorithm updates and iterations listed were aimed to dismantle spam, technical manipulation, and improving their infrastructure. It took over a decade of progress before Google was even able to begin to tackle the context issue.

Google Authorship and the Knowledge Graph implementation was the catalyst to bring data together in a sensible format. The Knowledge Graph pulls data from reliable sources to show images, descriptions, background information, people involved, and other related information while Google Authorship connects content with a specific author. The Knowledge Graph is even more sophisticated than it would appear at first glance. Bill Slawski at SEO by the Sea has uncovered that the information in knowledge graphs can be dynamic depending on what users are searching for, so not all knowledge graphs are created equal.

                                               

Back to the Present

So what does Matt Cutts mean when he says that search will be going toward analysis and wisdom? The simple answer is Google wants to answer every single question the user has on the very first try and if possible before the user even asks the question.

In an article in the Guardian, Google’s CEO Larry Page said that they are trying to reduce every possible friction between the user, their thoughts, and the information they want to find. He even mentions brain implants to answer questions at the time a thought originates. Maybe Larry and Matt are in cahoots to make us all cyborgs. But I digress…

In order for Google to get to the point where they can answer every possible question a couple of things have to occur. They need to have access to a lot of data and a way to relationally put it together. Part of the data gathering process has already been explained above with Google Authorship and the Knowledge Graph, but lets continue going down the rabbit trail on more sources they are using to get data.

First they have Google Analytics which is installed on millions of websites. Have you ever wondered why Google Analytics is free for up to 10 million pageviews a month? It is the amount of data that is now at their disposal. Google makes it very easy for you to share your data with them. When you’re setting up a Google Analytics account, they have conveniently pre-checked all the data sharing settings for you even though they are technically optional. This data allows them to understand user behavior for individual websites but more importantly for different verticals.

 

Google’s Blueprint for Search Domination | Find and Convert.

Home sales close in on three-and-a-half year high | Armonk Real Estate

Leave a reply

Home resales rose in April to the highest level in nearly 3-1/2 years and prices surged, offering the economy a buffer from the stiff headwinds posed by belt-tightening by Washington.

The National Association of Realtors said on Wednesday existing home sales advanced 0.6 percent to an annual rate of 4.97 million units, the highest level since November 2009.

The data underscored the housing market’s improving fortunes as it starts to regain its lost glory. Resales were 9.7 percent higher than the same period last year.

“It’s quite supportive of the overall economy,” said Michelle Meyer, a senior economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York. “It’s a cushion against some of the other concerns in the economy.”

Economic activity appears to have slowed somewhat early in the second quarter as the effects of higher taxes and deep government spending cuts started filtering through.

Manufacturing, in particular, has been showing strains, but housing has held up surprisingly well, with the gains in home values helping to boost consumer confidence and retail sales.

The ripples from housing’s recovery have also extended to the jobs market, where construction employment has been rising.

That should limit the degree to which the economy slows this quarter. It expanded at a 2.5 percent annual pace in the first three months of the year.

U.S. stocks were narrowly mixed in afternoon trading. Treasury debt prices were lower while the dollar was higher against a basket of currencies.

PRICES SOAR

Tight supplies in some parts of the country have constrained the pace of home sales, but sellers are starting to wade back into the market, attracted by rising prices.

In April, the median home sales price increased 11 percent from a year ago to $192,800, the highest level since August 2008. It was the fifth consecutive month of double-digit gains.

With prices rising, more sellers put their properties on the market. The inventory of homes on the market rose 11.9 percent from March to 2.16 million.

That represented a 5.2 months’ supply at April’s sales pace, up from 4.7 months in March. It remained, however, below the 6.0 months that is normally considered a good balance between supply and demand.

The market has been helped by monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve that has kept mortgage rates near record lows. On Wednesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke made clear he was not yet ready to retreat from the U.S. central bank’s monthly $85 billion asset purchase program.

Adding to signs that the housing recovery was becoming firmly established, distressed properties – which can weigh on prices because they typically sell at deep discounts – accounted for only 18 percent of sales last month.

That was the lowest since the Realtors group started monitoring them in October 2008. These properties, foreclosures and short sales, had made up 21 percent of sales in March.

In another bright sign, properties are selling faster. The median time on market for homes was 46 days in April, down from 62 days the prior month. That was the fewest days since the NAR started monitoring that number in May 2011. Before the market collapsed in 2006, it usually took about 90 days to sell a home.

 

Home sales close in on three-and-a-half year high | Reuters.

Metro-North Trains Should Be Up And Running By Wednesday Morning | Armonk NY Real Estate

Leave a reply

Metro-North Railroad’s New Haven Line is scheduled to be back to normal by Wednesday morning, officials said Monday.

“We are confident that the reconstruction work, inspection and testing will be completed in time for a normal rush hour on Wednesday,” Metro-North President Howard Permut said in a statement Monday evening. “We are grateful for the tireless work of all departments and employees engaged in this huge task.”

Metro-North and the Connecticut Department of Transportation have to rebuild 2,000 feet of track after Friday’s derailment and collision on the Fairfield-Bridgeport border. The agencies also need to restring overhead catenary wires to restore electricity to the rail line and retest the track and the signals before trains can begin running.

Train ridership was way down Monday, with about 750 people riding shuttle trains and buses from towns north of the accident Monday, or about 20 percent of the usual number, Metro-North said. Overall, however, ridership on the New Haven Line was down 20 percent Monday. About 2,700 people total had used the Metro-North bus service by 3 p.m. Monday, it said.

Connecticut’s main highways did not see unusually high traffic Monday, Gov. Dannel Malloy said Monday. The Merritt Parkway’s car load was actually slightly below a typical Monday, while Interstate 95 was slightly slower, he said.

“Suffice it to say, the plan worked,” Transportation Commissioner James Redeker said Monday. “People listened, and we had support systems in place.”

For Tuesday, Metro-North will continue the system it set up for Monday’s commute, with trains running from New Haven to Bridgeport, buses taking commuters from Bridgeport and Fairfield to Westport, and trains running again from Westport to Grand Central. The full schedule and plan is available here.

The state will maintain its same procedures Tuesday morning that it did Monday. State Police and tow crews will be on call during rush hours to clear accidents quickly. The state Emergency Operations System will also be open to help manage the rush-hour commute.

On Sunday evening, Malloy had asked Connecticut residents to telecommute to work if possible, and carpool or vanpool if driving instead of taking the train. He asked commuters to take those same steps again Tuesday.

“This is tremendously good news,” Malloy said of Metro-North’s announcement. “However, this also means that we’re going to have one more day of great difficulty, and that’s tomorrow.”

 

Metro-North Trains Should Be Up And Running By Wednesday Morning | The Bedford Daily Voice.

Are You Receiving Leads from Realtor.com, Zillow, or Trulia? | Armonk NY Homes

Leave a reply

When you respond to these leads with the only form of contact they usually give you, email, are they opening your responses?

Do you even know if they opened your email or clicked any links?  If not, go here first.

Now we have that out of the way, lets talk about how to increase that open rate.

I presented at the Agent Reboot conference in Seattle and had the opportunity to watchDarin Persinger from Productivity Junkies talk a bit about leads and how to respond to them.  He explained the process of how a consumer searches on Realtor.com and connects with the site.  That consumer then fills out a form and is then presented with an email from “Kelly Agent”, which might not ever get read.  Why you ask?  Watch the video below to find out and learn what to do to overcome this dilemma.

 

 

Are You Receiving Leads from Realtor.com, Zillow, or Trulia? | Tech Savvy Agent.

Jennifer Love Hewitt Buys Sleek Pacific Palisades Home | Armonk NY Homes

Leave a reply
Share4
Pin it
DATE:MAY 14, 2013 | CATEGORY:EYE CANDY | AUTHOR: 
Source: IMDb

Source: IMDb

Jennifer Love Hewitt listed two of her homes earlier this year — one for sale and one for rent — so the news that “The Client List” actress just picked up a new home is no surprise.

According to property records and a report from The Real Estalker, Hewitt paid $3.25 million for a super modern pad in Pacific Palisades. The property was first listed for $3.399 million in early February and reported a pending sale — assumably due to Hewitt’s bid — in mid-March.

The home was previously owned by 7 for All Mankind jeans co-founder Peter Koral, who sold the high-end denim company for a hefty sum in 2007.

The same year, the house was designed by local architect Melinda Gray using contemporary wood and glass. The kitchen includes top-of-the-line, energy-efficient appliances and, like many modern homes, the floor plan is open, leading to a sleek outdoor living space. The home boasts both a rooftop deck and a private patio, which has a pool and lounging area complete with a fire pit and flat-screen TV.

 

 

Jennifer Love Hewitt Buys Sleek Pacific Palisades Home | Zillow Blog.

For $4.5M, a Classic Shingle-Style Estate on Cape Cod – House of the Day | Armonk Real Estate

Leave a reply

 

front-la0922d44-m4x.jpg

Location: West Falmouth, Mass.
Price: $4,500,000
The Skinny: This shingle-style estate on Frederick Law Olmsted-plannedChapoquoit Island is the pinnacle of preppy summering. Located within a private association, with easy access to the prime sailing grounds of Buzzards Bay, the five-bedroom cottage sprawls over 3,800 square feet and enjoys dazzling water views from nearly every room. The listing focuses on the cottage’s beautiful exterior, saving only one HDR-heavy photo for the interior, so its safe to assume that plenty of work is necessary on the inside to bring this 1902 beauty up to modern standards. Listed for $4.5M, the house sits on 1.43 acres, with a pond and a coveted private dock.

 

 

For $4.5M, a Classic Shingle-Style Estate on Cape Cod – House of the Day – Curbed National.

Tips for Finding Affordable Housing in Boston | Armonk Homes

Leave a reply
No matter what neighborhood you reside in, Boston is an expensive city. With so many awesome things to offer, it makes sense that this city is one of the most expensive in the country to live in. Median rent in Boston in 2012 was $1,881 according to aBoston.com article. Finding affordable housing in Boston can be tough, but it’s far from impossible.
Finding affordable housing in Boston definitely takes some time and effort, but it is definitely doable. Just like any city, Boston has affordable apartments, and if you make some living adjustments you can live in many neighborhoods while on a budget. Check out these tips to live affordably in Boston and find affordable housing in the first place.
Search, Search, Search!
In order to find an affordable apartment for your budget, you will need to do a lot of searching. It may take weeks, even months, to find a perfect Bostonian apartment, so start well before your deadline. Check tons of apartment websites like www.bostonpads.com and compare apartment prices in order to find a diamond in the rough.
The more time you spend searching, the better chance you have of finding a good, affordable apartment. Start your search as early as possible for the best results!
Go Neighborhood Specific
If you’re looking for affordable housing in Boston, you’ll need to narrow your search down to neighborhoods you can actually afford. If you spend time looking for an apartment in the Back Bay or Beacon Hill, you’ll likely be wasting your time as you won’t be able to find an apartment you can afford. According to that previously mentioned Boston.com article, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the Back Bay rents for $2,857 a month, which is outrageous for many people on a budget.
Focus your search on neighborhoods that are affordable with your budget, which you can figure out by determining how much you can spend. If you’re absolutely set on living in a specific neighborhood but feel like you can’t afford it, you might be able to afford it if you get some roommates. Regardless, you should focus only on places you can afford, so you aren’t wasting a ton of your time.
Try to Live Like a Student
If you’re looking for affordable housing in Boston, you might want to try living like a student. If you live in neighborhoods that are traditionally dominated by students, you will no doubt save money. Allston-Brighton is a gorgeous neighborhood located along the Charles River that caters to students of Boston College, Harvard, and Boston University.
Traditional student neighborhoods also typically have great public transportation options, which means you could save money by not driving a car and instead using public transportation whenever you go out. In some cases, you might find that these traditional student neighborhoods are loud on Friday and Saturday nights because of parties, but if you can handle that then you can save money on an apartment.

 

 

Tips for Finding Affordable Housing in Boston | Armonk Homes | Bedford NY Real Estate | Robert Paul Talks Life in Bedford NY.

President Obama Urges Congress to Boost Homeowners in ‘Healing’ Housing Market | Armonk Homes

Leave a reply

President Obama today declared that the housing market has reached a point where it is “healing” and reaffirmed the administration’s commitment to promoting initiatives that benefit responsible homeowners, including measures encourage refinancing at low rates.

“Today, seven years after the real estate bubble burst, triggering the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and costing millions of responsible Americans their jobs and their homes, our housing market is healing,” Obama said in his weekly address. “Sales are up.  Foreclosures are down.  Construction is expanding.  And thanks to rising home prices over the past year, 1.7 million more families have been able to come up for air because they’re no longer underwater on their mortgages.

ap barack obama ll 130506 wblog President Obama Urges Congress to Boost Homeowners in Healing Housing Market

Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo

“But we’ve got more work to do,” he added. “We’ve got more responsible homeowners to help – folks who have never missed a mortgage payment but aren’t allowed to refinance; working families who have done everything right, but still owe more on their homes than they’re worth.”

As he highlighted the administration’s initiatives to boost the housing market, the president called on Congress to confirm Mel Watt, who he recently nominated to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

“He’s the right person for the job, and that’s why Congress should do its job and confirm him without delay,” the president said.

Obama also urged Congress to pass additional measures that would allow homeowners to refinance their homes at low rates.

“Our economy and our housing market are poised for progress – but we could do so much more if we work together,” he said. “More good jobs.  Greater security for middle-class families.  A sense that your hard work is rewarded.  That’s what I’m fighting for – and that’s what I’m going to keep fighting for as long as I hold this office.”

While gun control and a battle over government spending has dominated much of the president’s agenda this year, the White House has made an direct push this week to turn attention to the economy.  On Thursday, the president held a series of events promoting innovation and job creation in the technology industry as part of his “Middle Class Jobs & Opportunity Tours,” which he will continue next week with events in Baltimore.

 

 

President Obama Urges Congress to Boost Homeowners in ‘Healing’ Housing Market – ABC News.

John Paulson Lists His More Modest Aspen Home for $30M | Armonk NY Real Estate

Leave a reply
john-paulson-aspen-lakes-ranch.jpg
Location: Aspen, Colo.
Price: $29,900,000
The Skinny: Hedge fund manager John Paulson, who made most of his $11.2B fortune by shorting the sub-prime mortgage market, bought this extravagant Aspen home, dubbed Aspen Lakes Ranch, for $24.5M. Set on 8.4 acres, the 13,000-square-foot mansion was built on spec by a local developer, who included seven bedrooms, ten bathrooms, a stocked pond, a private sandy beach, and a guest house. Apparently, this wasn’t quite enough for Paulson, his wife, and two daughters, who are now decamping for one of America’s ultimate estates. Last summer, the family paid $49M for Saudi Prince Bandar’s Hala Ranch, originally listed in 2006 for $135M, and renamed it Star Ranch. The 128-acre spread is centered around a giant, 56,000-square-foot main house, with 15 bedrooms, 16 bathrooms, barber shop and beauty salon, and a master suite that’s said to be large enough “for a party for 450 people.” Now, Paulson is looking to trade-in the ever so slightly more modest Aspen Lakes Ranch, John Paulson lists Aspen Lakes Ranch for cool $29.9 millionasking$29.9M. The family wouldn’t be hurting too much, even if he had to keep both mountain getaways. After all, the hedge funder personally pocketed a record $4.9B in 2010

 

John Paulson Lists His More Modest Aspen Home for $30M | Armonk NY Real Estate | Bedford NY Real Estate | Robert Paul Talks Life in Bedford NY.