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5 SEO Tricks for Pinterest | Armonk Realtor
Pinterest, without a doubt has been one of the fastest and every growing social media platform for brands with over 11 million users. I have always maintained that it is one medium every B2C brands should explore. Pinterest also has a great potential for brands to increase their reach unlike the conventional marketing channels, especially in the emerging economies.
With more people trying to make their purchase based on finding of products over Pinterest, there are few tricks that can optimize those simple looking pins get the desired attention.
1. Long tail keywords
As with any SEO strategies, it is very important to choose your keywords wisely. More important, try to have ‘long tail’ keyword – keywords with better and longer shelf life. How do you do that? Well, you can personalize the pin to cater to particular geographic location or gender. This apart from having the product description in place. In effect, you’re making the pin searchable for – product, place & person.
2. Using hash tags
Like Twitter, Google Plus or Instagram, Pinterest too latched on to the popularity of hash tags. These hash tags help you anchor the pin to a particular subject and makes it easily discoverable. Many of the brands track their marketing campaigns using hash tag like the recent Lakme campaign where it has asked users to pin with hash tag
Surviving the housing collapse | Armonk Homes
The following editorial appeared in the Miami Herald on Tuesday, Jan. 22:
In his first inaugural speech four years ago, President Obama acknowledged that the nation was facing a moment of economic crisis that hit many Americans where they live. “Homes have been lost,” the president intoned solemnly, a meaningful reference to the collapse of the housing market and the urgent need to fix it.
In the ensuing four years, millions of homeowners around the country learned painfully and firsthand the meaning of “short sale,” “foreclosure,” “loan modification” and other terms describing the housing mess. They also learned about the abuses in mortgage lending that created the housing crisis.
On Monday, Obama did not make so much as a passing reference to housing or lost homes in his second inaugural, signaling that the worst of the crisis is behind us.
But few consumer advocates give the president high marks for devising effective solutions, nor should they. To the extent that the market is recovering, it is due largely to the broader improvement in the economy rather than specific programs put forth by Obama and his appointees.
In the last few weeks and months, however, a series of actions by the federal government have sought to put closure on the housing crisis through a variety of actions that we would describe as good and not so good.
The good. Last September, the Fed announced a new program to buy large quantities of mortgage bonds each month. This welcome shift in policy has done more than any other initiative to aid housing.
Last week, in another win for homeowners and buyers, the administration’s new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued new rules for mortgage servicers. It will require them to deal fairly with struggling borrowers and offer clear information about costs.
One week earlier, the CFPB issued new mortgage standards that should rid the market of “toxic mortgages” and thus remove a major obstacle keeping banks from making home loans.
All of these moves will benefit borrowers, as well as home sellers.
Not so good: The government announced an $8.5 billion settlement earlier this month with 10 giant banks for mortgage abuses such as robo-signing and improper foreclosure tactics.
Ostensibly this is a win for consumers – $3.3 billion will go directly to borrowers who faced foreclosure, and $5.2 billion for loan modification and reduced interest payments.
But where’s the accountability for all the misdeeds? No one is being punished. And what about making the benefit fit the level of wrongdoing? Borrowers will receive a check based on the type of error the banks made, but many will be undercompensated, and some people receiving a check suffered little or no harm.
Going forward, consumers and their advocates – and lawmakers – must ensure that the rules are applied fairly, with an emphasis on helping consumers.
One reason borrowers in this state are skeptical is because Florida has yet to provide much help to consumers under a $25 billion settlement between five big banks and 49 attorneys general, following a wrangle over the money between legislators and Attorney General Pam Bondi. The state should accelerate its response.
The federal government will follow up on the $8.5 billion settlement by spelling out enforcement actions, which must benefit consumers. Those who suffered the most wrong deserve to receive the greatest benefit.
via kansascity.com
Rising House Prices, Not Stocks, Make People Feel Wealthy | Armonk NY Real Estate
As a key influence on households’ spending decisions, the health of the housing sector trumps stock-market moves, a paper released this week by the National Bureau for Economic Research claims.
- European Pressphoto Agency
The study, written by prominent economists Karl Case, John Quigley and Robert Shiller, refines their existing study of what is called the wealth effect. Case and Shiller are well known names, especially on housing issues. Quigley, another luminary, died in May, before the research’s publication.
Most economists and policymakers agree asset price gains can be big drivers of consumer spending power. Rising home or stock prices are generally agreed to increase consumer spending, while falling asset prices cut the other way.
That said, economists and policymakers have had a hard time quantifying the wealth effect. That’s problematic for many reasons, but it’s even more so due to the fact that the housing market’s crash and apparent recovery are considered central to the overall fate of the economy. To that end, the Federal Reserve is pursing a policy course deliberately aimed at driving up all manner of asset prices in hopes its actions will boost household spending to power better overall growth.
In the paper, the economists update their decade-old work, drawing on a wider and more up-to-date set of data ranging from 1975 to the second quarter of 2012. The broader information changes and clarifies what was once thought about the wealth effect’s influence.
There is “at best weak evidence of a link between stock market wealth and consumption,” the economists wrote. “In contrast, we do find strong evidence that variations in housing market wealth have important effects upon consumption,” they said.
“An increase in real housing wealth comparable to the rise between 2001 and 2005 would, over the four years, push up household spending by a total of about 4.3%,” the paper stated. Meanwhile, “a decrease in real housing wealth comparable to the crash which took place between 2005 and 2009 would lead to a drop of about 3.5%.”
This finding upends the old understanding that housing gains tended to push spending higher by a wider margin that home price declines depressed spending, the economists wrote.
The paper’s conclusion provides some additional hope that a nascent housing sector recovery could in fact be a meaningful contributor to a broader acceleration in growth over coming years. It may also explain why even as the stock market has scored strong gains in recent years on the back of extremely aggressive monetary policy, growth to date has been so middling and disconnected from the story told by equities.
A note from Deutsche Bank sees housing contributing strongly to a better economy. “The wealth effect on consumer spending could be substantial” this year, the bank told clients. “We are projecting home price appreciation of 5-10% in 2013, which translates into a further increase in household assets, i.e. wealth creation, ranging between $860 billion and $1.720 trillion.”
“Through its direct and indirect effects, the housing sector alone could potentially contribute as much as 2% to real GDP growth this year,” Deutsche said.
via blogs.wsj.com
Home prices spike 19.4 percent in Chicago in December | Armonk Realtor
Median home prices in the city of Chicago shot up 19.4 percent in December from a year earlier, and sales of existing homes jumped 14.6 percent, according to the latest report from the Illinois Association of Realtors.
The median price rose a smaller 4.5 percent in the Chicago metropolitan area, and sales spiked 19.2 percent.
The report showed the median price in the city rose to $185,000, in December, up from $155,000 in the year-ago period. There were 1,806 homes sold, up from 1,576.
In the Chicago metropolitan area, the median price rose to $151,500 last month, up from $145,000 in December 2011. Home sales totaled 7,372, up from 6,184.
“Positive signs for the housing market continue,” Geoffrey Hewings, director of the Regional Economics Applications Laboratory at the University of Illinois, said in a statement.
“The housing market is likely to experience some bumpiness in the first quarter of the year until there is resolution of the fiscal challenges in Washington and Springfield.
Consumers are unlikely to explore major purchases, such as a home, when tax rates, mortgage interest deductions and pension obligations remain unresolved, he added
via suntimes.com
Luxury homes: Buyers say bottom has passed | Armonk Homes
Semi-retired hotel executive Howard Friedman and his wife, Connie, paid nearly $1 million for a three-story townhome in downtown Boca Raton. They don’t have an ocean view, but they love the urban setting that keeps them close to the city’s nightlife.
“We have maybe 50 bars and restaurants within walking distance,” Friedman, 57, said of his new digs in the 200 East development along Palmetto Park Road. “We felt that this environment was very, very attractive.”
A resurgence of sales of high-end homes and condominiums is helping South Florida’s housing market recover from the six-year downturn.
During the bust, luxury properties valued at $750,000 and above didn’t fare any better than more modestly priced homes. In some cases, it was worse.
Sellers waited months, sometimes longer than a year, slashing prices time and again with no takers. Even with the chance to buy trophy homes on the water or in gated communities at 50 cents on the dollar, prospective buyers feared the falling market.
“Back then it was awful,” remembers David Serle, broker for RE/MAX Services in Boca Raton. “Sellers really had to change their mindset.”
But now most buyers believe the bottom has passed, brokers say. The 200 East project sold nine units in nine weeks for $7 million. The condo-townhome community is roughly 90 percent full, said John Poletto, principal at Nestler Poletto Sotheby’s International Realty in Boca.
Higher price ranges also are doing well.
Broward County last year posted 464 sales of homes and condos valued at $1 million or more – the third consecutive annual increase and a 51 percent jump since 2009, according to an analysis of property records by Focus Real Estate Advisors in Coral Gables.
The 2012 sales volume in Broward hit $768 million, up 47 percent from 2009.
Palm Beach County last year had 791 sales of $1 million-plus properties, down slightly from the year before but still 33 percent higher than in 2009, the Focus data show.
Miami-Dade County has by far the biggest share of the region’s luxury market because of an abundance of foreign investors and ultra high-end condos in downtown Miami and along the coast.
Across South Florida, the high-end market has rebounded with the help of investors buying up nearly all of the excess condos that were built during the housing boom.
“The absorption of the overhang of inventory opened the opportunity for new construction to enter the marketplace,” said Philip J. Spiegelman, principal of International Sales Group.
Developers have announced or started building 99 condo towers featuring nearly 14,500 units in the tri-county region, mostly in Miami-Dade, according to CondoVultures.com, a Bal Harbour-based consulting firm.
One of the first announced projects in the past two years was Apogee Beach, a 49-unit Hollywood condo where prices start at more than $1 million. The development by Jorge Perez is sold out and expected to open later this year.
New construction remains soft in Palm Beach County because it doesn’t have as big of an economic base as the two counties to the south, said Craig Werley, president of Focus Real Estate.
Paulette Koch, an agent with Corcoran Group Real Estate, said a shortage of homes for sale is a problem on the island of Palm Beach just as it is in other parts of the county.
Koch expects the luxury market to continuing stabilizing, albeit slowly.
“We are not going to see enormous (price) gains over the next several years,” she said. “But people have gained confidence in the marketplace.”
via sun-sentinel.com
Katonah NY Area 2012 High Sold Price Report | RobReportBlog
2012 High Sold Price
$9,300,000.00 Armonk
$2,575,000.00 Chappaqua
$2,872,500.00 Pound Ridge
$2,600,000.00 North Salem
$4,750,000.00 Bedford NY
$1,557,000.00 South Salem
$3,995,000.00 Bedford Hills
$3,950,000.00 Mount Kisco
$4,000,000.00 Katonah
via trulia.com
Foreclosure filings up in half of US states in 2012 | Armonk Real Estate
Half of U.S. states saw an annual increase in the number of foreclosure-related filings in 2012, but most of those were judicial foreclosure states where loan servicers were catching up on the backlog from the “robo-signing” controversy, according to a year-end report by data aggregator RealtyTrac.
All told, RealtyTrac reported foreclosure-related filings against 1.84 million U.S. properties in 2012, down 3 percent from 2011 and down 36 percent from a 2010 peak of 2.9 million homes.
All but five of the 25 states seeing an increase in foreclosure-related filings (default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions) were states where courts handle most foreclosure proceedings.
Many foreclosure proceedings against homeowners in those states were stalled, but not derailed, by allegations that loan servicers failed to follow proper procedures in filing legal documents.
After loan servicers reached a settlement last March with state and federal officials last over so-called “robo-signing” practices and revised their procedures, they began pushing new and existing proceedings through the system again (many also started approving more short sales to meet their obligations under the terms of the settlement).
Foreclosures are handled by courts in the six states seeing the biggest annual increase in 2012 foreclosure filings — New Jersey (up 55 percent), Florida (53 percent), Connecticut (48 percent), Indiana (46 percent), Illinois (33 percent), and New York (31 percent).
Homes in New York took the longest to move through the foreclosure process — 1,089 days — followed by New Jersey (987 days), Florida (853 days), Hawaii (781 days), and Illinois (697 days).
In the 25 states that saw foreclosure filings drop from 2011 to 2012, 19 handle most foreclosures outside of the court system, and loan servicers in those states continued to move homes through the foreclosure process during the robo-signing controversy.
Nonjudicial foreclosure states seeing the biggest drop in foreclosure filings in 2012 were Nevada (down 57 percent), Utah (down 40 percent), Oregon (down 40 percent), Arizona (down 33 percent), California (down 25 percent), and Michigan (down 23 percent).
RealtyTrac warned there could be a foreclosure backlog building up some states that saw filings decline in 2012, as the result of new state legislation and court rulings that make it more difficult for lenders to foreclose.
So 2013 could see “two discrete jumps in foreclosure activity,” at the beginning and end of the year, said Realty Trac’s Daren Blomquist.
“We expect to see continued increases in judicial foreclosure states near the beginning of the year as lenders finish catching up with the backlogs in those states, and another set of increases in some nonjudicial states near the end of the year as lenders adjust to the new laws and process some deferred foreclosures in those states.”
The rise in foreclosure activity in many local markets in 2012 “should translate into more foreclosure inventory available for sale in 2013 in those markets,” Blomquist said. “That is good news for buyers and investors, but could result in some short-term weakness in home prices as the often-discounted foreclosure sales weigh down overall home values” in those markets.
States with the highest foreclosure rates in 2012 were Florida (with filings against 3.11 percent of homes), Nevada (2.7 percent), Arizona (2.69 percent), Georgia (2.58 percent), California (2.33 percent), Ohio (1.75 percent), Michigan (1.69 percent), South Carolina (1.66 percent), and Colorado (1.64 percent).
Among metro areas with a population of 200,000 or more, Stockton, Calif., had the nation’s highest foreclosure rate (3.98 percent). Six other California cities made RealtyTrac’s list of the 20 metro areas with the highest foreclosure rates, and Florida landed eight cities on the list, including Miami (3.71 percent) and Orlando (3.46 percent).
Zillow is projecting that a half-dozen markets in California, including some Central Valley cities hard hit by foreclosures, will see double-digit home price aprreciation in the months ahead. The real estate portal’s analysis of more than 250 markets predicts that national home prices will appreciate 2.5 percent in the year ending November 2013.
“The U.S. housing market bottomed in the fourth quarter of 2011 and has since entered a sustainable recovery,” Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries said in a blog post.
California metros Zillow expects to see the biggest gains are Modesto (projected to gain 14.7 percent), Merced (12.1 percent), Bakersfied (10.7 percent), Vallejo (10.4 percent), Sacramento (10.1 percent) and Visalia (10.0 percent).
via inman.com
N.Y. newspaper removes online map of gun-permit holders | Armonk Homes
A White Plains, N.Y., newspaper has removed an online interactive map that detailed who has handgun permits in two counties. The posting of the map on the paper’s website last month had sparked outrage and prompted changes in state law to give permit holders greater privacy.
The Journal News map showed the names and addresses of people with pistol permits licensed by Westchester and Rockland counties.
Journal News President and Publisher Janet Hasson said Friday the decision to take down the map came in response to a provision in New York’s new gun law that was passed last week. The law also gives permit holders a way to request that their personal information be kept private.
Hasson criticized the new rule as overly broad, but added in a letter that “we are not deaf to voices who have said that new rules should be set for gun permit data.”
Still, a snapshot of the map — without the names and addresses — has been kept on the paper’s website “to remind the community that guns are a fact of life we should never forget,” she wrote.
The new law, signed Jan. 15 by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, also stopped the release of permit-holder data for 120 days. The Journal News had been battling Putnam County to release the names and addresses of permit holders, but officials there had refused.
The state government’s top open-records official had warned that refusing the request would be illegal.
In her letter to readers, Hasson said the paper published the interactive feature using public information after the Newtown, Conn., school shootings, because the “Journal News thought the community should know where gun permit holders in their community were, in part to give parents an opportunity make careful decisions about their children’s safety.”
via latimes.com
What You Need to Know About Today’s Home Buyers | Armonk Real Estate
via zillow.com