Tag Archives: Bedford Corners Real Estate

Bedford Corners Real Estate

Home Prices Climb by Most in Six Years as U.S. Market Firms | Bedford Corners Homes

Leave a reply
Home Prices Climb by Most in Six Years

Home prices in 20 U.S. cities rose in November from a year earlier by the most in more than six years, indicating the U.S. housing rebound is gaining ground.

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) — Karl Case, co-creator of the S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 U.S. cities, talks about the housing market. The S&P/Case-Shiller index increased 5.5 percent in November from a year ago, the biggest year-over-year gain since August 2006. Case speaks with Tom Keene and Michael McKee on Bloomberg Radio’s “Surveillance.” (Source: Bloomberg)

Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) — Susan Wachter, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and Keith Jurow, author of a report on the U.S. housing market for Minyanville, discuss the outlook for the housing market. They speak with Mark Crumpton on Bloomberg Television’s “Bottom Line.” (Source: Bloomberg)

Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) — Robert Shiller, a professor at Yale University and co-creator of the S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values, talks about the global economy and the U.S. housing market. He speaks with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Television’s “Surveillance” on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. (Source: Bloomberg)

The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values increased 5.5 percent from November 2011, the biggest year-over-year gain since August 2006, a report showed today in New York. The median projection of 30 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 5.6 percent advance.

Mortgage rates near a record low are propelling demand for real estate that’s outpacing the available supply, a sign prices will keep strengthening. Home-equity gains and an improving job market may help to put a floor under Americans’ confidence and spending, the biggest part of the economy, cushioning the hit from a higher payroll tax that began in January.

“With inventory of both new and existing homes still very low, prices will likely continue to rise,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics Advisors Inc. in White Plains, New York, said in a note to clients. “Each successive price increase adds more weight to the idea that the housing market is recovering, and nothing pulls people into the market faster than the thought that prices will rise further.

Consumer confidence slumped more than forecast in January, reaching the lowest level in more than a year, as higher payroll taxes took a bigger bite out of Americans’ paychecks, another report today showed.

Confidence Wanes

The Conference Board’s sentiment index decreased to 58.6, the weakest since November 2011, from a revised 66.7 in December. The January reading was lower than the most pessimistic forecast in a Bloomberg survey, which had a median estimate of 64.

Stocks dropped after the confidence data, erasing earlier gains. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell less than 0.1 percent to 1,499.75 at 10:03 a.m. in New York.

Bloomberg survey estimates ranged from 3.4 percent to 6.4 percent. The S&P/Case-Shiller index is based on a three-month average, which means the November data were influenced by transactions in October and September.

The October reading was revised to show a 4.2 percent year- to-year advance from a previously reported 4.3 percent gain.

Home prices adjusted for seasonal variations climbed 0.6 percent in November from the prior month, matching October’s increase. That compares with the Bloomberg survey median of a 0.7 percent rise.

San Francisco

The month-over-month gain was led by San Francisco, followed by Minneapolis.

Unadjusted prices in the 20 cities fell 0.1 percent in November from the previous month. Property values typically fall during this time of year.

The year-over-year gauge provides better indications of trends in prices, the group has said. The panel includes Karl Case and Robert Shiller, the economists who created the index. Year-over-year records began in 2001.

“There are a lot of good signs,” Case said in an interview on Bloomberg Radio with Tom Keene. Nonetheless, “there’s a long way to go before we would declare victory over this housing market.”

Nineteen of the 20 cities in the index showed a year-over- year gain, led by a 22.8 percent jump in Phoenix and a 12.7 percent increase in San Francisco.

New York

New York was the only city to show decreases both month to month and year to year. Over the 12-month period, values in the city decreased 1.2 percent.

“Housing is clearly recovering,” David Blitzer, chairman of the S&P index committee, said in a statement. “These figures confirm that housing is contributing to economic growth.”

Combined sales of new and previously owned properties last year rose 9.9 percent, the biggest annual gain since 1998, data showed last week.

Purchases of previously-owned homes, which unexpectedly fell in December, were constrained by a lack of houses available for sale, the National Association of Realtors reported. Some 1.82 million existing homes were on the market last month, the fewest since January 2001, according to the group.

Lennar Corp. (LEN), the largest U.S. homebuilder by market value, reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings that beat analysts’ estimates as revenue jumped 42 percent. Stuart Miller, chief executive officer of the Miami-based company, said “a long-term demographic need for housing” is driving the housing recovery, which also is bolstering prices.

‘Pent-Up Demand’

As “pent-up demand unwinds, homebuilders are gaining pricing power,” Miller said on a Jan. 15 earnings conference call. “After years of home prices falling, in 2012 the trend turned positive, initially stabilizing and then allowing for price increases across the country.”

D.R. Horton Inc. (DHI), the largest U.S. homebuilder by volume, said today that fiscal first-quarter profit more than doubled as demand for new houses climbed. Orders jumped 39 percent to 5,259 homes. The company’s contract backlog, an indication of future sales, rose 80 percent to $1.76 billion.

“We experienced broad improvement in demand in most of our markets this quarter, and we significantly increased our investments in homes under construction, finished lots, land and land development to capture this increasing demand,” Chairman Donald R. Horton said in a statement.

Low borrowing costs are helping buyers who qualify for financing. The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage was at 3.42 percent last week, close to the 3.31 percent in November that was the lowest in data going back to 1972, according to McLean, Virginia-based Freddie Mac.

The fiscal pact passed by Congress on Jan. 1, while avoiding sweeping tax increases, let the payroll tax used to pay for Social Security benefits return to the 2010 level of 6.2 percent from 4.2 percent. That reduces the paycheck by about $83 a month for someone who earns $50,000.

via bloomberg.com

Don’t Count on a New Housing Boom | Bedford Corners Real Estate

Leave a reply

 

Shiller: Don’t Count on a New Housing Boom

Robert Shiller says caution is in order in housing markets:

A New Housing Boom? Don’t Count on It, by Robert Shiller, Commentary, NY Times: We’re beginning to hear noises that we’ve reached a major turning point in the housing market — and that, with interest rates so low, this is a rare opportunity to buy. But are such observations on target?

It would be comforting if they were. Yet the unfortunate truth is that the tea leaves don’t clearly suggest any particular path for prices, either up or down…, any short-run increase in inflation-adjusted home prices has been virtually worthless as an indicator of where home prices will be going over the next five or more years. …

The bottom line for potential home buyers or sellers is probably this: Don’t do anything dramatic or difficult. There is too much uncertainty… If you have personal reasons for getting into or out of the housing market, go ahead. Otherwise, don’t stay up worrying about home prices any more than you do about stock prices. …

 

 

via economistsview.typepad.com

 

From 10 Links to 1 Answer: The Coming Trend of Discovery Marketing and What It Means for SEO | Bedford Corners NY Realtor

Leave a reply

When I was in the fourth grade, I had to do a report about the moon. My dad handed me the Encarta CD-ROM to do my research, and immediately, I wanted to talk to it. I needed to find information about the moon and specifically how it affects tide cycles, so I wanted to just ask like I saw them do on Star Trek, e.g., “Computer, cross reference X and Y…”

Of course, I couldn’t do that.  The technology simply wasn’t advanced enough yet for Encarta to be spoken to, or even, proficiently recognize natural language queries such as “How does the moon effect the tide cycle?”

To find what I needed, I had to type “moon” and wade through the article looking for the relevant parts.

Fifteen years later, technology—led by Apple’s virtual assistant Siri and Google’s predictive search program Google Now—are helping us realize a world in which computers not only understand natural language queries but predict what you may be searching for and present it to you before you actually search for it.

Other than creating epic science projects for today’s fourth graders, these developments will likely have a very significant impact on the process of SEO, and on how companies will have to position themselves in order to remain relevant in a world of “answers, not links.” 

The Biggest Players in Discovery Marketing: Google, Apple (& Facebook?)

Apple and Google have been carefully positioning themselves to be the biggest players in the new discovery marketing playground—both technologies let searchers receive information in new and intuitive ways. The major disruption to the current search market is the keyword in the last sentence—receive.

Instead of making users search for information by typing it in with keystrokes, Siri is a virtual assistant that delivers information to users that verbally ask questions whereas Google Now actually anticipates users’ needs.

While there certainly are differences between Siri and Google Now, they have a commonality in that Apple and Google both want searchers to be immersed in their platforms—and their platforms only. They don’t want consumers to access their tool for one thing and another tool for something else. They strive to be a one-stop shop for all consumers’ needs—search, calendar, email, contacts, etc.

This means that the more accurately and effortlessly the two can deliver relevant data to users, the more engaged their users will become. In fact, it was reported this week that Apple is in talks with FourSquare about a data-sharing deal that will integrate local data from FourSquare into Apple’s mapping application. If this partnership pans out, it will be a huge step in making Apple (and Siri) into a seamless app that users never have to leave when they’re making plans for a night out.

Users that do not buy in to these kinds of all-encompassing systems, which use information they learn about a user to make recommendations or deliver better results, will likely find that mainstream and non-personalized search results are becoming increasingly rare. Brands will also find a point of diminishing returns; they won’t be able to effectively advertise to those consumers that don’t opt in to all that the technology platform offers.

Facebook is very relevant here as well. Even though it does not yet have a category-killer search app like Apple and Google, it already knows the most about its users and has the most user buy-in into its ecosystem; therefore, the platform has the most relevant user information to leverage.

Although Facebook’s brand new Graph Search is not a category-killer in search, or even a direct competitor to Google’s brand of Web search, it is a definite indication that allowing its users to discover as well as be “discoverable” is a major priority of the company.

In fact, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg tellingly called out that the new feature is designed to “return to you the answer, not the links…”Facebook also rolled out a local search service just last month, which seems to be another step in that direction, as well as a major play in local.

Imagine the following scenario: I enter the location “Dallas, TX” on my Google calendar and Google serves up ads for car rental and hotel deals in the area. Furthermore, what if I were served ads and offers based not only on my location but also on search history and geographic region?

While the above scenario is still speculative, it’s a good hypothetical example of discovery marketing: A world in which brands must work to make themselves known and “discoverable” to their users.

Here are the key takeaways for marketers ready to be “discovered”in this new search environment:

More than ever, you need to really know your customer.

In a world where not showing up via a virtual assistant or predictive search is the equivalent of showing up on page 2 or below of Google, local businesses must work to engage their customers, specifically encouraging user-generated content such as reviews which will create the kind of natural language relevance that will help their site stand out.

This new kind of search relies on the mobile device “knowing” the spoken language of its users, which would not include the typical marketing jargon one would find on a website. Businesses have to know about their customers. What is important to them when they search for businesses in your category? Whatever it is, it may be beyond the scope of traditional keyword research, but will be more important than ever.

Beyond just mastering the art of being found, you need to master the art of being useful.

In-store maps and inventories are going to become more important than ever before, because people are going to be presented with buying options predictively. Brands need to truly think about the opportunities to share more “real time feed” data into these ecosystems, so the real-time answers that we demand are always in our pockets.

When all else fails, standard links results are still going to be relevant.

Traditional links on Google search results pages aren’t going anywhere for a long time. After all, it has always been and will continue to be the backbone of their core offering. However, Google is providing layers upon layers of information and possibilities in addition to these links.

When, for example, and iPhone user asks Siri a question, Siri then pings one of its many data sources as it looks for an immediate answer to the query. If, and only if, Siri cannot answer the question by pinging Wolfram Alpha, Yelp, or something else, she will then apologize and ask the user if he/she would like to use Google to find the answer. In this way, Google will remain crucial as the backfill to users when nothing else is adequate.

To stay relevant, marketers must position themselves in these new channels by encouraging user interaction and reviews and working to remain top-of-their-class in local and mobile—even as the landscape is shifting all around them.

via searchenginejournal.com

Treasury 10-Year Yields Fall Amid Decline in Home Sales | Bedford Corners Realtor

Leave a reply

Treasuries rose, pushing 10-year note yields down from almost the highest level in a week, after sales of U.S. existing homes unexpectedly dropped in December to cast doubts on the strength of the real-estate recovery.

The benchmark yield dropped as home sales were restrained by the lowest supply of properties in more than a decade. Yields rose earlier as inflation expectations increased to the highest in almost three months before the U.S. sells $15 billion in inflation-indexed debt this week.

“The housing figure was disappointing,” said Ray Remy, head of fixed income in New York at Daiwa Capital Markets America Inc. “People are starting to spend much more time wondering and worrying about the U.S. economy. That’s why we’ve had an uptrade.”

The 10-year yield fell one basis point, or 0.01 percentage point, to 1.83 percent at 3:04 p.m. New York time, according to Bloomberg Bond Trader prices. It rose earlier four basis points to 1.88 percent after touching 1.89 percent on Jan. 18, the highest since Jan. 11. The 1.625 percent note due in November 2022 rose 2/32, or 63 cents per $1,000 face value, 98 4/32.

Treasuries handed investors a 0.4 percent loss this month through yesterday, while bonds in an index of sovereign debt around the world declined 0.2 percent, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch data.

Home Sales

Purchases of existing U.S. homes fell 1 percent to a 4.94 million annual rate last month, figures from the National Association of Realtors showed today in Washington. The median forecast was for an increase to a 5.10 million annual rate last month, according to the estimate of 69 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

A weaker existing-home-sales report “puts a little curve ball into the mix, given how the data have been decent,” said Justin Lederer, an interest-rate strategist in New York at Cantor Fitzgerald LP, one of 21 primary dealers that trade with the Federal Reserve. Yields have been “at the top end of a tight range.”

Yields show inflation expectations in the U.S. are rising before the U.S. auctions the Treasury Inflation Protected Securities on Jan. 24.

The U.S. previously sold $13 billion of the securities on Nov. 21 at a yield of negative 0.72 percent, compared with the record-low yield of negative 0.75 percent at the September auction. The last six note sales since January 2012 have drawn negative yields.

Fed Buying

The difference between rates on 10-year notes and similar- maturity TIPS, a gauge of expectations for consumer prices over the life of the securities, widened to as much as 2.55 percentage points today, the most since Nov. 2. The average over the past decade is 2.19 percentage points.

The Fed is purchasing $85 billion of government and mortgage debt each month to spur the economy by putting downward pressure on bond yields. It bought $1.39 billion of TIPS maturing from April 2017 to February 2042 today as part of the program.

Yields on the 10-year note are forecast to rise to 2.2 percent by year-end, according to economists in a Bloomberg News survey.

“This 1.89 percent level will be tested, but should hold today,” said Thomas di Galoma, a managing director at Navigate Advisors LLC, a brokerage for institutional investors in Stamford, Connecticut. “However, if we test it again, we could break to higher yields. That’s the pivotal level.”

Bonds in an index of riskier debt yielded 4.88 percentage points more than Treasuries on average, the smallest spread since May 2011, Bank of America Merrill Lynch data show.

The MSCI All-Country World Index (MXWD) of shares gained 17 percent last year including reinvested dividends, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Treasuries returned 2.2 percent and investment-grade corporate bonds gained 10 percent, Bank of America data show.

 

via bloomberg.com

 

Why Social Media Isn’t Working For You (And How To Make It Work) | Bedford Corners Realtor

Leave a reply

Why Social Media Isn’t Working For You (And How To Make It Work)

Social Media Marketing

A lot of business owners are frustrated with the term “social media” because people throw it around like it’s super-easy to get started, and when they do try it, they don’t get any result.

The real reason why people “fail” with social media is that they do not really understand what it is, and how to tailor their approach based on that.

This article is an attempt (hopefully a successful one!) to clear the confusion and put you on the right track.

The Importance of Social Media

We wouldn’t say that social media is crucial to a business’ success, but we strongly believe that it is important, and not only because everyone is doing it.

A strong social presence is slowly (but consistently) becoming like mobile phones. In the past, many people tried to resist it, saying that they have always been able to get away without having one, and that it’s not going to change anytime soon. Sure, people can probably survive without having a cellphone, but it’s kind of hard in today’s world, isn’t it?

A social presence is the same. It won’t make or break your business (for now), but it can definitely make things easier, and the earlier you adopt social media as part of your marketing strategies, the earlier you can take advantage of its benefits (people who started using cellphones early are now using smartphones with email, camera and productivity apps, while those who are just starting to use it are still stuck with the basic “calling and texting” capabilities).

Don’t Use Social Media to Make People “Buy Now”

Have a bunch of “Buy Now” posts on your Facebook page, and you will be rewarded with absolutely no sales.

Social media should NOT be used as a direct selling tool. Instead, it should be used as a way to build trust.

How? By showing that you are a real person or business, and that you care about your customers. For example if someone is having an issue about your product, you can share the solution right on the social media page solving it. But what if no one is having any issue? Then you will want to share tips and tricks (within the niche, but independent of your product); for example if you sell a lawn mower, you can share gardening tips that have nothing to do with lawn mowing. This always encourages comments, likes and shares. And that gets other people to join in the conversation (you got to love social).

Social traffic is rapid traffic. It doesn’t like to take too long to read or realize things. Just quickly skim. Quickly press like. Quickly comment. And then move on. Buying stuff is really out of place.

Don’t Use Social Media to Gain More Visitors

Actually, you should. But don’t just make a post and expect it to get a 1000s shares and clicks on its own.

People need a reason to do things. What’s in there for them to click or to share?

People will click if what you post can solve a problem they have, and they will share if what you post is of value. It’s not your tweet or post that will drive traffic; it’s what you write in them.

A well thought out tweet will definitely bring in more traffic than 10 quickly whipped up ones.

Don’t Think That Social Media is a Revolution

Social media is not the NEW way of marketing. It’s just another way of marketing. It’s more of an evolution than a revolution. It hasn’t changed the way things are done; it’s simply another way.

Giving up all your other marketing efforts for just social media is not the way to go. You don’t see big companies stopping to have their names on billboards just because they have a Facebook page, do you?

Instead, social media should be used in conjunction with other types of marketing. A good example of this would be if you have a nice video you uploaded on YouTube to siphon the traffic on there, you can also share it on your social media page.

The Point of it All

Social media is just a platform. It’s not a magic land where just posting random things will get you a horde of traffic or sales.

Once you “get it”, you will start using it for what it was meant for; interaction, feedback and trust. These 3 will take care of the sales later on.

via blog.socialmaximizer.com

Social Media and Self Control | Bedford Corners Realtor

Leave a reply

junk food and social networks

The Bike Radar cycling forum I frequent has a fascinating thread whereby a member asked for, and then proceeded to ignore, countless pages of dietary advice.  The online car crash is regularly interspersed with photos of the original poster stood on scales and sharing images of the bad food he’s just bought sat on his car seat.

As the thread is approaching 40 pages in length it has drawn accusations of trolling, but an interesting new research paper by the University of Pittsburgh that looks at how social sharing may limit our self control.

The paper reveals that when our online social networks consist of close friends, we experience an increase in self-esteem when we browse their profiles.  Afterwards however our self-control takes a hit.

Interestingly, social network users with a high proportion of close friends amongst their network, were also shown to have higher body-mass indexes (BMI) and also higher levels of credit card debt.

“To our knowledge, this is the first research to show that using online social networks can affect self-control,” says coauthor Andrew T. Stephen, assistant professor of business administration and Katz Fellow in Marketing in the University of Pittsburgh’s Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration.

“We have demonstrated that using today’s most popular social network, Facebook, may have a detrimental affect on people’s self-control.”

About the study

Participants in the study completed surveys to determine how close they were to their social network on Facebook.  They were then divided into two groups.  One group wrote about browsing Facebook whilst the other group actually did.  They were then asked to complete a survey to gauge their self-esteem.

The results were fascinating.  Regardless of whether participants actually browsed or just wrote about browsing, those with weak ties showed no bounce in self-esteem, whilst those with strong ties did.

Social snacking

Further studies explored the impact of social sharing on our willpower.  Participants were asked to either check Facebook or read articles on CNN, after which they were given a choice between eating a granola bar or a choc-chip cookie.  The Facebook browsers overwhelmingly chose the cookie.

Another study tested the mental fortitude of social networkers by again asking participants to browse either Facebook or TMZ.com, which is a celebrity gossip site, after which they were given a word puzzle to solve.  Even though neither site is particularly weighty, Facebook users gave up on the puzzle much faster.

A final study then explored the relationship between social networking and the kind of behaviours that typify poor self-control.  Participants were asked questions such as their weight, their debt history and how many friends they have offline.

“The results suggest that greater social network use is associated with a higher body-mass index, increased binge eating, a lower credit score, and higher levels of credit-card debt for individuals with strong ties to their social network,” the researchers write.

The moral of the story seems to be that if you want something that requires willpower, using social networks is not the best idea.

via socialmediatoday.com

Alex Rodriguez Pulls Miami Beach Modern off the Market | Bedford Corners NY Real Estate

Leave a reply

Alex Rodriguez listed his custom home in August but has pulled it off the market.

Source: Baseball News Source

Alex Rodriguez was scheduled to undergo hip surgery in New York today, but Miami is where the perennial MLB All-Star is expected to spend the bulk of his six-month recovery process. He has the perfect house just for that purpose, now that the Yankees third baseman has pulled his waterfront modern off the market.

Rodriguez listed the 9-bedroom, 13-bathroom custom-built beauty for $38 million in August, but Gossip Extra reports that the slugger has decided now is not the time to sell. Instead, A-Rod will make use of the pool, state-of-the-art gym and batting cage to rehabilitate his surgically-repaired left hip.

The goal is to get back into the Yankees lineup after the All-Star break in mid-July. By then, A-Rod will be turning 38, and he’ll be eager to prove to critics that his Hall of Fame-caliber baseball career is not over, especially after his horrific postseason performance that helped knock the Yankees out of the playoffs.

The indoor batting cage at A-Rod’s Miami estate.

via zillow.com