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10 Ways to Grow Your Facebook Following | Bedford Hills NY Homes
Bedford Hills NY Real Estate | A tough week for the Dow, housing stocks
The Dow Jones Industrial average plunged 205 points, or 1.52%, closing at 13,343 on Friday, adding a dose of pessimism to mildly optimistic housing data from the week.
The Dow’s drop, which analysts compared to the 1987 stock plunge, didn’t necessarily kill the momentum homebuilders found earlier in the week when home starts were reported to be on the rise. But bank and builder stocks finished the week with mostly unimpressive results.
Bank of America’s ($9.44 -0.03%) stock barely moved the needle when comparing Friday’s close to the company’s price at opening. Wells Fargo’s ($34.34 -0.23%) stock edged down slightly, along with JPMorgan Chase ($42.32 -0.69%).
Citigroup ($37.16 -1.26%) took the biggest hit with its stock down 3% at market close before rising somewhat in after-hours trading. The banking giant made headlines earlier in the week when its CEO Vikram Pandit stepped down.
Homebuilders, on the other hand, are still feeling some momentum from rising home starts, which suggested a mildly positive turn on the home construction side of the housing market.
KB Home ($34.64 -0.9%) finished the week up 1.02%, while Pulte Group Inc. ($17.89 0.24%) and luxury builder Toll Brothers ($35.10 0.4%) rose just over 1%. D.R. Horton’s ($21.48 -0.07%) edged down slightly, while Lennar ($38.73 0.05%) inched up.
Still, the housing sector is facing some uncertainty.
September existing-home sales fell slightly from the previous month in September, but remain well above year-ago levels, according to the National Association of Realtors.
via housingwire.com
Tips for Handling Negative Comments and Trolls on Social Media | Bedford Hills NY Realtor
Some of us are more sensitive than others. Make a negative comment and some people will break into tears. Some will take it on board and modify their behavior. Others will turn into an attack dog and bite right back.
If you are a business then that approach is maybe not optimal if your brand is the target of the negative comment.
In the past, customers could only complain in a fairly private manner, either via phone call, within the storefront, or by letters.
Today, many businesses have second thoughts about joining the social media world because they are afraid of the potential for negative comments. Instead of missing out on one of the best marketing tools available, businesses can be prepared to handle the negativity that is likely to come their way.
The fact is, the negativity is likely already happening, but without a presence on social media sites, these companies have no way to combat it.
Taking a proactive presence on social media will allow you to respond and have a better chance of controlling your brand image online.
4 Social Media Monitoring and Management Tips
Before you engage in any responses to complaints, consider the following general policies as a guidelines to how you monitor and manage your handling of negative comments and complaints.
- Track all complaints (this can be done internally or externally by a “community manager”)
- Respond quickly in public
- Stay positive publicly
- Deal with details privately
This will assist you in stopping minor issues becoming a major public relations disaster.
Valid Complaints and Trolls
Negative comments come in two main types: Valid complaints and Trolls. Real complaints are problems that customers are having with your products or services that you need to address.
Valid Complaints
When a valid customer complaint shows up on one of your social media sites, take action quickly.
- First, document the comment in case it ends up being deleted so that you can keep track of the conversation.
- Take some time to think through a response. Don’t take the comment personally. The customer has had a frustrating experience with your product and is seeking you out, giving you a second chance.
- Handle the issue with tact and respect
If you take this assertive and positive approach you will most likely gain your customer’s trust and continued loyalty and they will become a a raving fan.
Trolls
Trolls are a type of public spam that is usually illicit and unrelated to your business. Their language is strong and emotive and it is designed to get you to react. If you respond they win.
They are hunting for attention and gain their energy by eliciting a response on a public forum that they don’t deserve. Usually they don’t have a large social network audience of their own but are relying on your social networks to leverage and amplify the message.
So, don’t give them oxygen , don’t let them use your social media channels to use as a pulpit to scream from and delete them immediately.
Responding
When you respond, use a respectful and even playful tone to keep the mood light and friendly. Admit that you messed up. Use your customer service policy here: the customer is always right (unless it is a completely unfounded complaint). Publicly send an apology on the social media site because you are dealing with more than just that one customer. Privately contact the customer who complained and fix the specific problem by giving a discount or some benefit that fits the problem.
Next, share how your business plans to fix the problem in the future. Explain with the appropriate amount of detail what went wrong and what you have done to fix the problem for all of your customers. The more transparent you are here, the more trust you will gain from your customers.
Although every situation will be different, if you learn how to respond appropriately and effectively to negative comments on social media sites, your customers will be happy to support you even more.
What About You?
Have do you handle negative comments or complaints? Have you had a troll turn up on your social networks?
How have you handled it.
I look forward to hearing your stories in the comments below.
Guest Author: Tara Hornor has a degree in English and has found her niche writing about marketing and web related topics. She writes for PrintPlace.com and other companies.
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Latest Housing Affordability Index Data | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate
The recent Existing Home Sales release published showed a sixth consecutive month of single-family home prices higher than a year ago. What does this mean for affordability? The answer may surprise you.
The August Existing Home Sales release published in late September showed a strong rise in home prices from a year ago – 10.2 percent for the median priced existing single-family home sold. This news is reassuring for owners who can expect that wealth they have accumulated in their property will maintain or increase, but at first glance this seems to be troubling news for potential buyers who have not purchased a home yet. Have they missed the best time to buy?
The Housing Affordability Index offers some reassurance for these would-be buyers. As it turns out, the Housing Affordability Index suggests that the national median priced home was actually more affordable for the median-income family in August 2012 than it was in August 2011 even though home prices are up.
How is this possible? While prices are up compared to one year ago, mortgage rates are nearly a percentage point lower and incomes are up. In fact, the release of American Community Survey data on family incomes led to a slight upward revision of 2011 income and a subsequent slight increase in NAR’s projections for 2012. If you’re surprised to hear that, it may be because you heard about a decline in REAL family income as measured by the Census bureau. Nominal family income, the data used in this series that measures dollars actually earned in 2011, actually rose by 1.4 percent from 2010 to 2011.
Since the Housing Affordability Index factors in the effect of house prices AND income and mortgage rates, it is the case that nationally, the median priced home is more affordable to the median income family than it was a year ago. At 185.0, the Housing Affordability Index shows that the median income family earns 85 percent more than the income needed to qualify to purchase the typical home that was sold in August. Regionally, affordability is improved over one year ago in every area except the West, where the more than 15 percent year-over-year price gain offset more moderate income gains and the benefit of lower mortgage rates. Still, even in the West, the median income family earns at least 40 percent more than is needed to qualify to purchase the median priced existing home. Check out the data release here.
The Housing Affordability Index calculation assumes a 20 percent down payment and a 25 percent qualifying ratio (principle and interest payment to income). See further details on the methodology and assumptions behind the calculation here.
Diane Keaton Adds New Book Called ‘House’ to Her Housing Collection | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate
Serial house flipper Diane Keaton, who has also been known to light up the big screen and fashion pages with her uniquely quirky style, has a new book.
It’s called “House,” and the coffee-table offering by arty book purveyor Rizzoli doubles down on Keaton’s outsized reputation as a housing connoisseur, which we have blogged about time and again, thanks to her perfectionist precision in buying, restoring and selling homes built by renowned architects such as Wallace Neff and Ralph Flewelling.
Keaton’s flipping work includes the magnificent 1927 Spanish colonial in Beverly Hills that she restored then sold. According to the Los Angeles Times, that home was later used as the set for the pilot of the show “The New Normal,” whose co-creator Ryan Murphy had bought the home from Keaton. The Academy Award-winning actress’s influence was felt in designing the studio sets for the series:
Production designer Tony Fanning said Keaton, a well-known preservationist, was a big factor on the Monterey-influenced interiors. ‘She inspired me,’ Fanning said. ‘Her book California Romantica: Spanish Colonial and Mission-Style Houses really shows her love for, and understanding of, how clean and stark and minimal the interiors are meant to be.”
In between all her own buying and selling, including her latest home in Pacific Palisades that she purchased earlier this year for $5.75 million, Keaton had time to produce the new book, which came out this week.
In “House,” Keaton showcases high-concept houses where repurposed existing structures are key elements or where new houses take their cue from iconic architectural forms.
In an interview with The New York TImes Magazine, Keaton says her love of old homes has not changed: “What’s fun about this particular book is to see who’s working now and what they’re doing with modern structures. These houses are very charming to me.”
Like all things Keaton, the homes and structures she features in “House” could be construed as a kooky woman’s penchant for architectural oddities. However, it doesn’t take too long to realize that she has a keen and disciplined eye that takes account of the offbeat or idiosyncratic only to affirm those elements as essential to American taste, design and, ultimately, culture.
via zillow.com
Pending home sales retreat after hitting 2-yr high | Bedford Hills Real Estate
Pending home sales retreated in August after hitting a two-year high in the previous month, a trade group reported Thursday. . The pending-home-sales index fell to 99.2 from a upwardly revised 101.9 in July, the National Association of Realtors said The NAR initially said the July index was at 101.7. “The performance in month-to-month contract signings has been uneven with ongoing shortages of lower prices inventory in much of the country,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the NAR. Compared to the same period in 2011, pending home sales were up 10.7%, marking the 15th straight month of year-on-year gains. A sale is listed as pending when the contract has been signed but the transaction has not closed, and an index of 100 is equal to the average level of contract activity during 2001.
JPM strong mortgage production tempered by servicing costs | Bedford Hills NY Homes for Sale
via housingwire.com
It’s the end of speculators in UAE real estate market | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate
Is it the end of speculators and over-leveraging in the UAE real estate market?
If Tamweel, the Islamic home mortgage company, figures are to be relied on then 90 per cent of home buyers in the UAE are end-users.
The Dubai Financial Market-listed company’s findings are based on analysis of home finance extended by it between January 2011 and June 2012.
Although average finance-to-value ratio stood at 80 per cent in 2008, Tamweel says the ratio currently stands at 75 per cent, indicating end-users are seeking to keep their leveraging to minimum.
“The past 18 months have witnessed a profound shift in the UAE home finance sector,” said Varun Sood, Acting Chief Executive Officer, Tamweel.
“Customers now are very savvy and will have thoroughly done their homework on both the property and the home finance product. Importantly, customers are no longer seeking to over-leverage themselves, and are instead fully prepared for significant equity participation, which is a very healthy characteristic of the UAE home finance sector today.”
However, Complete Limited, a global property firm that manages over 800 properties across 13 global markets, says loan-to-value ratio stood at around 70 per cent across the board, but raised for good cases. In the United States of America, 60 per cent is most likely to be the maximum.
The company claimed that local and international banks were ready to lend to investors from the Middle East who have a “good stable” income, thanks to the region’s perception as “safe haven”.
Chris Allen, Head of Mortgages, Complete Ltd, Dubai, said: “For those investing and hoping for an increase in value over the next few years, fixed rate mortgages are very popular, knowing that the interest rate cannot move for the following five years and that the rental income covers the mortgage is a huge feel good position for most buyers.”
Last week, Emirates 24/7 reported that increasing mortgage availability and low interest rates are boosting sale of completed units in Dubai.
“Buying homes in UAE may just have gotten more easier. Since early this year several top banks have cut interest rates in a bid to attract the real estate mortgage loans and that has had a positive impact on the Dubai real estate market,” Juma Ahmed Majid Al Ghurair, Managing Director of Al Manal Development, had told this website.
Property transactions jumped 21 per cent to Dh63 billion in the first half of 2012 compared to the same period last year in Dubai.
However, in 2011, the Dubai Land Department reported transactions worth Dh143 billion, with 60 per cent of the total transactions done through mortgage. It said this indicates the “recovery of the property financing and the return of healthy activities.”
An NCB Capital report has revealed that the mortgage markets in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council remains extremely underdeveloped by global standards.
In the UAE, it was only four per cent in 2005, but is estimated to have surged to around 14 per cent in 2009, while Kuwait and Qatar stood at around 14 and nine per cent, respectively. In Saudi Arabia, it is only around one to three per cent, while in Bahrain it is estimated at 4.5 per cent.
via emirates247.com
U.S. Mortgage Fraud Initiative Data Included Older Cases | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate
The announcement from the Obama administration was that a yearlong crackdown on mortgage fraud netted charges against 530 suspects in the year ending Sept. 30.
In fact, the list included cases filed as many as two years before U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the initiative began.
Holder said at a news conference in Washington yesterday that the initiative ran from Oct. 1, 2011 to Sept. 30, 2012 and resulted in “285 federal criminal indictments and informations against 530 defendants for allegedly victimizing more than 73,000 American homeowners — and inflicting losses in excess of $1 billion.”
A sampling of cases incorporated in the data Holder cited shows those numbers include cases filed as early as 2009.
Cases filed before the start of the initiative were included because some type of “law enforcement action” occurred during the yearlong period, according to William Carter, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Those actions could include indictments, convictions and sentencings, he said.
“There is no attempt to fudge the numbers or make it look like it was a bigger problem than it was,” Carter said. “Through our intelligence, we saw this as a rising problem and we’re trying to get ahead of it.”
The “Distressed Homeowner Initiative” was spearheaded by the FBI, which began to recognize a sharp increase in frauds aimed at struggling homeowners in the years following of the 2008 housing crisis, Kevin Perkins, the FBI’s associate deputy director, said at yesterday’s news conference.
FBI Survey
The information used to compile the results from the initiative came from an FBI survey of the agencies involved in the Mortgage Fraud Working Group.
The Justice Department didn’t provide a list of the 285 cases. Of 11 cases touted by individual U.S. attorney offices as being part of the initiative, six were filed in 2009 and 2010. Another two were filed before October 1, 2011, the date cited by Holder as the start of the fraud crackdown.
One fraudulent loan case against operators of a mortgage brokerage, an attorney and legal staffer was filed in Trenton, New Jersey, on July 20, 2009.
Charges against one of the defendants in the case were dismissed two years ago. Four others pleaded guilty this year to assorted charges including wire-fraud conspiracy and tax evasion. Another defendant was convicted at trial in March of conspiracy and money laundering.
In a case involving falsified loan documents in Washington, the defendant pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge about two weeks before the initiative began. She was sentenced to 40 months in prison in January.
Politics Denied
Holder said yesterday that the timing of the announcement, less than a month from the 2012 presidential election, had nothing to do with politics.
“The notion that this is a campaign event — I mean, there’s a logical break,” Holder said. “This thing started with the fiscal year last year and ends with the fiscal year September 30. So we’re now reporting on what happened over the past fiscal year. That’s what this is all about.”
Adora Andy, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, didn’t respond to e-mail and telephone requests for comment.
The press conference yesterday was meant to draw attention to the issue that has become a growing problem on the FBI’s radar, Carter said.
“We want to get the word out to the public that these fraudsters are out there,” he said.
Desperate Targeted
The FBI also released a public service announcement with Tim DeKay, an actor from the television series “White Collar,” warning about fraud schemes “that target Americans desperate to modify loans and avoid mortgage foreclosures.”
In 2010, fewer than four percent of the FBI’s mortgage fraud cases involved distressed homeowner fraud, Perkins said at the press conference. This year that number has risen to 20 percent.
As President Barack Obama’s administration rolled out plans aimed at increasing mortgage modifications to keep people in their homes, the number of fraud schemes targeting those same homeowners began to increase, Shaun Donovan, the Housing and Urban Development Department secretary, said yesterday at the press conference.
Typical schemes involved promises to homeowners that foreclosures could be prevented by payment of a fee. As part of the scams, “investors” purchase the mortgage or the titles of homes are transferred to those taking part in the fraud, resulting in homeowners losing their property.
via businessweek.com