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How the Weather Can Save You Money | Bedford Real Estate

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Some summertime savings could be headed your way as new energy projections show a decrease in electric bills this summer, The Wall Street Journal reports.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average household will pay $395 for electricity in June, July and August, a solid 2.5-percent decrease from last summer. Assuming these projections hold true, this will be the third summer in a row with lower electrical spending.

But unlike the last two summers, this drop in bills has nothing to do with lower electricity rates. Lower temperatures are the reason Americans use less air conditioning and pocket some extra cash. After three blistering summers, government forecasters are saying that this summer’s temperatures will align more with the average levels.

Since air conditioning is the main culprit for larger electricity bills in the summer, households can turn off their AC units and find other ways to cool off homes, causing the average usage to fall by a projected 4.6 percent.

Take advantage of the lower temperatures and bills! Enjoy the outdoors by gardening or grilling, or just relaxing with a good book.

 

How the Weather Can Save You Money | Zillow Blog.

Instagram Video Taking a Swing at Vine: Study | Bedford NY Realtor

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In what may be considered a big boost to Instagram’s future, the amount of Vine videos shared on Twitter has dropped dramatically since Facebook’s Instagram launched a video feature last week,according to social media analytics site Topsy.

In a grand event at Facebook’s headquarters last Thursday, Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom announced that his app, which was sold to Facebook for $1 billion in cash and stock in 2012, is “the same Instagram that we know and love … but (now) it moves.” 

What was once called the “Instagram for video,” Vine has serious head-to-head competition in Instagram after the photo-sharing application pivoted and allowed its 130 million users to share 15-second clips.

Vine, acquired by Twitter in 2012 for a reported $30 million, lets its nearly 20 million users share six-second videos and has grown increasingly popular since its launch in January.

Taking a look at a Topsy chart that maps shares on Twitter of Instagram photos and videos versus Vine videos, the change is drastic. 

After reaching a peak of nearly 2.9 million shares on June 15, Vine shares on Twitter dropped sharply to 1.35 million—more than a 50 percent decrease—on June 21, just a day after Instagram video was launched.

Strikingly, on that very same day Vine saw the spike, Instagram shares on Twitter surpassed Vine shares on Twitter, perhaps signaling that Vine users fled the platform to embrace the now-multi-purpose Instagram. (On May 30, shortly after Vine was released on Android devices, 

Vine was applauded when its shares on Twitter finally surpassed that of Instagram’s.)

It’s no secret that Facebook and Twitter—and more lately, respective subsidiaries Instagram and Vine—are competing for top dog in the social sharing world.

It’s been well documented that the tech companies will not allow one another to feed off each other’s data.

But shutting a rival out is a defensive move, and now, it appears that Facebook and Twitter are playing offense: Instagram moved quickly into Vine’s videospace, so Vine, after hearing rumors this feature was coming, decided to tease new features, encourage Twitter users in an email to download Vine, and granted an informative interview to the New York Times. All, perhaps, in an effort to go all-in against its new rival Instagram.

Facebook and Twitter did not immediately respond for comment on the shift in social sharing.

Facebook investors, hungry for some good news, may take solace that there is now a strong indicator that the social media giant has the leg-up in the battle over social video.

 

Instagram Video Taking a Swing at Vine: Study.

Bedford Inn Co-Owner, Actor Richard Gere Tops News This Week | Bedford NY Homes

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Here are some of this week’s top stories in Bedford.

  • Hollywood actor Richard Gere, owner of the Bedford Post Inn, and Jeremy McMillan, chef of the inn’s Farmhouse, joined a battle between East and West coast chefs to raise funds for Citymeals-on-Wheels, a group that provides meals for homebound elderly New Yorkers.
  • On Wednesday, the Fox Lane High School graduated as the Class of 2013.
  • The Bedford Police Department is trying to find outwho threw a balloon filled with an unknown object out of a moving car and into the windshield of a school bus last week.

 

Bedford Inn Co-Owner, Actor Richard Gere Tops News This Week | The Bedford Daily Voice.

Real Estate Number One Selling Tip | Bedford Real Estate

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You are not hiring a Realtor to put a sign on the lawn, an ad in the paper, and hold an open house. You can do this yourself. You are hiring a Realtor to provide you with maximum exposure to the greatest number of qualified buyers for your home.

 

Supply and Demand

You’ve heard of supply and demand? The more potential buyers at your supply, the higher a priceyou can demand.

 

The absolute number one tip I can give you to help you get the most money possible for your home is this: make sure you get full Multiple Listing Service (MLS) coverage.

 

Don’t look at any offers until you are sure your home is on the MLS computer.

 

I will say this again…

 

Don’t look at any offers until you are sure your home is on the MLS computer. An army of Realtors at your disposal can’t be beat.

 

Dump any Realtor that tries to tell you to put your house on exclusive (only his/her company) or wants you to negotiate offers before it gets on MLS.

Dump any Realtor that wants to list your house on a Friday and have a public open house the following Sunday. There is not enough time to get your home on the system.

I do not care how good a Realtors marketing plan is, it is worthless compared to the value of having your home on the MLS system. Think of it this way. Realtor = home on MLS = most Realtors = most buyers = most money.

 

Is the first offer the best offer?

There is a saying in real estate. The first offer is usually the best one. This is only true, if everyone knows it’s for sale.

 

Real estate surveys in my area showed the owner lost an average of $2000. when their house was sold by the same office or Realtor that listed their home. The reason…the offer was written before any one else knew it was for sale.

 

MLS Comes First

Ask any realtor you are contemplating dealing with, what the order of their marketing plan is. If submitting to the Multiple Listing Service is not the first thing they are going to do, look for another realtor.

 

If you took away every selling tool I had, and said I could only have one of them back, I would choose the MLS service. This is not a commercial for MLS. It is just the best weapon Realtors and the public have for getting maximum exposure on property.

 

MLS is a strong selling tool,…use it… It will make a difference on your bottom line.

Real Estate Number One Selling Tip.

Mobilizing Your Website, What You Need to Know | Bedford NY Realtor

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Is your website or blog mobile-ready?

Are you wondering how to optimize it for mobile users?

To learn about the opportunities available in the mobile marketing world, I interview Greg Hickman for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast.

More About This Show

Social Media Marketing Podcast w/ Michael Stelzner

 

The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner.

It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting).

In this episode, I interview Greg Hickman, the founder of Mobile Mixed, a website that specializes in training marketers in mobile marketing. He also hosts The Mobile Mixed Podcast. Greg advises big brands on mobile marketing, including AT&T, Electronic Arts, Cabelas and Sony Pictures.

Greg shares what businesses should do to make their mobile experience more user-friendly.

You’ll learn about the best tools available to build your own mobile site and how to discover the kind of devices people are using to visit your site.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below!

Listen Now

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

You can also subscribe via iTunes, RSS, Stitcher or Blackberry.

Here are some of the things you’ll discover in this show:

Mobilizing Your Website

Why it’s important for businesses to think about the unique needs of mobile users

Greg shares why you have to think where your customer or audience is coming from. The way we consume content today—whether it be email, social, using search or listening to podcasts—is mainly through a mobile device.

The first entry point to you, your business or brand is more likely to be a mobile phone. You want the customers’ experience to be very friendly and optimized to whatever device they are on. Around 53% of the US population has a smartphone.

mobile mixed iphone screenshot

Mobile Mixed via smartphone.

You’ll discover why Greg believes email is overlooked when it comes to mobile.

Listen to the show to find out why Greg believes mobile email is an opportunity for marketers.

How to find out if mobile users are coming to your website

Greg recommends that the first thing you should do is look at analysis software such as Google Analytics. It will show you how many people in your current audience are coming to your site from a mobile device. It will also break out the numbers by specific device.

google analytics mobile

Google Analytics offers a great mobile analytics service.

You’ll probably discover that 20-50% of the overall visits to your site are coming from a mobile device.

Secondly, depending on your email service provider, some will offer insights into how many of the email opens are coming from mobile. You’ll find out why this is a good indicator if you’re a big emailer.

Greg shares how you can look to see from a social perspective if people engage with you from a mobile device on Twitter or Facebook.

 

Mobilizing Your Website, What You Need to Know | Social Media Examiner.

Study finds same-sex couples face housing bias | Bedford Real Estate

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Conducting the first study of its kind, the Department of Housing and Urban Development studied 50 metropolitan markets from June to October 2011 and concluded that same-sex couples were “significantly less likely than heterosexual couples to get favorable responses to e-mail inquiries about electronically advertised rental housing.”

More specifically, “heterosexual couples were favored over gay male couples in 15.9% of tests and over lesbian couples in 15.6% of tests,” writes MSNBC.

 

Study finds same-sex couples face housing bias | HousingWire.

Dodd-Frank impact on loan availability remains a concern | Bedford Real Estate

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The qualified mortgage rule’s full impact on home lending remains somewhat of a mystery, but lawmakers and industry professionals debated the rule’s potential influence on the home lending market during a House Subcommittee hearing Tuesday.

Industry experts testified in front of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, sharing fears about certain borrowers being locked out of the lending system.

“We need to make sure we have a financial system that allows access to credit for low and moderate income households,” said Member Gregory Meeks.”The housing sector is vital to our economic recovery.”

Committee member Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., said his main concern is how the ability-to-repay standards in addition to the QM rule will affect his constituents’ ability to get a mortgage.

Rep. Gary Miller, R-Calif., acknowledged QM’s role in protecting consumers from subprime loans and other products, but noted that it also could have the unintended effect of keeping creditworthy borrowers on the sidelines.

Rep. Robert Pittenger, R-N.C., stated that this new rule could end up undermining the housing recovery. He said the CFPB’s QM rule has caused great concerns to both banks and credit unions, who fear regulators will view any loan outside of QM standards as too risky. 

Once each committee member had a chance to testify, the spotlight shifted to the table of witnesses. 

Charles Vice, commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Financial Institutions, said state regulators have found that regulations and supervision needs to be more tailored to how community banks lend.

Vice, who has been in the finance industry for more than 20 years, said it’s crucial that community banks be allowed to positively impact the national and local economy. 

James C. Gardill, chairman of the board at WesBanco, is concerned that many creditworthy families will be denied access to credit as banks become afraid to make any loans outside of QM standards. 

This means that less affluent communities won’t be given what they need to thrive, he said. The end result of the CFPB’s rule will be less available credit to some individuals and communities. 

 

Dodd-Frank impact on loan availability remains a concern | HousingWire.

MarketVideos.com: the next best thing to hit real estate video marketing | Bedford Real Estate

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One of the biggest challenges in real estate marketing today is creating video content. Let’s face it, agents are not meant to be self-producing video creators, corporate video production is getting more and more popular. There is a learning curve to production, post-production, equipment, storyboarding, and the list goes on. And yet, the first thing you’ll hear from the experts is that video marketing is one of the trends that has a large impact on search engine optimization, mobile marketing, capturing attention, and traffic. video marketing melbourne is the #1 video production studio that adds weight to your brand. All true.

So I think you’ll like the news that was released today. Out of Orlando, Fla., MarketVideos has just released its agent-focused video marketing platform, which offers turnkey, hyperlocal market data from an agent’s MLS area in a beautifully produced video that is branded and customized by the agent.

Stephen Schweickart of MarketVideos said, “We created MarketVideos for agents after our broker product had rave reviews from the agents themselves. Since video marketing still has a curve, MarketVideos makes it easy for the busy agent to have an affordable, unique, content-packed video marketing solution, that is customizable, and has strong lead capture. Since over 70 percent of consumers forget the name of their agent after the sale, this provides a way to stay top of mind with relevant consumer content with our newsletter subscription as well. Home improvement tips, gardening, mortgage and credit information is all available to help the consumer NOT looking to buy a home right now.”

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/next/marketvideos-com-the-next-best-thing-to-hit-real-estate-video-marketing/#sthash.xwpaK35l.dpuf

Housing Prices Are Up, Up, Up in Southern California | Bedford Real Estate

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Housing prices nationwide are up, but in most areas we haven’t seen scary kinds of increases. It’s a different story here in Southern California, though, where home prices have risen 25 percent in the past year:

“We’re deep into uncharted territory,” DataQuick President John Walsh said, citing “razor-thin” inventory, pent-up demand, low interest rates and all-cash purchases by investors and wealthy individuals. “How this all plays out is educated guesswork at this point.”

….Extremely low inventory and mortgage rates have ignited those bidding wars and helped turn the housing market into an economic bright spot — both in the Southland and nationwide. Investors have also played a major role in the recovery that began last year, buying run-down, lower-cost properties to fix up and rent out.

Is this a bellwether for the future—and for the rest of the country? Maybe not. Richard Green, director of USC’s Lusk Center for Real Estate, thinks prices will ease later in the year for a simple reason: “Ultimately, people don’t have the income,” he says. That’s cheery news, isn’t it?

 

Housing Prices Are Up, Up, Up in Southern California | Mother Jones.

Police Seize Cache Of Fireworks From Valhalla Home, Evacuate Area | Bedford Real Estate

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A Valhalla man was arrested early Tuesday after Westchester County Police said they discovered a large cache of commercial-grade fireworks stacked floor-to-ceiling in his basement on Saldi Lane.

Police evacuated the area around the home Tuesday and closed the streets to traffic until the explosive material was removed.

Stephen Surace, 53, has been charged with third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, a felony, first-degree reckless endangerment, a felony, and unlawfully dealing in fireworks, a misdemeanor. Surace will be arraigned in Mount Pleasant Town Court on Tuesday.

Police arrested Surace after an undercover officer bought $1,000 worth of fireworks and noticed the large cache in the basement.

“Based on the volume of material and the potential explosive hazard, the decision was made to move immediately to arrest Mr. Surace and secure the home,” Public Safety Commissioner George N. Longworth said.

Many of the fireworks were the type used in commercial fireworks displays. Officers from the Westchester County Police Hazardous Devices Unit and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were removing the fireworks from the house.

 

Police Seize Cache Of Fireworks From Valhalla Home, Evacuate Area | The White Plains Daily Voice.