Tag Archives: Cross River Luxury Real Estate

Historic Firehouse-Turned-Modern Mansion Wants $5.25M | Cross River Real Estate

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Location: San Francisco, Calif. Price: $5,250,000 The Skinny: Renovated from 2006 to 2008 into a breathtaking modern home, Historic Firehouse 44 in San Francisco’s Noe Valley is an undeniably impressive residence, but the 5,814-square-foot house has still had quite a bit of trouble landing buyers in the past. It was listed for $6.375M in May 2008, and, after numerous price reductions, finally sold in 2011 for $4.05M. Now, the new owner has already returned it to market, with a brand new asking price—$5.25M. The house, which was, pre-renovation, home to artists Mark Adams and Beth Van Hoesen, now features a four-story atrium with glass-and-wood stairs, an elevator, “numerous bars,” and original firehouse details, including a pole and rear metal staircase. The whole place is also wired with sound, lighting, and media systems. You can see a lot more of the house, and listen to some dramatic piano music, in this video tour.

 

 

http://curbed.com/archives/2013/10/03/historic-firehouseturnedmodern-mansion-wants-525m.php

Greenwood Nursery Ideas for October | Cross River Real Estate

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What to do in the yard this month:
  • Frustrated with leaves falling in your yard? Get the mower out and mow them down. It will chop the leaves up into mulch which can be used around plants or tilled into the ground (if not too thick).
  • Bring in houseplants and tropical plants when the temperatures begin to drop into the 40’s.
  • Plant bare root trees and shrubs. Fall planting requires less waterings and is less stressful on the plants (zones 5 to 10).
  • Time to attack the broadleaf weeds in your yard.
  • Decorate with pumpkins, gourds, cornstalks and hay bales for fun, festive entrances.
  • Remove damaged/broken branches from trees and shrubs.
  • Pull out annuals that are dead or already dying.
  • Plant containers with small sized evergreens, ground covers, ornamental grasses, and colorful perennials to go through the fall and winter seasons.

 

 

Greenwood Nursery | 1-800-426-0958

 

CoreLogic Sees Even Higher Prices in September | Cross River Homes

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In its forecast for September year over year home prices, CoreLogic is ignoring predictions for a slowing down of the recovery with the end of the 2013 home buying season and predicts a 12.7 percent price hike in September after reporting August prices reached 12.4 percent.

If the September forecast proves true, September will be the 18th consecutive monthly year-over-year increase in home prices for the CoreLogic Home Price Index.

Excluding distressed sales, home prices increased on a year-over-year basis by 11.2 percent in August 2013 compared to August 2012. On a month-over-month basis, excluding distressed sales, home prices increased 1 percent in August 2013 compared to July 2013. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions. On a month-over-month basis, including distressed sales, home prices increased by 0.9 percent in August 2013 compared to July 2013*.

The CoreLogic Pending HPI indicates that September 2013 home prices, including distressed sales, are expected to rise by 12.7 percent on a year-over-year basis from September 2012 and rise by 0.2 percent on a month-over-month basis from August 2013. Excluding distressed sales, September 2013 home prices are poised to rise 12.2 percent year over year from September 2012 and by 0.7 percent month over month from August 2013. The CoreLogic Pending HPI is a proprietary and exclusive metric that provides the most current indication of trends in home prices. It is based on Multiple Listing Service (MLS) data that measure price changes for the most recent month.

“Home price gains were negligible month over month in August-an expected decrease in the pace of appreciation as housing enters the off-season,” said Dr. Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “While prices increased more than 12 percent on a year-over-year basis, the month-to-month change is more telling of this year’s late summer trend.”

“After a strong run, the rate of home price appreciation slowed in August. In addition to normal seasonality, the recent sharp rise in mortgage rates off their historic lows was a clear driver behind the slowdown,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “We anticipate moderate gains in home prices over the balance of this year, supported by the recent downward trend in rates and continued tight supplies of homes in many markets.”

 

 

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/10/corelogic-sees-even-higer-prices-in-september/

6 Tips for Finding Prospects on LinkedIn | Cross River Real Estate

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Are you using LinkedIn to connect with new leads and clients?

Do you want to learn about social selling tactics on LinkedIn?

Social selling is the use of social media to discover and connect with new leads and new clients.

In this article, you’ll discover a 6-step process to find new leads and attract new clients on LinkedIn.

Start social selling on LinkedIn with these 6 simple steps. Image source: iStockphoto

#1: Make Your Profile Easy to Find

Most of social selling requires an active outreach process. But you can draw prospective clients to you when you optimize your profile with keywords a potential new client might use when seeking out someone with the products or services that you provide. Add strong keywords to the Title and Summary sections of your profile to ensure you show up in search results.

Remember that you’ll only show up in search results for people in your network. This includes first-, second- and third-level connections, and people who are members of groups you belong to. For this reason it’s beneficial to have a larger LinkedIn network rather than keeping it limited to close personal connections.

The more connections you have, the more searches you will show up in. That said, try not to treat LinkedIn as a popularity contest, since you’re limited to 3000 connection invites.

#2: Create Strategic Alliances

Next you’ll want to remember to network and build business relationships with peers in your industry.

Find professionals who share a target market similar to yours, but don’t offer the service you provide. Once you connect with them, consider fostering a reciprocal relationship to generate referrals for each of you.

Before connecting with a prospect, ask yourself “What do I have to offer her?”

The third-party credibility you receive will dramatically shorten the sales cycle with prospective clients.

#3: ‘Search’ for Opportunities

Now you can focus on finding the prospects you want for your business.

First, join a few LinkedIn groups to network with a wider audience.

Second, use the excellent functionality of Advanced Search to find prospects. You can filter by relationship, groups, location and industry, and the Save Search function even allows you to store effective criteria.

Search by relationship, groups, location and industry.

Use the Tags feature in LinkedIn Contacts to sort your results and save profiles of prospects to the Profile Organizer without being connected to them.

#4: Carefully Craft Your Message

After you identify someone you want to connect with, you’ll want to carefully tailor your communication.

A great first impression with your prospects on LinkedIn should leave them with an interest in your service and a willingness to continue communication.

 

 

 

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/finding-clients-on-linkedin/

Single-family housing starts improve | Cross River Real Estate

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The increase in housing starts fell short of expectations in August, up a slight 0.9% from July, the Census Bureau revealed Wednesday.

Housing starts in August were at a seasonally adjusted rate of 891,000, compared to the revised July estimate of 883,000.

“The small rise in starts in August, which was below expectations and would have been a fall were it not for downward revisions to earlier data, is not as disappointing as it first appears,” said analysts at Capital Economics. “The figures are skewed by the volatile multi-family sector; single-family starts posted an encouraging gain.”

The August rate is 19% higher than the August 2012 rate of 749,000.

Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac, believes that the latest report suggests builders are looking much more carefully at the market.

“Builders continue to be very cautious given what they’ve been through the past seven years,” said Blomquist. “They do recognize that you have several things at play that could change this sort of frenzied buying activity that we’ve been seeing over the last six months,” he added.

According to Blomquist, the current market is similar to the market we were seeing 5-to-10 years ago, so many of the builders that experienced that market aren’t assuming this one will last.

“That’s what got them into trouble last time,” said Blomquist. He added that Wednesday’s report may not be what some people want to see from an economic perspective, but he believes it is a good sign that builders are being cautious and not overextending themselves.

Auction.com Executive Vice President Rick Sharga has a much brighter view of Wednesday’s housing starts data.

“The most positive aspect of today’s numbers were the fact that single-family starts were up pretty significantly,” said Sharga.

In August, single-family housing starts were at a rate of 628,000, up 7% from the revised July figure of 587,000. The August rate for homes in buildings with five units or more reached a pace of 252,000 units.

Sharga noted that it’s not unusual on a month-to-month basis to see some ebb and flow. “What we’re seeing is really an adjustment as builders try to figure out where they really are,” he added.

When reports fall short of expectations, it’s easy to take a negative view of it, said Sharga. However, it’s important to look at the composition under the top-line numbers, he explained.

 

 

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/26903-single-family-starts-improve

As Mortgage Applications Fall, Lower Loan Limits Loom | Cross River Real Estate

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Rising rates continue to have an impact on home purchase applications. The number of mortgage applications filed last by 13.5% from the prior week on a seasonally adjusted basis as interest rates increased, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday.

The purchase component eased 2.7% this week relative to last and has fallen 16.8% since the first week in May on a seasonally adjusted basis. Rates reversed course last week and turned upward after easing in the prior week. The average rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage was 4.57% last week according to Freddie Mac.

On an unadjusted basis, MBA reported the market composite index declined 23%. The refinance index slipped 28% from a week earlier, while the seasonally adjusted purchase index slid 2.7%.

The sudden drop in purchase applications comes as loans for new homes have taken market share away from refinancing since January, raising its market share from 27% to 53% in July.

While the average rate has been on the rise, the National Association of Realtors reported that the Federal Housing Finance Agency is considering reducing the limits on mortgages that can be backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Currently, the GSEs can support loans up to $417,000 in most markets and up to $625,500 in higher cost markets, while loans above this are supported by the private “jumbo” market made up of banks and private MBS securitizers.

Rates on jumbo loans have eased to party or slightly better than conforming loans in recent months as banks have started taking more loans into portfolio to compensate for weak commercial and refinance business. However, these loans are very high quality with large down payments and high FICO scores. The concern then is that if the loan limits decline, the private sector may still not be ready to pick up the non-pristine lending activity in the high cost portion of the market, cutting off access to credit for this portion of the market, resulting in reduced demand and sales.

 

 

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/09/

Green Buildings Could Be Half U.S. Projects, Worth $248 Billion By 2016 | Cross River Real Estate

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Green building may represent more than half of all commercial and institutional construction as soon as 2016. CleanTechnica looks into a new report from the USGBC entitled “LEED in Motion: People and Progress,” that details green building’s exponential growth and outlines both the value of the industry and its reach into American Lives. Among the highlights:

  • More than 4.3 million people live and work in LEED-certified buildings
  • More than 6.2 million people interact with LEED projects every day during their daily routine
  • Green building represented 44 percent of all commercial and institutional construction in the U.S. in 2012, and this percentage should increase to 55 percent by 2016.

 

http://www.ecobuildingpulse.com/legislation/

Mark your calendars: Key housing reports due out this week | Cross River Real Estate

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Home Prices

The Dow Jones faced a wild ride this past week, tumbling 200 points by market close on Friday.

Investors left to deal with the aftermath will rely heavily on several monetary policy and housing reports due out this week.

Wednesday is a busy day for the markets with the Federal Reserve expected to release its latest minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee. Investors needing a more in-depth look on how the committee assessed the future of mortgage-backed securities purchases can visit HousingWire for full coverage. The Fed also kicks off its annual 3-day annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo., on Wednesday.

On the same day, the National Association of Realtors existing-home sales report is due out, followed by the FHFA home price index on Thursday and the government’s latest new home sales report on Friday.

Visit the HW US Economic Calendar to track all these events and more.

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/26257-mark-your-calendars-key-housing-reports-due-out-this-week

 

LinkedIn Groups Get Makeover: This Week in Social Media | Cross River Realtor

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Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.

What’s New This Week?

LinkedIn Introduces New Look for Groups: LinkedIn brings “a new streamlined look that will give group managers and group members the ability to customize and visually differentiate their conversation space.”

This new look is rolling out to English-speaking members.

 

Facebook Updates Mobile Login: “With this new update, mobile apps using Facebook Login must now separately ask you for permission to post back to Facebook.”

Facebook “has been working directly with popular mobile apps to help them create great Facebook Login experiences.”

Twitter Announces Related Headlines: “You will see a new ‘Related headlines’ section on tweets that have been embedded on websites. This section, which you can view from the tweet’s permalink page, lists and links to websites where the tweet was embedded, making it easier to discover stories that provide more context.”

 

read more…

 

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/linkedin-groups-get-makeover/

Richmond Mayor goes the extra mile for eminent domain | Cross River Real Estate

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Richmond, Calif., Mayor Gayle McLaughlin went the extra mile to express her frustrations with Wells Fargo (WF) this week. McLaughlin and more than 40 protesters were turned away from Wells Fargo’s corporate headquarters after demanding to speak with top executives about the city’s use of eminent domain. Per Contra Costa Times:

“For Wells Fargo to be suing us is outrageous,” McLaughlin said after marching down Montgomery Street with dozens of supporters. “We just want them to cooperate with our efforts to save our communities.”

http://markets.housingwire.com/housingwire/quote?Symbol=321:966021
                    Source: Contra Costa Times