Katonah, Mt Kisco, South Salem Average Days on Market | RobReportBlog
Average Days on Market (DOM)
Pound Ridge 145
Katonah 127
North Salem 180
Chappaqua 132
Mt Kisco 125
South Salem 236source; mls
They can’t all be winners.
This is especially true when it comes to technology and gadgets.Consumers can be a fickle bunch and even the best minds come up with the occasional loser.
Although 2012 wasn’t a huge year for gadget flops, those that flopped did so in magnificent fashion.
Facebook’s poor IPO showing was daily news. (As for IPOs, Zynga didn’t do much better.) But Facebook’s Reach Generator flopped as well. A product that would have filled your news feed with more ads, it was killed after six months.
On the marketing side of technology, we saw Oprah use Apple’s iPad to Tweet praise for the Microsoft Surface:
“Gotta say love that SURFACE! Have bought 12 already for Christmas gifts.
It would have been a hell of an endorsement if she didn’t post it “via Twitter for iPad.”
Here’s some more of 2012’s biggest tech flops.
1. BlackBerry 10
We used to call them “CrackBerrys.”They were everywhere and people couldn’t put them down. Even President Barack Obama was seen obsessing over his Blackberry during his first campaign.
But those days are over.The Blackberry 10 is one of the year’s biggest tech flops because it never released in 2012 as promised. This was supposed to be a comeback year for the Blackberry brand. The promise of a new line of Blackberry was exciting. Now that it’s nearing its newest release date — Jan. 30, 2013 — the Blackberry faithful are getting their hopes up again. But have the rest of us — and, more importantly, the development community — lost interest?
We’ll see when the Blackberry 10 allegedly releases next year, which should totally help them not capitalize on the 2012 Christmas shopping season.
2. Sean Parker’s AirTime
This turned out to be a whole lot of nothing.Airtime was Sean Parker’s response to Chatroulette, a place to meet new people via text-chat, webcam and mic.
As a social video network, AirTime suffered from a stagnant user base despite its $33 million in funding and a somewhat infamous June opening press conference with stars such as Jim Carrey and Alicia Keys — not to mention the blessing of cool comics Jimmy Fallon and Julia Louis Dreyfus.
Parker later said the site was getting only 10,000 active users per day. Despite that anemic performance, he maintains the product will transform how we communicate.
Not yet.3. PlayStation Vita
This is a hard one for me because I truly want the Vita to succeed. It has a ton of cool things going for it: amazing graphics, excellent design and build quality, the promise of a robust online community, and cross-play with the PS3. Still, mine gathers dust.It was well received at launch but it has yet to get the killer app it needs to become a “must have” platform. “Call of Duty: Black Ops: Declassified” for the Vita could have easily been that title. Instead, it was an absolute mess.
One or two blockbuster games could change this momentum, but I don’t see any on the immediate horizon.
As of now, the PlayStation Vita has become a chilling answer to the question about the viability of handheld gaming consoles in a world filled with game-capable smartphones.
4. Nokia Lumia 900
At the beginning of 2012 Nokia and Microsoft launched their first major phone together in the United States. This may be news to you because almost no one bought the Lumia 900.More people probably have a Zune, which is dreadful news for Microsoft as they try to stop Apple from eating their lunch in the smartphone market.
That’s too bad, because it was actually a good phone — certainly the best Windows phone available when it launched. The unibody design was smart looking and it came with a beautiful 4.3-inch screen and 8-magapixel camera.
But no one cared.
5. 3D televisions
The 3D HDTV was not introduced in 2012, but this is the year it became irrelevant. It was a hot product when seen at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show. And it was easy to see why. Who wouldn’t want the “Avatar” experience in their living room?
The answer: Most of us.Despite an estimated 3% adoption rate in American homes, the industry hasn’t given up on 3D HDTVs yet. You’ll still see them on the shelves of most major retailers. But the glasses can be bulky, awkward and (for some folks) can induce headaches. Picture quality varies greatly and their initial price points were too high for most. Expect to see less and less 3D content coming out while these TVs — which are completely capable of excellent 2D performance — decrease in price and profile.
6. Apple Maps
The company Steve Jobs built may be a juggernaut, but even the mighty Apple makes mistakes. Apple Maps was such a fantastic disaster that CEO Tim Cook publicly apologized for it.When Apple revamped its mapping software to replace Google’s maps in iOS 6, it looked good and early reviews were positive. Users, however, quickly discovered it was broken. The Internet buzzed with stories of Apple Maps suggesting routes that would intersect with a 747 at Dulles Airport or send a car careening off the Brooklyn Bridge.
Apparently the years it took Google to assemble and fine tune their product could not be replicated on the fly by Apple’s cleverness and hubris. Fancy new features such as 3D imagery and spoken turn-by-turn directions couldn’t save what was a product riddled with errors.
Rising home prices signal ‘recovery,’ analysts sayU.S. home prices rose in September for the sixth straight month, despite seasonal weakness, signaling that the housing market is “in the midst of a recovery,” according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index released this week. The index that looks at 20 cities showed that prices have gained 3% over the past 12 months, echoing other recent positive housing data, such as gains in new construction and existing-home sales. However, despite recent increases, prices are about 30% below peak levels in 2006. And the housing market still faces challenges from shadow inventory, and tight credit standards.Read more about home prices.Sandy hits new-home sales Sales of new single-family homes in the U.S. ticked down in October, with a large drop in the hurricane-hit Northeast while there was a record surge in the Midwest, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Commerce. By region, sales in October fell 32% in the Northeast and 12% in the South. Monthly sales rose a record 62% in the Midwest and 9% in the West. While the new-home-sales data are volatile on a monthly basis, a trend over the last few months has been steady, showing an average U.S. annualized rate of almost 370,000. That average rate is up 17% from a year earlier, but far below a peak rate of almost 1.4 million in 2005.Read more about new-home sales.Third-quarter growth revised higher, but…The government’s estimate for economic growth in the third quarter was revised higher this week, but the news wasn’t entirely rosy. A large portion of the higher estimate is due to inventories, which can be positive or negative. If these goods are sold soon, then the inventories were a good bet. If not, companies will have excess supply on their hands. Read more about GDP.Residential investment grows in third quarterThe economy’s expansion in the third quarter was also due, in part, to faster growth in the housing sector, government analysts said. In the third quarter, residential fixed investment grew at an annualized rate of 14.2%, compared with 8.5% in the second quarter. However, looking longer term, this sector has lost much of its heft. Residential fixed investment— which measures purchases of homes — currently accounts for about 2.5% of the economy, down from a bubble peak of more than 6% in 2005. Read more about GDP. Breakdown of GDP
After consumption was largely responsible for growth in the second quarter, there was a more evenly divided split between consumption, investment and government spending this time around. The big push behind government spending is a one-time boost in defense spending, so that is not likely to be sustained in the fourth quarter.
To understand title policy insurance in America, let’s look at chain-of-title and how title companies search the public records. Title insurance companies aren’t really concerned with where dinosaurs once roamed, whether our ancestors trekked across the Bering Straight or where American Indian tribes settled. Title searches begin with when the United States government stole the land, I mean claimed it — from the U. S. patent — and move forward from that point.
Because humans are involved in recording deed transfers and plotting land parcels, a lot can go wrong. You want title insurance because it will protect you against defects and human error.Property Searches and Public RecordsDivision of Land
Early deeds involved large chunks of land known as Townships.
Townships contain 36 sections and are six miles by six miles.
Sections measure one mile by one mile and contain 640 acres.
Half of a section is 320 acres.
1/4 of a section is 160 acres.
1/4 section of 1/4 section is 40 acres.
An acre is 43,560 square feetTitle Search Basics
Title searches start with the most recent deed, searching the grantee’s name (the person now holding title) backwards in time, until the deed when the grantee acquired the property is located.
That grantor’s name is then searched backwards in time in the grantee’s book to find when the grantor acquired title as a grantee.
This process continues, and over time, the property description involves larger and larger parcels of land.
Eventually, the searcher finds the U. S. Patent.Other Factors Affecting Title
Deeds establish chain-of-title, but sometimes those chains are broken. In addition, title searchers also look for reconveyances (proof that the encumbrances are paid off), and they look for easements, rights-of-way, cc&rs, other elements affecting title to the property. Here are more records that are searched to piece title together:
Marriage records
Death certificates
Tax salesTitle Insurance Coverage
Depending on the title company, consumers can choose among a variety of options, but the top three choices are Owners, Lender’s and Extended Coverage.
Basic Owner’s Title Policy Coverage:
Clear title to the property
Incorrect signatures on documents
Forgery, fraud
Defective recordation
Restrictive covenants
Encumbrances or judgments
Basic Lender’s Title Policy Coverage:
Mechanic’s liens and unrecorded liens
Unrecorded easements and access rights
Defects and other unrecorded documents
Extended Owner’s Coverage
Building permit violations from previous owners
Subdivision maps
Covenant violations from previous owners
Living trusts
Structure damage from mineral extractions
Variety of encroachments and forgeries after title insurance is issuedWho Pays For Title Policy Insurance?
This depends on your local custom.
It can differ from county to county, but it is also negotiable in the purchase offer.
Sometimes sellers and buyers split the fee for the owner’s policy.
Typically, the buyer pays for the lender’s coverage.How Long Are Title Policies Good For?
Forever, theoretically. If you are planning to resell the property within a couple years, ask your title company about “binder” coverage. Most companies will sell you a binder policy for 10% more. A binder is good for two years, often can be extended beyond that time, and the fee charged for the new buyer’s policy will be the difference between what you bought the property for and the price at which it sold. In other words, you will get a credit for the amount of coverage you purchased under your own Owner’s Title policy.How Often Are Title Policy Insurance Premiums Paid?
Once. The fee is due when you buy. You will never pay it again. Title policy insurance is the best insurance policy you can ever buy.Property transfers were first recorded alphabetically in separate Grantor and Grantee books.
The books are heavy to lift and dusty.
County records are often maintained at local courthouses or the Clerk of Registrars.
Today, most records are stored on the computer.
Full Story
71 homes currently available
$940,000 median price
$15,000,0000 high price
$379,000 low price
$348 average price per foot
193 average days on market
3776 average size
Katonah NY Residential Real Estate | RobReportBlog
mortgages by robert paul
Facebook is planning to launch a third-party commenting system in a matter of weeks, according to multiple sources familiar with the new product. This new technology could see Facebook as the engine behind the comments system on many high-profile blogs and other digital publications very soon.
The company is actively seeking major media companies and blogs to partner with it for its launch, part of a bigger media industry move spearheaded in part by the recent hires of Nick Grudin and Andy Mitchell, media business development executives with respective track records at Newsweek and The Daily Beast.
Representatives from Facebook were not immediately available for comment.
Facebook, of course, is already very present in blog comments. Currently, a digital publishing outlet–say, a blog or a newspaper’s Web site–can integrate Facebook’s developer API and allow users to “connect” to their Facebook accounts, or can build in “Social Comments” in a widget of related messages. Often, users can post alerts on their Facebook walls announcing that they’ve commented, or can have a “Social Comment” turned into a status message. The new commenting product is a significantly deeper expansion of this, according to sources. Facebook will be able to power the entire commenting system–handling the log-in and publishing, cross-promoting comments on individuals’ Facebook walls, and possibly even promoting them as well on media outlets’ own “fan” pages. Undoubtedly, the Facebook “like” button will be deeply integrated as well.
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20030106-36.html#ixzz1CjJ6BgFt
