Tag Archives: Mount Kisco NY Homes

New York State rejiggers 80/20 program | Mt Kisco Real Estate

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A tweak in New York State’s implementation of its 80/20 program aims to give affordable housing developments a boost, and balance demand for tax-exempt bonds issued by the state division of Homes and Community Renewal.

The plan, starting in January, is to spread a smaller subsidy amount over more projects. Up until now, developers were able to finance more than 50 percent of an 80/20 building via the program, which offers cheaper financing and qualifies a project for lucrative tax credits. Now, only the 20 percent of affordable units in a development will be eligible.

This new approach mirrors a Tribeca project that teamed the city with the Related Companies, where only $7.5 million in tax-exempt bonds were allowed to finance the project’s affordable housing portion. Under this model, Related was forced to seek traditional financing for the remainder of the project.

“This is a very positive step and very welcome in the affordable housing community,” Martin Dunn, principal at Dunn Development Corp., told Crain’s. “It will free up more tax-exempt bonds for affordable projects, and coupled with the expanded housing subsidies announced by Gov. Cuomo last week, we’re going to see more affordable units in the coming years.”

 

 

http://therealdeal.com/blog/2014/01/27/state-rejiggers-8020-program-distribution-model/

U.K. Home Prices Cap Best Year Since 2006 as Mortgages Surge | Mt Kisco NY Homes

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U.K. house prices rose and mortgage lending surged more than forecast as the property market’s momentum continued to build at the end of 2013.

Nationwide Building Society said home values increased 1.4 percent in December, taking their gain last year to 8.4 percent, the biggest annual increase since 2006. Separate reports in London showed mortgage approvals are now at the highest in almost six years and growth in construction is being led by homebuilding.

The housing revival, fueled by an improving economy and government measures, has prompted a response from the Bank of England. It ended incentives on mortgage lending in a credit-boosting program and will focus on corporate credit. The need for such a move was highlighted today by data showing business lending fell the most in at least 18 months in November.

“Surveys consistently show markedly rising buyer interest and strengthening activity so house prices look set to see further strong increases,” said Howard Archer, chief U.K. economist at IHS Global Insight in London. The decision “to end Funding for Lending support for lending to households looks a highly sensible decision, although in itself it is unlikely to act as a major brake on housing market activity.”
Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

Balconies sit on the exterior of white stucco residential terrace properties on Eaton… Read More

In contrast to the increase in home loans, the BOE data showed that business lending fell 4.7 billion pounds ($7.7 billion) in November, the biggest drop since the data series began in May 2011. Lending to manufacturers has fallen 3.1 percent in the past year.

Home-loan Surge

Home-loan approvals rose to 70,758 in November, the most since January 2008, compared with 68,029 in October, the Bank of England said today. The median forecast of 15 economists in a Bloomberg News survey was for 69,700 approvals. Mortgage lending increased 910 million pounds.

“A large part of the pickup in the housing market can be attributed to further improvements in the labor market and the brighter economic outlook,” said Robert Gardner, chief economist at Nationwide. “Policy measures also played an important supporting role.”

Gardner also said “ultra-low” borrowing costs were fueling demand for property.

The BOE’s Monetary Policy Committee has pledged to keep its key interest rate at a record-low 0.5 percent until unemployment, now at 7.4 percent, falls to 7 percent. The MPC will leave the rate unchanged when it announces its next policy decision on Jan. 9, according to a Bloomberg News survey.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-03/u-k-house-prices-rise-as-property-caps-best-year-since-2006.html

Mount Kisco Tax Bills Are Due On Dec. 31 | Mt Kisco Real Estate

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Mount Kisco is reminding residents that the second half of 2013-14 village tax bills are due on Tuesday, Dec. 31.

In order to make a payment without any penalties, a U.S. postmark of Dec. 31 or earlier is required.

Click here for additional information concerning tax bills and payment schedule

 

 

 

http://mtkisco.dailyvoice.com/news/mount-kisco-tax-bills-are-due-dec-31

Fed taper remains guessing game | Mt Kisco Real Estate

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Monday Morning Cup of Coffee takes a look at news coming across HousingWire’s weekend desk, with more coverage to come on bigger issues.

Looking forward to the week ahead, one of the most anticipated events will be the meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee on Wednesday, where Ben Bernanke will give his last press conference as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Most observers expect no major change in interest rates. There is, however, speculation about the Fed’s Treasury and bond-purchase policy. Decisions on whether or not to continue at the same pace is decided in FOMC meetings. While many economists expect the Fed’s bond-buying program to remain unchanged until January or even March, there is growing sentiment that Wednesday might see some announcement.

It is important to note, that for every report showing a sentiment to taper this year, there is another suggesting otherwise.

“Fed officials face a more difficult decision at their meeting next week, as the employment and growth data have picked up since the October meeting” said analysts at Goldman Sachs in a weekend note to clients. “But our central forecast for the first tapering move remains March, with January possible as well.”

In a Reuters poll last week of 60 economists, about half expected the Federal Reserve to wait until March to start the tapering program, but 12 economists — almost one fourth — now see this week as more likely. That’s a steep increase from the three who predicted that in a poll a month ago.

The November drop in unemployment to 7% is certainly a factor in considering tapering, but there are still plenty of signs that the U.S. economy is not strong enough for a cutback in the stimulus.The positive affect on the housing market of that lower unemployment number may be offset by the expanded unemployment benefit that expires at the end of this month.

In the two-year budget deal that the House of Representatives reached this week, that benefit — which has been providing the unemployed with an extra 14 weeks of help — was not renewed. That will immediately affect 1.3 million Americans who are receiving that help now, along with another 3.6 million who would have qualified in 2014.

And although the unemployment rate declined for young workers — 16 to 24 year olds — from 15.1% in October to 14.1% in November, that number is still double the national average. As HousingWire reported last month, the decline in the overall homeownership rate to 63.9% this year shows that there are still significant barriers to first-time buyers — including that Millennial market that will be key for the future of housing.

 

http://www.housingwire.com/blogs/1-rewired/post/28305-monday-morning-cup-of-coffee-fed-taper-remains-guessing-game

 

Monetize Your Social Media Campaigns With These Tech Tools | Mt Kisco Realtor

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Social media has become an even bigger part of consumers’ lives in the past year, making it clear what some once thought was a trend is likely here to stay. In fact, social media users are finding more innovative ways to interact, with videos and photos playing a greater part in the way people communicate with each other online.

Marketers are hard at work, as well, trying to find new ways to leverage the power of social networking to reach new customers. Fitting social media interaction time into busy schedules is an ongoing challenge for business owners, however, with Facebook and Twitter accounts often abandoned for days at a time as professionals deal with more pressing issues.

Fortunately, help is available. Numerous tech tools can help professionals manage social media accounts, even taking care of posts for them. But with so many tools on the market today, how can a professional possibly sort through them all? To help, I’ve put together a list of some of the best resources for managing, tracking, and getting the most out of your social media-based marketing campaigns.

“The only way to sort through all the tools out there is to do your own research and try them out. Many tools have a free 30 day free trial so you can feel comfortable with what you’re getting” Anne Ward, CEO of CircleClick said in a recent interview.

Klout for Business

“Influence” has become an important word in the world of marketing, with businesses having rapidly realized the reach of those who have large online followings. Klout for Business helps businesses identify influencers in their own social media circles to allow them to reach out to those individuals to spread their message. Using “Perks,” businesses can offer trial versions of products to top influencers in exchange for a mention on their high-traffic sites, allowing those businesses to reach a large number of social media users at once.

Rowfeeder

With Rowfeeder, businesses can gain insight into topics that are trending, including topics that concern their own industry. This analysis can be used to tweak your own campaigns, allowing you to reach out to consumers using the terms that interest them. In other words, you can include the terms in your campaign that are most likely to be searched, driving customers directly to your posts. It also can be used to track your own campaigns by following a particular hashtag and delivering data about activity on that hashtag. How many times was it re-tweeted? How many followers did each re-tweeter have?

Mention

This alert program monitors a user’s social media accounts and sends notifications when a specified search term receives a mention. Mention searches posts in 42 different languages, delivering those back to give businesses a global view of a message’s reach. Social media interactions can also be conducted directly through the Mention interface for added convenience.

MediaFunnel

MediaFunnel is ideal for organizations interested in involving multiple team members in managing and monitoring accounts. Posts can be deployed across multiple social media platforms at once, including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress, and LinkedIn. Items can be set up to post at specified intervals, allowing businesses to choose the best time of day to reach their individual customer base.

HootSuite

Popular social media dashboard service HootSuite integrates with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ Pages, Foursquare, WordPress, Mixi, and almost every other service available through its supplemental App Directory. Users can schedule posts and monitor activity, as well as pull reports to identify the performance of campaigns. Through an app, users can manage social media accounts on the go.

Chirpify

Imagine if you could sell event tickets or gather entries for a contest directly on Twitter. Chirpify gives promoters that capability, allowing them to connect an account that is then assigned a specific hashtag. Customers Tweet using a hashtag (#entertowin, #partytickets2014) and the information is captured by Chirpify, who processes the payment or logs the entry for the business.

Triberr

One of the best ways to grow your audience is to interact with others. Triberr connects you with people who are interested in the same topic you are, separating topics into “Tribes” to better help you find blogs that relate to your own interests. You can gather social media followers on Triberr, since you’ll be regularly interacting with others who share your interests.

Shortstack

Shortstack helps businesses create professional-looking Facebook pages, complete with polls, forms, and more. The service provides more than 60 templates and 70 themes to let small businesses find the look that fits their own unique style. For pages with less than 2,000 likes, the service is completely free, with the price increasing as a page gains more fans.

Infogr.am

Infographics are a great way to connect with today’s visually-driven social media audiences. Infogr.am is a tool that helps businesses put together infographics that convey a message for free. Businesses can import existing spreadsheets or create new ones in order to populate pie charts and bar graphs. Once an infographic has been created, it can be downloaded or shared to social media sites directly from the site.

Feedly

One way to keep social media audiences interested is to repost news that is relevant to your industry. Feedly provides a way to keep up with what’s going on in the world, with information delivered in one compact dashboard. These links can then be shared to Twitter directly from the app. Feedly is also a way to keep up with information your social media contacts recommend to better keep you informed.

VideoRascal

In case you haven’t noticed, animated explainer videos are all the rage. In just a short snippet, you can create a fun explanation of what your business does. Visitors to your website, looking for a quick description of your product or service, will be intrigued by the animated characters and you’ll save the money you would have had to spend hiring a camera crew to record you talking about your service. VideoRascal promises a video for less than $99, using the templates the site provides. You then add a script, record a voiceover, and choose the music you want to go with the video. Once complete, you can export the video for use on your website and social media sites.

Social media remains a vital part of business marketing. Using these helpful tools, businesses can maintain and manage their social media accounts while still remaining on budget.

 

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhendricks/2013/11/13/monetize-your-social-media-campaigns-with-these-tech-tools/