Tag Archives: Mt Kisco Real Estate for Sale

Using home inspection report as negotiation tool | Mt Kisco NY Real Estate

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We are buying a house. The home inspection is scheduled for next week, but we’re not sure what to do once we get the report. Is the inspection report just for our information or can we use it to negotiate with the sellers? Can we walk away from the deal if we don’t like the report or are we obligated to go ahead with the purchase? What can you tell us about this? –Alan

DEAR ALAN: A home inspection empowers you with essential options as a buyer, but with some limitations. In the majority of home sales, the deal is contingent upon the buyers’ acceptance of the home inspection report. This means that you, as buyer, have a specified number of days to accept or decline the property in “as is” condition. If you decline acceptance, you have four basic choices:

1) Ask the sellers to make a few repairs.
2) Ask the sellers to make many repairs.
2) Ask the sellers to reduce the sales price.
3) Decline to purchase the property.

If you request repairs or a price adjustment, based upon the home inspection report, the sellers also have choices.

via inman.com

This Is Housing Bubble 2.0: David Stockman | Mt Kisco Real Estate

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Many have named a U.S. housing recovery as a bright spot in a so-called broader domestic economic recovery.

And data seems to support this analysis, despite a slowdown in sales momentum at the end of the year. Existing home sales in December were up 12.8% from the same time in 2011, with the total number of sales in 2012 rising to the highest level in five years, according to the National Association of Realtors. Meanwhile, the annual price for existing homes also jumped to the highest level since 2005, with the median price of a home up 11.5% in December from the same period in 2011.

 

But David Stockman, former director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Reagan Administration sees little to get excited about.

He tells The Daily Ticker, “I would say we have a housing bubble…again.”

Stockman argues a combination of artificially low interest rates and speculation are to blame, not unlike the last boom and bust cycle in real estate.

“We don’t have a real organic sustainable recovery because in a world of medicated money by the central bank, things aren’t what they appear to be,” Stockman argues.

And according to Stockman, it’s this medicated, cheap money being put to work by investors that’s driving the apparent healing in some of the hardest hit real estate markets in the country.

“It’s happening in the most speculative sub-prime markets, where massive amounts of ‘fast money’ is rolling in to buy, to rent, on a speculative basis for a quick trade,” he contends. “And as soon as they conclude prices have moved enough, they’ll be gone as fast as they came.”

By ‘fast money’, Stockman is referring to professional investors like hedge funds and private equity firms. To his point, global investment firm Blackstone (BX) has spent more that $2.5 billion on 16,000 homes to manage as rentals, according to Bloomberg. It’s now the country’s largest investor in single-family homes to manage as rentals, with properties in nine markets. And Blackstone is joined by others like Colony Capital LLC and Two Harbors Investment Corp. (SBY) in trying to turn this market into a new institutional asset class, Bloomberg reports.

 

Stockman argues the problem in housing is the two forces needed for a recovery, first-time buyers and trade-up buyers, are missing. With the combination of 7.9% unemployment and staggering student loan debt, he doesn’t see a young generation of new home buyers coming into the market. And with baby boomers heading for retirement with less than adequate savings, he thinks they’ll be trading down with their homes, not up.

 

Stockman sees a rise in interest rates as the trigger for any kind of bust. He says you can’t have zero rates forever, referring to the Fed’s ZIRP and quantitative easing policies of the last several years.

“As soon as the Fed has to normalize interest rates, housing prices will stop appreciating and they’ll probably head down,” he explains. “The fast money will sell as quickly as they can and the bubble will pop almost as rapidly as it’s appeared. I don’t know how many times we’re going to do this, and the only people who benefit are the top one percent – the hedge funds, the LBO funds, the fast money people who come in for a trade, make a quick buck, and move along to the next bubble.”

Mortgage rates, for their part, rose from an average 3.42 percent to 3.53 percent on Thursday, the sharpest increase in 10 months, according to the weekly survey of 30-year mortgages by Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage company. Even still, mortgage rates are hovering around their lowest levels in more than 30 years.

As for the “American Dream” of home ownership, Stockman argues the past model where the government was trying to get to 69% home ownership was a huge policy mistake that led to no-downpayment loans, liars loans, and a degradation of lending standards. He says the government should have no dog in the hunt when it comes to ownership versus renting.

“Let the market decide,” Stockman says.

via finance.yahoo.com

 

Dutch Property Prices In Five-Year Freefall | Mt Kisco NY Real Estate

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Property investors who bought in the Dutch market have been hit with prices that have dropped for five straight years – and the decrease is accelerating, according to figures.

Average house prices fell by 11.4% in real terms last year to make it the biggest drop in values for five years.

The figure comes from the Dutch Association of Real Estate Agents (NVM) which adds that the future is bleak for investors and warns that property prices will inevitably fall again in 2013.

A spokesman said: “The country’s weak economy is not helping and we are seeing mortgage approvals fall and high interest rates which look like making any recovery in the near future impossible.”

Permits for new builds are also at their lowest since 1953 with just 55,804 applications being made.

Serious problems

According to government figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) the price of homes fell slightly less at 9.1%, when adjusted for inflation, in the year to November.

They say the biggest house price falls were felt in Amsterdam (-11.2%) and Apeldoorn (-9.7%).

Whichever figure an investor chooses, the property market in Holland is in serious trouble.

The NVM say the average house price in Holland is now £178,000 and the number of sales is also dropping too – down 7.2% between January and November to 99,897.

In comparison, between 2005 and 2008 the average number of property transactions was 200,300.

It’s a far cry from the property boom between 1992 and 2001, when property prices surged by 80% and then continued to increase each year afterwards by an average of 11%.

The boom ended when the economy officially went into recession in 2011 after 26 years of growth.

Europe’s worst mortgage debt

One legacy from that period, when successive governments pushed for home-ownership and introduced a generous tax regime, is that mortgage debt is now more than 100% of GDP, one of the highest levels in the Eurozone.

Property investors have also been warned off the Netherlands by investment firm Colordarcy, which says the country is the ‘worst performing’ real estate market in 2012.

Holland is now on a list, which also includes Eurozone basket cases Greece and Portugal, for countries where property investors will not see gains for the next 12 months.

A spokesman said: “Dutch property owners have some of Europe’s highest mortgage debts, so that coupled with the falling value of property and unemployment running at 15% is a real concern.

“We believe that the Netherlands is going to be the worst property market in 2013 and we cannot find a single reason why an investor would have gained anything in 2012 and they are unlikely to do so this year.”

via iexpats.com

7 Signs You are Not a Good Blogger | Mt Kisco NY Realtor

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Let me start off this post with a little assumption … Every one of us wants to be a good blogger, right?7 Sign you are not a good blogger

But it’s not like we get a lot of direct opinions about how good we actually are… I mean, your friends and family will tell you that you’re great. A number of haters will tell you that you suck. But it’s not like these opinions reflect the actual situation.

The negative voices are always more vocal than the positive ones, and the things your friends say … well, they just don’t have the guts to say anything bad. So how you can find out for sure?

First of all, let’s explain what it means to actually be a good blogger.

Who’s a good blogger?

The most important distinction is that being a good blogger is not the same thing as being a good writer. Writing is a single activity – you take an idea, and write an article around it. Blogging involves a lot more elements. Apart from writing.

  • Bloggers have to network with other bloggers
  • Master the art of online promotion,marketing and social media
  • Do brand building
  • Attract new followers and subscribers
  • Have some business sense and be able to turn pro at some point
  • They need to learn how to make things happen
  • Manage their own work and time, and much much more

Taking all this into account, there are 7 signs that you’re NOT a good blogger.

1. You’re not publishing regularly

This is really basic, but some people still forget that publishing regularly is, essentially, your main task as a blogger. If you don’t publish regularly, people will lose track of what’s going on with your blog, or even forget about you completely, which is not good for business. If, at some point, you get distracted and don’t publish a post for a longer while, just return to your everyday blogging like nothing ever happened.

Whatever you do, don’t publish a “sorry I’ve been away post.” The reason is simple. Some people won’t even notice that you were gone, unless you tell them…

2. You’re not managing your time properly

Time management may sound like something only people loaded with extreme amount of work need, but it’s not the case. Whatever your career is, and whatever you’re doing, you can always use a time management system to make you more effective. Let’s face it, there are a lot of tasks a blogger needs to do on a daily basis, and if you try to keep it all in your head, you’ll inevitably forget some of it.

First of all, I encourage you to check out a methodology called Getting Things Done. Then try different online tools to make you more effective. Tools like: Remember The Milk, Teambox, Google Calendar, Dropbox, and others.

3. You have no blogging friends

Bloggers who try to make things happen on their own will have a lot harder time achieving success. Building a network of contacts and utilizing it for various purposes is a lot better approach. Here are some of the possible benefits:

  • you can email your blogging friends notifying them about a new post of yours,
  • you can take part in joint ventures,
  • you can promote each other on different occasions,
  • they can help you get guest posting spots on other blogs,
  • you can host guest posts from them,
  • you can promote each other’s products as affiliates, and much more.

Quite frankly, building a network of contacts is a great practice in any industry, blogging included. Don’t pretend that it doesn’t concern you.

4. No one contacts you with freelance writing opportunities

If you’re a good blogger, chances are that some people will notice and reach out to you with new opportunities. The most obvious opportunity for a blogger is a freelance writing project of some kind. If you’re inside a fairly popular niche, you should get offers like that every now and then. If there aren’t any then maybe you’re not as good as you think. But still, you can help the situation a little by providing an easy-to-use contact form or any other clear way of getting a hold of you.

It still amazes me that some bloggers have absolutely no contact information on their sites, or that the info is buried so deep that it’s like it wasn’t there at all.

5. You don’t know what SEO is

I’m sorry, but good blogging has a lot to do with SEO. Good bloggers accept this fact and try to make the most out of it. Bad bloggers think that SEO is not relevant and that content is the only king. From my perspective, there’s no point in providing great content if you’re going to do nothing to promote it in the search engines.

Every post you publish should include some form of SEO (optimization), even if it’s just some simple keyword research and good subheadings. Remember that Google is the biggest provider of traffic online. You can really earn a lot in terms of traffic and recognition if you decide to play their game.

6. You don’t know what your most popular articles are

This one is about knowing your audience and being aware what’s going on on your OWN blog. If you don’t know what your most popular content is then how are you going to create more of it? I mean, there’s really little point in publishing posts just for the sake of it.

Every blogger should aim at publishing only posts that have the biggest chance of going viral. To be up-to-date with your blog start by installing a plugin like WordPress Popular Postsand including a Google Analytics embed code in your blog. This will give you all the information you need.

What matters is ongoing work. Check your stats every week or every month and note which articles have become the most popular, then create your publishing schedule for the next months to include more articles similar to the popular ones in some way (topic, style, etc.).

7. You have no plan for your blog’s nearest future

Bad bloggers are always running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Remember that you’re a blogger long term (at least that’s my assumption). So you need to have a plan for your blog, or else your success will be a lot less predictable. Things worth including in your plan are:

  • Your publishing schedule.
  • New keywords to tackle.
  • A list of blogs where you want to guest post.
  • A list of products you want to create.
  • A list of products you want to promote as an affiliate.
  • A list of joint venture projects and their execution schedules.
  • The general goal your blog should achieve in one year’s time.

Of course, this is just an example, and you’re free to include whatever else you find suitable. That’s it for my list of 7 signs that you’re not a good blogger. Feel free to comment and share your own insights. Also, what would look good as the item #8 on this list?

About the author: Karol K. is a freelance writer and blogger. If you’re interested in learning how to start writing paid articles feel free to visit him at YoungPrePro.

 

Want to Learn More About How to Create Compelling Content that Your Audience Wants to Read, View and Share?

My book – Blogging the Smart Way “How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

It is now available to download. I show you how to create and build a blog that rocks and grow tribes, fans and followers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also includes dozens of tips to create contagious content that begs to be shared and tempts people to link to your website and blog.

I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 130,000.

Download and read it now.

 

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via jeffbullas.com