Tag Archives: Pound Ridge Real Estate for Sale

Pound Ridge Real Estate for Sale

Fannie: Sales Up 9 Percent in 2012 | Pound Ridge NY Real Estate

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Fannie Mae’s economists expect total home sales to rise approximately 9 percent this year from last year’s depressed levels.

Although home prices are likely to dip somewhat in the winter season following typically stronger spring and summer months, Fannie Mae’s experts still believe that home prices hit bottom earlier this year. Combined with record-low mortgage rates, aided by the Federal Reserve’s latest round of mortgage-backed security purchases, more consumers are likely to enter the housing market, the company said today.

Sales will top out at 4.98 million this year and continue to increase next year, reaching 5.19 million units for the first time in years. Fannie predicts prices will rise 2.9 percent this year and 1.6 percent next year. Housing starts will reach 746,000 this year and rise to 888,000 in 2013.

“The U.S. fiscal cliff and debt ceiling debate as well as the weakened global economic environment are likely to create the strongest headwinds facing any real improvement this year,” said Fannie Mae Chief Economist Doug Duncan. “With these issues hanging in the balance, we believe risks remain tilted to the downside. News from the housing sector is more positive, with various indicators showing continued momentum toward a sustainable, long-term recovery. Notably, home prices are inching back into positive territory on a year-over-year basis. Results from our September National Housing Survey also show consumers’ home price change expectations have remained positive for nearly a year.”

via realestateeconomywatch.com

Relevant is the New Black – Stop Sucking and Start Mattering | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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This isn’t breaking news or an exclusive by any means.

If I did years of extensive research, analyzed data, built fancy charts, used 3-D graphs on my iPad, and touted inarguable, NAR homebuyer and seller survey-backed findings, it would lead to just five words.

Follow-up in real estate sucks.

I define “sucks” two different ways.

The first: It sucks that there is not more time in each day to follow up with people you have already built a good relationship with or helped buy or sell a home. If someone is not currently in the market to buy or sell, only so many minutes can be allotted to relationship maintenance.

Especially, I should add, if you actually produce significant GCI (gross commission income) or carry a lot of listings.

I wish there were a perfect world. One where all you did was chit-chatted with friends on Facebook all day whom you worked with previously, just calling your sphere to say hello and asking how the kids are.

Too bad you are busy as hell and reality is such an important thing to consider when running a business.

Bottom line? Past clients and referrals make or break your business, but you could likely receive more if you followed up effectively.

The other way follow-up sucks in real estate is that it lacks the most important thing in marketing right now: context.

As the social Web has evolved, experiences are becoming increasingly personalized. This includes ads and marketing messages that we are exposed to.

This change means you need to completely re-evaluate your follow-up marketing strategy with your sphere of influence.

Here’s why: When an ad runs in my stream on Facebook that says, “Are you 33? Do you love your iPad? Kids using it too?” The answers are yes and yes and yes. I actually welcome ads like that with open arms. I can’t wait to click them and see where they lead.

Meanwhile in the real estate industry I see marketing like: fajita recipe cards, sports calendars, set-your-clock-back reminders, open house invitations, emailed market reports, and just listed/just sold postcards.

These are things that lack context with 95 percent of people with a pulse.

You have to go deeper in 2012.

In fact, either dig deep or go to sleep (feel free to tweet that).

With everything you do moving forward, please take a moment and ask yourself, whether it is a post card, business card, Facebook update, tweet or phone call, “Is this RELEVANT to the recipient?”

Don’t bullshit here either. Be honest with yourself. It’s critical.

Relevant is the new black.

Contactually, a popular new social CRM (customer relationship manager), can help your efforts towards increased relevancy, both tremendously and immediately.

Money and Happiness

It makes staying in touch with the right contacts fun and simple. I especially enjoy the way it helps you segment your social and email databases into relevant categories. It happens in an interactive game called “The bucket game.” It’s a jovial and quick way to get your unorganized list of contacts into one or more categories (like buyer, seller, past client, Facebook friend, etc.) By approaching this tedious task with a gaming approach, it is actually really fun and you are done in no time at all.

Bucket Your Contacts

Contactually connects your email and social media accounts, analyzes your history with each relationship, and automatically prompts you in a daily email to re-engage with important people who are slipping off your radar.

By leveraging the social graph, anytime you call, email, tweet, Facebook or LinkedIn message someone from Contactually, you have what is relevant to them, in real time, in the form of their live social streams. If their latest tweet was about their kid’s baseball game, there is your reason to call.

The paid version of Contactually also brings integration into Gmail, Salesforce, Highrise, and many other popular and robust CRMs.

Increased context and relevancy with your sphere of influence, with a little help from a software. I dig it.

Of all the dings in your agent armor, an important person slipping off your radar should be considered a big, fat dent. Avoided at all costs.

If your current marketing efforts are extinguishing more interest in what you do than they are generating actual new business, time for a pivot.

You can learn more about Contactually or sign up for a 30-day free trial now.

Or you can reorder sports calendars for 2013. The choice is yours.

via next.inman.com

Pound Ridge NY real estate sales up 34% – Prices down 7% | RobReportBlog | Pound Ridge NY Real Estate

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Pound Ridge NY Real Estate Report   –    RobReportBlog   –   Sept 2012Sales over the past six months

2012

43   homes sold

$680,000   median price

2011

32  homes sold

$732,500  median price

Homes sales jumped 34% as the median sales price fell 7%.

via trulia.com

Homeowners Recover 13.5 Percent of Lost Equity Through Q3 | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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Rising home values have brought homeowner equity to its highest level since the third quarter of 2008 and helped lift 1.3 million families above water. Homeowner equity jumped $406 billion, or 5.9 percent, to $7,275 billion in the second quarter of 2012, according to the Obama Administration’s September Housing Scorecard.

After a sharp first quarter rise, total equity has grown to $863 billion, or 13.5 percent, since the end of 2011. The number of underwater borrowers has declined by 11 percent since the end of last year, from 12.1 million in the 4th quarter of 2011 to 10.8 million in the second quarter of 2012.

Nearly 1.3 million homeowner assistance actions have taken place through the Making Home Affordable Program, while the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has offered more than 1.4 million loss mitigation and early delinquency interventions. The Administration’s programs continue to encourage improved standards and processes in the industry, with HOPE Now lenders offering families and individuals more than three million proprietary mortgage modifications through July.

As of August, more than one million homeowners have received a permanent HAMP modification, saving approximately $539 apiece on their mortgage payments each month, and an estimated $15 billion to date. In August, 81 percent of homeowners with eligible non-GSE mortgages benefitted from principal reduction with their HAMP modification. Eighty-seven percent of homeowners entering the program in the last two years have received a permanent modification.

“As the September housing scorecard indicates, our housing market is showing important signs of recovery – with homeowner equity at a four-year high and summer sales of existing homes at the strongest pace in two years,” said HUD Acting Assistant Secretary Erika Poethig. “The Administration’s efforts to keep housing affordable and refinances strong are critical with so many households still struggling to make ends meet. That is why we continue to ask Congress to approve the President’s refinancing proposal so that more homeowners can secure the help they need.”

Rising home values have brought homeowner equity to its highest level since the third quarter of 2008 and helped lift 1.3 million families above water. Homeowner equity jumped $406 billion, or 5.9 percent, to $7,275 billion in the second quarter of 2012.  After a sharp first quarter rise, total equity has grown to $863 billion, or 13.5 percent, since the end of 2011. The number of underwater borrowers has declined by 11 percent since the end of last year, from 12.1 million in the 4th quarter of 2011 to 10.8 million in the second quarter of 2012.

The Administration’s foreclosure programs are providing relief for millions of homeowners as we continue to recover from an unprecedented housing crisis.  Nearly 1.3 million homeowner assistance actions have taken place through the Making Home Affordable Program, while the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has offered more than 1.4 million loss mitigation and early delinquency interventions. The Administration’s programs continue to encourage improved standards and processes in the industry, with HOPE Now lenders offering families and individuals more than three million proprietary mortgage modifications through July.

Homeowners entering HAMP continue to benefit from deep and sustainable assistance. As of August, more than one million homeowners have received a permanent HAMP modification, saving approximately $539 on their mortgage payments each month, and an estimated $15 billion to date. In August, 81 percent of homeowners with eligible non-GSE mortgages benefitted from principal reduction with their HAMP modification. Eighty-seven percent of homeowners entering the program in the last two years have received a permanent modification

via realestateeconomywatch.com

Pound Ridge NY Homes | A Walk Through a Broken Organization

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A Walkthrough of a Broken Organization

Strategic sales management is often a weak link in solution provider companies.

Strategic sales management is often a weak link in solution provider companies. For the past 14 years I have been working all across North America and internationally, meeting, speaking and consulting with organizations of all sizes and areas of focus. While every client engagement is unique, some problems are common to many corporate cultures and tend to prevent a company from reaching its business potential.

This month, let’s take a walk through a hypothetical client site that illustrates many of the problems I’ve encountered over the years. We’ll use “Law and Order” rules: “Although inspired in part by true incidents, the following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event.”

Walking into the front office, there are a few chairs, a few outdated vendor awards on the walls and employees pass a visitor without offering a greeting or showing much expression or enthusiasm. This is not a good indicator for the type of reaction the office evokes from prospects who visit.

President

I ask for Bill, the president. I am warmly greeted and taken to the back office, where we begin to chat about his business, his vision, his frustrations and the lack of business profitability. My experienced ears hear: “they” just don’t get it, “they” really don’t work hard enough, “they” really don’t know how to sell what we do and “they” don’t seem to care about the business like I do. Bill is also concerned that his sales manager is focused on functions that have nothing to do with sales.

Vice President
Bill introduces me to his vice president of professional services: During the first 10 minutes of a 45-minute interview I hear a lot about how much time the sales engineers have to take to help the salespeople in every engagement and that the sales teams get all the credit. “They never take the time to learn the products. If it wasn’t for my team and their expertise we would have no sales.” When I ask when was the last time the VP held a training session for the sales team, I get a shrug.

Salespeople
As I conduct interviews with each member of the sales team, either face-to-face or on the phone, I begin to connect the dots between what they’re saying and my meetings with the president and the vice president. The salespeople say things like: management always seems to dominate every opportunity; they’re always micro-managing what I do; the sales meetings are brutal, everything seems so disorganized; proposals are a joke; management seems to change what we do every 90 days; and they never seem to know what is going on. Something else emerges from my recordings of each salesperson. Every representative tells a different story when asked, “Why do people buy from you?”

Assessing Your Own Company
While these scenarios are graphic, these are conversations that sadly take place among many clients we have served.

Does anything here ring a bell about your company? As you read this in January 2012, it is an excellent time to assess the morale within your current organization and create a plan for the remaining portion of the year to fix elements in your company that need to operate more effectively.

A few concrete steps can go a long way. Create an ongoing sales training program; run monthly company meetings for all employees to bring teams together, increase communication and recognize achievement; make sure management meetings are organized to improve the focus on achieving corporate objectives; and make “soft” cultural improvements to increase morale and teamwork. In some cases the list of projects can be quite long, take a few each quarter and focus on those topics.

Creating a great organization takes time, vision, energy and a commitment to continuous improvement — which, by the way, is the definition of leadership.

As you skim our past blogs you may pick up other ideas that will enhance your organizations performance.

Author:      Ken Thoreson on the Web Ken Thoreson on Facebook Ken Thoreson on Twitter Ken Thoreson on LinkedIn Ken Thoreson RSS Feed

Ken Thoreson

165 Golanvyi TrailVonore, TN 37885

(423) 884-6328

Website:  www.AcumenManagement.com

Email:  Ken@AcumenMgmt.com

Blog: www.YourSalesManagementGuru.com

 

Acumen Management Group Ltd. “operationalizes” sales management systems and processes that pull revenue out of the doldrums into the fresh zone. During the past 14 years, our consulting, advisory, and platform services have illuminated, motivated, and rejuvenated… View full profile

This article originally appeared on Your Sales Management Guru and has been republished with permission.

Find out how to syndicate your content with Business 2 Community.

via business2community.com

Pound Ridge NY Real Estate | Housing tax credit foul-ups: it’s got to get better | Inman News

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Housing tax credit foul-ups: it’s got to get better

Commentary: Prisoners, dead people, non-homeowners among those receiving credits

Flickr image courtesy of <a href=

This will probably get me hit with an audit by the Internal Revenue Service, but here’s a modest proposal for a federal government struggling to cut the deficit: Next time Congress decides to stimulate home purchases and energy improvements with federal tax credits, could we make sure the IRS is on board and knows what the heck it’s supposed to do?

I say that having read the latest critical report — the fourth in a series by the Treasury’s Inspector General for Tax Administration — about IRS bungling on housing-related tax credits.

The latest audit, released July 25 with virtually no media coverage, found that the IRS had allowed taxpayers to file amended returns to receive more than one year’s worth of first-time home purchase tax credits — the $7,500 repayable maximum credit plus the nonrepayable maximum $8,000 credit.

Or to switch the year of purchase from 2008 — when you were supposed to pay the credit back over 15 years — to 2009 or 2010, when you didn’t have to.

That’s a neat game — claim credits two years running on a single home purchase, or get out of paying back money to the government that you agreed upfront to repay.

via inman.com