Cuomo Supports Property Tax Freeze, With Conditions, In State Of State | The Mt. Kisco Daily Voice.
Cuomo Supports Property Tax Freeze, With Conditions, In State Of State | Pound Ridge Homes
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Murky Real-Estate Market Comes Into Focus | Pound Ridge Real Estate
Regulators are about to shine a light on an expanding but opaque corner of the real-estate investment market.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Wall Street’s self-regulator, is planning rule changes that would require so-called nontraded real-estate investment trusts to improve disclosure on fees and to more quickly report on changes in the value of properties in their portfolios.
The move comes amid a boom in demand for these types of funds, which buy office buildings, stores and other commercial real estate and send most of the properties’ income to shareholders. Unlike typical REITs, shares in these funds don’t trade on public exchanges, making them less liquid.
Alan Gerboc, a retired marketing executive who collects contemporary photography, invested $100,000 in a nontraded REIT in 2006. Emily Berl for The Wall Street Journal
Investors are on pace to buy $20 billion of new shares in these funds this year, according to Robert A. Stanger & Co., an investment bank based in Shrewsbury, NJ. That is the highest amount ever and almost twice the $10.3 billion raised last year. Many investors are attracted by dividends that can top 7% a year for some nontraded REITs, according to Blue Vault Partners LLC, a Georgia research firm.
But Finra believes investors aren’t getting a clear enough picture of the performance of their funds, according to Joseph Price, Finra’s senior vice president for corporate finance.
These funds and their brokers can charge fees and expenses of as much as 12%, yet that cost isn’t required to be taken into account when the funds value their stock in reports to investors.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304403804579264552406913102
California Contemporary in Beverly Hills Asks $5.25M | Pound Ridge Homes
Beckham Wants To Build His Soccer Stadium At PortMiami | Pound Ridge Real Estate
Soccer superstar David Beckham reportedly wants to build his Major League Soccer stadium over on 25 acres at the southwest corner of Dodge Island, where the port has been planning to develop condos, hotels, retail, and a megayacht marina. This is according to the Miami Herald. This works because, although Beckham has been wanting to build the stadium in an urban locale all along, now he’s planning a hotel and retail to go along with it too. Hotel Beckham? Sleep with the dreamy soccer stud, metaphorically?
Anywho, as far as just how big the stadium is going to be, the Miami Herald reports that it will be 25,000 seats “with expandable seating for different events”. Meanwhile, the UK’s Daily Mirror says Beckham wants “to build [a] 75,000 seater.” If the thing really does triple in size, that’s one hell of an expandable stadium. · Beckham group considers Soccer stadium site at PortMiami [Miami Herald] · David Beckham To Build ‘75,000 Seater Stadium’ In Miami [Daily Mirror] · PortMiami coverage [Curbed Miami] · Soccer Stadium coverage [Curbed Miami
Furnace check-up or tune-up is much like a visit to the doctor | Pound Ridge Real Estate
Nobody wants to think about a heating system when it’s still warm and sunny outside, but winter is never that far away, and servicing a heating system now will ensure that the heat will click on when you want it to.
Furnace Check-up A furnace check-up or furnace repair is much like a visit to the doctor or taking your car to a mechanic. However, specifically in the case of your home, a furnace check-up consists of the following steps:
- Inspect thermostat for proper operation.
- Inspect filter and change or clean as needed.
- Check all electrical components and controls.
- Oil motors as needed.
- Inspect heat exchanger for possible cracks. A crack in the heat exchanger will introduce carbon monoxide into the living space.
- Check air flow. If diminished, it may be necessary to clean the evaporator coil.
- Check air fuel mixture, where appropriate.Furnace Maintenance While having your furnace tuned and checked each year before the cold weather is wise practice, there are also a few things you can do to assure that your furnace is operating properly, safely, and to its fullest capacity.
- The very first thing to check before turning on your unit is to make sure nothing flammable has been stored next to the furnace over the summer. Many people have set their weed eaters, lawnmowers, and gas cans against their furnace in the garage. This is just asking for a fire or an explosion.
- Run your heater for a few minutes before you actually need it. Waiting until the first cold morning to discover it isn’t working will land you at the bottom of a waiting list before a heating and air specialist can come to fix it. If that does happen, call a furnace repair service.
- Change the filters regularly. Dirty filters restrict air flow, reducing efficiency and worst case, can cause the heat exchanger to overheat. Disposable fiberglass filters should be replaced.
- Electrostatic or electronic filters need to be washed regularly.
- Be sure all access panels are secure, with all the screws in place.
- Be sure the thermostat is set in the heating mode. Just setting the dial above room temperature will not activate the heat if still set in the air conditioning mode to discard any furnace maintenance is need.Things You Should Know About Your Furnace Many homeowners find that when they turn their furnace on for the first time that it emits a noxious smell. This is not Carbon Monoxide. Carbon Monoxide is odorless, so you wouldn’t be able to smell it even if it was. What is happening here is that dust has settled on the heat exchanger over the summer and turning on the unit for the first time is just burning off the dust. Be sure to open some windows to dispel the odor quickly.
New Building Codes Passed After Lessons From Hurricane Sandy | Pound Ridge Real Estate
Acting on the recommendations of a task force convened after Hurricane Sandy, the City Council on Thursday approved new requirements that were expected to make buildings more sustaining during emergencies and prevent some of the hardships that New Yorkers endured after the storm last year.
One change requires residential buildings five stories or higher to add faucets in common areas like laundry rooms so that residents on higher floors have some access to water for drinking, flushing toilets and other uses. Upper floors lose water when electric pumps stop working during blackouts, a problem that worsened conditions and forced many people out of their buildings after the hurricane.
The requirement applies immediately to new residential construction, while existing buildings have eight years to add the fixtures.
“It will make it much more possible to stay in a large building for an extended period without power,” said Russell Unger, chairman of the task force of more than 200 building experts, property owners and city officials that proposed the changes.
Another piece of legislation requires new and existing hospitals and nursing homes in flood zones to install hookups that would enable quick connection to temporary generators and boilers so that such facilities can maintain electricity and heating when the power is out. The law requiring the hookups is effective immediately for new buildings, but gives existing buildings 20 years to comply.
Another new law makes it easier to install backup generators and generators that run on natural gas, which is considered a cleaner and more reliable source of power than diesel fuel. And a fourth law allows temporary flood barriers on sidewalks.
Despite the costs to comply with the new requirements — a 20-story co-op could spend $16,000 for the required one-common-area faucet per 100 residents — property owners have been generally supportive because of the losses suffered during the storm.
“It’d help get buildings up and running faster,” Angela Pinsky, a senior vice president for the Real Estate Board of New York, said of some of the measures.
Shanghai Raises Home Down-Payment Requirement as Prices Jump | Pound Ridge Real Estate
Shanghai raised the minimum down payment required for buyers of a second home to 70 percent from 60 percent as house prices in China’s financial hub surge.
Counties and municipal departments should take measures to ensure the city’s annual price-control target is met, according to a statement on the local housing bureau’s website. The city also tightened the qualifications required for non-local home buyers and will increase residential land supplies, according to the statement.
Home prices in China’s four major cities jumped the most in September since January 2011, heightening concerns a bubble is forming as the national government refrains from introducing more property curbs that would hinder economic growth. Prices surged 17 percent in Shanghai from a year earlier, the biggest gain in the 70 cities the government tracks, only behind the 20 percent jump in the southern business hubs of Shenzhen and Guangzhou.
“It’s more like they are gesturing that they are serious about property curbs” after Beijing and Shenzhen’s tightening measures, said Dai Fang, a Shanghai-based analyst at Zheshang Securities Co. “The wait-and-see atmosphere may grow a little bit and sales may slow a little as fewer people can buy now.”
New home prices excluding government-sponsored social housing jumped 21 percent in Beijing in September from a year earlier, defying the strictest property curbs among all cities, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics. The Chinese capital raised down payment for second homes to 70 percent in March.
Local Measures
Former Premier Wen Jiabao in March stepped up a three-year campaign to contain price gains, ordering cities with excessive increases to raise down payments. Shenzhen made the move only on Nov. 1. Guangzhou, now the only of the four so-called first-tier cities that hasn’t raised down-payment requirements from 60 percent, is likely to follow suit, Dai said.
China’s average new home price surged 10.7 percent in October from a year earlier, the most this year, as homebuyers defied the government’s property curbs and developers offered more high-priced apartments to tap demand, according to SouFun Holdings Ltd. (SFUN), the nation’s biggest real estate website owner.
“Fluctuations in home prices have been noticeable this year, and upward pressure on housing prices increased recently with rising transaction volumes,” Shanghai’s housing bureau said in today’s statement.
The city government will crack down on price collusion and violations of home-purchase restrictions and will take measures to ensure the stability of the land market, according to the statement.
Peak Fall Foliage Season About To Start In Westchester | Pound Ridge Real Estate
As the leaves begin to change colors, Westchester County residents can look forward to the peak days of fall foliage season in the coming weeks.Photo Album
2013 Fall Foliage of Westchester County
“As of right now we’re a little behind where we would normally be,” said John Dlugoenski, a meteorologist with Accuweather.com.
The peak time for vibrant colors normally comes around Oct. 15 to Oct. 20, but warmer weather this year means that the peak should come around Oct. 20 to 25.
The weather in September and October has been cool, but not cold enough for the foliage to really start turning, Dlugoenski said. The leaves really start changing colors when the nights are cold, with lows in the 30’s, and the days are warm and sunny, with highs in the 60’s. Rain and moisture in the soil can also have an impact on the vibrancy of the colors. When the weather is really dry in September, sometimes the leaves can start to die before they change color, so the colors will not be as vibrant.
Farther north up in the Catskills the leaves have already hit their peak colors, but by the weekend, Westchester residents won’t have to travel that far, Dlugoenski said. Saturday, Oct. 19 will be a good day to observe the trees, as it is expected to be partly sunny and dry.
Westchester is home to more than 50 parks and recreation areas where leaf peepers can check out the changing colors in the weeks ahead. Westchester County Tourism also has a number of routes that you can take through the county to enjoy the sights. Recommended stops include the Water Grant Street area in Yonkers, Kingsland Point Park in Sleepy Hollow, and Riverfront Green Park in Peekskill. Along these routes you will be able to see the different colors among the hundreds of species of trees in Westchester.
“There are three trees that are particularly colorful,” said Michael Penziner, a long-time volunteer with the Rye Nature Center and the New York Botanical Gardens. “The sugar maple is a brilliant red, the red maple is a nice red, and the black tupelo.”
Parks around Westchester County will be holding a number of events for nature lovers to enjoy the fall foliage. On Saturday, Oct. 19, there will be a naturalist’s choice hike at 10 a.m. at the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in Cross River, and a foliage tour at 2 p.m. at the Marshlands Conservancy in Rye. There will be a fall foliage hike at the Lenoir Preserve in Yonkers on Saturday, Oct. 26 at 10 a.m.
http://armonk.dailyvoice.com/lifestyle/peak-fall-foliage-season-about-start-westchester
Susan Sarandon hands over Clinton Hill pad to rocker son | Pound Ridge Real Estate
Famed actress Susan Sarandon has unloaded one of her three New York City apartments to her musician son, by way of a trust overseen by the ex-wife of television personality Geraldo Rivera and a veteran Hollywood actress.
Sarandon transferred the apartment at 334 Grand Avenue in Clinton Hill for $900,000 — the same price she paid for it in January 2012 — to a trust named after Miles Robbins, her son with long-time partner, the actor Tim Robbins, property records filed with the city today show.
The trustees of the Lancaster, Pa.-based trust are Edith Vonnegut, the daughter of noted novelist Kurt Vonnegut and Rivera’s former wife, and actress Lynn Cohen, who has appeared on the television show “Sex and the City” and is part of the cast of the upcoming “Hunger Games” film.
Sarandon won an Academy Award in 1996 for her leading role in “Dead Man Walking” and is a four-time Oscar nominee. Her more memorable film roles include “Thelma & Louise” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
Miles Robbins, 21, is a musician and has appeared in a few of his mom’s films, including “The Greatest” and “Dead Man Walking.”
The two-bedroom, two-bathroom, 2,500-square-foot apartment includes 17-foot ceilings, a vaulted skylight, a working fireplace and 25-foot long rooms, according to the most recent listing.
Artist Danny Simmons, the older brother of music maven Russell Simmons, was the apartment’s previous owner. He put it on and off the market over the course of six years, beginning in May 2006, when it was priced at $1.25 million, StreetEasy and city property records show. Russell’s name was on the deed of the apartment until 2005, records show.
Toni Martin of the Corcoran Group had the listing when Sarandon purchased the home. She could not immediately be reached for comment.
http://therealdeal.com/blog/2013/10/03/susan-sarandon-hands-over-clinton-hill-pad-to-rocker-son/
POUND RIDGE HARVESFEST — Tomorrow 2-6pm! | Pound Ridge Real Estate
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