Tag Archives: South Salem Homes for Sale

Wayne Newton’s Las Vegas Ranch Hits Market for $70 Million | South Salem Real Estate

Leave a reply

Casa de Shenandoah, a 36-acre ranch once owned by Wayne Newton, just hit the market for a whopping $70 million. Newton and his family have lived at the ranch since the 1960s, but in 2010 it was purchased by CSD LLC for the purpose of turning the home into a Wayne Newton museum. Unfortunately the project failed due to legal disputes, and the LLC went bankrupt. The Newton family owns 20 percent of CSD, but not enough to keep the home.

The home is also a zoo; Newton used the home to keep his prized Arabian horses and a few other animals, and CSD acquired even more animals for the museum, including sloths, wallabies, penguins, lemurs, and more than 100 birds. The animals have since been sold to the Zoological Wildlife Conservation Center and the Sloth Captive Husbandry Research Center in Rainier, Ore.

And that’s not the only wild thing about this house. There’s a jumbo jet terminal that allows the plane to pull right up to the home. There’s not just a garage, but a “car museum,” with seven double doors. In addition to the main house, which has three bedrooms and 3.5 baths, there are seven additional homes on the property. Other details include 37 stables, an “equestrian pool,” acres of corrals, a gaming room, green room, and tennis court. According to the listing, CSD LLC has invested in excess of $15-20 million in improvements. It is listed by Dale Thornburgh, Synergy Sothebys International. For photos and more information, check out the listing on Redfin.com.

 

http://blog.redfin.com/blog/2013/09/wayne-newtons-las-vegas-ranch-hits-market-for-70-million.html#.Ui8vBmRATsn

 

Homesteading and Livestock | South Salem Real Estate

Leave a reply

If you suffer from Barnheart and would like to homestead but are unable to do  so right now for whatever reasons (there are many), do not despair. There are  still steps you can take in order to move yourself towards the goal of being  more self-sufficient. Happily, most of them don’t involve much money! Here’s a  list of my top 10:

 

1.  Save more, spend less. The sad fact is that most people cannot afford to buy the  homestead of their dreams … or any homestead, for that matter. In many places,  acreage is expensive. In order to make your dream a reality, you may need to  make some drastic changes. Thankfully, most of those changes have positive  outcomes …  stop eating out and instead, learn to cook the kinds of dishes  you’ll be making when you can have your own garden. Cancel cable and instead,  read books and magazines that will teach you about living self-sufficiently.  Make time work for you, and contribute annually to your IRA. Your 70-year old  self will thank you for it. Your co-workers and friends won’t understand why you  want to live so simply … but they don’t have Barnheart.

 

2. Seek to become debt-free. Once you have begun spending less, and saving  more, consider paying off those loans. No homesteader I know has ever said “I  wish I owed more money.” Every dollar in interest you are paying on your home,  car, or credit cards is one less dollar you have when at last you are able to  purchase your homestead.

 

3. Learn a new skill. You may not be able to milk your own cow, but you can  learn how to make your own yogurt and cheese. You may not be able to spin  your own wool, but you can learn how to knit or crochet. You may not be able to  build your own farmhouse, but you can learn how to do smaller woodworking  projects. Sign up for a class, have a friend teach you, or watch you-tube.

 

4. Learn to preserve food. Anyone can learn how to can and  dehydrate, and it doesn’t take a lot of money to get started. Someday you’ll  have a huge garden and bumper crops of produce, but for now you can support your  local farmer by buying in season and preserving the taste of summer all year  round.

 

 

Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/homesteading-barnheart-zbcz1309.aspx#ixzz2fuhkj7hv

With Upturn, Homes Are More Specialized and Technologically Savvy | South Salem Real Estate

Leave a reply

With the national recovery of the housing market has come a return to larger and more expensive homes. Residential architects are reporting more specialized uses of space and the growing interest in special function rooms. Examples include outdoor living spaces, mud rooms, in-law suites, and safe rooms. With more specialized uses of space has come an increased interest in special features, many of which provide greater accessibility for an aging population. New technologies are also seeing a dramatic increase in popularity, both in new and remodeled homes. Popular new products offer greater energy efficiency and often provide households with fewer maintenance obligations.

These are some of the key findings from the AIA’s Home Design Trends Survey from the second quarter of 2013. Business conditions have been steadily trending up since early 2012, and—given the strong levels of inquiries for new projects, the growing levels of project backlogs, and the uniformly strong readings from firms across all regions of the country—workloads for residential architects promise to remain strong in the quarters ahead. During the past year, residential architects have reported a recovery in virtually every residential construction sector. Coupled with already strong readings in home improvement activity, there now is a very strong base for future improvement in market conditions.

Special function rooms rebound in popularity

As home sizes shrank during the housing downturn, special function rooms were particularly hard hit. Many households view special function rooms as discretionary, and therefore easier to eliminate as homes were downsized. Now that average home sizes are growing again, interest in special function rooms is beginning to reemerge.

Rooms that have seen particularly strong growth in popularity over the past year are outdoor living areas and rooms, and mud rooms/drop zones. Almost 63 percent of residential architects surveyed report that interest in outdoor living areas/rooms are increasing, while fewer than 2 percent report interest to be declining. For mud rooms/drop zones, more than 45 percent of respondents report increased interest, while only about 1 percent report a decline. For both of these areas, scores are well up from year-ago levels.

 

 

http://www.aia.org/practicing/AIAB099983

Jodie Foster’s ‘enormously private’ villa now going for $6M | South Salem Real Estate

Leave a reply

A 1930s Spanish-style villa in Los Angeles owned by “Silence of the Lambs” actress Jodie Foster just got its price cut to $5.995 million, down from its original asking price of $6.339 million in June.

Zillow describes the five-bedroom, six-bathroom home as “enormously private” surrounded by a tall hedge and with a rear entrance.

 

 

Source: Zillow –

 

 

See more at: http://www.inman.com/wire/jodie-fosters-enormously-private-villa-now-going-for-6m/#sthash.agxeoWaL.dpuf

Instagram Marketing: How to Get Started With Instagram | South Salem Real Estate

Leave a reply

 

Do you use Instagram for your business?

Are you wondering how Instagram can help with your marketing?

To learn how to get started with Instagram marketing, I interview Sue B. Zimmerman for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast.

More About This Show

Social Media Marketing Podcast w/ Michael Stelzner

 

The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner.

It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting).

In this episode, I interview Sue B. Zimmerman, who is known as theInstagram Gal. Sue helps businessesuse Instagram to find their ideal customers. She’s used Instagram herself to increase traffic to her Cape Cod retail boutique by 40% in only 12 months.

Sue shares the strategy behind her Instagram success.

You’ll learn how to take advantage of using photos and short videos and how tomake the most of hashtags.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below!

Listen Now

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

You can also subscribe via iTunes, RSS, Stitcher or Blackberry.

Here are some of the things you’ll discover in this show:

Instagram Marketing

Why marketers should consider Instagram

Sue states that she didn’t know what Instagram was until a little over a year ago. She became curious when her twin daughters were using it.

Sue shares that one of the reasons why marketers should consider Instagram is because it’s mobile. It’s a great way for your business to communicate directly with people with whom you want to build trust and credibility. There’s no better way for people to see what you are up to.

sue b zimmerman instagram

Instagram is a great way to share with people what you are doing in the moment.

Instagram is a free mobile app, which you can download onto your iPhone orAndroid phone. It allows you to share photos or videos with your target market. It’s very quick, easy and fun to use. There are 20 filters that you can have a lot of fun with.

You’ll discover why hashtags and @mentions are most important for marketers and businesses.

Listen to the show to find out what type of image gets the most likes and comments for Sue.

Who is Instagram ideally for and how does it differ from Pinterest?

Sue believes they are similar but have slightly different approaches. Sue has a very active Pinterest account, which is also very successful for her boutique.

Both Pinterest and Instagram have grown into their own thriving communities.

With Instagram, you can tell a story with both photos and videos. As soon as you upload an Instagram image, you can see within seconds that someone has liked it. With Pinterest however, you tell people what you like. You curate your boards and highlight what you like from things that are already online.

in the moment sue zimmerman

With Instagram, it’s you in the moment.

Sue gives an example of how she is able to seize opportunities presented to her with customers in her boutique. It’s a great way to create a fun mood.

The hashtags that you use to describe the image or the video are how people follow you or find you.

You’ll hear what hashtags Sue uses at an event and why it helps create more interaction. You have to remember that people look for certain hashtags for their industry to stay top of mind.

falmouth roadrace

Make sure you tag the event you are attending to create more interaction.

From a business perspective, when an image grabs your attention, you can choose to click into the account and see if you want to follow the person. Once you start to follow an account, it will show up in your feed. You can also unfollow accounts at any time.

Sue believes that she can put a visual strategy together for any kind of business. You’ll hear the different types of businesses she has worked with.

In the B2B world, it’s not necessarily about the products you sell, it’s about visual feelings. Images of sunsets, nature and oceans get a lot of likes because they are visually pleasing. It’s not just about business.

Listen to the show to find out what the benefits are when you share your passions visually as an individual.

Examples of businesses that use Instagram well

One of Sue’s favorite businesses is Birchbox. They have over 50,000 followers and are super-creative with their products. One of the products is a subscription-based box of goodies, which is delivered to your door once a month for $10.

 

Instagram Marketing: How to Get Started With Instagram | Social Media Examiner.

How to Insulate a Slab Foundation | South Salem Homes

Leave a reply

In Texas where I build the most common foundation type is Slab on Grade. In effect, we pour a big rock of concrete on top of the ground (also mainly rock) then build a house on top.

 

My Project Manager Ryan on top of this newly poured Slab Foundation.

I just completed my first house with Perimeter Slab Edge Insulation and I thought I’d walk you through the process. First, let’s talk about why to insulate the slab. As we build tighter and better insulated houses the uninsulated slab becomes more of a heat loss in the winter time for these High Performance Homes. Check out this Manual J energy loss chart from a house we remodeled recently.

Check out the BTU loss through the un-insulated concrete slab on this house.

The chart above is from a house with R-19 walls, and an R-40 roof. As we build better that slab becomes a larger % of the loss of heat!

This is for a house with an R-11 Insulated Slab.

Now look at this chart with a house with similar specs for walls/roof but it has an R-11 Perimeter insulated slab. Big difference! As a percentage of heat loss the floor went way down compared to the un-insulated slab house.

So, let’s look at the mechanics of actually insulated the slab. One of our first concerns for this process is Termites! Adding foam to the outside of a slab is a big no-no in Termite country. First, we used Borate impregnated foam from Nisus Corporation. I’ve been using their Bora-Care on my framing lumber for about 10 years now, but I only recently realized they make a termite resistant foam aptly called Bora-Foam. Our local Termimesh dealer sourced it for me and did the install.

I want to thank Joel Roeling from Termimesh for his help in this project. Also want to extend a big thanks to my Energy Rater/Tester Kristof Irwin of Positive Energy here in Austin, TX. His modeling really helps us decide what approaches will yield benefits long term for the houses I build. Last, but certainly not least was the amazing Architect/Client on this house Scott Ginder of Dick Clark & Associates. Scott and his wife Andrea are wonderful clients and it was such a pleasure to build this beautiful high performance home with them!  Here’s some detail photos but be sure to watch the video too.

 

read more…

 

http://www.finehomebuilding.com/item/31642/how-to-insulate-a-slab-foundation

 

HARP refinancings dip in second quarter | South Salem Real Estate

Leave a reply

Higher mortgage rates caused refinance volumes to edge down in the second quarter as fewer homeowners filed refi applications.

When compared to the two prior periods, 2Q refinance volumes fell slightly, according to the latest housing agency refinance data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

In the second quarter, 279,933 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages refinanced through the government’s Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), representing 22% of total refinance volume.

The slight drop in refi volumes occurred as mortgage rates rose sharply to 4.07% in June, up from 3.57% in March.

The total number of HARP refinances from the inception of the program to now totals 2.65 million.

Market analysts expect the trend to continue, as mortgage rates are likely to trend higher once the Federal Reserve begins scaling back its monetary stimulus.

“I think once rates begin their return to normalcy as the Fed starts to taper, refinance demand is likely to further decline,” explained Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) markets and international banking analyst Sarah Hu.

She added, “The tapering of refinance activity may have already occurred as evidenced in this week’s refinance index (< 2000), the lowest since Jan 2011.”

On a similar note, Compass Point Research & Trade analyst Kevin Barker noted that HARP refinance volumes will remain under pressure given the higher rates.

“If borrowers have less of incentive to refinance at higher levels, it’s going to effect volumes and how aggressively originators will target HARP borrowers,” Barker stated.

He continued, “I would point out that the drop in refi activity compared to HARP volumes will be relatively less because they’ll be more resilient to rates.”

Of the loans that refinanced through HARP in the second quarter, 19% had a loan-to-value ratio greater than 125%.

While taking a look at year-to-date figures through June, 18% of HARP refinances for underwater borrowers were for shorter-term 15- and 20-year mortgages, building equity faster than traditional 30-year mortgages.

In Nevada and Florida, markets that analysts have been keeping an eye on since the recovery began, HARP refinances represented 59% and 50% of total refinances, respectively. This is more than double the 21% of total refinances throughout the country over the same time period.

Underwater borrowers accounted for a large portion of HARP refinances in a number states, representing more than 61% of HARP volume in Nevada, Arizona and Florida.

From the program’s inception through June, 2.34 million loans refinanced through HARP were for primary residences, 78,756 were for second homes and 307,272 were tied to investment properties.

 

 

read more…

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/26598-harp-refinancings-dip-in-second-quarter

 

The Week In Video: Mobile Video, Bigfoot And Steam Powered YouTube | South Salem Realtor

Leave a reply
The Week In Video: Mobile Video, Bigfoot And Steam Powered YouTube

Welcome back to the ‘Week in Online Video’ where we catch up with the news  and gossip from the world of YouTube, Cable, Google and all things video  related. This week we take a look at how e-commerce  annotations and the Content ID system are helping those who want to monetise  their video content as well as some of the new tweaks YouTube have introduced.

YouTube Gives Go Ahead For E-Commerce Annotations

A huge percentage of those producing consistent, quality, relevant content on  YouTube will have looked into the ways they can monetise their channel. There  are many avenues to explore, all with various degrees of success depending on  your approach and audience. We have a new kid on the block in the form of Subblime which  aims to provide extra revenue for those that use their services. Subblime is one  of the companies that YouTube have just endorsed that allow content creators to  link out to third parties via their annotations. The company currently has  around 40 creators signed up and confirms the CTR ranges from 20% to 50%. One to  watch.

Read More at: PandoDaily

Great Moments in Mobile Video

Accessing video content via our smartphones seems as second nature as  switching on the TV these days. But with the lightening fast pace of technology  it’s easy to forget that the concept is only 10 years old and it’s only in the  last couple of years that mobile video consumption  has reached stratospheric heights. The team at Spark Qualcomm bring us the facts  and figures.

The Week In Video: Mobile Video, Bigfoot And Steam Powered YouTube

See the full infographic here.

AdRev Opens Up Content  ID Platform To Independent Musicians And Publishers

We’ve already touched on monetisation opportunities and the YouTube Content ID system has been an excellent way for  artists to track down and often profit well from copyright infringements. AdRev,  one of the biggest third party providers of tracking to the huge publishing  companies such as Universal and Warner have opened up their features to smaller  labels and musicians via their new ContentID.com  site. Artists can upload their content to AdRev’s database for free and keep 80%  of the revenue from unofficial, third party videos.

Read More at: NMR

Rhett And Link Producer Jason Inman Wants $10,000 To Go Find Bigfoot

The producer behind YouTube darlings Rhett and Link has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a web  series tracking and finding (because it totally exists) Bigfoot. For a  modest $10,000, Jason Inman and his team of Squatch Watchers – with the help of  the glorious Chuck Testa – aim to do what programmes like ‘Finding  Bigfoot’ have failed to, albeit restricted to filming in the California area  only. Of course, Sasquatch aficionados will know that Cali was the location for  the most famous sighting of all time so anything is possible.  Here’s the trailer for the campaign:

Read more…

 

The Week In Video: Mobile Video, Bigfoot And Steam Powered YouTube http://www.reelseo.com/the-week-in-video-mobile-bigfoot/#ixzz2dq3MPEbT

Protect your data from cloud-based storms | South Salem Realtor

Leave a reply

The recent crash of the dotloop e-signature platform highlights the challenges related to going paperless and relying on someone else’s server for your protection. Whether it’s your email, your website, your e-signature platform or anything else that you store in the cloud, what can you do to protect yourself from cloud-based storms?

In my recent series of articles on the differences between the various e-signature platforms, I outlined the dangers of using a PDF-based e-signature platform such as dotloop that relies exclusively on its company website to track document changes in the cloud. A dedicated web server is one of the basic requirements for any organization in today’s business world. It is used to host the websites of the company or the whole enterprise and possesses the requisite resources for the task. The bandwidth and storage space provided by a dedicated hosting server can never be matched by a shared server, and the exclusivity provided by this server is unparalleled. These servers are usually hack – proof, and are not targeted by malwares, viruses and spywares due to the heightened security provided by the web hosting company. Now that you have finally decided to go for a dedicated server hosting and selected one that suits your business’ demands, you have to think about managing it. You can either manage it yourself or give this task to the firm which is providing you with the server. It is always advisable to hand this task over to the dedicated web server company, which will deal with all the nuances involved in setting up, hosting and managing the server. Even though you can always learn how to manage it, the task will be arduous and take a lot of your time, which is precious for your business’ growth. Typically, Fully Managed Dedicated Server Hosting consists of server monitoring, software updates, reboots, security patches and operating system upgrades. This provides you with ample time to concentrate on other tasks while the hosting company handles your server managing demands. Also, the firms which hire the services of the dedicated web server are provided with individual server administration add-on tools in the standard deals. Therefore, you can be at ease with even the standard deals and see your business achieve new heights due to the fully managed hosting option. Most people choose shared hosting for their website at the beginning. Shared hosting is a hosting account on which you host your website on a shared server with hundreds of other people’s websites. Shared hosting is usually very affordable due to the number of websites sharing the space and resources on each server. The downside of this is your website has to share the resources on the server such as processing power and memory. This means if particular websites are very busy and getting loads of traffic, they will obviously draw more processing power and server memory. This can lead to your website being slow to open and your potential customer won’t wait for your website to display; they’ll just go elsewhere! The other drawback with sharing a server with so many websites is a server is only as reliable as the scripts being written to it. If a particular website uses a bad script it can take the whole server down. Your website will go down as well and through no fault of your own. If your online business is mission critical and you want to avoid suffering any downtime or slowness, your best option is your own dedicated server. And if you are not at all technical then the best option of all is a fully managed dedicated server.You can visit https://www.knownhost.com/managed-wordpress-hosting.html for more information.

A fully managed dedicated server is managed for you by your hosting provider. You won’t have full root access to it but you will get a control panel which you use to set up your website space and that’s it. So in a way, similar to a shared server, except it’s yours with only your websites using it. This used to be quite an expensive option but prices have come down and there are wide ranges of hosting providers who offer fully managed dedicated servers from as low as £50 or £60 a month. The other advantage of your own dedicated server is you can install any software you want. On a shared server you are only able to use the pre-installed software and components provided and this can be limiting. If it’s fully managed your hosting provider will install the software for you and they may make a small installation charge. You also get far more web space to use – if the hard drive on the server is 80GB then you can use about 74GB of that for your websites and software. And with a dedicated server you will get far more bandwidth to use than you would on a shared server. In fact, there are a number of hosting providers who now offer 1 terabyte of monthly bandwidth use which is more than enough for most online businesses.

When I was researching the articles, I posed the following question to dotloop’s CEO, Allison Austin: “What happens if your system goes down, is hacked, or if you go out of business?” His response cited dotloop’s multiple backup systems and that it would be highly unlikely that that would happen. At RadiusBridge we help your business manage internal and external data with a focus on the best use of data to grow your business.

When the dotloop system went down, its users lost access. All digital transaction management platforms send users their documents via email, where they can be archived and accessed for future use.

But unlike DocuSign, Instanet or zipLogix’s Digital Ink products that provide the double protection of both a PDF document trail and independent tracking of changes within the document itself, dotloop users had no backup unless they did one of three things prior to the outage: (1) printed the documents to paper beforehand; (2) downloaded the documents into a separate PDF file on their computer; or (3) stored the documents in another cloud-based solution.

It’s not if they will fail, it’s when Of course, whether you are Google, Amazon, Microsoft or any other technology provider, sooner or later the system goes down. On Aug.16, Google went down for a few minutes. The blackout was “unprecedented.” The result: a 40 percent decrease of global traffic on the Web, according to a CNET article.

read more…

http://www.inman.com/2013/08/22/protect-your-data-from-cloud-based-storms/#sthash.MlrkSiPy.dpuf

Ugly Houses Boom as Foreclosures Dwindle | South Salem Real Estate

Leave a reply

While declining numbers of foreclosures are slowing down most investors, the leading homes-for-cash company is expanding into new territories.

HomeVestors, the number one buyer of houses in the U.S. opened 64 new franchises in the past three months, which is almost double the highest number of franchisees that have previously enrolled in a single quarter.  “This number is remarkable and attests to continued strong interest in real estate investment and the opportunity for investors in today’s market,” said HomeVestors Co-President David Hicks.

Hicks said a lot of their growth is coming from properties in older neighborhoods where houses are 30 years older or more, not newer homes more typical of those that have dominated distress sale inventories.

“Our franchises are buying from homeowners who are selling for a variety of reasons.  Hedge funds don’t have access to those homes and mom and pop investors want to buy in newer neighborhoods,” he said.

HomeVestors’ rapid growth comes amid the housing comeback. “The number of additional new franchisees during the second quarter of 2013 is an indication that investors increasingly believe what we know is true — that there is continued opportunity in the market,” said HomeVestors’ co-president, Ken Channell.  “We are committed to our franchisees to help encourage continued growth and success this year.”

Among the new franchises HomeVestors have added are in new territory for the company such as Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Lower Hudson Valley, New York; and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. HomeVestors of America, Inc. is also known as the “We Buy Ugly Houses” company.

 

read more…

 

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/08/ugly-houses-boom-as-foreclosures-dwindle/