Tag Archives: Waccabuc Homes

Nine Über-Grandiose Rentals and Their Mod Complements | Waccabuc Real Estate

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Say what you will about rentals—that they’re hard to decorate, expensive, orders of magnitude too small—there’s at least a smörgåsbord of options in any given locale. If variety is the spice of life, then the rental market is the most well-stocked and poorly organized spice drawer the world has ever known, wherein wasabi snuggles up next to vanilla bean. And, indeed, what field more convenient to have a jumble of balls-to-the-wall offerings than that of temporary homes? Take, as proof, these two listings in London. One (at left) asks £40,000 ($64,440) a week and comes with gold ceilings, two gazillion (an exact figure) pounds of drapery, and a ballroom with three massive crystal chandeliers and two equally monstrous flanking fireplaces. Oh, and let’s not forget the two elevators, 14 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, and 11 reception rooms. In the same city: a penthouse apartment—also on the rental market, though at 12 percent of the cost—done up in clean lines and a much more pared-down (to say the least) aesthetic. Below, eight more odd couples:

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Grandiose house: Location: Paris Price: $54,100 a month Highlights: Architecture by Charles Garnier—the mastermind behind the Opera de Paris—plus a suite of yummy salons and reception areas, winter garden, steam room, and indoor pool.

Pared-down house: Location: Paris Price: $5,990 a week Highlights: Interiors like “a rocket ship of luxury,” with lots of angular upholstery and a rooftop patio.

 

 

 

 

 

http://curbed.com/archives/2013/11/18/nine-grandiose-traditional-rentals-and-their-mod-complements.php

Fantasy and reality meet head-on in photos of costume fans in their own homes | Waccabuc Homes

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Almost everybody has worn a costume at some point in their lives. For Halloween, a school play or just make-believe around the house. But for others, it’s an every-weekend thing.
For these costume enthusiasts, there are numerous communities. Cosplay followers dress up as characters from comics, anime, video games and film; LARPers (live action role players) get together to perform fantasy scenarios dressed up as cowboys, knights or other characters; furries wear furry animal suits for fun; and so on.
But most costume fans have normal day jobs, families and homes in which they put on regular clothes to cook dinner and watch TV. Looking to capture this strange world and the people behind it, photographer Klaus Pichler took photos of costume wearers in full regalia in their most revealing of spaces: their homes.

Pichler spent three years taking photographs for the series, titled “Just the Two of Us.” He spent most of that time “researching people or communities with interesting costumes,” he says. “Quite hard work.”
This homeowner created a custom Cookie Monster costume for a private Carnival celebration.
Cosplay (“costume” plus “play”) is a Japanese-rooted practice; its followers portray characters from Japanese comics (manga), cartoons (anime) and films. This handmade cosplayer costume depicts Jaken, a character from the InuYasha manga series by Rumiko Takahashi.
Star Wars is perhaps one of the most-loved sources of muses for costume adopters. The 501st Legion is the official worldwide Star Wars fan club, founded in 1997 and based on George Lucas’ film series. Here a young Stormtrooper sits in a living room.
Meanwhile, Boba Fett spins a DJ set at home.
Pichler says he chose not to reveal any personal information about the people other than what’s shown in their homes. “I consciously decided to depict the persons in a way that the civic identities disappear behind the mask,” he says. “I tried to create a special kind of tension that’s linked to the refusal of answering the crucial question, Who is the person behind the mask?”

Fed needs to detect asset bubbles when they’re forming | Waccabuc Real Estate

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Janet Yellen, vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, appeared every bit the monetary policy dove that investors expected during her first big hearing in front of the Senate Banking Committee as Fed Chair nominee.

Yellen reiterated her approach to Fed policy, showing a commitment to using the low federal funds rate and the ongoing $85 billion in monthly asset purchases to drive an economic recovery. The fed views economic success against the backdrop of two key indicators — unemployment and price stability.

Yellen eschewed suggestions from Senators that a souped up market – driven by recent Fed asset purchases and low interest rates – has caused a new bubble to inflate in areas such as housing.

“The Fed needs to detect asset bubbles when they are forming,” Yellen said. “By and large, I would say I don’t see evidence at this point of asset price misalignments at a level that would threaten financial stability.”

Yellen went on to ensure Senators that the Fed has a variety of tools at its disposal to pull back aggressive monetary policies should price misalignments or other issues surface.

The nominee then pointed to the housing market as a primary beneficiary of Fed policies.

 

 

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/27966-yellen-fed-needs-to-detect-asset-bubbles-when-theyre-forming

Supporting a Wide-Span Floor With Structural Steel | Waccabuc Real Estate

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When my client described how he wanted to convert his home’s existing two-car garage into a spacious new living room, I knew it would be a great project for my design/build firm. Measuring 34 feet deep by 28 feet wide, the garage space was a blank slate — little more than an unheated box with a concrete slab for a floor. The garage had a full-height attic that he was planning to convert into a master suite, and the first floor had plenty of space for a nice living room and his many collectibles. The only problem was that the wide-open floor plan he wanted wouldn’t be possible until we figured out a way to support the second floor’s main girder, which was propped up by a steel I-beam running down the center of the garage (see Figure 1).

To transform this garage (top) into living space with an open floor plan, the author replaced the existing steel I-beam and supporting column with a framework of custom-fabricated decorative steel (bottom).

When we started the design process — specifically, figuring out how to create a unique space and support the second floor without posts or columns — I immediately thought of local steel fabricator and sculptor John Rubino, whose decorative steel beams are on display in various residential and commercial structures in northern Vermont. Although these structural elements function much like ordinary structural red iron, the stylized beams look anything but ordinary.

With the client’s go-ahead, John and I worked out a plan: We would support the top half of the building without intermediate posts and simultaneously create a living space using exposed steel framing that would become an integral part of the overall design. While John spent about a month fabricating the steel in his Morrisville, Vt., shop (see “Fabricating a Custom steel Beam“), my crew and I readied the building for its new structural elements.

The steel design was relatively simple — two upside-down U-shaped frames connected to another beam running perpendicular to them at the center. Designed with a graceful sweeping curve, the connecting beam would replace the garage’s existing center I- beam and eliminate the need for supporting columns; it would also add a sculptural element to the space.

Getting to Work

Before delivery of the steel, we built a pair of 2×4 walls that would temporarily support the second floor while we removed the existing steel I-beam and posts. Even though we had to frame new openings for a 6-foot patio door and several windows, we purposely left the existing garage-door openings in place to make it easier to bring the steel inside.

About a month after finalizing the plan, John backed his delivery truck into the garage and we lifted the beams off with a chain hoist (Figure 2). John had welded on lifting points near the center span of each beam, to help keep the components nice and level as they went up. This was good thinking, because this steel was meant to be exposed and had been spray-painted and finished with a water-based clear finish called Safecoat Acrylacq (AFM, 619/239-0321, www.afmsafecoat.com). This coating is pretty tough, but we still had to handle the steel with care so as not to scratch it. The lifting points made the process a lot easier and safer.

 

 

http://www.jlconline.com/framing/supporting-a-wide-span-floor-with-structural-steel.aspx

The 1916 Proposal To Expand Manhattan By 50 Square Miles | Waccabuc NY Real Estate

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In the early 20th century, land reclamation was such a popular idea that at least once a decade, some engineer proposed filling in a New York waterway to make the city bigger and better. There was the 1934 plan to turn the Hudson River into land, which came 10 years after a plan to drain the East River. But both of those bonkers plans were preceded by an even more ambitious scheme, put forth by a Dr. T. Kennard Thomson in a 1916 issue of Popular Science. Not only did he want to fill in the East River, but the plan also called for creating a “New Manhattan” to the south that would subsume Governors and Liberty Islands. He also wanted to build new islands and tack new land onto Staten Island and New Jersey for a total of 50 square miles with 100 miles of new waterfront property.

Thompson was no crackpot engineer with fanciful ideas. He designed and built pneumatic caissons (water-tight supports) for dozens of bridges across the country, consulted on more than 20 New York skyscrapers by 1916, and helped create the New York barge canal system. Even still, he admits in the first paragraph of the Popular Science article that his new landmass idea “seems somewhat stupendous,” but he was convinced that creating new land and more shipping areas would ease congestion both on land and in the harbor.

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Through his proposal, City Hall would become the literal center of the city, with a radius of surrounding land stretching for 25 miles. “…Within that circle, there would be ample room for a population of twenty-five millions,” wrote Thompson. The whole thing would take “a few years,” and supposedly hundreds of engineers supported his proposal.

The cost would be “a great deal more than the sum involved in the construction of the Panama Canal,” but Thompson believe that “the great returns would quickly pay off the debt incurred, and then would commence to swell the city’s money bags until New York would be the richest city in the world.” The Panama Canal cost the U.S. about $375 million, and Thompson’s endeavor would require “an annual expenditure” of $50 to $100 million. By today’s numbers, that’s a hefty amount more than $1 billion every year.

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The plan would be carried out in phases, the first of which would be to extend Manhattan from the Battery to within one mile of Staten Island. Then the boroughs would be connected with new subway tunnels, which Thompson said would increase the value of Staten Island from $50 million to $500 million. Next, a large island would be built off the shore of Sandy Hook, which would protect a “new harbor” created by the addition of two new pieces of land jutting off Staten Island. The point? To create 40 miles of new docks, shipyards, dry docks, and coaling stations that could accommodate the biggest ships in the world.

After that, the East River would be wiped out. “Naval authorities agree that the East River is no place for the Brooklyn Navy Yard,” wrote Thompson. The Navy Yard would move to new land in Newark Bay, and a new East River would be cut through Brooklyn and Queens, connecting the Flushing and Jamaica Bays. A new Harlem River would be created as well, slicing through upper Manhattan from Hell Gate to the Hudson River.  The old East River would be filled in, upon which new highways and “business blocks” like Grand Central’s Terminal City would be built. And of course, more subways would run beneath the new acreage.

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Obviously, his plan never came to be. By 1930, Thompson must have realized his ambitious ideas would never become a reality, and he drastically scaled back the plan to include only the “New Manhattan.” Instead of filling in the East River, he proposed fusing the new island to New Jersey and creating a Four Mile Boulevard with three tiers, one each for car, trains, and planes. But given that New York’s harbor looks much the same as it did when Thompson dreamt up his scheme, we all know how this story ends. · A Really Greater New York [Popular Science via Google Books] · 1916 Plan for NYC Proposed Fusing Brooklyn and Manhattan, Building New Islands [io9] · 486 – “A Really Greater New York” [Strange Maps on Big Think] · Curbed’s Could Have Been archives [Curbed]

Mortgage rates drop for second straight week | Waccabuc Real Estate

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Amid data that has lowered expectations for the performance of the housing market in the fourth quarter of this year, mortgage rates dropped for the second straight week.

Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 4.1 percent with an average point of 0.7 percent for the week ending Oct. 31, down from 4.13 percent last week but up from 3.39 percent a year ago, according to Freddie Mac’s latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey.

Rates on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages and five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) loans also decreased, while rates on one-year Treasury-indexed ARMs increased.

“Fixed mortgage rates eased further leading up to the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) Oct. 30th monetary policy announcement,” said Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist at Freddie Mac. “The Fed saw improvement in economic activity and labor market conditions since it began its asset purchase program, but noted the recovery in the housing market slowed somewhat in recent months and unemployment remains elevated.”

“As a result, there was no policy change which should help sustain low mortgage rates in the near future.”

Source: Freddie Mac

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/wire/mortgage-rates-drop-for-2nd-straight-week/#sthash.Yi9iOhYW.dpuf

Dreaming in Color: 8 Eye-Opening Yellow Bedrooms | Waccabuc Real Estate

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I tend to associate the color yellow with the sweet corn my hometown, just outside the reach of suburban Chicago, is famous for. It’s also the color of one of the first flowers of spring in that part of the country, daffodils, which my mother planted in beds around the house to herald the end of our long, cold winters. To me yellow represents the color of sunshine, sustenance and rejuvenation. It reminds me of happy, idyllic days and makes me feel optimistic for the future. If you have similar positive associations with yellow, try using it in your bedroom to help you get revved up each morning for the day ahead.
Below you’ll find several sunny yellow bedrooms as well as tips for working the happy hue into your sleeping space.

If you have tall ceilings in your bedroom and lots of natural light, you can go super bold and intense with yellow. This particular shade of yellow packs a wallop, so I’d recommend limiting it to an accent wall. A room that gets this much natural light can handle a bold yellow on an entire wall, but be aware that if your bedroom has low ceilings and little natural light streaming in, then a yellow as bright and bold as this one could leave you feeling anxious.
Get a similar look with Babouche from Farrow & Ball.
Those seeking a mellower yellow should look at softer sandy and golden hues, such as this green-tinged gold. There’s quite a bit of brown and white in it, so it reads as a neutral hue — a pumped-up beige, if you will. This is a good color choice if you plan to paint all or most of your walls yellow, as it offers a nice wash of color without going overboard.
Add oodles of warmth to your bedroom with a generous dose of wood tones and a yellow hue such as this one that veers more toward warmer orange than cooler green. This is an ideal palette for getting a cozy bedroom vibe in even the coldest of climates.
If you’re a fan of wall coverings, choose one that really makes a statement. An interesting print on a bold yellow background is a great choice for an accent wall. Wall coverings can also provide protection from dents and dings, and many are scrubbable and therefore easy to clean, making them a smart choice in a kids’ room.

Mortgage originations expected to fall 32% in 2014 | Waccabuc Real Estate

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Mortgage originations are estimated to reach a total value of $1.2 trillion in 2014, a 32% drop from 2013 levels, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Tuesday.

The trade group elaborated on some of the trends expected next year:

“We expect mortgage rates will increase above 5 percent in 2014 and then increase further to 5.3% by the end of 2015. As a result, mortgage refinancing will continue to drop, and borrowers seeking to tap the equity in their homes will be more likely to rely on home equity seconds rather than cash-out refinances.”

“We will potentially see a small increase in refinances toward the end of 2015 as the Home Affordable Refinance Program 2.0 (HARP) expires but HARP activity during 2014 will still be low.”

 

 

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/27690-mba-mortgage-originations-to-drop-32-in-2014