Tag Archives: waccabuc luxury homes

Kelly Ripa Lists Crosby Street Penthouse | Waccabuc Realtor

Leave a reply

Source: IMDb

After quietly shopping their SoHo apartment around this summer, Kelly Ripa and husband Mark Consuelos have officially listed the penthouse for sale at a pricey $24.5 million.

Described as an “unparalleled penthouse,” the Manhattan property at 76 Crosby St. (also listed as 81 Spring St.) is enormous, measuring 6,792 square feet with 5 bedrooms and 4.5 baths.

The TV host and her actor husband bought the home in 2005 for $9.5 million and completed a two-year renovation to bring it to the luxury residence it is today.

The home has high ceilings, stained white oak floors with radiant heating and a custom kitchen stocked with high-end appliances. The master suite is described as the “ultimate retreat,” with two walk-in closets, soaking tub and steam shower.

French doors lead to a 2,500-square-foot rooftop terrace with an outdoor fireplace and plenty of seating. Another terrace spot, which includes an outdoor shower, is connected to a private home gym.

Ripa and Consuelos also own a home in Southampton, NY. Ripa signed a five-year contract for “Live! With Kelly and Michael” in 2011.

Listing photos courtesy of The Modlin Group. The property is co-listed with Adam Modlin and Raphael De Niro of Prudential Douglas Elliman.

via zillow.com

Landlord having trouble evicting marijuana dispensary | Waccabuc NY Real Estate

Leave a reply

Q: I read recently about a California court that refused to evict a commercial tenant (a medical marijuana dispensary). California has legalized medical marijuana. Does this mean that California landlords cannot evict for medical marijuana use on their properties? –Stephen S.

A: You’re referring to a November 2012 decision by the Alameda County Superior Court, in a case known by the name of the marijuana collective, Harborside Health Center. The dispute between Harborside and its landlord is currently being litigated in federal court.

Briefly, possession, use and sale of marijuana is a federal offense; but in California, the Compassionate Use Act gives patients and their suppliers immunity from state prosecution if they adhere to the provisions of the act.

In the Harborside case, the landlord signed a lease with the cooperative many years before, allowing it to operate the cooperative. But the U.S. Department of Justice has been targeting cooperatives in California, accusing them of breaking federal law. Many think the DoJ is motivated by a belief that dispensaries are selling marijuana to just about anyone (no one can seriously dispute the ease of obtaining a medical marijuana card).

Federal prosecutors cleverly used the cooperatives’ landlords as their hammer: The feds sent letters to the property owners, threatening civil forfeiture of their property if they continued to allow it to be used to further a federal crime. Many landlords sent eviction notices to their tenants, as did the Harborside landlord.

But Harborside refused to move and the landlord was forced to file an eviction lawsuit. The eviction was based on a section of California law that provides for terminating a lease when the tenant has used the property for an “unlawful purpose.” (California Code of Civil Procedure §1161(4).)

The state court concluded that “unlawful purpose” must be understood solely with respect to California law, not federal law. Because the collective had complied with the provisions of the Compassionate Use Act, its activity was not “unlawful” under state law, and the eviction could not be upheld under that section of the law.

The state court’s decision emphasized that the landlord had not based its eviction on a breach of a private right of the landlord under the lease — namely, a clause prohibiting the tenant from disobeying all applicable laws. Of course, the landlord could hardly advance such a claim, because its own lease detailed the tenant’s anticipated use of the premises (as a dispensary).

The Department of Justice continues to pursue a forfeiture action against Harborside’s landlord. After the state court refused to evict Harborside, the dispensary’s landlord took its case to federal court. The judge overseeing the case recently denied the landlord’s requests for preliminary injunctions that would have shut the dispensary down.

Well now, back to your question. Good residential leases specify grounds for termination, and explain that they must obey all applicable laws. Failure to obey all applicable laws is a ground for termination that is separate than using the property “for an illegal purpose.”

The state court in the Harborside case wisely didn’t venture an opinion as to whether the case would have turned out differently had the basis for the suit been “failure to obey all applicable laws,” beyond pointing out the possibly fatal hurdle for the landlord of trying to argue this theory when the landlord knew full well at the outset what the tenant was about to do.

I’m sure you’re wondering even if the landlord had no advance knowledge of his tenant’s use of the property, is there really any difference between “using the property for an illegal purpose” and “failing to obey all applicable laws”? Maybe not, but we won’t know until someone litigates the question.

Q: I purchased a new carpet, some appliances and a hot tub for the condo I bought to use as income property. Can I deduct these costs from my taxes? –Rex F.

A: The cost of getting your rental business up and running is called a startup expense. You can deduct up to $5,000 worth of startup expenses in the first year you are in business, and the remainder in equal amounts over the next 15 years. Put another way, if your business were up and running, and you incurred these costs and could deduct them as regular operating expenses, then you can deduct them when the business begins as startup expenses.

The tricky thing about startup expenses is making sure you’ve categorized an expense correctly. These expenses include minor repairs needed to get a business or property up and running, but they do not include an improvement to the property, which is a capital expense.

So, for example, if you spend money repairing the furnace, that’s a startup expense; but if you buy a new furnace, that’s a capital expense, which is treated differently. It’s depreciated over the item’s useful life, which is five or seven years for most personal property. The carpet, appliances and hot tub are probably personal property. (IRC Section 195.)

via inman.com

Luxury Prices Fall Despite Tight Inventories | Waccabuc Real Estate

Leave a reply

Though inventory shortages began at the lower price tiers, tight inventories have worked their way up to the luxury levels in the past two quarters. Expensive homes are selling faster than they were a year ago but third quarter prices are down in many markets compared to a year ago.

The median luxury property is taking nearly 200 days to sell this week, far above the 5.4-month supply for all price ranges. However, this is the time of year when inventories traditionally increase, especially in the upper price tiers. Last year in December, the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing reported that homes in its market profile were spending an average of 231 days on market and luxury properties in all markets it tracks were averaging 215 days on market at the end of the year, a year-long high.

During the spring buying season, luxury homes were selling much faster. Days on market for luxury homes fell to 120 days, down from 155 days at the outset of the buying season in February.

Luxury agents and brokers around the country report brisk activity up to the onset of the holiday season, an indication that demand is strong. Tighter inventories are not translating into higher prices at the million dollar plus end of the spectrum, however.

In the Hamptons, Town and Country Realty reports the greatest gain in third quarter activity was in the $3.5 million to $4.99 million price range and the only price range to see a statistical decline was the $5 million to $9.9 million range. Total number of sales in the Hamptons was up 17 percent.

Luxury home sales in the Denver metro area almost doubled in October compared to October 2011, according to John Rebchook of Inside Real Estate News, citing a report by Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage. However, the median sale price $1.31 million of a luxury home closed last month in the Denver market was off 4.8 percent from October 2011 and 3.9 percent from September. Homes also sold at a much faster pace year over year and sellers on average received a higher percentage of their asking price.

In Lake Tahoe, homes under and over the million-dollar mark both experienced significant increases in sales (37 and 33 percent, respectively) while overall prices fell around the lake. The median price of a home in Lake Tahoe is $330,000 (down 11 percent) and the average price is $538,289 (down 15 percent), according to Chase international.

Overall there was a 49 percent quarter-over-quarter and 39 percent year-over-year improvement in Lake Tahoe-area home sales, according to Better Homes and Gardens Mason-McDuffie Real Estate. In the third quarter, 122 homes changed hands, up from 82 homes sold in the second quarter and 88 homes sold in last year’s third quarter. In another sign the market is recovering, the average number of days a home was on the market before attracting a contract to purchase declined from 162 days a year ago to 101 days in this year’s third quarter.

In the greater Truckee area, the median price of a single-family detached home declined slightly from $451,129 in the second quarter to $450,083 in the third quarter, although it was up 3 percent from $437,261 in the third quarter of last year as the local real estate market continued to show signs of a recovery. Locally, a change in the mix of homes sold boosted the median sales price in Donner Lake by 50 percent year over year while low inventory pushed sales prices slightly higher in the Town of Truckee (+12% for the quarter and +7% for the year) and the Glenshire Area (+4 percent for the quarter and +3% compared with a year ago).

In Atlanta, while most of the real estate market is enjoying a nice rebound this year, luxury real estate is going backward. Sales of $2 million-plus single family detached resale homes are down 33 percent from 2011 (33 sales in 2012 vs. 49 during first 10 months of 2011) while sales of $3 million plus homes are down 67 percent (5 sales in 2012 vs. 15 in 2011). The average sales price for $2 million-plus homes is down 11 percent from 2011, while the average for $3 million-plus is up 1 percent. There are 112 single family detached new and resale homes in Buckhead currently on the market that are priced more than $2 million, which translates at the current rate of sale to a nearly four-year supply, according to Beacham and Company Realtors.

New York City is suffering from an acute lack of inventory throughout the sales marketplace, according to Warburg Realty. Foreign money is snapping up the high and mid-priced condominiums all over Manhattan. But the profound shortage of inventory which has developed in the co-op market defies expectations. Throughout the city, resident New Yorkers are hamstrung month after month in their new home searches. At $20 million, at $10 million, at $5 million, at $1 million – few new listings appear. The customers, hoping that there is still seasonality in the market ask, “Won’t there be a lot more inventory hitting the market in September?” Sadly, the answer was no. Many of these customers asked the same questions in April. There was no major spike in inventory in the spring and not much more in the fall. And we don’t anticipate one any time soon, at least not on the resale side, not even with the almost certain increase in the capital gains tax burden for sellers looming on the 2013 horizon.

via realestateeconomywatch.com

4 Ways a Real Estate CRM Will Help You Get More Organized | Waccabuc Real Estate

Leave a reply

Thinking about investing in a customer relationship management (CRM) software? If you are, now is the time to get on board. Here’s why: the U.S. real estate market is finally making a comeback after years in decline. In fact, there are reports that U.S. housing rebounded to a four year high last month. There are less vacant homes on the market and applications for building permits are increasing

If you’re still a REALTOR®, you’ve lived through some tough times. Now is the time to prepare yourself for more business and make sure that you’re able to take it on while staying 100% organized and in-control.

In addition to helping you remain in touch with clients, nurture your leads, and build relationships with your sphere, a real estate CRM is absolutely instrumental to getting more organized. Below are four ways you can use your CRM to stay both proactive, organized, and in-control:

1.     Listing and Closing Activity Plans

A good real estate CRM will come with pre-designed listing and closing Activity Plans. These plans will help you manage every step in the process of listing and closing a home so nothing ever falls through the cracks.

2.     Transaction Management

Part of running a completely organized business is having the ability to manage all of your transactions, transaction documents, showings, and third parties in one place. And this is exactly what a top-notch CRM will let you do. Use your CRM to generate service reports, schedule appointment and task reminders, list property details, record closing and other dates, manage offers, and track commissions.

3.     Drip Email Marketing

Staying in touch with clients and prospects and building long-term relationships with them is the impetus that’ll spark referrals and repeat business. Your CRM should have a number of pre-designed marketing campaigns created you. Simply select the campaign that works best for a particular contact or group and your CRM will send emails out automatically at various time intervals. Drip email marketing campaigns will help you automate some of your marketing, which means that while you’re busy with a client on the road, you’re also marketing to hot leads and staying in touch with past clients at the same time.

4.     Integrated Calendar and Task List

Never underestimate the power of a calendar and task list in helping with personal organization. One of the benefits of a good CRM is that you don’t have to rely on your memory. Use the system for any reminders or notifications that you want to receive (for example, you may want the system to remind you to call your clients on their birthday or home purchase anniversary date). As soon as you log into your CRM, take a look at your calendar and tasks for the day so you’re aware of your appointments and what needs to be done.

Choose a system that automatically and wirelessly syncs with the built-in calendar in your smartphone. That’s an important plus because it gives you the opportunity to add and view appointments on the road and keep your CRM constantly up-to-date.

A good, easy to use CRM will play a big role in helping you run a more organized and productive business. As the real estate market is coming back to life, adopting a CRM into your business is more important now than ever.

via next.inman.com

Choosing the right light bulb | Waccabuc NY Realtor

Leave a reply

In the world of home improvement products, it used to be that one of the things you could count on for consistency year after year was the light bulb. Little changed since its invention, so it was a product that you didn’t really have to give much thought to.

No longer. Today, there’s a lot of confusion surrounding this simple staple of the American household. Are 100-watt bulbs banned? Are those twisty bulbs dangerous? Can you use these new bulbs with a dimmer? Aren’t the new bulbs really expensive? There are lots of questions and lots of confusing answers, so let’s try to clear up what we can.

Incandescent bulbs

Incandescent bulbs are the traditional household light bulb. They consume electricity, which is measured in watts, and give off light, which is measured in lumens. However, most of the electricity they consume is actually given off as heat, so these bulbs have never been particularly energy efficient.

Incandescent bulbs haven’t technically been “banned.” What’s happened is that new energy efficiency standards have been put into place, which simply means that the bulbs now need to consume less electricity for same amount of lumens produced.

So the traditional 100-watt light bulb is, in essence, a thing of the past. It’s being replaced by a bulb that produces the same amount of light, but uses about 72 watts. Since that translates to money in your pocket in the form of energy savings, it’s not a bad thing. Similar wattage-to-lumen reductions are set to phase in for other bulbs over time, but given the ongoing mess in Washington, those dates are a congressional moving target.

Halogen bulbs

Halogen bulbs, also called energy-saving bulbs, are incandescent light bulbs that have a capsule inside that holds halogen gas around the filament, which increases the efficiency of the bulb. Halogen bulbs are a little more expensive to buy initially, but their energy efficiency increases by about 25 percent over a standard incandescent bulb, and they can last up to three times as long.

Another advantage to halogen bulbs is their color rendition, which is the ability of a light source to render the colors of an object similar to the way sunlight does. This makes them a great choice for many desk and task light applications. Halogen bulbs can also be used with dimmers.

Compact fluorescent bulbs

Compact fluorescent bulbs, or CFLs, are the increasingly familiar “curly tube” light bulb. Once again, they’re more expensive to purchase initially than a standard incandescent bulb, but their increasing popularity and availability is bringing prices down.

CFL bulbs uses about a quarter of the energy that a standard bulb uses to produce the same number of lumens, so that’s a pretty good savings. They’re estimated to last about 10 times as long, so that offsets the somewhat higher initial cost; in fact, the Department of Energy estimates that a typical CFL will pay for itself in less than nine months.

As CFLs have become more popular, they’ve become available in a range of colors that weren’t available when they were first introduced. You can now get CFLs with warm, yellow tones, as well as bulbs that are encased in an outer cover that help diffuse the light better — and which, coincidentally, also makes them look much more like a traditional light bulb. Some CFLs can also be used with a dimmer switch, but be sure that you verify that on the package when you buy it.

CFLs do contain a small amount of mercury, as do all fluorescent bulbs. When they burn out, they shouldn’t be disposed of with the regular trash. Instead, they need to be properly recycled, which is something that a growing number of retailers are doing at no charge.

LED bulbs

The final type of bulb you want to be aware of is the light-emitting diode, or LED. These bulbs are semiconductors that convert electricity into light. They’re actually in the early stages of development at this point, so they’re still pretty expensive. However, many people think that these bulbs have a tremendous amount of potential, and represent the wave of the future in residential and commercial lighting. As such, their prices should begin coming down.

LED bulbs use only about 25 percent of the energy that a conventional bulb does, but their real advantage is in their life span. An LED bulb is estimated to last about 25 times longer than a conventional bulb, so even with the high initial cost, their use may still make good economic sense for applications where bulbs are difficult to access for replacement.

via inman.com