Tag Archives: Waccabuc NY

Incredible treehouse hotels | Waccabuc Real Estate

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Hainan Island, China

SANYA NANSHAN TREEHOUSE RESORT AND BEACH CLUB The operators of this four-unit treehouse resort, which has a sister site in Maui, are quick to warn potential guests that their accommodations are “not for the fussy.” Maybe so, but they’re perfect for environmentalists who want a fresh-air experience that doesn’t involve tented shelter. Located in the South China Sea, the property sits adjacent to a 5,000-acre Buddhist park rife with pagodas, temples, and manicured gardens. The Big Beach in the Sky treehouse sleeps six and is accessible only via suspension bridge; the Hawaiian Hale Hotel Treehouse, meanwhile, is ideal for larger parties: It sleeps up to 20 and is just two minutes from the beach.

 

 

http://living.msn.com/life-inspired/life-unleashed/incredible-treehouse-hotels#4

Nation’s home recovery may be on shaky ground | Waccabuc Real Estate

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Concerns are rising that the nation’s year-long revival in residential housing might be facing an uncertain future. The latest publication to tackle the issue was none other than the venerable Economist, which had this to say:

What effect will this slowdown will have on builders? Previous busts have taught them to control the inventory of new properties coming to the market. If they react abruptly to falling sales by building less, the housing market may be “on the verge of a significant correction”, argues Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics. Although residential construction is only 3% of GDP, in each of the past five quarters it has contributed around a quarter of America’s economic growth.

                    Source: The Economist

Facebook is for grandparents | Waccabuc NY Realtor

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It’s time to move on. The feeling is becoming more and more significant with each passing day and it just keeps spreading.

It’s just not it any more… we want something new, exciting, which can take us places we’ve never been. We want to be surprised again. We want a new, better social network.

Facebook may say its user base is growing, but original members from the last decade appear to be leaving in droves. As more niche networking services and platforms enter the space, people are finding that not any one company is serving all of their networking needs. Our tastes and channels are becoming fragmented, and users are pushing back on accepted norms in the social media space.

This is inevitable. It’s a natural life cycle for any product; unless it somehow becomes a living organism with its own reproductive system and evolution, one will eventually wither and die. Facebook cannot evade this process – it regenerates with nuances, but is not reinventing itself.

For inventions, it usually looks like this:

bellcurve 520x321 Facebook is for grandparents: What we need in a next gen social network

Early adopters as shown in the Rogers’ bell curve

This curve is missing something important – the two-way migration that happens over time. When the late majority joins in, the innovators and early adopters are already feeling uncomfortable.

Facebook today doesn’t resemble a thriving, living metropolis – it’s more of a friendly neighborhood bar. For that reason, FB will face its cruel destiny of simply fading away. Living in the same city as your parents is forgiven and acceptable; there is enough diversity and distance between everyone. But finding yourself sitting in the same bar as your mom and dad – that’s horrifying. When your father posts pictures of sunsets and breakfast on his wall you know it’s over.

The conclusion is undeniable; a new social network is needed. These are the things that will make it awesome and sustainable…

 

 

 

http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2013/11/24/

If prospective buyers can’t picture living in a particular home, they’ll walk away | Waccabuc Real Estate

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While showing homes to a young couple with two small children I discovered a house can look too perfect. Since I just met the buyers as they had arrived in town, I didn’t have much time to schedule appointments and make my showing schedule. Some of the sellers had only a couple hours’ notice to prepare for the showings. Even with the short notice, these sellers have extremely neat homes. There was not one child’s toy left out, or book, dish, wrinkled pillow or toothbrush out of place.

The buyers kept commenting about how neat these homes were and even questioned if these occupied homes had real people living there. The houses looked too perfect. I know for a fact that one of the homes was professionally staged because the listing agent always requires her sellers to stage their homes. Some of the other houses may or may not have been professionally staged.

Staging — when done right — can help a home sell. I have seen some wonderful staging jobs. But a couple of these homes lacked that warm, lived-in feeling. This turned off the young couple with the two small children. I saw them squirm and cross their arms. They made generic statements about how this is nice and that looks pretty, but not buying-sign comments.

We saw some vacant homes and some new construction, too. Seeing these homes empty did not seem to bother the buyers, as they could see the real potential the homes offered — a clean palette, so to speak.

I showed another home that was occupied where the sellers left it neat but with a lived-in feeling. You could feel it the moment you stepped in the door. The buyers responded very favorably and started seeing themselves living there. They wanted to linger and ask questions. Yes, there were some personal family photos around, toys in the corner, things on the kitchen counter. The beds were made and the house was clean, but it felt lived in by a happy family.

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/next/when-marketing-to-families-a-staged-listing-should-evoke-lived-in-feeling/#sthash.IdbSlOrt.dpuf

Most Popular Manhattan Rental Listings Of The Last Week | Waccabuc Real Estate

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Yesterday we rounded up the top 10 most expensive rental listings in the city, but those places aren’t exactly where most of the city’s renters are looking. So today, we are looking at the top 10 most popular Manhattan rental listings of the past week, according to data from StreetEasy. The listings, which were sorted by the number of pageviews, highlight that everyone is always searching for the best deal—the most expensive unit on this list is a $3,000/month two-bedroom.

↑10) 32 East 7th Street, East Village The listing for this two-bedroom makes no mention of a living room, and judging by the photos, there may not be one. The kitchen is small, and one of the bedrooms is a super weird shape, but it’s just $2,350.

↑ 9) 402 East 78th Street, Upper East Side A no-fee 1BR/1BA near First Avenue is listed for $1,895, and the photos looks pretty great, but the place has been sitting on the market for more than two months. The price was also recently reduced by $155, and there’s a free month of rent, so it seems like there’s something wrong with the place that’s not evident in the listing.

Screen-Shot-2013-11-20-at-10.08.03-AM.jpg

↑ 8) 226 West 16th Street, Chelsea There are no photos of this 600-square-foot 1BR apartment, which is never a good sign, but the price, $1,995, has obviously attracted attention. The listing says the unit is rent-stabilized and has a full kitchen, but it also says the rent is $2266.52.

↑ 7) 322 West 11th Street, West Village Possibly the nicest unit on this list is this 2BR/1BA asking $3,000 per month. The kitchen is small, but there are high ceilings and both bedrooms can fit a queen-sized bed.

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↑ 6) 551 West 165th Street, Washington Heights For just $925/month, there’s a furnished studio next to the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. The brokerbabble describes the building as “immaculate, secure and very safe,” but the place looks like a hotel room in the photos.

↑ 5) 10 Jones Street, West Village If this listing for a $2,200/month one-bedroom in the West Village seems too good to be true, that’s because it is. It’s actually just for a bedroom in a 2BR/1BA duplex apartment that has 16′ ceilings and exposed brick walls. The photos were taken at nighttime, which always makes apartments, no matter how nice they are, look like a scene from a horror movie.

↑ 4) 251 West 15th Street, Chelsea Between 7th and 8th Avenues, there’s a small duplex asking $1,680/month. The kitchen is teeny, with a half-sized refrigerator, and the sleeping loft looks like it’s only about 4-feet high.

 

 

 

 

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2013/11/20/the_most_popular_manhattan_rental_listings_of_the_last_week.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

Metro Detroit Real Estate Market Stays Red Hot | Waccabuc Real Estate

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When it comes to housing in metro Detroit, it’s once again a seller’s market.

New figures from the Farmington Hills real estate data firm Realcomp II Ltd. show home prices skyrocketed 40 percent in October from a year earlier. Sales were up only slightly, though, at an 0.7 percent increase.

The median sale price in the 10-county area surveyed by Realcomp was $124,800, up from $89,000 a year earlier. A total of 6,345 homes changed hands in the month, up from 6,298 in October 2012.

Big price increases were reported in Macomb County (up 46 percent) and Wayne County (up 44 percent). Prices in Dearborn and Dearborn Heights were up 41 percent. Areas reporting relatively modest price increases were Livingston County (up 14.5 percent) and Lapeer County (up 6.1 percent). Average prices actually fell in only one county, 2.2 percent in St. Clair.

The number of homes sold actually fell in some parts of the region — down 20.1 percent in St. Clair County, down 10.2 percent in Lapeer County, down 9.6 percent in Detroit and the cities of Hamtramck, Highland Park and Harper Woods.

That could actually be because of a lack of inventory — the number of homes on the market fell almost 11 percent from a year ago, to 22,309 homes listed for sale in the region, down from 25,035 a year earlier. Another sign of a hot market: The number of days a home stayed on the market before selling plunged 22 days from a eyar earlier, to 56 days, from 78. (During the depths of the recession it took over 100 days to sell a home.)

 

 

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2013/11/12/metro-detroit-real-estate-market-stays-red-hot/

8 Facebook Apps to Enhance Your Facebook Page | Waccabuc Realtor

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Do you want to add more function and flair to your Facebook page?

Would you like to add storefront, generate leads or promote something special on a Facebook tab within your page?

In this article I’ll reveal Facebook applications that can help you easily add functionality to your Facebook page.

How Do Facebook Apps Work?

Before we get started, let’s review how Facebook apps (also known as custom tabs on Facebook) pages work.

Custom tabs are installed manually on your Facebook page and show up underneath the cover photo. If you’re visiting a page that has more than four tabs, you can click the down arrow on the right side of the tab cover photos to reveal them all.

Custom tabs appear under your cover photo.

 

There are four standard Facebook apps that come with every page—Photos, Events, Videos and Likes—and any other apps you add are created by a third-party developer (not Facebook).

Many of the apps are designed on the app website after you sign up, and then installed later onto your Facebook page when you’re ready.

Things You Should Know

There are a few important details about Facebook apps that will help with your design. The app width is 810 pixels. If you’re going to create graphics that go all the way across the tab, you’ll need to keep the graphic to that width to prevent scroll bars on your tab.

The graphic can be as long as you want it to be, but keep in mind that it should be shorter than around 500 pixels to appear “above the fold” on most computer screens.

You’ll probably also want to design a custom tab cover photo to draw attention to the tab. The dimensions of the tab cover photo are 111 pixels wide by 74 pixels tall.

Also note that some tabs will not appear on mobile devices. Some are “mobile-ready”; meaning they have a separate URL that they direct people on mobile devices to so they can see the content on that custom tab.

If you’ve been out there searching in the blogosphere, you may have come across Welcome Pages, where the content of your Facebook page could be “hidden” until the user clicks the Like button. That function no longer exists, but you can still hide the content of a Tab until someone clicks the Like button.

Hiding part of the content of your custom Tab is called “like-gating” or “fan-gating“, meaning that someone has to like your page (be your fan) before they can see the good content. This can work especially well for contests or sweepstakes on Facebook. By doing this, you can ensure that the person is a Fan before getting access to the contest entry form.

There are a lot of other apps available that provide a variety of features, like easily bringing in your Pinterest boards, running a contest or adding your blog posts.

These apps are more like a blank canvas, where you can do anything you can do on a website by either using custom templates to get you started or custom-designing something from scratch.

Without further ado, let’s dive into the top 8 apps (in alphabetical order) with some notes about each one.

 

 

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/facebook-apps-for-custom-tabs/