Tag Archives: #waccabucrealestate

Building Labor Shortage Intensifies | Waccabuc Real Estate

A survey of single-family builders conducted by NAHB in June 2015 shows that shortages of labor and subcontractors—already quite widespread in mid-2014—have become even more widespread during the past year.

The shortages are most acute for basic skills like carpentry, which are needed during the construction of any home.  For example, in the 2015 survey 69 percent of builders reported a shortage (either serious or some) of construction workers willing and able to do rough carpentry.

2015 labor shortages

Builders, however, may be even more concerned about the availability of subcontractors than of workers to employ directly.  In building a single-family home, three-quarters of the construction work is typically done by subcontractors (documented in a 2012 NAHB survey available here).  The rankings of labor and subcontractor shortages in the 2015 survey were similar, but—with the exception of building maintenance managers—the shortages of subcontractors were more widespread.  In the rough carpentry category at the top of  both charts, 74 percent of builders reported a shortage of subcontractors, compared to 69 percent for labor directly employed.

2015 sub shortages

Historically, for every trade covered in the survey, shortages were more widespread in 2015 than in 2014.  One way to see this is to look at the labor shortage percentage averaged across all 9 trades that NAHB surveys have covered in a consistent way since 1996.  This average skyrocketed from a low of 21 percent in 2012 to 46 percent in 2014, before increasing even further to 52 percent in 2015.

Nine trade history

The 9 consistently covered trades are carpenters-rough, carpenters-finished, home electrician services, excavators, framing crews, roofers, plumbers, bricklayers/masons and painters.  The history for each is available in the full report.  The survey’s current list of 12 trades was recommended by Home Builders Institute, NAHB’s workforce development arm.

The incidence of shortages is surprisingly high given the rate of new home construction, which has only partially recovered from its 2008 downturn.  In fact, the 9-trade shortage is now substantially higher than it was at the peak of the 2004-2005 boom, when annual starts were averaging around 2 million, compared to current rates of about 1 million.  The last time builder-reported labor shortages were as widespread as now was just before 2001—during a prolonged period of strong GDP growth with overall unemployment as low as 4.0 percent.

read more….

http://eyeonhousing.org/2015/07/

Farmers Market in the Area | Waccabuc Real Estate

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Mamaroneck:
Aroma Coffee Roast, Calcutta Kitchens, OM Champagne Tea,
and Robinson & Co. Catering Join Weekly Roster;

Ossining:
Bombay Emerald Chutney Company, Hudson River Apiaries, Nana’s Home Kitchen, and Taiim Falafel Shack Add to Saturday Bounty!


April 9th-15th, 2015

DowntoEarthMarkets.com
BrooklynWinterOffer
 What’s New, In Season, and On Sale This Week
$2 OFF when you buy 2 items: Frozen samosa, kofta, saag, rajma, and/or chutneys
Bombay Emerald Chutney Co.
Chicken Bone Broth
$10 for one 24 oz bag or $18 for two.Great for the “Bone Broth Challenge”
(a cup a day) or in wide variety of cooking!
Yellow Bell Farm
Gluten Free Peasant Bread
Meredith’s Bread

Gluten Free
Rosemary Olive Bread

Meredith’s Bread

Click on a market to see all vendor and event details…

Ossining Winter

Saturdays
9:00 am-1:00 pm
In Market Square: The corner of Spring & Main Streets in downtown Ossining

Mamaroneck Winter

Saturdays
9:00 am-1:00 pm
St. Thomas Episcopal Church
168 W. Boston Post Road

Headed to the city? We’ve got markets there, too. CLICK HERE for details.

Announcements
PieLadyandSon_Mom&Wil_2014

The Fearless Pie Crust with Pie Lady & Son
Wednesday, May 6th, from 7-9 pm
Down to Earth Markets Office, 173 Main Street, 3rd Floor, Ossining, NY

Next up in our Learning Center — and just in time for Mother’s Day — the mother and son team of Deborah and Wil Tyler invite you to learn how to make the perfect pie crust.

Deborah learned to bake during her college studies in England when she worked in the campus kitchen. She was inspired by the lead baker, a woman who made huge batches of all-butter pie crust and who “didn’t even measure the water” for her recipes.

“People have such trepidation about pie crusts, yet this lady was fearless. I didn’t come back with a recipe, but I came home inspired by her style – by her fearlessness,” Deborah explains.

Now all are invited to cast away our pie crust fears forever with Deborah and Wil.

Learning Center tickets are $15/person and available by calling 914-923-4837.
Tickets will also be available on our website shortly. We look forward to seeing you!

For upcoming events, visit our Down to Earth Markets Event Calendar.

Stay tuned to all market happenings via our Down to Earth Markets Facebook page
and follow us on Instagram and on Twitter @DowntoEarthMkts

Rotating* Vendors This Week
*Vendors who rotate through various markets during the season.
They enjoy getting to know many communities. Here’s where to find them this week:

Mamaroneck – Saturday, April 11th

Aroma Coffee Roast
Calcutta Kitchens
OM Champagne Tea
Robinson & Co. Catering (Calling all culinary Anglophiles!)

Ossining – Saturday, April 11th

Bombay Emerald Chutney Company
Hudson River Apiaries
Nana’s Home Kitchen
Taiim Falafel Shack

REO’s Are Back | Waccabuc Real Estate

Four years of declining distress sales quietly ground to a halt last year and now real estate owned properties (REOs) have increased steadily for four months in a row, rising to 23.2%, based on a three-month moving average, according to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey.

The distressed property share of home sales peaked at 45.5% in March 2011 and declined to 21.3% as recently as September.

The numbers suggest that a market share for REOs will settle in at one out of five listings for the foreseeable future.  “A distressed property proportion above 20% is likely to be a persistent feature of the housing market,” said Tom Popik, research director for Campbell Surveys.

M ove-in ready REO is the largest category of distressed property, accounting for 10.6% of home sales in January. The move-in ready REO share of home sales has increased most months after hitting a low of 8.2% in August 2013.

Popik said the largest portion of move-in ready REO properties will likely be purchased by first-time homebuyers. Such buyers accounted for 48% of purchases of move-in ready REO sold in January, with current homeowners claiming a 39% share and investors accounting for a 13% share.

Average home prices for move-in ready REO have increased since hitting a low of $171,300 in April 2013. Move-in ready REO sold in January had an average price of $221,000.

Damaged REO accounted for 8.0% of home sales in January, increasing for the fourth consecutive month. The damaged REO share of home sales hit a low in September at 6.3%.

Investors are the main buyers of damaged REO, purchasing 61% of such properties sold in January. Demand for damaged REO was particularly strong in January, with the properties receiving an average of 3.4 offers. However, time-on-market for damaged REO also hit a 4-year high during the month with properties sold in January having stayed on the market for an average of 13.0 weeks.

Short sales accounted for 4.5% of home sales in January, with market share for the properties staying level for the previous six months. The short sale share of home sales peaked in February 2012 at 16.8%.

 

read more…

 

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2015/02/reos-theyre-b-a-a-a-a-a-ack/

How Zillow Is Overestimating the Value of Your Home | Waccabuc Real Estate

Buying a home is arguably the largest investment you can make. You purchase your house, probably put work into it to make it fit your style, and hopefully add improvements along the way that will increase its value. So when it’s time to sell the house, you want to make sure you’re getting the best price for it. That often includes working with a real estate agent in your area, but it can also mean researching online ahead of time to get a good idea of a fair market price.

But the problem is that, sometimes, those online estimates inflate what homes are actually worth, causing a rift in expectations. And when Zillow says the price is higher than a realtor wants to ask, it can create conflict when trying to sell your house.

It’s a conflict that has begun to spring up more frequently, as growing numbers of people turn to online sites to price check before contacting a realtor. A total of 105.4 million people visited real estate websites in January 2015, an increase of about 24% from the year before, according to information provided by analytics website comScore. Within those categories, Zillow accounted for 57.4 million visitors to their site. Trulia, which was formally acquired by Zillow on February 17, accounted for another 36.3 million unique visitors, representing 71% of the total visitors in the real estate category.

Zillow’s staff knows that prices can vary from online to what the sign says in your front yard. It’s why the website has a section devoted to explaining how the “Zestimates” are created, the information that’s used, and some of the variation people can expect in certain areas around the country. Zillow lists Zestimates for about 100 million homes nationwide, but Zillow reportsit has an 8% median error rate across the country. That means that about half the Zestimates fall within 8% of the selling price, and about half fall out of that range.

To put that 8% into perspective, assume there’s a house that sells for $350,000. About half the time, Zestimates will show a fair price between $322,000 and $378,000, the 8% spread of about $28,000 on either side of that selling price. But the other half of the time, it could be outside that range. And as always when working with percentages, the value of the home directly impacts the range. For a home worth $500,000, that spread on either side of the selling price could be $40,000.

In certain parts of the country, that variation is even more severe. Twenty-five states have median error rates that fall below the national average, with Virginia and Nebraska at 5.5% and 5.7%, respectively. But West Virginia, at the other end of the spectrum, has a median error rate of 13.6%. Zillow doesn’t keep data on every county across the country, but some such as Dade County in Georgia have error rates of 35%. The highest listed in the data from December 2014 is Apache County in Arizona at 69.4%.

Read more: http://wallstcheatsheet.com/business/how-zillow-is-overestimating-the-value-of-your-home.html/?a=viewall#ixzz3SnKz8qU7

Existing home sales collapse in January despite low mortgage rates | Waccabuc Real Estate

Existing home sales collapsed 4.9% in January to their lowest rate in nine months, falling well below analyst expectations, led by a massive drop in western region, according to the National Association of Realtors.

All major regions experienced declines in January, with the Northeast and West seeing the largest.

Total existing-home sales, which are completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, fell 4.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.82 million in January from an upwardly-revised 5.07 million in December.

“January’s drop in existing home sales is a bit concerning,” said Bill Banfield, vice president at Quicken Loans. “Economic indicators and stubbornly-low interest rates would lead most to expect improvement, yet recent housing reports have indicated the opposite. Inventory is a number I’ll be watching in the coming months as it has the power to help existing sales bounce back.”

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, says the housing market got off to a somewhat disappointing start to begin the year with January closings down throughout the country.

“January housing data can be volatile because of seasonal influences, but low housing supply and the ongoing rise in home prices above the pace of inflation appeared to slow sales despite interest rates remaining near historic lows,” he said. “Realtors are reporting that low rates are attracting potential buyers, but the lack of new and affordable listings is leading some to delay decisions.”

Total housing inventory at the end of January increased 0.5% to 1.87 million existing homes available for sale, but is 0.5% lower than a year ago. Unsold inventory is at a 4.7-month supply at the current sales pace – up from 4.4 months in December.

The slowdown in mortgage purchase applications is alsoweighing on analysts. Mortgage purchase apps have faltered, and that limits upside risk for mortgage rates, according to the analyst team lead by Chris Flanagan atBank of America/Merrill Lynch.

 

read more…

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/33021-existing-home-sales-collapse-in-january-despite-low-mortgage-rates

Gilded Age Palace of H.V. Poor Seeks a Modern Robber Baron | Waccabuc Real Estate

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At the peak the Gilded Age, steel tycoons and other professional exploiters only built their mansions in the Hamptons or Newport if they couldn’t get a property in Tuxedo Park, New York. Founded in the 1880s by a tobacco millionaire and “sportsman” who won a whole lotta acres in a poker game, the area became home to such notable Americans as Adele Colgate (heir to the Colgate/Palmolive fortune), William Waldorf Astor, and JP Morgan. It was also home to a finance dude with the totally ironic name of Henry Poor, otherwise known as the guy who begot half of the famous Standard & Poor stock index.

“Poor’s Palace,” which is also known as “Woodland,” was designed by eminent era architect Henry T. Randall, who gave the place a grand limestone entrance, a smoking room for the gents, drawing and dining rooms with deep relief ceilings, hand-painted insets for the grand dames, ample terraces, and wood paneled hallways. All 17,265-square-feet of that is still there, if a little worse for wear. What’s more, it’s all on the market with 4.8 surrounding acres for $9.999M.

 

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http://curbed.com/archives/2015/01/28/buy-henry-poors-grand-1899-palace-in-upstate-ny-for-10m.php

Future Of Lewisboro Elementary A Major Topic For Officials | #WaccabucRealEstate

The fate of the shuttered Lewisboro Elementary School has emerged as a topic of interest for local officials.

At Monday’s meeting, the Katonah-Lewisboro school board was told a committee is forming to review possible uses for the building. It was indicated that reusing the school, which closed this summer as part of a consolidation of the district’s elementary schools, may be among the board’s goals for the 2014-15 school year.

Interim Superintendent John Goetz said possible committee members could include himself, Assistant Superintendent for Business Michael Jumper and the district’s attorney. School Board President Marjorie Schiff said Board Trustees Peter Treyz and Stephanie Tobin also were interested.

Goetz said establishing the committee should include creating a meeting calendar and ground rules. He said community input would be sought, noting “the people have a vested interest in this.”

The board also was told a committee meeting could be held before the next school board meeting. Schiff said the committee’s report to the board should include a potential timeline and a proposal for community involvement. Goetz concurred with Schiff, explaining  that approach is what is expected.

The school’s future use also is a topic at the town government level. At a League of Women Voters event held last week in Katonah, Lewisboro Supervisor Peter Parsons called LES the town’s “biggest single opportunity.” He suggested possible uses such as additional office space for the town government and a venue for teenagers.

 

 

 

read more….

 

 

 

http://bedford.dailyvoice.com/schools/future-lewisboro-elementary-major-topic-officials