Tag Archives: Westchester Homes for Sale

Westchester Homes for Sale

Realogy and Trulia might make a nice couple, but are they really headed to the altar? | Cross River Real Estate

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Rumors that real estate behemoth Realogy may be in talks to acquire Trulia pushed the price of the listing portal’s shares up 10 percent before markets closed today, but analysts who follow the companies didn’t think much of all the talk.

Realogy — which runs some of the biggest brands in real estate including Coldwell Banker Real Estate, Century 21 Real Estate and Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate — declined to comment. So did Trulia.

Stock analysts who follow the companies said the merger chatter — which put a $52-per-share price target on Trulia, implying a deal in the $2 billion range — was probably just that.

“To me, it feels like a bogus rumor because someone needed to get out of a position,” said Bradley Safalow, founder and CEO of stock analysis firm PAA Research.

Zachary Prensky, managing partner of Little Bear Investments, said he thought the rumor was a “complete fabrication.”

Still, suggestions that an established real estate company like Realogy would (or should) make a play for a listing portal like  Zillow or Trulia have been in play this year.

 

 

 

 

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/11/13/realogy-and-trulia-might-make-a-nice-couple-but-are-they-really-headed-to-the-altar/#sthash.0v2xongA.dpuf

Westchester Superintendents React To Reduced State Testing | Chappaqua Real Estate

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Superintendents are reacting positively to an announcement that the state is looking to eliminate some standardized tests.

According to a report in LoHud, John King, State Education Commissioner, is telling school superintendents the Board of Regents is looking to eliminate the eighth-grade math test.

The Board of Regents is also considering eliminating other tests. King said grants will be provided to help school districts reduce local standardized tests.

“This is too little, too late,” Pleasantville Superintendent Mary Fox-Alter said. “We’ve been asking them to do this for years.”

Fox-Alter said while she thinks it’s a good thing, she said there are bigger issues the state needs to address. Fox-Alter said many kids are being double tested with common core exams and the regents.

Fox-Alter said the grades 3 to 8 English Language Assessment tests are not allowed to be shown to students after the tests are taken.

 

 

http://mtkisco.dailyvoice.com/schools/westchester-superintendents-react-reduced-state-testing

Experts mull over housing bubble expectations | Waccabuc Real Estate

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Despite rapid increases in home prices over the past year, prices are 4% undervalued in the fourth quarter — meaning the market is nowhere near another housing bubble, Trulia (TRLA) claims in a new report.

To put it into perspective, prices were as much as 39% overvalued in the first quarter of 2008 — at the height of the bubble — then dropped to being 15% undervalued in the fourth quarter of 2011, the real estate firm says.

“If prices nationally are 4% undervalued, why are so many people worried that a new bubble is forming,” questioned Trulia chief economist Jed Kolko.

He added, “Because prices have risen quickly over the past year, and even with the recent slowdown in the past few months, rising prices stoke bubble fear.”

In October, asking prices were up 11.7% year-over-year, which is roughly the same sharp increases seen in 2004 when the housing bubble was inflating.

Consequently, some market analysts believe that housing is in the depths of a bubble.

Given the fact that home prices are rising faster than real median household income as well as mortgage purchase applications, it signals the same factors experienced in the previous housing bubble, explained George Mason University finance professor Anthony Sanders.

“For the average American household, they are in a housing bubble,” he said. “For Chinese and other domestics and foreign investors, house prices are a bargain.”

 

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/27950-experts-mull-over-housing-bubble-expectations

Where the Next Huge Real Estate Bubble May Be Building | Cross River Real Estate

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The 2000s real estate bubble—which burst in 2007 and precipitated a once-in-a-century financial crisis and recession—is not something most folks are excited to see a sequel of. But five years of declining or stagnating housing prices, the market turned around big time in 2012, making some analysts worry that we’re seeing the beginnings of Housing Bubble 2.0.

As you can see, home prices in most of the country are far from the bubble levels of mid-2000s, but if you drill down deeper to look at individual markets, one sees a different picture. Jed Kolko, housing economist with the real estate site Trulia, has been tracking home prices across the country to see which markets are over and undervalued. In a forthcoming “Bubble Watch” report, he finds that while most of the U.S. real estate market remains significantly undervalued, there are certain markets that are straying into bubble territory.

According to Kolko’s analysis, which looks at several factors like price-to-income ratio, the price-to-rent ratio, and prices relative to their long-term trend, markets in Orange County California and Los Angeles are more than 10% overvalued. Kolko also pegs the Austin, Texas market at 10% overvalued, while 7 other markets range from 4% to 7% overvalued. Those include:

San Antonio, TX;

Honolulu, HI;

San Francisco, CA;

Houston, TX;

Riverside-San Bernandino, CA; and

Oakland, CA

Unsurprisingly, these markets — concentrated in Texas and California, have also seen double digit home appreciation over the past year, with Orange County real estate appreciating a whopping 23.4% since October of 2012.

So are we in danger of another housing bubble like we experienced last decade? Not quite yet, at least nationally. According to Kolko, the market remains roughly 4% undervalued overall. And in some markets, like Cleveland, Ohio and Palm Bay-Melborne-Titusville, Florida, home prices are still 20% below their fundamental value. Furthermore, even the most frothy markets are less overvalued than the national market was in 2004, when home prices were 24% overvalued nationally.

 

 

 

Read more: Where the Next Huge Real Estate Bubble May Be Building | TIME.com

Homebuilders may offer big discounts to goose spring sales | Bedford NY Real Estate

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Homebuilder D.R. Horton Inc. is prepared to offer big discounts to buyers if sales don’t pick up by the start of the spring selling season, and other builders might be forced to follow suit, the Wall Street Journal’s Kris Hudson reports.

Orders for new homes were down 10 percent in October from a year ago, the Journal reports, citing a Zelman & Associates survey.

 

 

Source: blogs.wsj.com – See more at: http://www.inman.com/wire/homebuilders-may-offer-big-discounts-to-goose-spring-sales/#sthash.8quey4MM.dpuf

10 Ways to Prepare Your Home for Winter | Chappaqua NY Homes

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By the time fall rolls around, most of us are ready to say ‘goodbye’ to the  summer heat, and hello to a few months of cool weather. However, autumn is more  than just a time to enjoy the changing color of the leaves and the dropping of  the mercury in the thermometer; it’s a time to prepare your home for the coming  ravages of winter. After all, if you don’t take care of potential problems now,  before they actually happen, you could find yourself stuck with some major  repair work right in the middle of the Holiday Season. Here’s a quick list of  things you need to do to prepare your home for the coldest months of the  year.

1. Prune back your hedges, shrubs, and branches.

When it comes to being covered in snow, the plants with less surface area are  less likely to get damaged. Trimming back your outdoor plants will help keep  them safe, and will give them a nice fresh start to grow from once spring  arrives.

2. Check around your doors and windows.

With the cold fast approaching, now’s the time to locate any areas of your  home through which heat could escape. Make sure that the caulking around you  windows is solid and free from cracks, and check around your doors to make sure  that they shut securely without leaving gaps.

3. Give the heater a test run.

Replace your furnace filter, open your vents, and kick the heater into high  gear, because you’ll want to make sure that your heater works before you get  trapped inside during a blizzard. If you notice any problems, call a repairman  and get it sorted out quickly.

4. Clean and cover the AC outdoor condensing unit.

This is good idea especially if your area drops into low temperatures or has  heavy snowfall. Use a high pressure hose to clean any debris out of the condensing unit, and then cover  it up for the winter. If left open, the harsh winter weather could damage your  system, leaving you without a cooling system once things begin to heat up  again.

5. Clean out your gutters.

If you have any trees near your house, then chances are that once all the  leaves have fallen, you’ll have rain gutters that are absolutely full of debris. Clean these  out before the weather starts to get any worse, otherwise you could have to deal  with water buildup and ice damage.

6. Check the roof.

If you have any missing or damaged shingles, you should hurry to get them  replaced before winter arrives. Also check to see if you have any significant  air leaks coming up through the roof, and have them repaired if you do.

 

 

Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/green-homes/prepare-home-winter-zbcz1310.aspx#ixzz2kXN8svX7

Ancient and New Tell a Story in San Francisco | Armonk NY Homes

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A home should tell the story of its owner,” says interior designer Antonio Martins, the grateful second owner of this 1896 house in San Francisco’s historic Dogpatch neighborhood. Before he moved in, members of one family had lived in this house for nearly all of its 117 years, collectively adding to its character. Now Martins is adding his imprint through cherished finds from his travels, gifts from family and playful mixes of the very old and the very new.
Houzz at a Glance Who lives here: Interior designer Antonio Martins Location: San Francisco Size: 1,700 square feet Cost to remodel: About $200,000

“This neighborhood was full of Irish and Italian immigrants who worked the nearby shipyards and canning factory. The last resident, a man who lived alone, was born in this house,” says Martins, a Brazilian who lived in Hong Kong before settling in California.
By the time he found it, the house was in disrepair, and nothing had been renovated in the last 70 to 80 years, he says. But the home’s good bones were still there.
Martins moved forward with his professional hat on to stretch his budget as far as he could to rehabilitate this old Victorian and start a new chapter.
A 17th-century Italian statue from his mom welcomes guests in the long entryway. Scott Adkins of ProFab Metal Designs made the floating metal shelf, as well as other metal shelves throughout the house.
Martins collected the three metal designs hanging on the wall, created by Yutaka Toyota, years ago. “Toyota was big in Brazil in the 1970s and is making a comeback today as people are wanting to revisit that era,” Martins says. “I’m not interested in the trend; I simply love mixing different eras together.”
The living room is “my life’s story,” Martins says. The small white sofa in front of the bay window was a pickup in Hong Kong, where it furnished the compact apartment he lived in for 10 years. Flanking the sofa are two industrial benches used as petite end tables.
His grandmother’s traveling trunk now serves as a handsome coffee table around which two reproduction French chairs sit. The recamier is from France and was bought by Martins at an auction, as was the Chinese 18th-century side table. “It’s not about designing with what’s fashionable,” says Martins. “This room as well as the entire home is about what’s me — where I’ve been, who I am.”

Village Of Bedford To Open Playground | Bedford Real Estate

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The Village of Bedford will celebrate the opening of the new playground at Bedford Village Memorial Park on Saturday, Nov. 16.

The opening ceremony is set for 10 a.m. at the playground at Bedford Village Memorial Park at 65 Greenwich Road in Bedford, according to a notice from the village. The ceremony promises to include a ribbon cutting for the new playground and a “Slide Ride” ceremony, according to the notice.

“As part of the playground opening celebration, the Bedford Youth Soccer Club will be presenting a check in the amount of $8,500 to the town for the purchase of a new Portable Light Tower for the benefit of the BYSC program participants and the residents of the town during emergencies and special events throughout the year,” representatives said in the notice.

Superintendent of Parks and Recreation Bill Heidepriem will open the ceremony with Recreation & Parks Advisory Committee Chair Brian McCabe and Town Supervisor Lee V.A. Roberts offering remarks, according to the notice. The ceremony will also feature the presentation of a presentation of a playground project pledge check of $20,000 from the Chowder & Marching Club.

 

 

 

http://bedford.dailyvoice.com/events/village-bedford-open-playground

Home equity lines due for reset may be looming financial disaster | South Salem Real Estate

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Could the real estate market be heading for a new financial storm? Maybe.

Some mortgage and credit experts worry that billions of dollars of home equity credit lines that were extended a decade ago during the housing boom could be heading for big trouble soon, creating a new wave of defaults for banks and homeowners.

That’s because these credit lines, which are second mortgages with floating rates and flexible withdrawal terms, carry mandatory “resets” requiring borrowers to begin paying both principal and interest on their balances after 10 years. During the initial 10-year draw period, only interest payments are required.

But the difference between the interest-only and reset payments on these credit lines can be substantial — $500 to $600 or more per month in some cases. If borrowers cannot afford or choose not to make the fully amortizing payments that reduce the principal debt, the bank that owns the note can demand full payment and foreclose on the house if there is sufficient equity.

According to federal financial regulators, about $30 billion in home equity lines dating to 2004 are due for resets next year, $53 billion the following year and a staggering $111 billion in 2018. Amy Crews Cutts, chief economist for Equifax, one of the three national credit bureaus, calls this a looming “wave of disaster” because large numbers of borrowers will be unable to handle the higher payments. This will force banks to either foreclose, refinance the borrower or modify their loans.

But refinancings often will not be possible, Cutts says, because the homeowners won’t qualify under the tougher mortgage rules taking effect in January, or the combined first and second mortgages may exceed the value of the house. Complicating matters further, interest rates are likely to rise from their current low levels as the Federal Reserve tapers its purchases of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities. Higher base rates would make the payment shocks even worse. Plus, according to Cutts, many of the owners with high-balance credit lines already have low credit scores — legacies of the housing bust and recession — and have an elevated statistical risk of default after the reset.

Financial regulators, including the comptroller of the currency, are aware of the coming bulge in high-risk resets and have been urging the biggest banks to set aside extra reserves for possible losses. Last month, Citigroup said it was increasing reserves on its nearly $20 billion in home equity lines and acknowledged that the reset payment shocks for borrowers could be a major challenge.

 

 

 

http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-harney-20131110,0,6997479.story#axzz2kHRdpZUW

Promises, promises: the new mayor’s agenda | Cross River Homes

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The day after his landslide election win, Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio was already tempering expectations.

“Of course, the things I’m talking about, a lot of them are bold, a lot of them are big changes,” he said Wednesday at an event announcing his transition team. “And they are an attempt to address a problem that has been decades in the making.”

He added, “None of us is going to promise people perfection any day soon.”

Victories built on gleaming, progressive promises have been known to disappoint as they collide with the realities of governing (see: Obama, Barack). And Mr. de Blasio will be operating under higher expectations than most, having been elected to tackle income inequality.

Mr. de Blasio believes higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for universal prekindergarten will close the gap. But his proposal for $500,000 households to pay more exemplifies how much of the problem is beyond his reach.

First, he must persuade a recalcitrant state Legislature, including Senate Republicans, who run the chamber in a fragile alliance with a breakaway faction of Democrats. And 2014 is an election year for them, rendering a tax increase an even longer shot than usual in Albany. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, for his part, pledged last month to lower taxes, not raise them.

Even if Mr. de Blasio finds the money, observers doubt the city currently has the infrastructure to deliver on the promise.

“Do we have the capacity in New York City to provide universal pre-K for every 3- and 4-year-old?” asked Carol Kellermann, executive director of the Citizens Budget Commission. “It’s all done right now through the nonprofit sector. Do they have the capacity to just start adding tens of thousands of kids?”

In his policy book, the mayor-elect argues that New York needs universal pre-K in order to compete with countries such as India and China. But research on the matter has shown that the benefits of pre-K are decidedly mixed, though children from disadvantaged backgrounds gain the most from early education.

Mandating affordability

Real estate executives, meanwhile, wonder how Mr. de Blasio will make good on another campaign promise—200,000 new or preserved affordable-housing units in 10 years—without the traditional menu of tax breaks and other incentives for developers. Mr. de Blasio would require developers to build affordable units in exchange for allowing larger buildings to be constructed.

“If the goal is to make landlords build affordable housing, then reducing subsidies and requiring affordable units will result in fewer units,” said one real estate source. “People will just build condos instead of rentals or just not build at all. That’s basic economics.”

But the mayor-elect’s mandate from voters will help him handle developers. “I think Bill de Blasio is going to do just fine,” said de Blasio donor Steven Witkoff, president and CEO of the Witkoff Group, a real estate investment firm, at a recent Crain’s event. “I don’t think the city works unless we do have an affordable-housing component.”

Plea for patience

Questions surround a host of Mr. de Blasio’s other proposals. It’s unclear how he will go about persuading Albany to let the city raise its minimum wage or “end the era of stop-and-frisk” without totally doing away with the police tactic. Mr. de Blasio was elected in part because he embraced an aspirational vision of a more egalitarian city. His challenge now will be living up to those promises without bankrupting the city or isolating his liberal base.

 

 

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20131110/POLITICS/311109976#