Tag Archives: Westchester Homes for Sale

Westchester Homes for Sale

Do You Know These Time Saving Blogging Tips? | Cross River Realtor

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Over the last few days we’ve been tackling the problem of ‘not enough time to blog’ that many bloggers struggle with. I started by sharing 7 tips for busy bloggers on how to find time to blog and then had 14 of my blogging friends share a little about their blogging routines.

When I asked these 14 bloggers about their routines I also asked if they had any tips for other busy bloggers. I’m glad I did because collectively they give some great insight below.

Chris Garrett

chris_garrett_blogworld.jpg

  1. Write down any ideas you have and transfer them to your blog drafts as soon as possible. If you can, skip the writing down part and go direct to your blog drafts. Maybe use a smart phone so you are more likely to have a handy route to your blog!
  2. In your drafts add a semi-decent headline (not final, just enough to get the idea across) and some bullets. At the very least the point you want to make. If you don’t then you will forget what your post was about. Trust me on this, I speak from experience, ha.
  3. Work out the best time of day for you to write and schedule time in that slot. I find my best writing is between 10am and 1pm, and second best between 6pm and 8pm. After lunch is a better time for me to talk but not write. We all have a rhythm, listen to yours.
  4. Set a timer. Tell the family to not disturb you until the time is up. Close all distractions. Write.
  5. Break up your writing into less daunting chunks if you need to. One session just do outlines. Next session do bad drafts. Third some editing. Then formatting. Then final polish and posting. Don’t try to do too much otherwise you will never do enough!

 

 

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2013/04/27

Despite Sellers’ Markets, Seventy-one Percent Still Say it’s a Good Time to Buy | South Salem NY Real Estate

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Home prices are rising at double digit rates. Inventories are at historic lows. Two out of five applicants for a purchase mortgage are rejected. Yet nearly three quarters of Americans say it’s a good time to buy a home.

While some would argue its always a good time to buy, conditions have turned to favor sellers in most markets across the nation. Yet even though a slight majority of consumers participating in Fannie Mae’s latest monthly National Housing Survey expect prices to rise over the next three months, 71 percent said its still a good time for buyers.

By contrast, the share of respondents who say now is a good time to sell climbed 4 percentage points in April but still reached only 30 percent, compared to 15 percent at the same time last year. That’s not even half as many as those who said it’s a good time to buy. The percentage that said it’s a good time to buy stayed steady from March.

The share of respondents who say mortgage rates will go up fell 3 percentage points to 43 percent, while those who say they will go down increased slightly to 7 percent.

The average 12-month rental price change expectation held steady at 4.1 percent.

Forty-eight percent of those surveyed say home rental prices will go up in the next year, a 2 percentage point decrease from last month’s survey high.

The share of respondents who said they would buy if they were going to move increased slightly to 65 percent.

“For the first time in the survey’s three-year history, the majority of Americans surveyed now expect home prices to increase,” said Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae. “Crossing the 50 percent threshold marks a significant milestone as most Americans believe a housing recovery is truly occurring throughout the country. Reflecting that increased optimism toward housing, the share of Americans who think it is a good time to sell has doubled during the last year. Many homeowners who have been underwater are gradually returning to positive equity, and selling is now becoming an available and attractive option again.”

 

 

 

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/05

KB Home CEO: We’re in the right markets | Cross River Real Estate

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KB Home’s chief executive officer sees a housing recovery taking hold in certain markets and feels well-positioned to capture some of the business.

“Across this country, we’re in the right markets,” said Jeff Mezger, president and CEO of KB Home ($32.67 0%) at the builder’s 2013 analyst conference.

Mezger addressed the crowd Tuesday, speaking to the recent growth and success of the homebuilder over the past year. Between investments, revenue generation and cost reduction, the average sales price for the company increase 24% year-over-year in the first quarter.

On top of that, 60% of deliveries were to first-time buyers, noted Mezger, who adds that today’s first-time homebuyers are bringing in more income and buying homes in better communities.

We have focused on both the long term and the short term, said Mezger, who adds the company’s stock over the last four months has been the top performer.

“We’re in the right markets today; it’s the right time,” added Mezger. “We like where we’re at.” Currently, the company is working in some of the strongest markets in the country: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Metro D.C., Nevada, New Mexico North Carolina and Texas.

According to Mezger, 49% of KB Home’s ($24.67 0%) revenue in 2012 came from California; in the first quarter that increased to 51%. Texas is the biggest market by unit sales for the homebuilder.

Mezger noted that the builder likes its footprint and has no immediate plans to expand. “We will at some point, but it’s not necessary today,” he said.

How to score seller clients when inventory is low | Waccabuc NY Real Estate

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Loads of agents know firsthand that an uptick in buyer activity and some loosening of lending purse-strings can result in a particular flavor of supply-demand imbalance we call “a seller’s market.”  A recent Truliastudy proved this market season is just that: 75% of surveyed consumers said it’s better to buy a home now than a year from now.

But the same study revealed that there’s also pressure from the other end of the market – only one in three consumers said it would be better to sell now than a year from now. These patient would-be sellers have pushed inventory to a 12-year low.

Trulia ($34.34 0%) provides a number of ways that agents can grow their seller clients while so many are wanting to hold out another year.

http://www.housingwire.com/fastnews

Mortgage market of the past may hold some clues for the future | Bedford NY Real Estate

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James Hagerty of the Wall Street Journal hosted a session on the future of America’s mortgage market this week at the MBA Secondary Conference in New York.

The title of the session and the majority of the discussion assumes in some way that the mortgage market needs to be different than it is today. This leads me to wonder: Does the mortgage market need to be fixed and if so what still needs to be fixed?

We are all well aware of the extent to which GSEs and FHA currently provide liquidity to the U.S. mortgage market. I suspect consensus on this development is that it is far from ideal. Private, not public, capital should be supporting the mortgage market at least more than it does today.

But how much more?

Think back to before the mortgage crisis: Public capital played a very significant role, and had historically done so in the U.S. mortgage market.

The GSEs also brought something else to the market: standardization.

Is this a role that the private sector is qualified or prepared to play going forward?

Is the goal to achieve a level of private capital that is higher than before the crisis?  One highly oversimplified argument against this is that the private-label RMBS market was a a major contributor to the financial crisis.

Yes, regulators have put in place new rules to reign in many of the bad practices of the past, but a new privately built market structured would be untried.

What if rather than creating a whole new market structure, as some have proposed, what if we went back to the way it was before with a few important improvements?

The first improvement would be to develop private-label RMBS standards. Just as the GSEs issue standardized MBS, there could be a standard template for private label RMBS.

For example, there would be standards for the types of loans in the security, the type and amount of due diligence performed on the loans, and for the contract terms.

This is part of what was missing in the private-label RMBS market of old. Second, go back to the conforming loan limits of old which will reduce the market share of the GSEs.

Moving forward loan limits can be used to adjust the share of public versus private capital in the mortgage market over time.

 

 

http://www.housingwire.com/rewired

Cicadas set to overrun Hudson Valley | Bedford Hills NY Homes

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Billions of cicadas lurking underground in the Hudson Valley and along the East Coast are awaiting their cue: when ground temperature reaches exactly 64 degrees.

Only then will the inch-long creatures crawl out of the burrows they have lived in for 17 years, climb trees and begin several weeks of riotous mating calls, sex, parenthood and finally death. Then the insects’ offspring will crawl underground to begin the cycle over again.

In the Hudson Valley, showtime could come within days as the air temperature climbs and the earth warms.

Scientists say the cicadas with bulging red eyes will outnumber people from North Carolina to Connecticut by about 600-to-1 and that the males’ mating calls will be as loud as a rock concert.

In 2004, Gene Kritsky, an entomologist at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, measured cicadas at 94 decibels, saying it was so loud “you don’t hear planes flying overhead.”

Cicadas come out every year in different regions around the world, but the variety about to make their entrance along the East Coast are different. They’re called magicicadas — as in magic — and are red-eyed. Magicicadas are found exclusively in the eastern half of the United States.

There are 15 U.S. broods that emerge every 13 or 17 years, so that nearly every year some place is overrun. Last year it was a small area, mostly around the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee. Next year, two places get hit: Iowa into Illinois and Missouri; and Louisiana and Mississippi. Still, it’s possible to live in these locations and actually never see them.

This year’s invasion is one of the bigger ones. Several experts say that they really don’t have a handle on how many cicadas are lurking underground but that 30 billion seems like a good estimate. At the Smithsonian Institution, researcher Gary Hevel thinks it may be more like 1 trillion.

Even if it’s merely 30 billion, if they were lined up head to tail, they’d reach the moon and back.

This year’s invasion, dubbed Brood II by scientists, is expected to cover large swaths of the Hudson Valley, according to Daniel Gilrein, an entomologist with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County. Nature lovers, he said, should plan expeditions in late May and early June to see the insects at work.

 

http://newyork.newsday.com/news

 

Calgary’s country residential real estate market set to take off | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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A longer winter season in the Calgary area has had an impact on sales in the country residential market but with the weather warming up it’s expected that sector will see an uptick in activity similar to what’s happening in the city and in surrounding towns.

“As the snow has melted and access to rural properties becomes an easier venture, buyers are becoming more motivated to purchase within the rural markets,” said Mark Evernden, with Sotheby’s International Realty Canada in Calgary. “As well as warm weather, a strong and growing economy accompanied by low interest rates also make home buyers eager and able to obtain homes.”

According to the Calgary Real Estate Board, year-to-date until the end of April, there have been 263 MLS sales in the ‘country residential’ market which includes acreages. That’s down 2.95 per cent compared with the same period a year ago. However, the average sale price has increased by 2.64 per cent to $823,253. New listings are off by 1.20 per cent to 991.

Evernden said the country residential market is now in full swing of activity.

“It is seasonal. The longer winter does impact the sales and volume as we are seeing. From a marketing position, the green pastures and rolling hills with colour give it that extra appeal to the consumer with digital and print marketing that goes out. No different than terrible rain seasons and gloomy days in the tropics,” he said, adding that there will now be an increase in viewings driven by the better weather, strong economy and migration of high net worth clients to the area.

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/Calgary+country+residential+real+estate+market+take/8347802/story.html#ixzz2Sd9SPf18

Home construction continues to add jobs | Waccabuc Real Estate

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Builders continued to hire more workers in April, though employment among an age cohort important to household formation slipped, according to today’s jobs report, which showed more overall growth than expected.

Residential construction jobs are up 4.1 percent year over year, towering about the overall jobs growth rate of 1.6 percent, said Trulia Chief Economist Jed Kolko, citing data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics today.

Total residential-construction jobs moved up from a seasonally adjusted 580,200 in March to 586,400 in April, according to the report. In April of last year, the sector supported 572,000 jobs, the report showed.

But that jobs growth lags compared to actual construction growth. Kolko chalks up the discrepancy to the fact that the number of jobs for every construction project is more than normal.

At the same time, today’s report also showed that employment among a cohort that is crucial to household formation, 25 to 34-year-olds, has slipped recently, dropping from 75.6 percent in December 2012 to 75.2 percent in April, Kolko said.

But Fannie Mae Chief Economist Doug Duncan said that the report was positive overall and “better-than-expected.”

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/05/03/home-construction-continues-to-add-jobs/#sthash.c6qctOjM.dpuf

Property taxes are only part of the picture | South Salem Real Estate

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Cul-de-sac image via Shutterstock.Cul-de-sac image via Shutterstock.

Do you think your state’s property tax burden is too high?

Before you start complaining how high property taxes are in your state, take a look at the charts below to see not only property taxes are in your state, but total taxes.

Your property taxes may be high for a reason — for example, if, like Florida, your state has no income tax.

First, see how property taxes in your state compare with those in the other 49 states. The following chart shows the amount of local and state property taxes collected per capita in each state in 2009.

Property tax collections by state

StateProperty tax collections, per capitaRank
Alabama$50350
Alaska$1,72810
Arizona$1,11932
Arkansas$54949
California$1,46515
Colorado$1,27724
Connecticut$2,4732
Delaware$71243
Florida$1,58913
Georgia$1,09234
Hawaii$98335
Idaho$81340
Illinois$1,7829
Indiana$1,12431
Iowa$1,30522
Kansas$1,35319
Kentucky$66346
Louisiana$70245
Maine$1,64011
Maryland$1,20527
Massachusetts$1,8748
Michigan$1,45216
Minnesota$1,34620
Mississippi$79341
Missouri$92937
Montana$1,30123
Nebraska$1,43717
Nevada$1,31821
New Hampshire$2,2403
New Jersey$2,6631
New Mexico$60647
New York$2,1365
North Carolina$86738
North Dakota$1,16529
Ohio$1,13530
Oklahoma$59748
Oregon$1,17228
Pennsylvania$1,22725
Rhode Island$2,0187
South Carolina$97036
South Dakota$1,11133
Tennessee$74842
Texas$1,47514
Utah$86339
Vermont$2,0566
Virginia$1,43118
Washington$1,22626
West Virginia$70944
Wisconsin$1,63312
Wyoming$2,2854

Source: taxfoundation.org.

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/05/03/property-taxes-are-only-part-of-the-picture/#sthash.rztFC7l4.dpuf

Mt Kisco NY Homes | Use tiles to cover popcorn ceilings? | Inman News

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Use tiles to cover popcorn ceilings?

Grid system is key to avoiding disaster

Flickr image courtesy of <a href=

Q: My house was built in the 1960s and has popcorn ceilings. I read your article regarding drywalling over it, but I’m wondering if I can use ceiling tiles to do this? Also, since I don’t have a grid system, would it be OK to apply them directly onto the popcorn? Would this work, or would they just fall down?

A: This is a really bad idea. Try it and you’ll end up with a job rough as a cob, or worse.

There’s no way you’ll be able to set all the tiles so they lie flat and uniform. You’ll have more lumps and bumps than a country road.

The best thing that could happen is the glue won’t stick and the ceiling tiles will eventually fall off with a little of the textured ceiling attached. Worse will be if the glue sticks to the ceiling texture, but does not adhere to the drywall beneath. Sooner or later the tiles will loosen and fall, taking big patches of popcorn with them. At that point you’ve got a big mess, and a big problem.

A popcorn ceiling in a tract home built in the 1960s almost certainly contains asbestos. Textured ceilings were installed for several reasons, one of which was the aesthetics. People thought they looked modern.

Two more practical reasons drove the movement. First, it was cost-effective for the builder. Spraying popcorn texture on ceilings was cheaper than having the drywall fully taped, textured and painted. The builder could get by with two coats of joint compound on the seams of the drywall and none of the painting.

The other selling point was fire resistance, hence adding asbestos to the mix. Asbestos acted as both a fire retardant and a binder. The asbestos fibers held the mix together.

So with asbestos a virtual certainty, you’ve got three choices: Paint it, scrape it or rock over it.

Painting is the least expensive alternative, but you’ll still be left with the stippled popcorn look. We recommend renting an airless sprayer for the job. It’s a do-it-yourself project. Make sure to mask everything off you don’t want to paint, use plenty of drop cloths and run a 2-foot-wide length of painter’s paper along the walls from where they meet the ceiling.

Also dress appropriately — long pants, long-sleeved shirt, latex gloves, a hat, and, most important, a respirator rated for painting.

If you want to get rid of the corn, we think your best bet is to put drywall over it. A pro drywaller coupled with a pro taper should be in and out in a couple of days. While this can be a do-it-yourself job, the learning curve is pretty steep. If this is your first “rodeo,” hire professionals.

Scraping entails testing, and probably asbestos abatement, which is much more expensive than either painting or drywalling. Also, a job best left to professionals.

There is a fourth choice. If your heart is set on ceiling tiles, you must install a grid system. If you glue tiles to the existing ceiling, you’ll just be opening a big can of ugly.

via inman.com