| Katonah NY Weekly Real Estate Report | 11/4/2013 | |
| Homes for sale | 57 | |
| Median Ask Price | $995,000.00 | |
| Low Price | $359,000.00 | |
| High Price | $18,995,000.00 | |
| Average Size | 3876 | |
| Average Price/foot | $438.00 | |
| Average DOM | 128 | |
| Average Ask Price | $2,167,544.00 | |
Utilizing home pricing data for the period ending July 2013, the Homes.com Price Index showed gains for single-family properties in all 100 markets, up from 87 in the previous reporting period
“Homes.com’s Rebound Report provides a deeper view into the 22 fully rebounded markets. Many never experienced the dramatic swings in home values that were a result of foreclosures and short sales that plagued many markets across the nation”
The Homes.com Local Market Index has been expanded to include midsized markets ranked from 101-300. It provides a closer look at smaller markets nationwide, showing increases in 293 of the top 300 markets, up from 250 the previous month. Year over year, all midsized markets increased.
As a complement to the Local Market Index, Homes.com publishes an exclusive Rebound Report, highlighting how the housing recovery process is unfolding across the country. Rebound data for July 2013 in the top 100 markets revealed that 22 markets across the U.S. are fully recovered – up from the previous month’s 19 markets. Additionally, 44 U.S. markets now show a rebound of 50 percent or more, up from 41 in last month’s report.
“Homes.com’s Rebound Report provides a deeper view into the 22 fully rebounded markets. Many never experienced the dramatic swings in home values that were a result of foreclosures and short sales that plagued many markets across the nation,” said Brock MacLean, executive vice president of Homes.com. “By contrast, most of the markets with the lowest rebound have experienced more dramatic changes in values as a result of foreclosures and short sales and will have a slower path to recovery.”
The latest Homes.com Local Market Index reports the following:
Monthly increases in all 100 of the top 100 markets and in 193 of the 200 midsized markets.
Honolulu, Hawaii remains the top gaining market on a year-over-year basis with a 29.17 index point or 13.51% increase.
California markets [Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, Calif.; San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, Calif., San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, Calif.; Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, Calif.] are the remaining 4 in top 5 and increased 25.26, 24.60, 24.19 and 20.16 index points respectively.
Six of the top 10 monthly gaining markets are in the West (up from two in the previous month), followed by four from the South.
Highlights from the Homes.com Rebound Report for the top 100 markets show:
22 have made more than a 100% rebound, indicating a complete recovery in these markets. This is up from 19 markets posting a full recovery in last month’s report.
http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/09/all-top-100-markets-gained-in-homescom-july-data/
Location: Bedford Hills, N.Y. Price: $2,995,000 The Skinny: Many houses with extravagant exteriors—especially recently renovated ones—don’t follow through with equally extravagant interiors, in effect failing to live up to the promises of their façades. This stone mansion in Northern Westchester County is not one of those houses. Behind the four enormous columns that flank the entrance, there are 15,000 square feet of expansive rooms, intricate molding, fireplaces, herringbone floors, chandeliers, and many more columns. Sure, some of it is a little on the outlandish side—the bathtub underneath a skylight surrounded by four orange columns looks like a throne for an alien king—but at least the place is committed to, well, whatever this look is exactly. (Based on the brokerbabble, which begins “Scarlett is calling!” and goes on to describe the ballroom as “waiting for Gatsby,” the aesthetic could probably be most accurately described as Old Fictional Rich Person.) There’s also a saltwater pool. The house, originally built in 1905, was last purchased in 2003 for $2.8685M, and was listed this January for $3.295M. That didn’t work out, and the price has since been reduced to $2.995M.
· 320 Mclain St, Bedford Hills, N.Y. [Zillow] · 320 Mclain St, Bedford Hills, N.Y. [Redfin]
Real estate sales in Fairfield County continued their strong growth in the third quarter, with closed sales improving 28 percent from the same quarter in 2012 and under contract sales jumping 59 percent, according to a report published by William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty.
“There’s nothing startling in the report,’’ said Brad Kimmelman, brokerage manager for William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty in Southport. “We are absolutely moving in the right direction. We saw a huge improvement over last year. Overall, we are enjoying a revitalization of the real estate market in Fairfield County, and across the country.”
The William Pitt Sotheby’s International report showed strength across the board, with closed sales running 68 percent higher for the third quarter in Ridgefield, 50 percent higher in Redding, 45 percent higher in the town of Fairfield and 40 percent higher in Danbury.
The closed dollar volume rose 31 percent in the quarter over the same time frame last year, with Weston (up 57 percent), Ridgefield (up 56 percent) and Westport (up 39 percent) among the top communities in the county.
Median sales price rose 6 percent for single-family homes in Fairfield County for the third quarter, to $500,000, according to the report from William Pitt Sotheby’s. In Wilton and Ridgefield, median single family home prices rose 17 percent, while Westport prices jumped 12 percent. In the past year, the median price for single family homes in Fairfield County has jumped 7 percent.
“The 7 percent increase in the average sales price is great,’’ said Molly Lane, who works for William Raveis Homes in Westport. “The rest of the country is down about a half a percent, another indicator that the market is strong.”
Lane said the historically low interest rates continue to help the real estate market. “For someone who is putting 20 percent down with a good credit rating, they could get a 30-year fixed mortgage for about 4.125 percent. That’s even lower than it was a few months ago,’’ Lane said. “If the rates continue to remain at historic lows, that would be great. It’s a good harbinger for the spring market.”
Kimmelman said one of the most encouraging aspects of the market growth is the steady increase. “Consumer confidence is up, and I think we’re going to see the market hold steady but not increase dramatically,’’ he said. “We don’t want double-digit growth year after year. We want to see a nice, healthy progression.”
Typically, there is some seasonality in real estate and summer tends to be slower. That was not the case this year. “Closings are up in the third quarter for single-family homes in both Connecticut and Rhode Island, which is significant due to the fact that we have not experienced the seasonality in the market for the third quarter which generally tends to decline,” said Terence Beaty, director of new homes and land for Berkshire Hathaway Home Services New England Properties.
High-end homes are also beginning to move a little more quickly in Fairfield County, Kimmelman said, and inventory levels continue to decline. The condominium market is also contributing to the gains.
Berkshire Hathaway Home Services New England Properties Third Quarter 2013 Market Report indicates that the luxury market, identified as those properties worth $2 million or more has been growing throughout the year. Sales of high-end single family homes rose 13.2 percent to 378 in Connecticut. Fairfield County closed most of the business. The strongest sales growth in this category was in Greenwich, Westport and Darien.
“This has been another upbeat quarter as far as real estate goes,” said Diane M. Ramirez, Chief Executive Officer of Halstead Property. “Though prices only increased modestly, it is still a positive trend overall. We were pleased to see the huge upswing in sales in some of the markets and in the decline in days on the market in many of the towns that reported.”
“We are optimistic that the market has balanced. Although pending sales went down slightly in September, interest rates remain historically low and prices remain stable,’’ said Candace Adams, president and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services New England Properties. “We anticipate there will be a balanced market through the end of the year.”
The Berkshire Hathaway Home Services New England Properties Report is attached as a PDF. The William Pitt Sotheby’s report and the Halstead Property report are online.
Attached: (bhhsnep-2013-q3-marketreport.pdf)
http://greenwich.dailyvoice.com/real-estate/fairfield-county-real-estate-stays-strong-3rd-quarter
Friday marks the 330th anniversary of the founding of Westchester County, and at the Westchester County Historical Society in Elmsford, staffers Katie Hite and Patrick Raftery are dedicated to preserving the county’s rich historical significance.
The county was first formed on Nov. 1, 1683. With the British still in charge, the county government was established as a way of organizing the region. Most towns weren’t established until after the Revolutionary War. What is now the Bronx was originally part of Westchester before being annexed into New York City in the 1870s.
The major population centers of Westchester were Bedford and White Plains, where the two courthouses were located. There were some small towns, but most of the land was divided into manors, land bestowed upon wealthy individuals who let farmers work their land in an almost feudal society.
When the Revolutionary War broke out, Westchester played an important role, acting as a buffer zone between land owned by British and American forces.
“It was as much a civil war as the Civil War was,” Hite said. “People within families, within communities took different sides.”
Many historical sites still survive from the Revolution, such as the Bedford Courthouse and the Purdy House in White Plains, which served as Washington’s headquarters. The Odell House in Hartsdale was where Washington and Count de Rochambeau devised their strategy to attack the British in Yorktown, VA.
Many of the owners of the manors sided with the British, and were forced to give up their land after the war. The land was sold at affordable rates to the farmers who worked the land, and towns began to be established.
“Nowadays, people tend to think of the county as a suburb of New York City, and really the railroads made that possible,” Raftery said. “Someone could wake up, hop on a train and head into the city for work, where before they couldn’t do that.”
A lot of the population lived and worked in the county, operating stores, farming, working in manufacturing. Once the railroads came in, more people started moving out to Westchester.
“They began moving out for the fresh air,” Hite said. “They didn’t want to live in an overcrowding, teeming place. They wanted peace and quiet. And that trend accelerated when the care was invented and became something that everyone had.”
The Westchester Historical Society was first established in 1874 and is one of the oldest historical societies in the country. Located in the same building as the county’s records department, its library contains more than 100,000 private and public documents from the county.
The books, letters, photos, diaries and maps are carefully preserved in a temperature and humidity controlled vault. Visitors researching their family, home or other aspect of Westchester history can visit and receive help finding the records and information they need.
http://armonk.dailyvoice.com/news/happy-birthday-westchester-county-turns-330-friday
Average U.S. rates on fixed mortgages fell for the second straight week and are at their lowest levels in four months.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate on the 30-year loan declined to 4.10% from 4.13% last week. The average on the 15-year fixed loan eased to 3.20% from 3.24%.
Rates have been falling since September when the Federal Reserve surprised investors by continuing to buy $85 billion a month in bonds. The purchases are intended to keep long-term interest rates low.
Rates had spiked over the summer when the Fed indicated it might reduce those purchases later this year. But hiring has slowed since then. Many now expect the Fed won’t taper until next year.
The average on the 30-year loan has now fallen about half a percentage point since a hitting two-year high over the summer. The lower rates appear to be sparking a surge in activity by prospective homebuyers and homeowners looking to refinance. Many home owners get personal loans for people with bad credit so they are able to pay their high interest rates on their mortgage.
Mortgage applications jumped 6.4% in the week ended Oct. 25 from the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Applications for purchases rose 2% from a week earlier, while refinance applications soared nearly 9%.
U.S. home prices rose in August from a year earlier at the fastest pace since February 2006, according to the latest Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index. But the price gains slowed in many cities from July, a sign that the spike in prices over the past year may have peaked.
To calculate average mortgage rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country on Monday through Wednesday each week. The average doesn’t include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1% of the loan amount.
The average fee for a 30-year mortgage declined to 0.7 point from 0.8 point. The fee for a 15-year loan rose to 0.7 point from 0.6 point.
The average rate on a one-year adjustable-rate mortgage increased to 2.64% from 2.60%. The fee eased to 0.4 point from 0.5 point.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/10/31/mortgage-rates/3325943/
So you want to get your projects published. Why?
It’s great for exposure and marketing. You can use print articles as an extension of your showroom for clients to get ideas, to learn design terminology, and to help you learn what clients do and don’t like; you can use it to show architects.
But take advantage of the longevity of print publications, which often sit on coffee tables in homes but also in doctor’s waiting rooms, salons, and fitness studios. Buy a bunch of issues and slap a banner on them with your logo and some text that reads: “Check out the local home remodeled by YOUR COMPANY featured on page X”
And, of course, most print publications have a web presence, where your work—and links to your company’s website—will live forever.
RESEARCH YOUR OPTIONS There are local and national publications that are always looking for content. Head to your local bookstore and buy a bunch of magazines and study them. Ask yourself if your project might be a good fit. You wouldn’t contact Dog Fancy with your latest kitchen remodel—unless it has a fantastic dog bowl area and they actually publish stories about such things.
Think about who the reader is going to be and who your ideal client is. Where do those two intersect?
You’d be surprised how many local publications there are in your market—from newspapers to business journals, women’s weeklies, and food-focused magazines. And don’t discount association publications from NARI and NAHB, but also those for related industries: doors and windows, concrete, metal fabricators.
Then read the articles themselves and determine how they’re put together and what they focus on. Are written about the lifestyle of the owner? Do it Yourself carpentry? The biggest, the best, the first of its kind, only a particular room?
You ultimately want to make things easy for an editor to see that, yes, your project/story is going to be something their readers will be interested in.
THINK LIKE AN EDITOR Have an idea about what makes a good story. Come up with a hook. “We had to design and build a kitchen for a homeowner who is in a wheel chair.” “Our client’s daughter was going to be married in two months and they wanted a quick kitchen pick-me-up so we did cabinet refacing.” Think about packages: “5 storage options” “kitchens with fireplaces,” “poolside outdoor kitchens.”
Pay attention to lead times. If you built a special Christmas tree closet for a client, don’t pitch that story to a monthly magazine on December 1. Even newspapers might budget time for a story like that a few months in advance. Pitch an outdoor living story in January, a winter holiday story in September.
BUILD A RELATIONSHIP Look on the publication’s masthead to find the appropriate editor—and it’s not the editor-in-chief. You most likely want to contact a senior editor, writer, or contributing writers or editors. There might be a specific editor for the type of material you want to have published. In a national publication, get the name of the regional editor near you.
Call or email and establish a relationship with that person. In many cases, they are hungry for material. Offer to take that person to coffee and show them photos of your projects, help them understand the scope and scale and level of design involved; take them on a tour of your most recent project.
Even if it doesn’t turn into something right away, keep up the relationship. The publication might not need anything right now, but your new editor friend will have your name and might call on you as a source for another story. Or, he or she might know that in a few weeks the publication needs 10 contemporary baths. It’s good for them to have contacts in the architecture and design community.
http://www.remodeling.hw.net/marketing/get-your-projects-into-clients-hands1.aspx
Home sales fell significantly from August to September, and real estate industry experts are pointing to higher interest rates and skittish consumer sentiment for the decline.
The National Association of Realtors is out with data this week showing its benchmark Pending Home Sales Index fell from 107.6 in August to 101.6 in September.
The NAR says that “higher mortgage rate and higher mortgage prices curbed buying power” in September, and the lead-up to the federal government debt standoff Oct. 1 didn’t help matters, either.
“Declining housing affordability conditions are likely responsible for the bulk of reduced contract activity,” says Lawrence Yun, the NAR’s chief economist. “In addition, government and contract workers were on the sidelines with growing insecurity over lawmakers’ inability to agree on a budget. A broader hit on consumer confidence from general uncertainty also curbs major expenditures such as home purchases.”
Yun is fairly bearish on sales of existing homes, although residential home prices should weather the storm – at least for the next 60 to 90 days or so.
Overall, he says, pending home sales are at a 2.5 year low on a year-to-year basis. And that’s a troubling sign for the near-term future on home sales.
“This tells us to expect lower home sales for the fourth quarter, with a flat trend going into 2014,” Yun says. “Even so, ongoing inventory shortages will continue to lift home prices, though at a slower single-digit growth rate next year.”
One factor that could derail that prediction are U.S. mortgage rates, which fell last week. According to the BankingMyWay Weekly Mortgage Rate Tracker, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell from 4.37% to 4.26%. Those numbers are roughly supported by Freddie Mac, which has 30-year rates falling from 4.57% in early September to 4.13% in late October.
Historically, lower mortgage rates lead to stronger home sales, not weaker home sales.
But in a residential home sales market with myriad moving parts, lower interest rates alone — if they remain low, which is no guarantee — may not be enough to propel the housing market forward. A stronger jobs picture, more robust consumer sentiment and some stabilization among warring political factions in Washington, D.C., would all also have to round into form to keep home sales churning.
That may still happen, but after some solid numbers coming out of the real estate market (see here and here), the NAR report is a sobering one for the real estate market.
http://www.thestreet.com/story/12087307/1/why-home-sales-fell-last-month.html?puc=yahoo&cm_ven=YAHOO
[Photo via SFBJ]
Another one bites the dust! The luxury beachfront condo/hotel building known as One Bal Harbour in (duh) Bal Harbour has officially filed a motion in U.S. Bankruptcy Court to schedule an auction and begin bidding procedures to sell off itself. The debtor, Elcom Hotel and Spa, owns 51 condo-hotel units and 41,047 square feet of the hotel portion of the building at 10295 Collins Ave, and is apparently over $20 million in debt. Oh, and the building’s practically falling apart.
The 300 room, $225 million luxury resort was all the rage back in 2004, when developer WCI Communities claimed to have sold 87% of the building’s units to high-profile buyers. The high didn’t last long. In May 2006, three construction workers died when a concrete wall collapsed, and allegations of structural problems and massive flooding have been plaguing the building ever since. WCI filed for bankruptcy in 2008, and an unlikely duo (a Virginia lumber mogul and a Colombian businessman) Tom Sullivan and Jorge Arevalo swooped in to save the day. Or so they thought. Long story short, problems arose between Arevalo and both the residential and the hotel associations, then came a seriously detailed and damaging audit report, followed by a hell of a lot of construction defect lawsuits. And here we are!
Opening price is set at $13 million, with Stoneleigh Capital acting as stalking-horse bidder. Elcom is hoping for an auction before the end of the year, and we’re all hoping someone can get this mess in order before the building starts to look dated. Oh wait, too late. —Margina Demmer · One Bal Harbour trustee seeks bankruptcy auction [SFBJ] · One Bal Harbour: Swanky high-rise address or big condo hotel mess [SFBJ] · One Bal Harbour coverage [Curbed Miami]
Google recently launched a new algorithm, code-named Hummingbird, that was designed to answer more complex queries and present more in-depth knowledge to users. Launched over a month ago, Google’s Hummingbird is its largest algorithm overhaul in 10 years.
At a press conference announcing the change, Google explained that the new algorithm is smarter, able to understand complex queries and return more relevant answers. They are preparing for a future of phone concierges, where you ask your phone for information and it talks back to you, understanding the meaning behind your questions and giving you semantically relevant answers.
According to the NY Times:
“The company made the changes because Google users are asking increasingly long and complex questions and are searching Google more often on mobile phones with voice search.”
What can you do to make sure your blog’s visibility improves in the wake of Hummingbird?
On InsideSearch, Amit Singhal, Google’s chief technologist, explained:
“The world has changed so much: billions of people have come online, the Web has grown exponentially, and now you can ask any question on the powerful little device in your pocket.”
Obviously mobile is a major focus for Google, and Hummingbird presents a way for Google to serve better results for mobile users. Given the massive amounts of data Google has at their fingertips, they can anticipate trends better than any other company…and if they are focusing on mobile and overhauling their entire algorithm to serve better mobile results, then this is something social media marketers must pay attention to. Just this week, Google changed their User Interface for tablet and mobile users.
What can you do to get your website mobile ready?
Do you need more information? Check out Google’s extensive guide on how to build Mobile-Optimized Websites.
Authorship is a way of identifying categorical influencers and featuring their content in Google.
According to Google:
“Using authorship helps searchers discover great information by highlighting content from authors who they might find interesting. If you’re an author, signing up for authorship will help users recognize content that you’ve written. Additionally, searchers can click the byline to see more articles you’ve authored or to follow you on Google+”.
It’s that simple!
