| Bedford Hills NY Weekly Real Estate Report | 8/12/2013 | |
| Homes for sale | 32 | |
| Median Ask Price | $1,590,000.00 | |
| Low Price | $289,000.00 | |
| High Price | $30,000,000.00 | |
| Average Size | 4841 | |
| Average Price/foot | $588.00 | |
| Average DOM | 138 | |
| Average Ask Price | $3,388,869.00 | |
KATONAH, N.Y. – Actor Richard Gere will be the honorary chair for an Oct. 5 Harvest Dinner at Caramoor.
The evening begins at 5:30 p.m. with cocktails, followed by dinner prepared by the Bedford Post Inn at 6:15. A musical performance by The Knights caps the night beginning at 8 p.m. in the Venetian Theater.
The Harvest Dinner is part of the Fall Festival at Caramoor Oct. 4-5. Jazz in the Courtyard will be Oct. 4, beginning at 8 p.m. Concert tickets for The Knights Oct. 5 also are available.
Tickets for the Harvest Dinner are $425. For more information, email events@caramoor.org
read more…
http://armonk.dailyvoice.com/events/richard-gere-honorary-chair-caramoor-harvest-dinner
Concerns about a coyote invasion in Westchester County have been heightened since the animals attacked and killed one woman’s beloved dog.
As CBS 2’s Tracee Carrasco reported Monday night, a tiny backyard memorial has been set up for the small dog that lost her life to three vicious members of her own taxonomic genus.
“She was a Chihuahua-terrier mix, about 7 pounds; full of heart,” said Kristin Porteus.
But the tiny pup, Roxy, was no match for a pack of three coyotes last Friday morning.
Like any other day, Porteus let her three dogs into the backyard of her Mount Kisco home in Westchester County. But on this particular day, there were three coyotes right there waiting.
“Right around here, I saw a lot of commotion and Roxy was barking, and I saw two coyotes come,” Porteus said.
Two of Porteus’ small dogs were able to escape as she chased the coyotes out of her backyard. But Roxy could not get away.
Now, Porteus and other Mount Kisco residents have become worried that the brazen animals are becoming more aggressive. They are afraid the animals may attack a child next.
Small Dog’s Death Raises Concern About Coyotes In Westchester County « CBS New York.
The Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York filed a civil lawsuit against Westchester County Tuesday over the lack of ultraviolet treatment of drinking water for some towns in county Water District 1.
Lawyers with the U.S. Attorney’s office had been pushing the county to enter into a consent decree settling the violations and gave the county a Friday deadline, but the county refused and urged the government to rethink the lawsuit.
“The federal Safe Drinking Water Act is designed to protect public health by requiring suppliers of water to take steps to prevent water-borne diseases from being transmitted to the public,” said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in a statement. “Westchester’s prolonged failure to comply with treatment rules designed to prevent cryptosporidiosis is unacceptable.”
The lawsuit seeks compliance and fines of $37,500 for each day the county was in violation.
The ultraviolet treatment kills cryptosporidium, a parasite that can cause gastrointestinal illness. The district serves Scarsdale, White Plains, North Castle, Mount Vernon and Yonkers. Most of Yonkers and Mount Vernon already get treated water and the county has been working on a fix for the other municipalities that could be in place by the spring. But, even then the treatment will be two years past the deadline.
EPA sues Westchester for failure to comply with safe drinking water act – Northern Westchester.
Despite news that the 30-year fixed rate has surpassed the 4% mark, economists continue to be cautiously optimistic about the housing market.
“Increases in rates would not be occurring if there wasn’t economic growth,” Steve Blitz chief economist at ITG Investment Research told Forbes last month. “If people thought the economy was heading south, even with absence of quantitative easing, the rates wouldn’t rise.”
Over the past few months the 30-year fixed rate, which has been hovering well below 4% has been trending upward, creating concern that recovery has halted.
Before the rate increase, April home prices rose 12% over a year ago with signed contracts in May at the highest level since 2006. However, by June existing home sales dropped 1.2% as rates started to rise. As of the end of July, the 30-year fixed rate stood at 4.31%, which is a drop from 4.37%.
Market specialists expressed concern that after months of recovery, that rising rates might hamper growth and overall recovery. However Blitz says that the housing market rebound is more of a symptom of recovery and not indicative of its overall direction. “There may be pent up demand, but there’s no pent up wealth to go buy a house. Housing will not lead the economy as it did from 2004-2006,” Blitz adds. “Instead, it will grow with the economy and not lead it.”
According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), existing homes sales stand at its highest level since November 2009. In fact NAR’s chief economist, Lawrence Yun refers to growth as “overwhelmingly positive.”
Mike Corn, CEO and co-founder of CU Realty Services says that data released by the U.S. HUD and the U.S. Census Bureau show an increase in builder confidence and that CoreLogic expects home prices to continue to rise.
Although rates and prices have inched up, Corn says that he believes the market will continue to improve and that this trend may drive more consumers to consider a credit union mortgage loan. “As more sellers list their homes to take advantage of improving market values, many will become buyers in need of a mortgage,” he says in a statement. “And with loan rates slowly creeping up, many home buyers are looking to purchase sooner rather than later. For credit unions with the right marketing strategy in place, there’s a great opportunity to provide homebuyers with the mortgages they need.”
Rising Rates Appear to Have Little Impact on Housing Recovery.
Even as home prices and mortgage rates rise, there are still bargains available for borrowers looking to purchase rental properties.
According to the National Association of Realtors’ 2013 Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey, investment-home purchases accounted for 24 percent of all sales in 2012, the second highest mark since 2005.
“Investors have been very active in the market over the past two years, attracted mostly by discounted foreclosures that could be quickly turned into profitable rentals,” Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said in a statement.
While rental properties are certainly appealing, offering the promise of monthly cash flow in addition to long-term appreciation, investment properties have a number of costs that are both visible and hidden, says Michael Whitbeck, real estate investor and founder of Residential Mortgage Underwriting and Processing Institute, a mortgage underwriting training firm in West Bloomfield, Mich. Even the most obvious expenses, like the monthly mortgage payment, might pack a few surprises.
Before you start searching for rental properties, run the numbers to understand whether investing in a rental property will be a windfall or a money pit.
Come join other amateur astronomers, or just lovers of the nighttime sky, at “Starway to Heaven,” a monthly observing night at the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in Cross River.
This year’s observing dates are:
Sept. 7/Rain date of Sept. 28.
Oct. 5/Rain date of Oct. 26.
Nov. 2/Rain date of Nov. 30.
The group usually sets up and starts observing a half hour after sunset. You can find the time for sunset at Ward Pound Ridge here.
“Starway to Heaven” is free and sponsored by the Westchester County Department of Parks, Recreation and Conservation. Stargazers are encouraged to bring a telescope — especially if you need help using or setting it up. If you don’t have a telescope, you can look through a members’ equipment.
Call 1–877–456–5778 for weather cancellations. A good rule of thumb is don’t show up if you can’t count more than 10 bright stars.
For more information, read the group’s general observing guidelines.
Westchester Star Lovers Look To The Sky In Pound Ridge | The Armonk Daily Voice.
According to this infographic, two people join LinkedIn every second of every day. It then proceeds to ask “Then what?”
“How are they using it and is it really helping them?” this infographic from Power Formula asks.
According to the infographic, though LinkedIn has a paid option, 84.4 percent of people who use it use the free version of the social networking site. That is, just 15.1 percent pay to use linkedIn. There is a small number of LinkedIn users (0.5 percent) who are not sure whether they use the free or the paid version of the professional-leaning social network.
When it comes to first-level connections – that is, the people a user is directly connected to – the largest group is at 500 to 999 connections (21.7 percent). The smallest group is not those with fewer connections, it’s those who have 300 or more connections (1.3 percent).
Looking at the numbers LinkedIn consultant and author Wayne Brietbarth provided Power Formula, the next largest group of first-level connections is people who have 301 to 499 connections (18.7 percent) followed by people who have 101 to 200 connections (15.9 percent).
As to sharing their first-level network with their first-level connections, most LinkedIn user share who they are connected to (63.3 percent). Only 12.2 percent keep their first-level network private to their first-level connections. However, 24.5 percent are not sure so maybe their LinkedIn settings are not really transparent to them.
When talking about groups, the LinkedIn user of 2013 mostly is a member in 1 to 9 groups (35.5 percent). The infographic notes that 2.2 percent of LinkedIn users are not members of any group, 25.1 percent are members of 10 to 19 groups, 9.3 percent are members of 20 to 29 groups, 4 percent are members of 30 to 39 groups, 7.8 percent are members of 40 to 49 groups, a large 14 percent are members of 50 groups (the maximum number of groups LinkedIn allows a user to be a member of), and 2 percent have no idea that LinkedIn had groups.
Meanwhile, more than half (52.2 percent) of those asked said they use LinkedIn 0 to 2 hours every week which is not a great statistic if you are LinkedIn. Nonetheless, there are people who use it more than that with most of the others using it 3 to 4 hours every week.
When asked how LinkedIn has helped them, the most common answer users gave was that the social network helped them research people and companies (75.8 percent). The second-most given answer to the question was that LinedIn helped reconnect with past business associates and colleagues (70.6 percent). The least-given answer was generating identifiable business opportunities at 28.3 percent.
Learn more including what feature LinkedIn users think is the most helpful, company page statistics and how company pages are used, and how important people think LinkedIn is in the Power Formula infographic below.
The Portrait of a LinkedIn User in 2013 | Social Media Today.
Have you started using Facebook hashtags for your business?
Are you wondering how to best use a Facebook hashtag?
In this article, I’ll reveal four important benefits of using hashtags on Facebook.
I’ll also explore important considerations when putting together your hashtag strategy.
As you’ve undoubtedly seen, hashtags are now clickable and useable on Facebook.
Using a hashtag # (or pound symbol) in front of a word or phrase turns the word into a clickable link.
When you click on the link, you’ll see a feed of public posts (or posts that are visible to you due to a friend relationship on Facebook) that include that hashtag.
Here’s how you can use Facebook hashtags:
As hashtags gain momentum on Facebook (they’ve been in use on other platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Google+), they’ll help you expand your reach to people who are looking at posts in your topic.
Hashtags have been a great way to help people interested in niche topics find each other and find the conversation.
The #WalkingDead hashtag connects people interested in this show.
By including a hashtag in your post, you can possibly get in front of people who may not have seen your post otherwise. But you’ll have to monitor this in yourFacebook Insights. Make sure you watch your Reach and Engagement Numbersto see if your hashtags are making a difference in your posts.
Click the Reach column in your Facebook insights to see which posts are getting the highest reach.
Branding your Facebook Page with your own special hashtag can help an idea or new product catch on. By branding all your posts about a new product, you can break this information out into a separate stream of information and give people an easy way to share information about that product or idea.
Think carefully about what types of things others would also be interested in sharing. If the posts are too promotional and not valuable, you may have a hard time getting people to share them with their friends.
4 Ways Marketers Can Use Facebook Hashtags | Social Media Examiner.
Nowadays, we don’t give much thought to our toilets, but there was a time when answering nature’s call involved such things as porcelain pots and crude outhouses. The modern flushing toilet actually didn’t become ubiquitous until the early 1900s. Since then, the technology has changed very little, and for the average do-it-yourselfer, it’s not challenging to fix a running toilet.
Source: shutterstock.com
A defective flapper is usually behind a running toilet problem. When you flush, the flapper is the rubber stopper within the tank that lifts to release water into the bowl. Over time, the flapper deteriorates, allowing water to trickle past its once-tight seal. Push down on the flapper to test its integrity; if the toilet immediately stops running, then you’ve identified the issue. The next step is to replace the flapper.
Start by turning the water off to the toilet (the shutoff valve should be directly beneath the tank). Flush the toilet to drain all remaining water from the tank and bowl. Now you can remove the flapper. As you do so, note the way in which it attaches to the bottom of the tank. There are several kinds of flappers, so when you visit the hardware store to buy a replacement, be sure you select one that is identical.
Follow the installation instructions that come with your replacement flapper. Most important is adding or removing links to establish an appropriate length for the chain connecting the flapper to the flush arm. Leave the chain too long and you’ll get “jiggling handle syndrome.” (You know, when you have to fidget with the handle a bit before the tank begins to refill.) If you make the chain too short, the flapper won’t be able to rise fully away from the drain hole, leading to abbreviated flushes.
Let’s say that when diagnosing the trouble with your toilet, pressing down on the flapper did not stop the water from running. In that case, the cause might be the fill tube. That’s the small plastic tube going from the fill valve — the main assembly in the tank — to the overflow pipe, which drains excess water when the tank fills too high. If you see that the fill tube is under water, cut it back so that the tube clears the water level.
