Tag Archives: Westchester NY Homes

Westchester NY Homes

Realtor recovering after being shot on grounds of $1.88M property | Bedford NY Real Estate

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A Canadian Realtor is recovering after being shot in the head Saturday on the grounds of a 19-acre, $1.88 million listing he represents near Vancouver, British Columbia.

Franz Prokop of Macdonald Realty was airlifted to a hospital after he was found by the side of the road on the property, which formerly housed a marijuana grow operation and methamphetamine lab.

Police say the shooting was not random but don’t have a suspect in custody, The Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows News reports.

 

Source: mapleridgenews.com.

 

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http://www.inman.com/wire/realtor-recovering-after-being-shot-on-grounds-of-1-88m-property/#sthash.vNA0cTsh.dpuf

Before Bryant Park, There Was NYC’s Doomed First Skyscraper | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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This little-known piece of old New York was the city’s very first skyscraper. Exactly 160 years ago this summer, the so-called Crystal Palace opened to awed crowds. Its footprint took up nearly one square block on Sixth Avenue between 42nd and 41st Streets, with a cross-shaped floorplan and a central dome that soared so gracefully it seemed it were destined for a Parisian train station rather than a temporary exhibition space. An octagonal tower built at the side of the main hall, called the Latting Observatory, was somewhere between 300 and 315 feet tall, depending on who you asked, unseating the previous record-holder, Trinity Church, whose spire reached a mere 290. It was inaugurated on July 14, 1853, with President Franklin Pierce presiding and an abundance of fireworks and general pizzazz. Inspired by a structure in London, New York would not be outdid. According to the Times, “for a time, no visitor to New York or from neighboring cities or suburban districts considered his life complete without a visit.” In a manner of speaking, it symbolized the irrepressible antebellum feeling of American exceptionalism. “It was a thing to be seen once in a lifetime,” wrote Horace Greeley, “As we grow in wealth and strength, we may build a much greater Crystal Palace.”

  • The whole thing was the work of an ambitious engineer, Christan Detmold, with knowledge of the vagaries of iron and glass and how to weld them together to make something majestic.

 

 

 

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http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2013/08/22/before_bryant_park_there_was_nycs_doomed_first_skyscraper.php

 

Facebook Contests, How to Get Your Fans Excited | Bedford Corners Realtor

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Have you ever run a Facebook contest?

Are you wondering if you should use them for your business?

To learn about Facebook contests, I interview Andrea Vahl for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast.

More About This Show

Social Media Marketing Podcast w/ Michael Stelzner

 

The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner.

It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting).

In this episode, I interview Andrea Vahl, co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies.She regularly writes about Facebook for Social Media Examiner (in fact she was our community manager for 2 years), and has an alter-ego known online as Grandma Mary.

Andrea shares how a Facebook contest can work for your page and your business.

You’ll learn about the different contests available and what contest apps to use.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below!

Listen Now

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

You can also subscribe via iTunes, RSS, Stitcher or Blackberry.

 Here are some of the things you’ll discover in this show:

Facebook Contests

Why should businesses run contests on Facebook?

When it comes to what contests can do for your Facebook page and your business, Andrea is a contest fan girl.

There are many benefits of running a contest and Andrea’s top three follow. You’ll hear the benefits of each and the best types of prizes to give away.

  1. Help grow the likes on your page and your Facebook presence
  2. Grow your email list
  3. Help promote a product you’re selling

Listen to the show to find out how we did a photo contest called Help Me Launch.

Examples of successful contests

Andrea shares a few success stories with Facebook contests and what range of prizes can develop good success.

Andrea helped set up a contest for a client on Facebook called Chocolate for Breakfast. It was a contest where the giveaway was a small box of premium chocolate truffles.

The contest was run for one week. From this, the client got 700 new fans and 400 email addresses. At the time, the page was at the early stages with around 1200 fans. So for the cost of the premium box of chocolates, the client got a huge response.

chocolate for breakfast truffles

The Chocolates for Breakfast prize was very well branded with the page.

The contest was on the client’s Facebook tab (like you’re supposed to do), and it required people to like the page to enter.

Discover how a contest on a tab works and what information people need to enter to participate.

It was a sweepstakes contest where you didn’t have to enter any photos, essay or video. It was a random-draw winner with anyone eligible to win.

You’ll hear how it was promoted and the frequency of the posts.

Another client of Andrea’s, Camp Bow Wow, did a contest called Bad to the Bone. They’re a doggy daycare facility and also have home buddies dog training courses that they give away.

 

 

Facebook Contests, How to Get Your Fans Excited | Social Media Examiner.

Protect your data from cloud-based storms | South Salem Realtor

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The recent crash of the dotloop e-signature platform highlights the challenges related to going paperless and relying on someone else’s server for your protection. Whether it’s your email, your website, your e-signature platform or anything else that you store in the cloud, what can you do to protect yourself from cloud-based storms?

In my recent series of articles on the differences between the various e-signature platforms, I outlined the dangers of using a PDF-based e-signature platform such as dotloop that relies exclusively on its company website to track document changes in the cloud. A dedicated web server is one of the basic requirements for any organization in today’s business world. It is used to host the websites of the company or the whole enterprise and possesses the requisite resources for the task. The bandwidth and storage space provided by a dedicated hosting server can never be matched by a shared server, and the exclusivity provided by this server is unparalleled. These servers are usually hack – proof, and are not targeted by malwares, viruses and spywares due to the heightened security provided by the web hosting company. Now that you have finally decided to go for a dedicated server hosting and selected one that suits your business’ demands, you have to think about managing it. You can either manage it yourself or give this task to the firm which is providing you with the server. It is always advisable to hand this task over to the dedicated web server company, which will deal with all the nuances involved in setting up, hosting and managing the server. Even though you can always learn how to manage it, the task will be arduous and take a lot of your time, which is precious for your business’ growth. Typically, Fully Managed Dedicated Server Hosting consists of server monitoring, software updates, reboots, security patches and operating system upgrades. This provides you with ample time to concentrate on other tasks while the hosting company handles your server managing demands. Also, the firms which hire the services of the dedicated web server are provided with individual server administration add-on tools in the standard deals. Therefore, you can be at ease with even the standard deals and see your business achieve new heights due to the fully managed hosting option. Most people choose shared hosting for their website at the beginning. Shared hosting is a hosting account on which you host your website on a shared server with hundreds of other people’s websites. Shared hosting is usually very affordable due to the number of websites sharing the space and resources on each server. The downside of this is your website has to share the resources on the server such as processing power and memory. This means if particular websites are very busy and getting loads of traffic, they will obviously draw more processing power and server memory. This can lead to your website being slow to open and your potential customer won’t wait for your website to display; they’ll just go elsewhere! The other drawback with sharing a server with so many websites is a server is only as reliable as the scripts being written to it. If a particular website uses a bad script it can take the whole server down. Your website will go down as well and through no fault of your own. If your online business is mission critical and you want to avoid suffering any downtime or slowness, your best option is your own dedicated server. And if you are not at all technical then the best option of all is a fully managed dedicated server.You can visit https://www.knownhost.com/managed-wordpress-hosting.html for more information.

A fully managed dedicated server is managed for you by your hosting provider. You won’t have full root access to it but you will get a control panel which you use to set up your website space and that’s it. So in a way, similar to a shared server, except it’s yours with only your websites using it. This used to be quite an expensive option but prices have come down and there are wide ranges of hosting providers who offer fully managed dedicated servers from as low as £50 or £60 a month. The other advantage of your own dedicated server is you can install any software you want. On a shared server you are only able to use the pre-installed software and components provided and this can be limiting. If it’s fully managed your hosting provider will install the software for you and they may make a small installation charge. You also get far more web space to use – if the hard drive on the server is 80GB then you can use about 74GB of that for your websites and software. And with a dedicated server you will get far more bandwidth to use than you would on a shared server. In fact, there are a number of hosting providers who now offer 1 terabyte of monthly bandwidth use which is more than enough for most online businesses.

When I was researching the articles, I posed the following question to dotloop’s CEO, Allison Austin: “What happens if your system goes down, is hacked, or if you go out of business?” His response cited dotloop’s multiple backup systems and that it would be highly unlikely that that would happen. At RadiusBridge we help your business manage internal and external data with a focus on the best use of data to grow your business.

When the dotloop system went down, its users lost access. All digital transaction management platforms send users their documents via email, where they can be archived and accessed for future use.

But unlike DocuSign, Instanet or zipLogix’s Digital Ink products that provide the double protection of both a PDF document trail and independent tracking of changes within the document itself, dotloop users had no backup unless they did one of three things prior to the outage: (1) printed the documents to paper beforehand; (2) downloaded the documents into a separate PDF file on their computer; or (3) stored the documents in another cloud-based solution.

It’s not if they will fail, it’s when Of course, whether you are Google, Amazon, Microsoft or any other technology provider, sooner or later the system goes down. On Aug.16, Google went down for a few minutes. The blackout was “unprecedented.” The result: a 40 percent decrease of global traffic on the Web, according to a CNET article.

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http://www.inman.com/2013/08/22/protect-your-data-from-cloud-based-storms/#sthash.MlrkSiPy.dpuf

Huguette Clark’s Legendary Estate Inches Closer to Subdivision | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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The 52-acre Connecticut estate known as Le Beau Château—one of the many high-value real estate holdings of the late copper heiress Huguette Clark—may soon be subdivided under new ownership, after failing to sell intact. Currently listed for $15.9M, the estate was once publicly asking as much as $24M, but has seen swift price chops and some creative marketing following Clark’s 2011 death. Now the listing touts an approved “10-estate lot subdivision”—which the city signed off on back in 2008—along with the Voorhees, Gmelin and Walker-designed nine-bedroom mansion, which, curiously enough, Clark never moved into during her 60 years of ownership. Hopefully, the main house will not suffer demolition following a sale, but subdivision developers are generally not inclined to rehabilitate historic mansions.

 

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http://curbed.com/archives/2013/08/20/huguette-clarks-legendary-estate-now-ready-for-subdivision.php

 

Peter Eisenman’s Experimental ‘House VI’ Listed for $1.4M | South Salem Real Estate

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20 images

A rare house by “postfunctionalist” architect Peter Eisenman in the hills of Connecticut has been quietly listed for $1.4M. Despite the name, House VI, this was actually just the second structure built by Eisenman, who, at the time of the 1972 design, had spent much of his career on theory. Perhaps as a result, the construction of the compact house took three years and ran well over budget. In 1987, persistent issues with the structure meant it had to be thoroughly renovated, but the original clients remain satisfied with the result, so much so that they wrote a book in defense of Eisenman’s work. Set on six acres, the controversial house has been listed alongside a repurposed 1880s schoolhouse, now used as a guest cottage, and a lean-to barn

Sales of New U.S. Homes Fell More Than Forecast in July | Waccabuc NY Homes

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Purchases of new U.S. homes plunged 13.4 percent in July, the most in more than three years, raising concern higher mortgage rates will slow the real-estate rebound.

Sales fell to a 394,000 annualized pace, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. The reading was the weakest since October and was lower than any of the forecasts by 74 economists Bloomberg surveyed.

A jump in borrowing costs over the past three months may be prompting buyers to hold back, showing the difficult job ahead for Federal Reserve officials as they try to wean the economy from monetary stimulus while sustaining growth. The falloff in demand is in contrast to a surge in confidence among builders such as Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL), which suggests they remain optimistic about the long-term outlook as employment improves.

“It’s definitely a rate shock,” said Doug Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae in Washington. “You could see another month or two of weak sales or it could go longer. This is a sustainable recovery, but we’ve also said it’s not robust. Along the way, there will be some hiccups. This is certainly a hiccup.”

Stocks rose, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index’s posting its first two-day gain in three weeks, as investors weighed the housing data against signals from Fed policy makers on stimulus cuts. The S&P 500 climbed 0.4 percent to 1,663.5 at the close inNew York.

The median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a decrease to 487,000. Forecasts ranged from 445,000 to 525,000. The Commerce Department also marked down readings for each of the previous three months with June’s sales pace revised down to 455,000 from a previously reported 497,000 pace.

Economic Surprise

The difference between July’s outcome and the average estimate of economists surveyed was 7 times larger the poll’s standard deviation, or the average divergence between what each economist forecast and the mean. That was the biggest surprise since April 2010. The S&P Supercomposite Homebuilding Index, which includes companies such as Lennar Corp. (LEN) and KB Home (KBH), fell 1.5 percent in the first 30 minutes after the figures were released. It was down 3.1 percent at 1:12 p.m. in New York.

New-home purchases were 6.8 percent higher in July than the same period in 2012 on an adjusted basis, today’s report showed. The median price increased 8.3 percent last month from a year ago to $257,200.

That’s one reason builders are becoming more upbeat, with the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo confidence index rising this month to the highest level since November 2005.

 

 

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-23/sales-of-new-homes-in-u-s-plunged-more-than-forecast-in-july.html

 

12 household toxins you should banish from your home | Mt Kisco Real Estate

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Coal tar driveway sealant

            To save money, protect your health, and help the environment, give these toxic tenants an eviction notice.

The Dirt: If you plan to seal your blacktop driveway, avoid coal tar–based sealants. They contain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, toxic compounds shown to cause cancer or other genetic mutations. When rainwater and other precipitation hit your driveway, the toxic chemicals run off into your yard and into your local drinking water supply. In fact, this situation has been compared to dumping quarts of motor oil right down a storm drain. The dust is often tracked into homes, too.

Better Alternative: Gravel and other porous materials are best for driveways because they allow rainwater to sink into the ground, where it gets filtered and doesn’t inundate water treatment plants. But if you do seal blacktop, pick asphalt sealant and stay away from any product that has coal tar in its name (or products simply called “driveway sealant”). Lowe’s and Home Depot have already banned the bad stuff, but smaller hardware stores may still carry it.

Thirdhand smoke harmful to home prices and people | Chappaqua Real Estate

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Homes that housed a regular smoker are worth, on average, 20 percent less than they would be otherwise, said a surveyed group of Ontario, Canada, real estate agents.

Not only that, but thirdhand smoke — smoke residue that has seeped into walls, carpets and the ventilation system of a home and become part of a home’s atmosphere — has been shown to be carcinogenic by researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

Source: Chicago Tribune

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http://www.inman.com/wire/thirdhand-smoke-harmful-to-home-prices-and-people/#sthash.LVOe035E.dpuf