Tag Archives: Westchester NY

Westchester NY

Mt Kisco Real Estate | 30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rates Increase for First Time Since March

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Mortgage rates for 30-year fixed mortgages increased this week, with the current rate borrowers were quoted on Zillow Mortgage Marketplace at 3.39 percent, up from 3.25 percent at this same time last week. This represents the first rate increase since late March.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate hovered between 3.26 and 3.30 percent for the majority of the week before jumping up near the current rate on Friday.

“Last week, mortgage rates reversed their month-long decline on a stronger-than-expected jobs report,” said Erin Lantz, director of Zillow Mortgage Marketplace. “This coming week, we expect rates to remain fairly stable with limited news or economic data slated for release.”

Additionally, the 15-year fixed mortgage rate this morning was 2.56 percent, and for 5/1 ARMs, the rate was 2.32 percent.

What are the rates right now? Check Zillow Mortgage Marketplace for up-to-the-minute mortgage ratesfor your state.

05-07-13 0951AM

Reese Witherspoon Is Girl Next Door With Third Brentwood House | North Salem Real Estate

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Source: IMDb

Source: IMDb

If you live in Brentwood Circle, there’s a good chance Reese Witherspoon is the girl next door. With two existing homes in the neighborhood, the Oscar-winning actress has purchased another for $3 million.

The ranch-style home is described by the listing agent as an “enchanted cottage” that’s “warm and inviting.” With a glass art studio and hillside gardens, the home offers a retreat from downtown L.A.

It isn’t surprising Witherspoon would choose a getaway outside the city center — her Ojai ranch provided the feeling of being in the country while only an hour removed from Los Angeles. And, with a recent trip to jail on a disorderly conduct charge, the actress is likely looking to steer clear of the paparazzi.

It also isn’t surprising Witherspoon bought a few houses down from her existing property; celebs have a track record for hopping around the same neighborhood or owning several properties within the same ZIP code. Actress Kate Hudson is known for buying a $5.8 million home next door to her longtime Pacific Palisades residence, and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison also recently added to his collection of homes on Malibu’s “Billionaires’ Row.”

While celebs typically move up with successive home purchases, however, Witherspoon paid less for this property than her two other Brentwood homes. It’s also the smallest of the three, measuring 3,053 square feet

 

 

http://www.zillowblog.com/2013-05-07

3 Tips for Insuring Your First Home | Armonk Real Estate

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Buying your first home can be both an exciting and a scary experience. Many homeowners are appreciative of any bit of information that would help make the process less stressful and as painless as possible. Home insurance is usually a major contributor to the anxieties new homeowners’ experience. They are often confused about how much insurance they need. This post will give easy tips for choosing the best insurance for new home buyers.

Your House Should Be Fully Covered

The coverage on the insurance policy should reflect an amount that can adequately take care of the cost of rebuilding and refurbishing your entire house in the event that you lose it completely. Insurance companies may use a cost estimator to ascertain the cost replacement estimate, but you can have a home builder assess your home and furnish you with an estimate of the rebuilding cost. This should include the unique and/or expensive details of your home (if there are any). You do not want to end up being underinsured. Once you have the estimate for rebuilding, you will need to figure out which coverage to take. The choices are:

  • Guaranteed Replacement Cost Coverage – The insurer bears the cost for the rebuilding your home in spite of that cost. Very few insurers are offering these policies now.
  • Extended Replacement Coverage – This coverage involves the capping of the payout you would receive to approximately 125% of the insured value of your home.
  • Inflation Guarantee (or Guard) – This is a feature that ensures the insured value of your home stays on par with that of the marketplace.

Strive to get a reliable appraisal and extended replacement coverage along with an inflation guarantee. These will place you in a good position.

Liability Insurance

Home owners are sometimes caught off guard by third party claims for an injury someone incurred at their house or damages they caused to their neighbor’s property. These things happen, so protect yourself by ensuring your home insurance includes a liability insurance policy. Liability insurance gives the homeowner protection against any third party claims of damages and personal injury that occur on their property or are caused by them. Someone may fall and hurt themselves while on your property, or in the case of neighbors living in close proximity, your child could be playing and accidentally cause damage to their property. Liability insurance takes the burden of paying for medical bills or damages from your pocket, as the insurance company will take care of it.

Get Additional Coverage for Your Valuables

The standard insurance policy covers you home and possessions against eventualities such as natural disasters, fires, theft and accidents, but only does so indirectly for certain assets. Homeowners are sometimes caught off guard when they suffer from a disaster and realize they will not receive full compensation for certain valuables inside the house. The standard HO-3 policy takes care of the structural aspect of the house along with its contents, but there is limits the compensation for expensive possessions such as artwork and fine jewelry. You can obtain full coverage for them by paying a little extra on your policy each year.

 

 

http://blog.homegain.com/guest-bloggers

MY MARKETING PLAN IS BETTER THAN YOURS | Bedford Realtor

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Is it?

Do you feel you offer a better marketing strategy than the next Realtor?  

You do?  Good!  

Now, can people easily see that on your site? Uh-oh, this is where most agents are getting tripped up.

While perusing a fantastic Google+ community page called Photography for Real Estate, I stumbled upon an excellent video pitting “other” Realtor’s images compared to what the Connie Barnes’ team is producing.  Rather than just telling you how genius I think this video is, please watch it.

After watching this and being floored, not only by the presentation of the video, but the content contained therein, I knew I had to interview Connie and her team.  It’s not just about the plethora of comparison videos she has, but also her marketing centric posts like this one on the iPhone and this one explaining their team’s marketing plan.  They are front and center, fully transparent, and showing the world why they are the best in their local area.    Check out her numbers below.

Connie Barnes Business

 

Also, after visiting her site www.conniebarnes.com, look at her website traffic and you will quickly see how having such compelling marketing can lead to $48 million in sales.

Remember, your website isn’t here there to draw people in from the web, it’s also there to provide reassurance to clients you have already met and continue to tell your story long after you left their house.

Website Traffic

I wanted to dive deeper into Connie’s marketing plan, motivation behind her site structure, and how she started off on her path of marketing transparency.

After watching the interview,  if you have any questions for Connie or her team, please post them to theirGoogle+ page!

I know this interview is quite long, but worth all 15 minutes. Enjoy!

 

 

http://techsavvyagent.com

 

BANKS TO BERNANKE: Farmland Looks Bubbly | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate

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Ben Bernanke

REUTERS/Larry Downing

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke

In February, Bloomberg reported that members of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee (TBAC) – made up of high-level executives at Wall Street’s biggest investment banks and asset managers – warned in a quarterly TBAC meeting with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that farmland, junk bonds, and mortgage real estate investment trusts were looking bubbly. 

Via a Freedom of Information Act request, Bloomberg obtained the minutes to that meeting and has revealed some more information about what was said at the meeting in a new report.

According to the minutes, Bloomberg reporters Craig Torres and Joshua Zumbrun write that the TBAC opposed the Fed’s third round of quantitative easing – this time open-ended, unlike the previous two iterations – when it was announced in September:

The advisory council opposed continued Fed accommodation on Sept. 14, a day after the conclusion of the FOMC’s two-day meeting Sept. 12-13. The Fed after that gathering announced a third round of bond buying with purchases of $40 billion per month of mortgage-backed securities.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/wall-streets-biggest-banks-opposed-qe3-2013-5#ixzz2SnR5xmHD

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

The 10 Commandments of Twitter- Jeff Bullas | North Salem Realtor

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When I stumbled upon Twitter 54 months ago I was bemused, flummoxed and even curious. What is this social network that keeps me to 140 characters, sounds like a bird and seemed…well…. pointless?10 Commandments of Twitter

I tweeted here and there and collected 31 followers in 90 days of meandering. Even followed people with large Twitter tribes on topics as diverse as food, photography and politics. Malcolm Turnbull, the local senator must have thought I was a Twitter groupie.

Luckily he didn’t report me for stalking.

My progress on Twitter was slow, confused but persistent. Despite this I continued to tweet, retweet and play. My curiosity was undiminished.

Obsession on Twitter is not unknown. Some people such as Jennifer Aniston’s boyfriend at the time tweeted so much that she decided that he loved Twitter more than her.

She moved onto boyfriend number twenty seven.

Twitter is more powerful than you think

Twitter’s sometimes chaotic nature does make management of the torrent of tweets seem like herding cats. It is essential that you plug your Twitter account into a management tools such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. This will help you manage your stream with lists of people and hashtags that categorise on topics.

The real power of Twitter is that you can build a follower base that allows you to share a focused stream of content that adds value to your followers daily lives.

There are no fancy Facebook “Edgerank” algorithms to throttle your tweets and choke your content distribution.

Its pure and wild. I like that.

So what are some fundamental principles that you should embrace if you want Twitter to work for you?

The 10 Commandments of Twitter

Here are 10 commandments that may guide you to the Twitter promised land of a large and loyal following.  That engages with you and shares your content with speed and velocity.

Thou shalt

Moses used this term so I thought that I couldn’t go wrong if I borrowed the term “Thou shalt”

1. Write a meaningful “bio” description

If you are using Twitter for purely personal reasons then go crazy and knock yourself out with a crazy and cute bio. If you are serious then make sure that when they read it they know in a heartbeat what you are about.

2. Have a link

I don’t know how many times I have looked for a link to take a deeper dive into a Tweeter to see what they do and where they have come from but get stymied. If you don’t have a blog then take them to your Linked account or Facebook page.

Let them discover the real you. The bio is just the start

3. Be focused

Build a tribe of Twitter followers who are passionate and interested in your topic of interest. That can be done with tools such as Tweepi or Twellow.

4. Automate where appropriate

This may seem evil to some but as you grow your follower base things like following back become time consuming and unmanageable. Automate the boring tasks such as content distribution and follow back but not the conversation and engagement
Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/05/08/the-10-commandments-of-twitter/#rCCZyAZAUwH7oUCG.99

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

Sentiment shift: Home prices to rise | Katonah Real Estate

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The majority of Americans now are forecasting home prices to rise, and only about a third are expecting prices to fall, a reversal in attitudes of a year ago.

A monthly survey by mortgage finance firm Fannie Mae found 51% of those questioned in April believe prices will rise in the next 12 months, while only 35% are projecting a drop in prices. It is the first time in the three-year history of the survey that a majority said they expect prices to increase.

A year ago, 49% were expecting further price declines while only 32% said they though prices were on their way up.

The latest data from the housing market back up the this new level of confidence in the housing recovery. The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index rose 9.3% over the last 12 months, the biggest annual rise in home prices since the height of the housing bubble in 2006.

“Crossing the 50% threshold marks a significant milestone, as most Americans believe a housing recovery is truly occurring throughout the country,” said Doug Duncan, chief economist for Fannie Mae.

People who were sitting on the sidelines because of concerns that prices were still falling can be drawn back into the market once they believe prices are on their way up again.Home sales are up 10% from a year ago, helped not only by the climbing prices but alsorecord low mortgage rates and falling unemployment.

 

 

http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/07