Category Archives: Waccabuc NY

Old-School East Hampton Mansion for $10.5M | Waccabuc Real Estate

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20 Apaquogue Road, East Hampton
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We wish the pictures were better with this listing. It starts out very well. “Built in 1902, this Georgica mansion sits high and majestically on meticulous grounds and is situated on the treasured Apaquogue Road in East Hampton Village.” Can’t argue with that. The 6000sf house has got six bedrooms and 5.5 baths and its own two-bedroom, one-bath carriage house. There are lovely brick pathways, mature plantings and a pool set on one acre. We’d like to see more and better pictures of the interiors. The kitchen and baths, for one. The property last sold in October 2007 for $8.5M, which would have been the top of the market. What do you think?

 

 

http://hamptons.curbed.com/archives/2014/04/15/oldschool_east_hampton_mansion_for_105m.php

 

6 tips for fostering client loyalty: It’s about providing ‘wow’ experiences | Waccabuc Real Estate

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It’s not always easy to build loyalty with your clients in the real estate business — or any business for that matter. Building loyalty takes time and there are a number of essential things that you should be doing. Here are six practical tips you can use to foster client loyalty.

1. Plan loyalty-building events Events such as client appreciation days and seminars can be fantastic loyalty-builders.

Both of these events are not only great for strengthening relationships with your clients, they’ll also help you get introduced to more people (potential real estate leads) if you encourage your clients to bring friends and family members along.

A client appreciation event can be anything from bowling to a barbecue to a fireworks show. And remember that seminars are perfect for positioning yourself as a “home expert” because the purpose of the seminar will be to educate your clients on any number of topics relating to homeownership. You can conduct the seminar yourself or invite an expert in to speak. It could be an interior designer, hardwood flooring specialist or any other professional who can offer valuable advice your sphere would be interested in.

2. Send a real estate newsletter In addition to a real estate newsletter or e-newsletter being a great keep-in-touch tool, it’s a powerful instrument for establishing trust, credibility and expertise. It’s important for the e-newsletter to include helpful and interesting information such as how to assess the value of one’s home, advice for boosting curb appeal, and more. A good real estate customer relationship management (CRM) platform will come with a professionally designed and written monthly e-newsletter so you don’t have to spend the money, or take the time, to create one each month.

3. Offer a homeowner’s checkup It is a good idea to meet with clients occasionally to do a homeowner’s checkup. You can provide current information and available services such as a local market update, a simple inspection of their home, a review of their current mortgage, and more. These checkups are also good opportunities to have a discussion about the client’s home goals. As this type of meeting can be time-consuming, I recommend you offer this to only your best clients (your “A list”).

4. Make quarterly check-in calls Again, this is something you’d do for only your top clients, but after meeting with them face to face, phone calls are the next best thing from a relationship-building standpoint. Schedule quarterly “keep-in-touch calls” and after the call, record in your real estate CRM what you spoke about. This is important because next time you talk with that client, you can ask how Jimmy’s baseball tournament or Mary’s surgery went. During these calls, you can also offer recommendations on reputable home professionals, which is a win-win-win situation.

Showing genuine interest in your clients’ lives is instrumental to relationship-building, and of course developing a referrals-based business. 5. Send a real estate thank-you card to clients who referred you These days, a handwritten card is rare, which is why you should send them out to express your appreciation each time you get a referral.

In the card, thank the referrer, mention that you rely on referrals to build your business, and promise to take good care of the person he referred. You’ll also want to keep the referrer in the loop and let him know the outcome of the person he referred.

 

 

 

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/next/6-tips-for-fostering-client-loyalty-its-about-providing-wow-experiences/?utm_source=20140414&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyheadlinesam#sthash.BEwHCiLI.dpuf

House price boom ripples out of London, across Britain | Waccabuc Realtor

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The housing boom is spreading across the country, with rapidly rising prices   and long queues of buyers no longer restricted to London, experts are to   announce.

Property sales in the first three months of 2014 reached a six-year high as   the market recovered on a “truly national” scale, according to the Royal   Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics).

Activity is at levels last seen in early 2008, before the banking crisis took   hold, and is spreading to the Home Counties and beyond, figures suggest.

The trend is “striking in that it is clearly broadening out”, said Simon   Rubinsohn, a Rics economist. “There has been a sense that it was one story   for London and a very different outlook everywhere else, with perhaps a few   other city centres edging ahead. But that is not the case any longer,” he   added.

“Now that the housing market recovery is well and truly under way and mortgage   finance is more readily available, buyers seem to be looking to test the   market right across the country, not just in the usual hotspots of the South   East.”

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/houseprices/10756343/House-price-boom-ripples-out-of-London-across-Britain.html

 

Shadow Inventory Down 23 Percent, Foreclosure Inventory Shrinks 35 Percent | Mt Kisco Homes

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The numbers of foreclosures and potential foreclosures have fallen dramatically over the past 12 months as the foreclosure picture rapidly returns to pre-2006 levels.  The decline in foreclosures in the pipeline has important ramifications for real estate investors and local markets that are returning to health as they recover from the foreclosure flood that produced 4.9 million foreclosures since 2008.

CoreLogic reported today that as of February 2014, approximately 752,000 homes in the United States were in some stage of foreclosure, known as the foreclosure inventory, compared to 1.2 million in February 2013, a year-over-year decrease of 35 percent. Month over month, the foreclosure inventory was down 3.3 percent from January 2014. The foreclosure inventory as of February represented 1.9 percent of all homes with a mortgage, compared to 2.9 percent in February 2013.

At the end of February 2014, there were 1.9 million mortgages, or 4.9 percent, in serious delinquency, defined as 90 days or more past due, including those loans in foreclosure or real estate owned (REO) that there were 43,000 completed foreclosures in the United States in February 2014, down from 51,000 in February 2013, a year-over-year decrease of 15 percent. On a month-over-month basis, completed foreclosures decreased 13.1 percent from 50,000 in January 2014.

The national residential shadow inventory was 1.7 million homes as of January 2014 compared to 2.2 million in January 2013, a year-over-year decrease of 23 percent.

“Although there is good news that completed foreclosures are trending lower, the bigger news is the impressive decline in the foreclosure and shadow inventories,” said Dr. Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Every state has had double-digit, year-over-year declines in foreclosure inventory, which is reflected in the $70 billion decline in the shadow inventory.”

“The stock of seriously delinquent homes and the foreclosure rate are back to levels last seen in the final quarter of 2008,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “The shadow inventory has also declined year over year for the past 3 years as the housing market continues to heal, including double-digit declines for the past 16 consecutive months.”

 

 

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2014/04/shadow-inventory-down-23-percent-foreclosure-inventory-shrinks-35-percent/

Picture this: April housing market | Waccabuc Real Estate

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March housing inventory was up for the first time since 2010, but this is taking a back seat to the continuing rise in home prices.

Looking at 38 unique markets, Movoto Real Estate’s monthly report found that the median list price per square foot index was up 7.1% over where it was in March of 2013 to $186. Compared to March 2012, it is drastically up 23.2%.

Out of all the markets studied, 34 witnessed a year-over-year increase in median list price per square foot, with only two remaining the same and two recording slight decreases.

But nothing tells the story better than an infographic (see below), which shows the state of the April 2014 housing market.

 

 

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/29584-picture-this-april-housing-market

Look Inside The Restored Gate Lodges At Vizcaya | Waccabuc Real Estate

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33 images

[Photos courtesy RJ Heisenbottle Architects]

The two halves of Miami’s sublime Vizcaya, with the villa and gardens on one side and the farm village (and formerly the farm) on the other, are linked across South Miami Avenue by coordinating gate lodges that were recently the recipients of a restoration by architect Richard Heisenbottle. These are highly ornate gateways to each realm that both include, multi-level buildings. They included functional spaces for the estate as well as, in the western lodge, a residence for the chauffeur. That lodge incorporated an archway over the driveway and easy access to the garage, where Vizcaya’s vehicles were kept.

 

 

 

http://miami.curbed.com/archives/2014/04/04/the-vizcaya-gate-houses.php

Victim’s family sues city over East Harlem blast | Waccabuc Real Estate

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The family of an East Harlem explosion and building collapse victim filed two notices of claims against the city Wednesday morning.

The suit, filed on behalf of Griselde Camacho, a fatal victim of the collapse last month, is believed to be the first in connection to the blast. Quinones’ mother Carmen Quinones, currently in recovery at Mt. Sinai Hospital for her own injuries sustained during the explosion, made the first of the two claims, which says her daughter was injured on March 12 “due to the negligence of the respondents.” The two claims also charge the city with failing “to inspect gas lines knowing that they are old and subject to leaks and decay.”

“She is feisty and angry,” Nilsa Aguila, Camacho’s cousin and Quinones’ niece, told the Wall Street Journal of Quinones. “That is where her anger comes from. She blames the City for my cousin’s death.”

The second claim seems restitution payments for what it calls injuries incurred during the incident, including fractures, torn ligaments and “traumatic brain injury.”

The two claims seek payment of $20 million.

 

 

http://therealdeal.com/blog/2014/04/02/victims-family-to-file-first-suit-against-city-for-east-harlem-blast/

Credit Scores: Mortgage Lenders Ease Requirements | Waccabuc Real Estate

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According to a report prepared by Ellie Mae, a mortgage technology company, the average FICO credit score for approved mortgage loans dropped to 727 in December 2013. It was 748 a year earlier.

The average credit score for home loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac also dropped a little; December 2013 borrowers had an average credit score of 756, down from December 2012′s average of 761.

Refinance mortgages backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac were approved with an average credit score of 729 in December 2013; this was a significant drop from the average credit score of 763 in December 2012.

Only 46 percent of mortgage applicants approved had credit scores above 750 in December 2013 while approximately 57 percent of applicants had credit scores over 750 a year earlier. Mortgage Credit Scores: What’s Going On? – –

 

Reasons for approving mortgages with lower minimum credit scores include mortgage lenders’ growing confidence as the economy improves and mortgage defaults decrease.   As rates rise and refinancing activity dries up, lenders may also exercise more flexibility with credit scores in order to encourage more business.

While this isn’t life-changing news for would-be mortgage applicants with sub-par credit scores, a mortgage lender’s willingness to work with less-than-perfect credit is a positive sign in the aftermath of the recession.

But wait — there are conflicting opinions concerning how or if mortgage lenders will change their minimum required credit scores for any but the best-qualified applicants. Mortgage applicants with credit problems can expect to encounter glitches on the path to mortgage approval. Mortgage Underwriting Policies: Out with Overlays — or Not

Another practice that can limit a mortgage applicant’s chances of approval is the use of “lender overlays.” Lender overlays are underwriting requirements, imposed by lenders, in addition to the guidelines set out by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or the federal government. Overlays create extra hoops for applicants to jump through (or get stuck in).

Some analysts have said that mortgage lenders may be willing to reduce or eliminate lender overlays if economic conditions continue to improve.

 

 

http://blog.listedby.com/uncategorized/1064/