Category Archives: Waccabuc NY

Do-it-yourself Pole-barn Building | South Salem Real Estate

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If you need to add shelter to your homestead easily and economically, pole barns are right for you. They’re the fastest, most cost-effective way to build permanent, solid shelter to store equipment, house livestock, or function as a garage or workshop facility. You can even use the pole barn approach to build a year-round home. A big part of the attraction is simplicity. There are only four steps involved in pole-barn building, and the first one’s even optional! None of the work requires fancy tools or finely honed skills.

The steps to pole-building success are simple: Create a level base pad (if you want more than just the earth underfoot), set poles vertically into holes in the ground, connect them across the top with beams and braces, then put roof trusses on top. No need for a complicated foundation, either. Even in regions with cold, frost-prone winters, pole barns endure well with nothing more than the simplest connections to the earth. And if this weren’t advantage enough, pole barns also offer the option of using your own logs and rough-cut lumber for many parts of the job. The only thing wrong with pole barns is the name. This building approach is so much more useful than for building barns alone.

If you’ve never constructed anything large before, then a pole building is a good place to start. The illustration and information you’ll find in this article will equip you to custom build your own durable pole barn based on universal design and building principles. Most building authorities require simple plans for project approval, though many will accept hand-drawn versions. Agricultural extension services across the continent also offer basic pole building plans for free. You can buy fancier ones online. Either way, success ultimately comes down to the kind of hands-on know-how you’ll find here.

Create a Base

Besides the fact that you’ll need to locate your pole building on flat, well-drained ground, consider adding fill to create a raised base area. This isn’t necessary for all applications, though it provides a more level floor space that’s raised enough to keep water from draining in, even during wet seasons.

There are four reasons crushed rock screenings are my favorite choice for a raised base. Screenings are usually less expensive than other types of aggregate because they’re a byproduct at many quarries. Screenings also are small — typically less than a quarter-inch in diameter, with lots of stone dust mixed in. This makes screenings easy to rake and level accurately. They pack down firmly, too. And screenings don’t ruin the future growing potential of soil forever. When your pole barn needs to come down after its working life is over, scrape off the screenings and use them somewhere else. Unlike larger grades of crushed stone, the leftover screenings that the loader can’t remove will disappear when you till the soil.

Before you order any fill for a base, you’ll need to mark out an area to guide the location and level of material required. Read “Stake Your Ground,” below, for tricks that speed this process and the work of laying out wall post locations later.

Installing Poles

The plan shows the 8-foot pole spacing that’s common for enclosed walls on most pole-barn designs. You can stretch that to 12-foot spacing on open sides where animal and machine access is required.

Pressure-treated timbers make good poles for small designs, and reclaimed utility poles (as long as they’re in sound condition) or rot-resistant logs cut from your own forest are good for large ones. The key is to select the right diameter poles for the height and spacing you’re planning (check with your local building inspector).

If you have health and environmental concerns about using pressure treated lumber, there’s good news. Today’s most common wood preservative compound, abbreviated ACQ, replaces the arsenic-bearing substance called CCA that was used to preserve wood until 2003.

ACQ is one of a handful of new preservatives that are thought to be significantly safer than CCA. But all these new products do have a downside. They’re much more corrosive to nails, screws and support brackets than CCA ever was. And as you’d expect, this corrosive action is greatly enhanced in the presence of moisture. As a minimum, use hot-dipped galvanized nails and screws when building your pole barn. Better yet, for critical connections where additional fasteners can’t be driven in later, use stainless steel.

Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/print.aspx?id={FDD84908-2956-40C3-B5BB-F7161A8A09A2}#ixzz2SvITFfhK

 

 

Do-it-yourself Pole-barn Building.

Time to take the measure of the recovery | Waccabuc Real Estate

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Commentary: Many global indicators are at inflection points

Long-term rates fell this week to the lows of 2013, mortgages stickier than 10-year T-notes. Although long Treasurys made it to 1.85 percent, mortgages are still 3.75 percent or so — the mortgage market frightened to death that any loan it buys today will live until its 360th payment.

Trading everywhere has ceased for Passover, Good Friday, and Easter, but next week brings a flood of brand-new information for March, capped on Friday by employment data. Thus a good time to reflect.

I do not recall a moment in which so many economic elements at the same time have been at points of inflection. In the old days (five years ago) nothing much mattered except U.S. data. In global markets the world is more important than the U.S.

1. Rates are down because of Europe. Period. Euro elites are secure looking down their noses: “Cyprus is unique, the euro-zone will be fine, just a little austerity and economic reform ahead.” Au contraire… bank funding costs in March everywhere except Germany rose by 25 percent (who wants a haircut at shoulder-level?); French and Spanish 10-year yields are opening versus German; nobody is making fiscal progress, the combination of austerity and euro-shackles making recovery impossible. Yet everyone who has cried euro-failure “Wolf!” has been premature. Or wrong: maybe there is no wolf at all. Or, if the wolf finally does arrive, the bigger the shock.

2. The stock market set a new high yesterday, greeted by no exuberance. Usually a technical “breakout” like this is followed by a big run. Not. This new high is a half-inch above the same top in 1999 and 2007. Whee. And yet … stocks could really run and bring back the wealth effect.

3. That wealth effect may already be here. This morning’s news: personal incomes jumped 1.1 percent in February and spending with them, up 0.6 percent.

 

 

 

Time to take the measure of the recovery | Inman News.

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

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

Home construction continues to add jobs | Waccabuc Real Estate

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superchargeSalesCycle

Builders continued to hire more workers in April, though employment among an age cohort important to household formation slipped, according to today’s jobs report, which showed more overall growth than expected.

Residential construction jobs are up 4.1 percent year over year, towering about the overall jobs growth rate of 1.6 percent, said Trulia Chief Economist Jed Kolko, citing data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics today.

Total residential-construction jobs moved up from a seasonally adjusted 580,200 in March to 586,400 in April, according to the report. In April of last year, the sector supported 572,000 jobs, the report showed.

But that jobs growth lags compared to actual construction growth. Kolko chalks up the discrepancy to the fact that the number of jobs for every construction project is more than normal.

At the same time, today’s report also showed that employment among a cohort that is crucial to household formation, 25 to 34-year-olds, has slipped recently, dropping from 75.6 percent in December 2012 to 75.2 percent in April, Kolko said.

But Fannie Mae Chief Economist Doug Duncan said that the report was positive overall and “better-than-expected.”

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/05/03/home-construction-continues-to-add-jobs/#sthash.c6qctOjM.dpuf

Property taxes are only part of the picture | South Salem Real Estate

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Cul-de-sac image via Shutterstock.Cul-de-sac image via Shutterstock.

Do you think your state’s property tax burden is too high?

Before you start complaining how high property taxes are in your state, take a look at the charts below to see not only property taxes are in your state, but total taxes.

Your property taxes may be high for a reason — for example, if, like Florida, your state has no income tax.

First, see how property taxes in your state compare with those in the other 49 states. The following chart shows the amount of local and state property taxes collected per capita in each state in 2009.

Property tax collections by state

StateProperty tax collections, per capitaRank
Alabama$50350
Alaska$1,72810
Arizona$1,11932
Arkansas$54949
California$1,46515
Colorado$1,27724
Connecticut$2,4732
Delaware$71243
Florida$1,58913
Georgia$1,09234
Hawaii$98335
Idaho$81340
Illinois$1,7829
Indiana$1,12431
Iowa$1,30522
Kansas$1,35319
Kentucky$66346
Louisiana$70245
Maine$1,64011
Maryland$1,20527
Massachusetts$1,8748
Michigan$1,45216
Minnesota$1,34620
Mississippi$79341
Missouri$92937
Montana$1,30123
Nebraska$1,43717
Nevada$1,31821
New Hampshire$2,2403
New Jersey$2,6631
New Mexico$60647
New York$2,1365
North Carolina$86738
North Dakota$1,16529
Ohio$1,13530
Oklahoma$59748
Oregon$1,17228
Pennsylvania$1,22725
Rhode Island$2,0187
South Carolina$97036
South Dakota$1,11133
Tennessee$74842
Texas$1,47514
Utah$86339
Vermont$2,0566
Virginia$1,43118
Washington$1,22626
West Virginia$70944
Wisconsin$1,63312
Wyoming$2,2854

Source: taxfoundation.org.

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/05/03/property-taxes-are-only-part-of-the-picture/#sthash.rztFC7l4.dpuf

Cash Sales: 30 Percent of Residential Sales | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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Approximately 30 percent of REALTORS® reporting on their last sale had a cash sale (32 percent in February). Investors and international buyers typically pay cash. About 9 percent of REALTORS® reporting a sale to a first-time homebuyer also reported cash sales, while over 70 percent of reported last sales to investors and international buyers were for cash. This is based on data from the March REALTORS® Confidence Index Survey.

What Does This Mean for REALTORS®?
The first time buyer faces a challenge—particularly given that investors are in many cases paying cash—as are second home buyers and international buyers. The key to success appears to be getting financing in place.

 

 

 

http://economistsoutlook.blogs.realtor.org/2013/04/30

Understanding Facebook EdgeRank [Infographics] | South Salem Realtor

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Give your posts a higher probability of appearing at the top of users’ News Feeds.

Understanding Facebook Edge Understanding Facebook EdgeRank [Infographics]The News Feed — in the center column of your home page — is a list of stories from the people and pages you follow on Facebook. Customized and continuously updated, it is designed to make the most out of the time you spend on the social network by serving up the information that’s the most meaningful to you. News Feed stories include likes, status updates, app activity, photos, videos, and links.

According to comScore, 40% of time on Facebook is spent on the News Feed. When a user logs in, there are normally many more posts than can fit in their “top news”. EdgeRank is an algorithm developed by Facebook that governs what is displayed — and how high — on the News Feed. Knowing how Facebook decides what shows up (and what doesn’t) in news feeds is key for digital marketers. If you can write posts with an eye toward the EdgeRank algorithm, they will have a higher probability of being displayed at the top of users’ “top news”.

 

What is an Edge?

Every piece of content in Facebook is called an Object (for our purposes here, think “post”), and each interaction with that content is called an Edge. Examples of Edges include status updates, comments, likes, and shares. Each Edge is comprised of Affinity, Weight, and Time Decay. Sounds pretty complicated, right? Stay with me and you’ll understand why it’s simple and effective — it’s very similar to Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

The EdgeRank algorithm

EdgeRank Algorithm Equation Understanding Facebook EdgeRank [Infographics]

EdgeRank is the sum of Edges. It looks at all of the Edges (actions on Facebook) that are connected to you and ranks them according to their importance to you. Objects (posts) with the highest EdgeRank typically appear at the top of the News Feed, although there’s a small amount of randomness.

What is Affinity?

Affinity is a one-way relationship between a user and an Edge. Think of it as a measure of the closeness between you and a brand. It looks at whether or not you’ve previously interacted with a post or whether your friends are engaging with it — actions taken into consideration include liking, sharing, commenting, and messaging.

What is Weight?

Weight is a system that increases or decreases the value of actions within Facebook. All Edges(Facebook actions) are assigned a value chosen by Facebook. Edges that take the most time to accomplish tend to weigh more — for example, commenting is more involved than simply liking a post, so it’s considered to be more valuable.

What is Time Decay?

Time Decay is the easiest of these variables to understand. It refers to how long the Edge has been alive — expressed mathematically, it is 1 ÷ (Time Since Action). The older an Edge is, the less value it has. This helps weed out old content and replace it with interesting new content.

Improve the EdgeRank of your posts

Here are some ways to get your posts to the top of Facebook’s News Feed:

1. Create and post more engaging content and post it often

Increase affinity for the people who like your Facebook page by posting content that appeals to them. Polls, questions, contests, and other interactive initiatives increase engagement. The more often you post, the less you’ll deal with post decay, which lowers content visibility.

2. Calls to action will encourage more people to like your page

facebook page evolution Understanding Facebook EdgeRank [Infographics]

Engagement increases with the size of your audience. Clear CTAs that raise interaction rates — sharing, liking, and commenting on your posts — improves the weight of that content. Post trivia questions and encourage people to answer by commenting on the posts, ask users to tag themselves in photos and like their favorites, etc.

3. Post links, photos, and videos frequently

Facebook pages that always include these have the best EdgeRank scores. Text-only posts don’t stand out or offer much opportunity for engagement. Adding links, photos, and videos to all of your posts increases visual interaction, making it more likely that users will view/watch, share, like, comment, and browse. This improvesaffinity and weight.

4. Avoid attracting Likers with low affinity

Contests that give away unrelated prizes attract many people who will never engage with your brand — they’re only liking your page to get the swag you’re giving away. Chances are that none of your messages will show up in their news feeds. If thousands of people like your page but only a few actually see your content, you’re not accomplishing your goal. It’s important to build an online community instead of going for the “low-hanging fruit” to increase the number of people who like your page, which creates an illusion of engagement.

5. Post consistently at strategic times

Post often — at least once a day — to decrease the time decay of your content. See my post, How to Improve Your Facebook Fan Engagement, for detailed analysis about the best times to post by industry. It includes a cheat sheet for effective wall post strategies.

 

 

 

http://www.pamorama.net/2013/05/05

Commercial Real Estate and Low Interest Rates | South salem NY Real Estate

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Commercial real estate construction faltered during the 2007 recession and has improved only slowly during the recovery. However, low interest rates have led to higher property valuations and are clearly benefiting the sector. The recovery of commercial property prices has been notable. Some measures suggest that, in some segments of the market, prices are close to their pre-recession highs. Valuation measures do not suggest that current prices are excessive.

The recent downturn in nonresidential construction activity has been one of the most severe in memory. Even controlling for the depth of the recession, construction of nonresidential structures has dipped to a share of gross domestic product lower than that seen in any downturn since the 1960s. Figure 1 shows that the sharp drop in activity in the early part of the 2008–09 recession accounts for much of the recent weak relative performance in nonresidential construction.

Figure 1
Commercial real estate investment over business cycles

Commercial real estate investment over business cyclesNote: Shares of real GDP indexed to 1 at cyclical peak.

The commercial property downturn in part reflects how the slump in the broader economy led to a deterioration of real estate fundamentals, such as rental price appreciation and vacancy rates. The magnitude of the collapse in new construction was probably also due to the extraordinary developments on the pricing and funding side of the commercial real estate sector. Commercial property prices fell about 40% from late 2007 to early 2010. This shock to real estate collateral values led to a sharp contraction in funding for commercial real estate projects. Commercial real estate loans outstanding fell 18%, and securitization of new commercial mortgages seized up.

Figure 1 could be read as indicating that the entire commercial real estate market is still seriously depressed. However, the reality is more nuanced. First, the commercial real estate market consists of both new and existing properties. It’s true that builders are not adding much new space. But there are signs of a rebound in the market for existing properties. Second, drilling down below the aggregate statistics, commercial real estate is performing differently both within and across geographical markets. Furthermore, owners of properties that are completed and fully leased have access to credit on very favorable terms. By contrast, conditions are different for more marginal properties that are not leased up or producing reliable cash flows.

Figure 2
CMBS spreads

CMBS spreads

Let’s examine the first point, that conditions in the existing commercial property market are better than might be predicted based on the level of new nonresidential construction. One piece of evidence comes from the risk premiums that investors in commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) require, which are reflected in the interest rate spreads over comparable risk-free rates. Figure 2 plots the path of the spreads of an index of AAA-rated CMBS yields over 10-year Treasury securities. Spreads on the senior CMBS tranche, which are the safest claims, are shown by the solid blue line. These spreads spiked in 2008 during the financial crisis, but have since moved back down to levels in effect before the crisis. All the same, concerns about risk are still evident in the CMBS market. The spreads on the riskier junior tranche of the AAA-rated CMBS index, indicated by the dashed red line, have not recovered as much as for senior bonds. Moreover, these spreads shot up again, along with all other risk spreads, in response to the European sovereign debt crisis.

Commercial real estate investments typically require a high proportion of borrowed funds. Access to and terms for credit figure importantly in how able and willing investors are to pay for properties. The easing of pricing for commercial real estate debt has helped fuel a mild lending recovery. Securitization of commercial real estate loans is nowhere near its level before the recession, but the pace of issuance has begun to revive. Likewise, commercial bank lenders have returned to the market, and the stock of bank nonresidential real estate loans has ticked up.

Valuation measures in commercial real estate

One common metric for valuing commercial real estate is the capitalization rate, or cap rate. It is defined as the ratio of the expected annual net operating income on a property to the price of the property. The concept is similar to the earnings yield on a stock. Net operating income changes slowly, so much of the variation in cap rates over time is due to changing property valuations.

As should be expected, interest rates, cap rates, and commercial real estate valuations move closely together. A basic principle of finance is that prices are the present value of future expected cash flows. Those prices depend critically on what discount rate is applied to these cash flows. As interest rates fall, the rate at which the cash flows on commercial properties are discounted also falls, pushing commercial real estate prices up.

Hobijn, Krainer, and Lang (2011) investigated the behavior of cap rates in different regional markets and different property categories, including offices, retail, industrial, and multifamily residential. Their goal was to explain what drives cap rates, that is, to what extent cap rates reflect discount rates and expected future cash flows respectively. They constructed a weighted index of cap rates from metropolitan markets across the country using a statistical technique called principal components analysis. They found that this weighted cap rate index moved closely with the level of interest rates. This suggests that changes in interest rates, which occur nationwide, lead to changes in commercial real estate discount rates across all local markets.

By contrast, after accounting for the interest rate component in the statistical analysis, other measures of real estate fundamentals, such as regional unemployment rates, have weak relationships with metropolitan cap rates. This is not to say that cap rates have no relationship to any economic variable except interest rates. Cap rate levels still vary over time with idiosyncratic features of local economies or individual properties. It is simply that most of the common variation of cap rates across markets can be attributed to the movement of interest rates over time.

 

http://www.frbsf.org/publications

Realistic pricing pays off in sales in a slowing housing market | Waccabuc Real Estate

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Real estate broker Nina Miller advertised the home in the paper, but the offers arrived so quickly she didn’t have the chance to even put up a “for sale” sign outside the Hampstead cottage.

Despite the recent slowdown in Montreal’s real estate market, Miller’s phone buzzed with inquiries last month as soon as she’d listed the renovated, four-bedroom house for sale mid-week. She showed it that weekend, while her clients were off for a quick getaway in the Laurentians. By the time they got back, she’d received a conditional offer on the home for just over $1.1 million — the full listing price.

“There are still some homes that sell right away,” Miller said. “There are buyers for turnkey homes. And it (the Hampstead home) was priced properly. What happens often is that people put their properties out for $200,000, or even $300,000 too high. It takes a much longer time to sell because it puts (buyers) off.”

That the home took a week to sell was not a one-off fluke, buyers, evaluators, mortgage and real estate brokers say, even at a time when the inventory of Montreal homes for sale is at its highest point since the late 1990s. Indeed, brokers point to several cases of Montreal Island properties selling for full asking-price within days — or even within hours at some new condo towers.

They suggest the current market slowdown is due not just to the highly-publicized tightening of rules on insured mortgages and a vast condo supply inflated by years of near-record construction — but also to some extent, by greedy sellers. Indeed, a Gazette analysis of around 70,000 Montreal homes sold by brokers since 2008 shows the gap between average asking and selling prices widens as the real estate market gets weaker, suggesting some sellers are still making unrealistic demands following years of rapidly climbing property values.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/