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Smart Watering Tips for Every Gardener | Armonk Real Estate
Tired of watering all the time, while praying for rain and smaller water bills? If your garden is planned, prepared, planted and watered properly, you can have a beautiful yard and save thousands in the long run.
Here’s how to get the most from your water this summer and remember if you have any water damage or need a cleaning flood, don’t think twice about calling water restoration Austin Tx, expect them fast and easy.
Start from the ground up
Plan your preemptive strike against drought. Get to know your yard, and note which areas tend to dry out quickly or develop puddles after it rains. Places that are especially prone to drying out include the soil under large and thirsty trees, or under the eaves of your roof.
Your soil type plays a big part in how often you’ll need to water. Loose, sandy soil holds very little moisture, so much of the water you dump on it slips away and goes to waste.
Treat runoff as if it’s money — don’t let it slip through your fingers.
The soil you’re after is the rich, dark crumbly stuff called loam. Adding topsoil (good), composted manure (better) or compost (best) to your soil makes it loamy and performs some pretty amazing feats. It encourages beneficial organisms, improves the soil structure and texture, aerates the soil and helps it retain moisture.
If your garden is too big to amend with better dirt, consider growing vegetables in a raised bed, where you can easily focus your watering efforts and amend the soil without breaking the bank.
Choose the right plants
When it comes right down to it, you have to look at your water bill and ask yourself: Is that tomato vine really worth the absurd amount of money you spend each month?
If growing your own food is what motivates you to shell out for those big bills, consider raising cowpeas, hot peppers, okra or other edibles that require less water. Choose drought-tolerant plants whenever possible, unless you’re planting in a space that rarely dries out.
Texas sage is just one of the many plants that thrives without irrigation.
If you simply have to grow thirsty plants, group them together so you can easily water them without wasting a drop. You might even choose to submerge a perforated pond liner so water has a better chance to collect.
Native plants are often, but not always, good choices for a drought-tolerant landscape since they’re well adapted to the unique conditions of your region. Succulents and cacti are well equipped to handle drought because they store moisture in their leaves and stems.
If you have a lawn that requires regular irrigation, save money by replacing it with a mass of groundcovers like wooly thyme or liriope.
read more…
http://www.zillow.com/blog/smart-watering-tips-180729/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ZillowBlog+%28Zillow+Blog%29
Consumer Confidence Up | Armonk Real Estate
Improving job and wage prospects lifted the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment December Index to its most favorable level since its last cyclical peak in January 2007. The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index reversed its November retreat based on a more favorable estimate of current business and labor market conditions.
The Consumer Sentiment Index increased to 93.6 in December from 88.8 in November and 82.5 during the same month a year ago. Consumers reported hearing more positive economic developments than any other time in the last thirty years. The survey reported consumers anticipated a significant increase in their incomes in 2015.
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index increased to 92.6 in December from an upwardly revised 91.0 in November. The Present Situation Index soared to its highest level since February 2008.
read more…
http://eyeonhousing.org/2015/01/bursting-with-confidence/
Dick Clark’s unbelievable Flintstones-style house finally sells at half off | Armonk Real Estate
Clark’s wife would join him for a kiss at midnight for his famous New Year’s Rockin’ Eve bashes in New York. Here, …
After almost three years, the “romantic getaway” that TV legend Dick Clark and his wife built on a hilltop in Malibu, California — the house that so many people have likened to the architecture of “The Flintstones” — has finally sold.
It went for an appropriately eccentric $1,777,777,reported our friends at Trulia.
Clark and his wife, Kari, were married at 7 p.m. on July 7, 1977 (7/7/77), in a ceremony that supposedly lasted 17 minutes and had seven guests. And he is said to have had a post office box numbered 7777.
The house sold for just a hair over half the initial asking price of $3.5 million.
Yahoo Homes spoke to the listing agent, Diane Carter of Coldwell Banker, earlier this year, when the price was cut to $3 million. She said the Clarks built it in 1988 as a “romantic getaway.” The couple listed it in March 2012, not long before the TV host died at age 82.
read more…
https://homes.yahoo.com/blogs/spaces/unbelievable–flintstones–style-house-built-by-dick-clark-finally-sells-192310144.html
The Japanese Porch | Armonk Real Estate
I’ve written in the past about the essential nature of transitional spaces in a home, which are used to link interior and exterior areas. These spaces have been assigned a variety of names throughout the world — loggia, veranda, lanai, portico. Japanese architecture has its own version, called an engawa.
The engawa is a generous hallway, a roofed transition zone, located between the interior rooms in a Japanese home and the garden, created by extending the interior floor outward. It’s a room that defies traditional description — neither completely enclosed nor completely open. In Japanese culture it has a social importance, providing an informal meeting space, a place for sitting, greeting one’s neighbors and sharing a cup of tea. While it’s similar to other architectural elements, it’s also uniquely Japanese. But it’s worth considering in your own project no matter where you live. Here’s why.
Why would the Japanese, whose culture prizes every last square foot of space, give over such a large part of a home’s area to a seemingly functionless space? The reason lies in its diversity of function. It serves as a wide hallway connecting rooms, a sunshade, a wind buffer, a seat for viewing the garden or resting, an informal room in which to host friends, a step to move between garden and interior, a shelter from the elements and an expansion of interior space.
A Strong Connection to Nature
The engawa’s versatility is evident in the simple form of this cabin, designed for a couple of dedicated bird-watchers. As we view it from the gable end, we see that the center volume is flanked by two smaller slots of space — the engawa — which functions as a circulation zone and flexible screened porches. The engawa provides the frame against which to view the natural environment around the cabin.
On the interior we see the screened porch and circulation zone visible to the left, along with the sliding door, which can completely close it off from the living space. One has a sense for just how connected this arrangement allows the inhabitants to feel to the surroundings. Fully open to the sounds of the birds, the rain and the wind, this flexible porch allows them to have an intimately experience from the shelter of the home.
Japanese architecture prioritizes a deference to and a reverence for nature. Shaped by strict limits on available space, the architecture has developed to include many ways of appropriating small footprints into large gestures, ones that extend beyond their spatial constraints, making spaces feel larger. The curtain-wall house shown here is a great example of dedicating a large amount of space to an engawa in a small home. The porch establishes a connection to the city in this case.
Being able to alter the shell of a structure based on the natural rhythms of a place — daily or seasonal weather patterns — reasserts the importance of the natural environment in our lives.
Here the engawa is enclosed by a massive drape that the owners can alter (the drapery itself and via a set of doors) depending on the local conditions.
Flexibility
Creating a place that coexists with nature always requires some adaptation of the shelter to make best use of a particular environment. The engawa is an ingenious device for allowing a home to buffer climatic changes. It’s much like dressing a building in layers. Too hot? Slide open the shutters. Too windy? Slide them closed.
This project uses both the engawa concept, with sliding screens (seen to the left and right) as well as the more open veranda, or nure-en, seen in the center.
read more…
http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/34439424?utm_source=Houzz&utm_campaign=u860&utm_medium=email&utm_content=gallery4
Mianus River Gorge To Buy 73-Acre North Castle Site For $2.8M | Armonk Real Estate
Mianus River Gorge will acquire a 73-acre parcel in North Castle for $2.8 million, according to Rod Christie, the preserve’s executive director. The purchase is expected to close in the coming months.
The property, which is located at 99 E. Middle Patent Road, is co-owned by Hope Levene and her relatives, according to Christie.
Levene, a 93-year-old Bedford resident who formerly lived in North Castle, has a long local history. In a July interview that focused on her decades of six decades of volunteerism at Northern Westchester Hospital (NWH), she discussed the various roles she had over her lifetime. They included serving as the only trustee of a small school district that included a 1-room schoolhouse, and later as a Bedford Central school board member. Levene has also been involved with Twigs, a thrift store that supports NWH.
Christie noted that Levene used to serve on his organization’s board. He appeared before the North Castle Town Board on Monday evening at a special meeting. The Town Board voted to authorize Supervisor Michael Schiliro to sign a conservation easement, which will cost $500,000
The easement, which will cover 68 of the site’s acres, will be paid for by using open-space funding. It was disclosed at the meeting that the funding stems from a 2004 voter referendum that authorized the town to bond up to $3 million for acquiring open space and for conservation easements.
The Town Board voted on Monday because town’s ability to utilize the bond expired after 10 years, according to Schiliro. Monday was the expiration date because it was the next business day,
read more…
http://armonk.dailyvoice.com/news/mianus-river-gorge-buy-73-acre-north-castle-site-28m
College grads face high hurdles to buying first homes | Armonk Homes
Recent graduates who are saddled with student debt and want to get on the property ladder will have to earn roughly one-third more annually (or $8,969 more, on average) than those who are debt-free, according to new research from real-estate website RealtyTrac.
To reach that figure, RealtyTrac took the median home price for each state and county, and calculated the minimum amount of income that would be needed to qualify for a loan to buy a house at that price. (RealtyTrac assumed a 20% down payment and a 4.13% 30-year fixed loan with a maximum debt-to-income ratio of 43%, which is the maximum ratio for a “qualified mortgage” under Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rules).
“To overcome the additional debt from student loans, indebted college graduates need to make more income than college graduates without student loans to be able to afford a home,” says Daren Blomquist, vice-president at RealtyTrac.
Of course, this also depends on where the student lives. “The average student loan debt varies from state to state and, somewhat counterintuitively, some of the most expensive states for housing also have the lowest average student loan debt,” Blomquist explains. California has one of the lowest levels of student loan debt, for example, but also some of the highest house prices in the country.
read more….
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/college-grads-face-high-hurdles-100506237.html
Future of housing in question | Armonk Real Estate
The housing industry remains guarded as second-quarter earnings are estimated to trend down slightly for most U.S. banks, presenting a questionable future for the market.
Kroll Bond Rating Agency released its Q2 2014 Bank Earnings Preview, which cautioned that there will be persistent challenges in areas such as mortgage finance, capital markets and net interest margins for the next several years.
And banks will feel the weight of that, Kroll said.
“Over the next several years, we believe that the business models of large banks will be changing significantly as the importance of mortgage lending and servicing declines relative to other activities. Indeed, among U.S. depository institutions, credit unions are the only sector currently increasing their exposure to the mortgage market,” the report said.
Volatility in market interest rates and a lackluster economy spurred a difficult first quarter, and the second half of the year won’t be much better as “a lack of visibility as to the future direction of interest rates will be a reoccurring theme for banks and markets during the rest of 2014.”
The first bank to release its earnings will be mortgage giant Wells Fargo (WFC) on Friday morning.
While the bank is the market-share leader in the origination and servicing of 1-4 family mortgage loans, Kroll cautioned, “Given the decline in mortgage lending volumes experienced by WFC and other large banks, as well as the zero-rate policy of the FOMC, it may be difficult for the bank to deliver positive revenue growth in 2014 and beyond.”
During the first-quarter of 2014, Wells Fargo reported record net income of $5.9 billion, up 14%, or $1.05 per diluted common share, around expectations.
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Armonk NY Farmers Markets | Armonk NY Real Estate
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| A Toast to Local Spirits; Tuthilltown Spirits Farm Distillery Comes to Piermont SIX Day Vendors in Larchmont on Saturday + MORE May 29th – June 4th, 2014 DowntoEarthMarkets.com | ||||||||||||
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Click on a Market to see all vendor and event details…
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| OssiningNow that the spring is here, the Ossining farmers market opens at 8:30 am! | ||||||||||||
Westchester Foreclosure Spike Not An Economic Indicator, Legislator Says | Armonk Real Estate
Foreclosure judgments on Westchester homes spiked 514 percent in February and 200 percent in March, which Westchester County legislators said was a ripple effect from the housing crisis and isn’t a reflection of the county’s economic health in 2014.
Westchester County Clerk Timothy Idoni said that about 90 percent of the foreclosures were filed two-to-three years ago. The number of judgments had dipped 41 percent in 2011 and 32 percent in 2012, but rose 23 percent in 2013.
“We’re starting to see that kind of stuff clearing out,” he said at a meeting of the county Board of Legislators Labor/Parks/Planning/Housing Committee Tuesday.
In some cases banks haven’t taken the title on a foreclosed home because of new obligations placed on them by the courts to maintain the property, said Norma Drummond, deputy commissioner of the Westchester County Planning Department. As a result banks don’t want as much inventory and are handling foreclosures differently than they used to before the recession.
read more….
http://armonk.dailyvoice.com/real-estate/westchester-foreclosure-spike-not-economic-indicator-legislator-says