Tag Archives: Bedford Hills Luxury Homes

6 Ways to Upgrade Your Home This Weekend | Bedford Hills Real Estate

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Create amazing changes in 48 hours (no table saw or big budget required).

By Pamela Masin

Photo: Claire Richardson – Creating the Vintage Look

If You Have 2 Hours…

Update your window treatment-without any sewing. Ellie Laycock, the author of Creating the Vintage Look, created curtains from fun, appealing dish towels. To do it yourself, establish that the length of your dish towels covers the height of the window. Then, add the width of all your towels together and make sure that number equals the width of your window times 2.5. You can sew a hem on top, like Ellie does, but an easier option is to clip on curtain rings and slide the dishtowels across a wire. Another simple window treatment: Take a twin-size flat sheet in a fun pattern or color and, again, clip on rings to hold it to the rod.

Read More: Why Lindsay Lohan Says She Feels Like a Prisoner In Her Hotel Room

Photo: Kelle Boyd of Ann Kelle

If You Have 3 Hours…

Please give a warm welcome to Washi tape. The decorative Japanese masking tape is known for its affordable price and durability for all sorts of projects. But our favorite use of the tape is as an alternative to wall stencils. Create a rainbow-striped room like Kelle Boyd, the designer behind the brand Ann Kelle, put up a honeycomb pattern using Jane and Fern’s how-to guide or add different-colored polka dots. Don’t worry if you mess up-Washi tape can easily be removed without leaving any marks and you can reposition the same piece of tape without it losing its stickiness. A dream come true for renters and (anxious, all-thumb) crafters.

Photo: Modern Masters, Inc.

If You Have 5 Hours…

Make over your front door in metallic copper. The metal is a pretty-established home interior trend-usually found on kitchen countertops and fireplace fronts-but we love the idea of taking the trend outdoors. Try painting a metallic copper finish over a charcoal or dark-colored door to create a weathered look. Or, go for a more modern approach by painting the trim of a metallic copper door in an inky black color. For more ideas on how to update your front door, here are five more dazzling projects

 

http://shine.yahoo.com/at-home/6-ways-upgrade-home-weekend-172500833.html

Mortgage apps decline 1.2% week after big spike | Bedford Hills Real Estate

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A week after a big spike of almost 10%, mortgage applications fell 1.2%, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s weekly mortgage applications survey for the week ending March 14, 2014.

The MBA’s measure of mortgage loan application volume fell 1.2% on a seasonally adjusted basis from the week ending March 7.

The refinance index decreased 1% from the previous week. The seasonally adjusted purchase index also decreased 1% from one week earlier.

The refinance share decreased for the sixth straight week to 56.5% of total applications, down from 57% the previous week. ARMS stayed the same share of activity at 8% of total applications.

The MBA said the average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($417,000 or less) decreased to 4.5% from 4.52%, with points decreasing to 0.26 from 0.29 (including the origination fee) for 80% loan-to-value ratio loans. The effective rate decreased from last week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with jumbo loan balances (greater than $417,000) decreased to 4.39% from 4.41%, with points decreasing to 0.19 from 0.20 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages backed by the FHA decreased to 4.13% from 4.18%, with points decreasing to 0.18 from 0.21 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans. The effective rate decreased from last week.

The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 3.52% from 3.53%, with points decreasing to 0.25 from 0.28 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans. The effective rate decreased from last week.

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/29353-mortgage-apps-decline-12-week-after-big-spike

 

25 Biggest Real Estate Mistakes | Bedford Hills Real Estate

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HGTV has brought together some of the top real estate experts to compile the definitive list of the biggest mistakes we all make when buying and selling our homes.

25. Buying a House for Its Decor Remember that you are buying the house, not the things inside it, so make sure you see beyond the decorations and look at the bones of the home. Focus on the floor plan and the square footage. You also might want to measure the dimensions and graph out how that’s going to work with your belongings.

24. Not Providing Easy Access for Showings Make your house easily accessible to potential buyers. If there’s nowhere to park or it’s difficult to get into, buyers may just skip it and look at someone else’s property. 23. Not Researching the Neighborhood It’s absolutely critical that you research the neighborhood before you buy. Check out the area, amenities and the school system to be sure that your address corresponds with the correct school district. Also attend a community meeting, if possible. You’re not just buying a house, you’re buying a piece of that real estate and the land around it.

22. Losing Money With Auctions While the starting bidding price for a house on auction might be a good deal, it doesn’t mean the final price will be. Make sure that you are very strict with your budget when you are bidding; do not go over your final price because you got wrapped up in the excitement of a bidding war. Another thing to keep in mind is that when you buy a property at auction, you aren’t able to get any of the warrantees or guarantees, and you are not able to do a home inspection. Find out if the auctioneer is going to add those charges on top of the sale price as well as if there are any liens on the property. You could be responsible for paying the property taxes on that house you just bought, which could make what looks like a good deal into a really bad deal. 21. Trying to Make the “Hard Sell” While Showing If you are selling your house, you really shouldn’t be around at the open house. You might want to try to sell the place on all the reasons you think the house is great, but that might not translate to the buyer. If you leave, you allow the buyers to give unbiased objective feedback to the agent, which is only going to help you in the end. 20. Waiting Until Spring to Sell Your House Spring is the busiest real estate activity period, but that does not mean that people don’t buy houses 365 days of the year. That doesn’t mean you can’t emphasize your home’s seasonal amenities.

When the real estate market is really hot and is appreciating really fast, people tend to look at it like it’s the stock market. But playing real estate is nothing like the stock market; when you invest in real estate, you really need to take a long-term approach.

 

http://shine.yahoo.com/at-home/25-biggest-real-estate-mistakes-avoid-them-202100124.html

 

Design Lessons From Tiny Homes | Bedford Hills Real Estate

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There are small spaces, and then there are microspaces. The architects and designers who show at the MicroDwell exhibition specialize in the latter. Architect Lynne Reynolds’ Lean2 home is just 189 square feet. It’s inspired by 19th-century landscape follies and built with recycled aluminum billboard sections and translucent panels. Meanwhile, architectural designers Hunter Floyd and Damon Wake built their 200-square-foot Cinder Box home using glass and charred wood siding, finding a way to include a sofa, a desk alcove, bookshelves and a sleeping loft.
These tiny structures are joining a dozen others at MicroDwell 2014, the second annual small-space building and design exhibition held at the Shemer Art Center.  The projects, all well under the 600-square-foot maximum requirement, were designed and built by architects, builders, artists, hobbyists, students (high school as well as college) and others as tangible experiments to learn how to do more with less, as well as be creative with materials. This year’s theme was live-work, so many of the projects have office, commercial space or studio themes.
I checked out the event, which runs through March 23, 2014, and realized there’s a lot everyone can learn from living small.

Play with materials. Small spaces mean smaller material needs, allowing budgetary leeway to try something new, like the Japanese shou-sugi-ban-style charred wood siding used here on the exterior of Hunter Floyd and Damon Wake’s Cinder Box.
Use slim, low-slung furniture. Inside the Cinder Box, the tight space feels spacious with a sleek sofa, an almost-there coffee table and a slimmed-down chair.

4 Outside-the-Box Ways to Sell Your Home | Bedford Hills Real Estate

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Real estate people often say that this business is hyperlocal. That’s just another way of saying that whether your market is a buyer’s market, a seller’s market or otherwise can vary state to state, county to county, town to town and even in various neighborhoods in the same town.

But when it’s your own home for sale, hyperlocal takes on an all new meaning. Your perspective on the market zooms all the way in and it can suddenly seem like nothing matters except how many buyers show up to your open house, how long your home has been on the market, whether any offers have come in on your house and, if so, precisely which numbers appear on those digital sheets of paper.

Bottom line: it doesn’t matter how hot the market is or how many multiple offers your neighbor’s house got, unless and until yours sells.  Times might not be desperate overall, but if it’s your house lagging on the market you might need to do something more than just hang a sign in the yard to get your home sold. And the only thing you can control in that process is your actions: your choice of agent, your pricing, your property preparation and your marketing.

If you’re a seller committed to doing everything within your power to sell your home and it’s not coming as easily or instantly as you’d hoped, here are a few outside-the-box strategies for getting your home sold:

1. Put your network to work. Anywhere there are people who know you or know your neighborhood, there might be the ultimate buyer for your home-or someone who knows them. In particular, social networks like neighborhood email lists, NextDoor.com and even your personal Facebook feed are great places to make sure you are publicizing your home’s listing.

If your home is well-located vis-a-vis your workplace, don’t hesitate to also make your colleagues aware of the listing. If you work for a very large organization or institution, you might even go so far as to let your Human Resources team know of the listing: many HR departments actively help new hires relocate and find housing as part of their services.

 

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/03/09/4-outside-the-box-ways-to-sell-your-home.aspx

What The Home-Price Slowdown Really Looks Like | Bedford Hills Real Estate

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The current slowdown of home prices has been sharpest in markets that crashed during the bust and bounced back last year. And although asking-price gains have been slowing since last spring, price increases remain high by historical standards.

The Trulia Price Monitor and the Trulia Rent Monitor are the earliest leading indicators of how asking prices and rents are trending nationally and locally. They adjust for the changing mix of listed homes and therefore show what’s really happening to asking prices and rents. Because asking prices lead sales prices by approximately two or more months, the Monitors reveal trends before other price indexes do. With that, here’s the scoop on where prices and rents are headed.

Asking-Price Gains Have Been Slowing Down Since April 2013 Nationally, asking home prices rose 10.4% year-over-year in February 2014, down slightly after peaking in November 2013. But the year-over-year change is an average of the past twelve months and therefore obscures the most recent trends in prices. Looking at quarter-over-quarter changes instead, it’s clear that price gains have been slowing for most of the last year: asking home prices rose just 1.9% in February – a rate similar to those recorded in January and December – compared with increases near 2.5% from July 2013 to November 2013 and over 3% from April 2013 to June 2013. The quarter-over-quarter change in asking prices topped out at 3.5% in April 2013 and now, at 1.9%, the increase is just over half of that peak.

But even with this slowdown in gains, prices are still rising much faster than the historical norm. The quarter-over-quarter increase in February of 1.9% implies an annualized rate of almost 8% – which is well above the long-term average.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jed-kolko/what-the-home-price-slowd_b_4915392.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

Housing construction permits soared 71% | Bedford Hills Real Estate

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The number of residential unit construction permits issued by the city last year exceeded the previous year’s total by a whopping 71%. As good as that sounds, a New York Building Congress report released Monday noted the jump still puts permits at half the number set during the boom years that between 2005 and 2008.

The city Department of Buildings issued permits for 18,095 residential units in 1,383 buildings in 2013, a huge step up from the 10,599 units in 1,011 buildings seen the year before. And while high-profile luxury developments in Manhattan are making the headlines, the report noted that the increase came in all five boroughs—for the first time since 2008.

“This is encouraging,” Building Congress President Richard Anderson said. “Things continue to look very positive for the overall construction market in the city.”

Red-hot Brooklyn boasted the greatest number of permits, swamping Manhattan’s total by over 1,000 units. Meanwhile, in percentage terms Queens saw the biggest gain. Bolstered by two developments in the mammoth Hunter’s Point South project in Long Island City, permits soared 107% in the borough last year.

Citywide, 2013’s figure is still shy of the 20,000 units the congress estimates developers need to build annually simply to keep up with the growth of the number of households, to replace outdated buildings and to provide housing options for New Yorkers across the income spectrum. However, on average that needed level of construction was met over the last decade, the report noted, courtesy largely of the boom years between 2005 and 2008, when DOB issued an average of 30,000 permits annually.

And while last year’s hefty surge in residential permits bodes well for construction companies, for New York apartment dwellers, the news may not be quite as promising, as the increasing amount of foreign capital flowing into Manhattan’s skyline means that many of the newly built units will likely be snapped up by overseas buyers and renters, rather than lower income families dealing with record-low inventory

 

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20140303/REAL_ESTATE/140309989/housing-construction-permits-soared-71#

Director Oliver Stone lists West Village home for $2.9M | Bedford Hills Homes

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Apartment at 1 Morton Square

Apartment at 1 Morton Square

Oscar-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone has put his West Village pad on the market for $2.9 million.

Paul Anand of the Corcoran Group has the listing for the two-bedroom condominium at 1 Morton Square, according to the Wall Street Journal. Stone bought the 1,750-square-foot space in 2010 for $2.2 million to live in while directing “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.”

The 14-story mixed-use doorman building, built by J.D. Carlisle Development in 2004, gives residents access to a children’s playroom, a gym and a garage, according to property records.

Stone is reportedly looking to move into a space bigger than 2,000 square feet. Given the neighborhood’s low inventory, Anand expects to receive offers by early next week, the Journal reported.

 

http://therealdeal.com/blog/2014/02/28/oliver-stone-lists-west-village-home-for-2-9m/

Notice to potential homebuyers: Mortgage rates keep ticking up | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate

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Average fixed mortgage rates up slightly for the second week in a row, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey.

“Mortgage rates crept up further following the uptick in the 10-year Treasury yield  as minutes of the Federal Reserve’s last meeting indicated little possibility of a pause in the central bank’s reduction of bond purchases,” said Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist, Freddie Mac.

“Housing starts in January fell 16% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 888,000 units, below consensus forecast,” Nothaft added. “Permits were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 937,000 in January, also below consensus.”

30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.33% with an average 0.7 point for the week ending February 20, 2014, up from last week when it averaged 4.28%.

A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 3.56%.

15-year FRM this week averaged 3.35% with an average 0.7 point, up from last week when it averaged 3.33%.  A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 2.77%.

5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 3.08% this week with an average 0.5 point, up from last week when it averaged 3.05%.  A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 2.64%.

 

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/29034-notice-to-potential-homebuyers-mortgage-rates-keep-ticking-up