The Fiscal Cliff and Deficits | Bedford Hills Homes
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Falling REO inventory dries up foreclosure discounts | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate
Some metro areas across the U.S. are experiencing steep discounts on foreclosed properties – upwards of 27% in some cases – but the overall mark-down is not as deep as it seems, Zillow said in a new report.
The online real estate listing firm said the national-foreclosure discount on distressed properties is about 7.7%, a paltry amount considering how much lower REOs sell for in certain locales.
Truth is, there are fewer foreclosures out there. Last month, RealtyTrac the online marketplace for foreclosures, reported a yearly decrease in 131 out of the nation’s 212 metropolitan areas.
“Two-thirds of the nation’s largest metros posted decreases in foreclosure activity in the third quarter, indicating that most of the nation’s housing markets are past the worst of the foreclosure problem” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.
Zillow uses a different methodology, of course, and compares the sales price of a foreclosure to the estimated-non-distressed sale level of the exact same property.
Metros like Pittsburgh and Cleveland experience foreclosure discounts as steep as 27.4% and 25.8%, respectively.
“The smallest foreclosure discount is found in places where competition for homes is so high, people there are willing to pay the same amount for a foreclosure re-sale that they would for a non-distressed home simply to take advantage of historic affordability,” said Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries. “Additionally, in areas such as Phoenix and Las Vegas, where not long ago one out of every two homes sold was a foreclosure re-sale, buying a foreclosure is no longer just for investors.”
Sacramento is a market where the foreclosure discount is a small 0.7% difference from an average property price. In the high-priced Los Angeles and New York markets, foreclosure discounts are now running at 4.2% and 15.5%, respectively.
Denver is another market where housing demand is keeping up, and it’s foreclosure discount hovers around 6.4%, which is under the 7% national average.
via housingwire.com
Review finds FHA mortgage insurance fund short $13.5 billion | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate
via housingwire.com
5 Great Plants for Indoor Gardens | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate
Does your green thumb start twitching when the weather turns cool? Are you a yard-less soul, yearning for a place to till and toil?
The great news is this: You don’t need acres of rich, black soil in order to reap a harvest. In fact, indoor gardening has become a sustainable and trendy way to grow everything from fruits and veggies to flowers and herbs.
Amy Pennington, author of “Apartment Gardening: Plants, Projects, and Recipes for Growing Food in Your Urban Home” (Sasquatch Books, 2011), lives in a one-room apartment with an east-facing deck. Over the years, she’s crowded the space with dozens of pots, containers, hanging baskets and window boxes.
She considers small kitchen gardens the perfect extension of a well-stocked pantry and has narrowed down her choices to vegetables and herbs that are prolific producers and add big flavor to meals.
Getting started
Indoor gardens can be created in whatever space you have available. Perhaps you’ll want to start with a windowsill or table; shelves provide ample room for plants while taking up little space. Or perhaps you have an entire room to devote to your new garden.
When selecting the perfect growing spot, make sure that adequate light reaches every plant. If using artificial light, HID (high intensity discharge) lights, which hang down from the ceiling and convert electricity into usable energy for plants, are highly recommended. Areas with tile or linoleum floors are best, or you’ll want to use tarps to protect wood floors or carpet from unavoidable drops of water.
A good planting medium is essential when setting up an indoor garden. Soil found outdoors is generally too heavy and dense for use in containers. Instead, shop for a mix that is specific to indoor plants – one that will hold moisture and nutrients, and drain well.
When deciding what to grow, plant size and production should be serious considerations. Growing sweet corn indoors, for example, would be difficult for most considering that stalks grow 6 to 7 feet tall and must be grouped in order for them to pollinate. Then, after a 60- to 90-day growing period, each stalk will only yield two to three ears of corn.
Five smarter, more obvious choices for an indoor garden include:
Herbs
Even the most space-challenged indoor gardeners can find room to grow a couple of varieties of herbs. Fill a planter with quality potting soil, plant your favorite herb seeds and put the pot in a spot that gets about six hours of sunlight each day. Herbs you may want to grow include basil, parsley, oregano, cilantro, rosemary, chives, Vietnamese coriander and thyme.
Tomatoes
Small-fruited varieties of tomatoes often do well in indoor spaces. Cherry-type tomatoes (Tumbling Tom Red, Sweet Chelsea, Sun Gold and Sweet Cherry 100, for example) and grape tomatoes (Juliet, Juliet Roma Grape) will put your gardening skills to the test while producing bowls full of tasty red, orange and yellow fruit. If space is especially tight, consider growing tomatoes in an upside-down planter suspended from the ceiling; the plants grow downward out of a hole in the bottom of the planter.
Salad greens
Lettuce, spinach and endive generally do well when grown indoors. Loose-leaf lettuce is easy to grow and, because lettuce is a short-season crop, you can get an ongoing harvest by making small plantings every week or two. Because lettuce is made up of 90 percent water and has shallow roots, you’ll need to be sure to keep soil evenly moist but not soggy. In a warm, dry house, you’ll likely need to water plants every other day. To prevent fungal diseases, it’s best to water from the bottom using a watering tray. Look for the words “baby” or “little” on the seed packets when selecting the lettuce for your indoor garden.
Radishes
Because they require very little fuss, radishes are perfect for rookie indoor gardeners. Nearly any container will work to grow radishes as long as it’s at least 12 inches across. Unless you have a deep container, you’ll want to plant round (also referred to as “globular”) varieties. Radishes grow so fast that you’ll be ready to harvest in just three weeks. For continuous harvest, make additional plantings every one to two weeks.
Green beans
Yes, healthy beans require a lot of light (at least six hours of sunlight daily), but you can grow them indoors if you’re able to supplement natural sunlight with artificial grow lights. Use a container that’s at least 12 inches deep, and look for varieties of beans suited for container gardens, such as Topcrop, Tendercrop and Derby. Most varieties will be ready to harvest 50 to 60 days after planting.
via zillow.com
Mortgage rates, bank stocks plunge post election | Bedford Hills Realtor
The Dow Jones industrial average is plunging post-election, falling by as much as 245 points. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index also falling as much as 27, or 1.6%, with bank stocks taking some of the biggest losses.
Bank of America ($9.39 0.16%), JPMorgan Chase ($40.40 0%) , Wells Fargo ($32.35 0%) and Goldman Sachs Group ($115.27 0%) are all losing stock value as of midday trading.
Investors are selling off because of the fear of what a fiscal cliff negotiation will mean, said chief investment strategist James Paulsen at Wells Capital Management in a statement.
However, with the economic uncertainty comes changes in mortgage rates because investors are piling up mortgage-backed bonds, driving bond prices up. As a result, mortgage rates are heading down, according to active loan officer Dan Green of Waterstone Mortgage.
For mortgage borrowers in locations such as San Jose, Cali. borrowing at the local conforming loan limit of $625,000, with the mortgage price by 1 discount point, lowers the closing cost by $6,255.
The change is also affecting multiple mortgage products such as HARP 2.0 improvement, FHA Streamline Refinance improvement and BA Streamline Refinance improvement, Green is reporting.
via housingwire.com
Are security deposit deductions worth going to court over? | Bedford Hills Real Estate
Q: I vacated my rental house after living there for five years. I had paid a $650 deposit when I moved in. Per the landlord-tenant act in my state, the landlord is required to provide a detailed itemized statement or accounting and a refund of any remaining balance of my security deposit.
On the 14th day after I moved out, the property manager wrote a letter to me stating that he and the landlord were still waiting on final bills for cleaning and other items. So I believe that this letter was not sufficient.
Today, I received the “final accounting” for my rental house. I had spoken to the property manager prior to vacating the premises and we agreed verbally that when I moved I would not be cleaning the carpet. Also, since I was leaving the state I did leave a desk in the house and a few items outside the house.
In the “itemized statement” there were several charges levied against my deposit. One was $235.21 for “garbage removal.” I know from personal experience that a dump run in that area costs $20 for up to 400 pounds, so I question the charge for “garbage removal.”
Another charge is $215 for “tenant portion of interior painting,” which seems like complete repainting. The one-bedroom, one-bath house was only 496 square feet with a tiny kitchen and two closets.
Also, this itemized statement did not provide any copies of receipts, so it is as if the landlord expects me to take his word for all of this. I have always been under the impression that if a tenant occupies the unit for more than one year, the painting is considered normal wear and tear. I am in shock that the landlord is trying to charge me for painting at all, let alone so much.
I think the landlord violated the state law. I have the right to take this to small claims court, and the landlord may be ordered to refund my full deposit or even pay me double my refund amount. All I really want is what is rightfully mine. The way I see it, the landlord owes me about $450 of my $650 deposit.
Can you confirm my reasoning so I can determine if it is worth taking this to small claims court?
A: I am not an attorney but it is my opinion that sending you a letter on the 14th day meets the intent of the law. The fact that you apparently left the property in poor condition such that the landlord could not get the work done and the bills finalized within 14 days does not mean the landlord has breached the legal requirement. Many times it is not possible to have the final invoices and accounting within a short time frame like 14 days.
I advise owners and property managers to do exactly what they did, which is send a letter explaining the circumstances and then follow up as soon as they can with the actual amounts. I cannot predict what a small claims court will do in your case, but I have seen such courts side with landlords in this exact situation.
I do think your request to see copies of the receipts for painting and the trash removal is certainly reasonable. But I don’t believe the issue is what you think the costs should be as much as what they actually paid and that the amounts paid were reasonable. Landlords and property managers are not required to do the turnover of rental units personally or for the cheapest possible cost using day laborers. They can hire professional companies that have employees and offer those employees reasonable market-level wages and benefits.
So the fact that you know that the local dump will take 400 pounds of trash for $20 is not relevant other than for that portion of any charges passed on to you should be the actual cost incurred by the landlord. You seem to be overlooking what is likely the largest portion of the $235.21 charge and that is the labor to clean up and the transportation costs to haul away and dump the items and/or trash you left behind. You acknowledge that you left a desk and some items outside the house, and the landlord has to remove those items.
If you wanted to make sure that the charges were extremely low, then you should have done the work yourself or personally hired someone to do the work so you can control the costs.
The charge for the painting at $215 also seems quite reasonable based on my 30-plus years of experience. There is no law that specifically states that a tenancy of more than one year exempts a tenant from charges for painting. So the landlord can charge for the reasonable costs beyond ordinary wear and tear.
You don’t provide details about the condition you left the rental unit paint in, but it doesn’t take a lot of damage to incur $215 in costs for labor and materials to patch and paint a one-bedroom unit.
While your rental unit may have only been less than 500 square feet, it is difficult to find a painting contractor to come out and do much for just over $200. Think about the costs of a painting contractor these days and most have minimum charges. So ask for a copy of the receipt, but know that the charge seems quite fair, as the complete prepping and patching and repainting and cleanup for a 500-square-foot rental property could be $400-$500 in many areas. I would expect that you will find the landlord paid more than the $215. And, as the landlord’s comment in the final accounting suggests, you were just charged for a portion of the costs, which would be reasonable since you did live there for five years.
You don’t mention that there were any other charges against your security deposit but acknowledge that you told the landlord that you were leaving with the carpet dirty. So any reasonable charges for the carpet cleaning would seem to be legitimate as well.
You absolutely have the right to challenge their deductions in small claims court, but I would suggest the first step you take is to simply ask for copies of the receipts. Then you need to seriously ask yourself if the court will find in your favor in an amount that will cover the costs of filing and serving a small claims court action, including the costs and time to travel back to the state where the rental unit is located to pursue your claim.
Remember that the courts will not award you your costs for travel and time off work, and you will be limited to the amount of the deductions from your security deposit as the maximum you could possibly receive.
Even if a court completely agreed with you (small claims courts rarely side 100 percent for tenants or landlords in disputes over security deposits, in my experience), you will not recoup all of your out-of-pocket costs and time.
In the future, I suggest you ask for a walk-through with your landlord in person prior to vacating. You should ask the landlord to estimate for you the charges that he expects to incur based on his experience. This is approximately what you will see deducted from your security deposit except for any latent or hidden damage that the landlord cannot detect until your furnishings and possessions are removed from the property. Then you can decide what work or items you would like to handle personally. Then be sure to take pictures or have witnesses or copies of invoices that will verify the condition you left the rental unit in at the time you vacated.
via inman.com
Bedford Patch Storm Hub: Schools Cancelled All Week | Bedford Hills Homes
Resources and Information
Bedford
As of Wednesday night, Bedford is still in a state of emergency and officials are requesting that no one travel on any town roads until further notice.
NYSEG has made limited quantities of dry ice available to municipalities. On the occasions that the Town of Bedford obtains dry ice, it is distributed at the Bedford Town House in Bedford Hills. These distributions are unscheduled and are subject to NYSEG making the ice available. Call 914-666-6530 or 914-666-4534 for availability.
Warming centers are available at each of the three fire departments. All non-essential travel on roads in the Town of Bedford is prohibited. The Town House will be closed this afternoon and Tuesday, reopening at 8:30am on Wednesday.
If overnight sheltering is necessary, the nearest Red Cross shelter is located at the Boys & Girls Club, 351 Main Street, Mount Kisco. Call 211 to make arrangements.
Pound Ridge
The town has dry ice supplies while they last; call 914-764-5511 to confirm availability. Follow Pound Ridge on Twitter https://twitter.com/PoundRidgeNY for the latest status updates. You can also visit their town alert page to see the latest notifications.
Lewisboro
The town is still in a state of emergency as of Wednesday evening. There are three hot showers available on Thursday and Friday from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. at John Jay High School. Bring your own towels and soap. You can bring your devices to charge as well.
Town hall is being used as Lewisboro’s emergency command center; the phone number is (914) 977-8043. This number may be used for any to obtain information and to report such incidents as blocked roads. For emergency calls, locals are directed to use 9-1-1. If you are in need of alternate shelter, please call (914) 977-8043, and arrangements will be made for you.
Residents are encouraged to use the town’s website to obtain information and resources. In the event the host server goes down, an alternate website has been set up at lewisboroemergency.com.
Have photos of your neighborhood and Sandy’s damage? Share them here.
Road closures and power outages
Bedford Supervisor Lee Roberts said the town has not yet been assigned a dedicated line crew to work with Bedford highway crews to ensure live power is cut before trees are cleared. Click here for more on Bedford-Katonah Road road status.
Over 28,000 homes and businesses in Westchester are without power.
Click here for the latest press release from NYSEG, which says the wait for power will be “lengthy.”
Outages as of Thursday 7 a.m.
Town Number of Customers Number of Customers without power Bedford 6,657 6,650 Pound Ridge 2,365 2,361 Katonah 2,414 2,409 Lewisboro 5,461 5,448 Somers 9,087 6,079 Click on the NYSEG outage map for the latest in local power outages.
To report downled lines, call ConEdison – 800-752-6633 and NYSEG at 800-572-1131 (electric); 800-572-1121 (gas). To report a life-threatening emergency or no power, by telephone, contact NYSEG Electrical emergency at 800-572-1131.
Dial 211 for up-to-date road closure information. Bedford police request that locals do not call police to inquire about road conditions. Dispatch staff will likely be unable to commit time to discussing road conditions.
Cancellations and closures
- Bedford Central Schools and Katonah Lewisboro are closed through the end of the week. Follow Bedford Central at https://twitter.com/BCSDNOTES to stay on top of the latest news during the power outage. K-L will send out communications through its email/phone blast system.
- The Bedford Hills Turkey Shoot has been cancelled.
- The Lewisboro Volunteer Ambulance Corps Live Auction has been postponed until Nov. 17
- Candidate night at Le Chateau is cancelled.
- Ladies Night at the Vista Fire Department is cancelled.
- SAT testing at Bedford Central Schools is cancelled for Saturday.
- The K-L SEPTA “Differences Day” is cancelled.
- The Mount Kisco Medical Group is closing all offices and emergency care centers at 1 p.m. Monday; all patients should call 244Mkmg to check on their appointment status rest of week, and should call 911 for emergencies.
- Local libraries (in Bedford and in Lewisboro) are still closed.
- The Katonah Museum of Art will remain closed until Tuesday.
For more information, click here for our “who’s open, stocked, selling” list.
Check back with Patch Thursday for updates here.
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Four Sandy-related deaths in the region
Hurricane Sandy has claimed four lives in the Lower Hudson Valley.
A tree crashed through a home in Pearl River at about 6 p.m. Monday, killing a 51-year-old man and placing his family in the hospital.
In North Salem, a tree came down Monday evening, killing two middle school-aged boys.
A motorist on the Sprain Brook Parkway in Greenburgh died due to storm conditions Monday evening, as well, according to state police.
The storm—an amalgam of several foul weather patterns—brought its worst rains and winds through the region between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. Monday.
The National Hurricane Center was no longer labeling Sandy a hurricane as of 7 p.m. Monday, as it teetered on the edge of the northeast coastline—but the squall still held amazing power.
Nearly all municipalities in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam declared states of emergency, with evacuations in effect in Port Chester, Piermont, Yonkers and other villages and cities. Hundreds of thousands throughout the three counties will be without electricity for up to a week, power companies have said.
For the latest on everything Sandy, stay with Patch.
Patch’s full coverage
- Share Sandy Photos on Patch
- NYSEG Power Outage a ‘Long Duration’
- Volunteers are Tops in Sandy Recovery
- Who’s Open, Stocked and Selling?
- Road Closures in Bedford
- Bedford Declares State of Emergency
- Lewisboro Declares State of Emergency
- Flights Expected to Cease, PATH to Shut Down
- MTA Suspending Metro North, Subways, Buses as of 7 PM
- Red Cross Launches Multi-State Response
- AG Warns Against Price Gouging
- School Closings in the Hudson Valley
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Do you know of an event cancellation? Please add it to the comment section attached to this article and update the event in our free Patch calendar to notify the community.
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Number of homes lost to foreclosure continues to fall | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate
The number of U.S. homes lost to foreclosure dropped for the fifth month in September, with real estate data aggregator CoreLogic counting 57,000 completed foreclosures in a monthly foreclosure report released today.
That’s a 31.3 percent decrease from a year ago, and 3.4 percent less than August’s upwardly-revised total of 59,000. By comparison, for a span of six years before the housing crisis, from 2000 to 2006, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month, the report noted.
“Homes lost to foreclosure in September 2012 are down 50 percent since the peak month in September 2010 and 22 percent less than the beginning of the year,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic.
As of the end of September, CoreLogic counted 1.4 million homes — 3.3 percent of all U.S. homes with a mortgage — that were in some stage of the foreclosure process, a 6.7 percent drop from the same time a year ago.
Not all homes that enter the foreclosure process are lost by their owners. Some are able to get current on their loans or negotiate a loan modification or short sale.
The 57,000 foreclosures completed in September brings the number of homes that have gone all the way through the foreclosure process since September 2008 to 3.9 million, CoreLogic said.
“The continuing downward trend in foreclosures along with a gradual clearing of the shadow inventory are signs of stabilization and improvement in the housing market,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic.
The report shows that nearly half (47.7 percent) of the 763,589 foreclosures completed in the 12 months through September occurred in just five states: California (108,000), Florida (92,000), Texas (59,000), Georgia (55,000), and Michigan (51,000).
States with most foreclosures in the last 12 months, September 2012
State Number of foreclosures California 108,000 Florida 92,000 Texas 59,000 Georgia 55,000 Michigan 51,000 Source: CoreLogic
Florida leads all U.S. states with 11.5 percent of its mortgaged homes in some stage of foreclosure, according to the report. Other states topping the list, in order, are: New Jersey (7.3 percent), New York (5.3 percent), Illinois (5.2 percent) and Nevada (4.9 percent). All but Nevada are judicial foreclosure states, where loan servicers have had difficulty pushing homes through the foreclosure process because of “robo-signing” issues.
States with highest percentage of mortgaged homes in some stage of foreclosure, September 2012
State Percentage of mortgaged homes in foreclosure
Florida 11.5% New Jersey 7.3% New York 5.3% Illinois 5.2% Nevada 4.9% Source: CoreLogic
via inman.com
New Home Sales: More Good News for the Housing Market | Bedford Hills Realtor
Sales of new single-family homes rose 5.7 percent in the month September, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 389,000, according to data released today by the Commerce Department that gives continuing indications of a housing market recovery.
The rate of new home sales was 27 percent higher than the seasonally adjusted annual rate of 306,000 for the September 2011 housing market, according to the federal data. The average price of a new home sold in September was $292,400, down slightly from $293,900 for August but up from $255,400 for September of 2011.
September’s rate of new home sales is the highest since the home buyer tax credit expired in early 2012, according to an Eye on Housing blog published today by the National Association of Home Builders, or NAHB, a Washington, DC-based industry association. The three-month moving average of new home sales has been steadily increasing for more than 12 months, fueling a growing consensus that the U.S. housing market has turned a corner.
The increase in sales is reducing the inventory of available new homes to a seven-year low, according to the NAHB, which reports the existing supply of new homes will last for 4.5 months if sales continue at the current pace. The number of new homes that are completed and move-in ready remains at a record low of 38,000, according to the NAHB, which describes home builders as “cautious about building ahead of the market.” Tight credit conditions remain a drag on builders’ outlook for the housing market.
Median home prices jumped 11.7 percent from September 2011 to $242,400 in September 2012, according to the NAHB. The group attributes the price increase primarily to buyers with equity and access to credit moving up to more expensive homes, rather than an overall increase in prices for the housing market.
The latest data also reveals significant regional variations in home prices, according to the NAHB. Over the third quarter, sales rose by 18.5 percent in the Northeast, but fell 8.2 percent in the Midwest. New home sales rose 4.9 percent in the South and 4 percent in the West.
More housing market news is due Thursday when the National Association of Realtors is scheduled to report pending home sales for the month of September.
