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Bedford Realtor

Bedford Town Board Approves Water Hike | Katonah Real Estate

Bedford residents will have to pay a little more for their water in order to pay for a new water filtration plant in Katonah.

The Bedford Town Board unanimously approved water rate increases last week. Average water rates will increase by 20 percent, abut $97 a year.

“The water filtration plant is in operation and is producing great quality water,” Department of Public Works Commissioner Kevin Winn said. “Due to the increased expenses of the plant, we do need to have slight rate increase though it is less than anticipated.”

Winn said the town’s goal with the rate increase was to advocate for more water conservation. Minimum water rates are lower, but the rates increase with the more water used.

The rate increase will go into effect on Oct. 1. The rate increase was less than anticipated due to electric and waste disposal costs being less than anticipated.

Gordon Strong, a Katonah resident, complained he was being penalized by the new rate structure. Strong has a one inch water main and would be paying more than his neighbors who have larger homes and might use more water.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” Strong said. “I am being asked to pay a higher rate. I should be made an exception.”

Winn said he should change the size of his water meter and residents are charged for meters because they put more tax on the water system.

http://bedford.dailyvoice.com/news/bedford-town-board-approves-water-hike

YouTube playlists: a cool way to expose listings | Bedford Realtor

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Video has become an integral part of the real estate business. Have you ever considered how you could use this powerful tool over and beyond property tours, self-promotion and sharing the lifestyle in your market area? Are you willing to take the plunge and explore? According to Alexa.com, YouTube is currently the third most visited site in the world.

It ranks second worldwide in terms of average amount of time spent on the site, second only to Facebook. Consumers love video. In fact, they are much more likely to pay attention to your marketing messages when you attach a video. If you would like to reach more consumers and convert more listing appointments into signed listings using YouTube, here’s how to do it: Imagine that you have five listings in a single market area. You would like to find a way to market all five listings to local residents.

The challenge is that you don’t have their email addresses, door knocking is a chore, and using the backs of the brochures to market additional listings works only when someone stops by your brochure box. You can now market all five listings with a single URL from YouTube.

The secret is to set up your own personal YouTube channel. This is a powerful way to stand out from the competition. Furthermore, only a small percentage of agents have made the transition to integrating video into their business. Even fewer have created their own channel, and virtually no one is using the playlist feature as a marketing tool in conjunction with traditional mailing programs. I discovered the playlist tool on YouTube when I wanted to load 12 excerpts from our new agent training program into a separate YouTube channel.

Since I had already set up a YouTube channel with my name, YouTube would not allow me to create another channel, even when I tried using a different email address. I then noticed that YouTube had a feature that allowed me to aggregate multiple videos into a playlist attached to a single URL.

The process was simple. First, create your videos. Second, select the ones you want to include in your playlist. Third, name the playlist. Fourth, upload the videos into the system. YouTube then generates a URL that will allow you to play all the videos from a single link.

The feature works the same way you would create a playlist in iTunes.

Negative equity to crimp inventory for years to come | Bedford Real Estate

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As home prices continued to increase rapidly, the number of underwater homeowners — borrowers who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth — fell at a fast clip in the second quarter, Zillow reported.

But even if steady price appreciation continues, millions of borrowers remain years away from regaining positive equity, and with it, a better ability to sell their homes, Zillow said.

According to Zillow, about 12.2 million homeowners, or 23.8 percent of all homeowners with a mortgage, were underwater at the end of the second quarter, down from 13 million in the first quarter and 15.3 million in the second quarter of 2012.

While that marked a 20 percent year-over-year decrease in underwater homeowners, millions of borrowers are still years away from shedding negative equity, even as the market recovers, Zillow said.

“The frustratingly slow pace of negative equity declines in the face of such robust home value appreciation is a direct result of the fact that many people in the hardest-hit markets are underwater by an enormous amount,” said Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries in a statement.

“Because of this, negative equity will be a factor in these markets for years to come, constraining the supply of homes for sale and keeping people out of the market who might otherwise get involved.”

Half Empty but Full of History, Brill Building Seeks Tenants | Bedford Real Estate

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If ghosts paid the rent, Eric Hadar would have an all-star tenancy: Freddy Bienstock, Johnny Burke, Cab Calloway, Nat King Cole, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington and Jimmy Van Heusen, to name a few. Not to mention J.J. Hunsecker and Danny Rose.

The Brill Building, at 49th Street and Broadway, currently stands more than half empty, after the closing last year of Colony Records and the Sound One postproduction studio.

But ghosts do not pay the rent. Neither do fictional characters. Their onetime home, the Brill Building, 1619 Broadway, at West 49th Street, now stands more than half empty, after the closing last year of Colony Recordsand the Sound One postproduction studio.

Mr. Hadar, the chairman of Allied Partners, a private real estate investment company, believes he can breathe life back into the Brill Building by evoking its show business past. He paid $185 million for the 11-story landmark in February.

For starters, he is in discussions with the Songwriters Hall of Fame — a 44-year-old organization with plenty of fame but no hall — about establishing a small museum in the Brill Building, where songwriters once swarmed to stake out the 80 or 90 music publishers or catch the attention of entertainers whose offices were there. The songwriters group will also curate a permanent exhibition in the lobby.

Irwin Z. Robinson, the chairman of the National Music Publishers’ Association, briefly had an office in the 11th-floor penthouse suite leased to Mr. Bienstock, who was closely associated with Elvis Presley. Mr. Robinson recalled certain songwriters, naming no names, who would knock on enough doors at the Brill that they would end up with a couple of buyers, meaning that two or three publishers owned 100 percent of their songs.

The tale was greeted with amusement by two celebrated songwriters, Jimmy Webb (“By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman, “Up, Up and Away”) and Desmond Child(“Livin’ la Vida Loca,” “You Give Love a Bad Name,” “Angel”), who were visiting the building with Mr. Robinson and Mr. Hadar.

Standing in the gleaming, mirrored lobby, Mr. Webb said, “It’s like the physical manifestation of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.” He is the organization’s chairman.

Mr. Hadar said he was prepared to spend $50 million or more to finance, renovate, repair, maintain and lease the Brill Building.

“I would like to get a premium in rents by developing a building that’s exciting because of the people who are in there,” he said.

Though the building was designated an official landmark in 2010, it scarcely stands out these days on Broadway, especially without Colony Records. Its other retail space, where Jack Dempsey’s Restaurant did business from 1937 to 1974, is also dark.

The Brill Building is still home to three important show-business offices: Paul Simon, an inductee of the Songwriters Hall of Fame; Broadway Video Entertainment, a production, postproduction, marketing and distribution company led by Lorne Michaels; and Key Brand Entertainment, which develops touring theatrical productions.

There is also at least one remnant of the days when the Brill Building was a kind of vertical Tin Pan Alley. On the sixth floor, a visitor can find “St. Nicholas Music Inc.,” as the hand-painted gold-leaf letters proclaim on the transom over a door with chicken-wire frosted glass, brass hardware and a mail slot. This is the company that licenses “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” 64 years after Johnny Marks wrote it.

Half Empty but Full of History, Brill Building Seeks Tenants – NYTimes.com.

U.S. housing outlook still promising despite rise in rates: Citigroup economist | Bedford Real Estate

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U.S. housing sector fundamentals remain favorable despite the recent rise in interest rates and the sharp drop in housing starts in June, says Citigroup economist Peter D’Antonio.

Housing starts fell 9.9 percent to a ten-month low of 836,000 units in June.

But the decline was almost all in the volatile multi-family sector, D’Antonio notes. Single-family starts remained in a range just below 600,000, while multi-family fell 26 percent to 245,000.

Multi-family starts have been an important growth sector in housing in the past year, but month-to-month changes in multi-family starts – noted for their volatility – are meaningless. Multi-family housing starts rose 21 percent in March, fell 32 percent in April, rose 28 percent in May, then fell 26 percent in June.
Even with the rate increase, houses remain extremely affordable.
The typical household still can afford about 70 percent more than the median house. The (NAHB) housing market index for July reported another big rise in buyer traffic and sales, indicating builder optimism and continued solid demand for new homes.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, in what was likely his last monetary policy testimony to Congress this week, largely agreed:

Housing has contributed significantly to recent gains in economic activity. Home sales, house prices, and residential construction have moved up over the past year, supported by low mortgage rates and improved confidence in both the housing market and the economy. Rising housing construction and home sales are adding to job growth, and substantial increases in home prices are bolstering household finances and consumer spending while reducing the number of homeowners with underwater mortgages.
Housing activity and prices seem likely to continue to recover, notwithstanding the recent increases in mortgage rates, but it will be important to monitor developments in this sector carefully.

U.S. housing outlook still promising despite rise in rates: Citigroup economist | MacroScope.

Cubans on the move as new real estate market grows | Bedford Real Estate

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“Its capitalist!” So goes the Cuban real estate description of a great house to buy. After President Raul Castro eased restrictions in 2011, the housing market is beginning to boom, though underground maneuvers are of course part of the wheeling and dealing.

HAVANA — At an informal housing market on Havana’s historic Paseo del Prado, Renaldo Belen puts the hard sell on a prospective buyer under a tree hung with hand-lettered signs advertising homes for sale.

A house near Boyeros, the avenue to the city’s airport, is being offered for the equivalent of $120,000, with all the amenities.

“The house is beautiful. It has four bedrooms, a pool with a bar and a fountain with a lion’s head on top. Look,” says Belen, pointing to photos on the sign, “water comes out of the lion’s mouth.”

Pausing for dramatic effect, Belen, one of the many touts, or “runners” working at the market, delivers what he hopes will be the coup de grace.

“This place needs no work. It is of capitalist construction,” he says, using a now frequently invoked commendation meaning it was built before Cuba’s 1959 revolution and is therefore of superior quality.

Given that “capitalist” has been a dirty word in communist-run Cuba for the last half century, the description perhaps grates on the nerves of Cuban leaders.

Cuban real estate market grows: A child stands at the door of a farm with a 'For Sale' notice on the outskirts of Havana Tuesday. IMAGE Reuters: Desmond Boylan

But its widespread usage is a sign of the times on the Caribbean island, where President Raul Castro has loosened things up as he tries to modernize the country’s economy in the name of preserving the socialist system put in place by his older brother Fidel Castro.

Cubans on the move as new real estate market grows.

Shadow of student loans could hurt housing market as graduates swim in debt | Bedford NY Real Estate

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Amanda Tappan, 21, tries her best to save money. She shares an apartment with four roommates, pays off her credit card each month, and drives between odd jobs in her used Chevy Cavalier.

But when she graduates next month from the University of South Florida, she won’t be spending that money, or her early career wages, on buying a home. Instead, that money will go straight toward her $16,000 in student loans.

“It was so easy to get a student loan. … But then two years later, it was like, ‘Why did I do that?’ ” Tappan said. “I want to have most of my debt gone before I even think about buying a house.”

The young marketing and management student is one of 38 million Americans who face a staggering $1 trillion in student loans, more than people nationwide owe on car loans or credit cards.

So instead of buying their first home after graduation, those educated debtors are running the other way, stoking worries that the massive debt could block many from the housing market just as it begins to rebuild.

For decades, young hopefuls like Tappan were one of the housing market’s most dependable fuels. Young families and new buyers bought starter homes en masse, allowing sellers to move up into better homes.

But over the past decade, as the recession zapped jobs and student debt quadrupled, young buyers have started to stay away. First-time buyers have traditionally bought 40 percent of the homes on the market, National Association of Realtors data show. In May, their market share plunged to 28 percent.

Americans paying off student loans are, depending on income, 25 to 36 percent less likely to own a home than those who are free of student debt, a One Wisconsin Now survey of 61,000 people found last month. Indebted graduates faced an average of 21 years of debt before their student loans were paid off.

In Florida, more than half of the state’s Class of 2011 graduated with an average of $23,000 in debt, Institute for College Access & Success data show. That’s a little less than the average indebted American graduate who owes $27,000. Students at some local schools face an even weightier anchor. At the private University of Tampa, 58 percent of graduates flipped their tassels with an average debt of $31,000.

Student debt eats up first-time buyers’ savings accounts, typically their first choice for making down payments. It stops them from qualifying for mortgages under banks’ tight debt-to-income demands.

And it can discourage them from taking on new expenses. Students said they’ll be forging into the chaotic working world already making hundreds of dollars a month in loan payments. Who has the confidence to add another bill, especially a big one like a mortgage?

Christa Hegedus, a USF St. Petersburg junior, said she expects to graduate into an unforgiving job market with nearly $10,000 in debt, despite her two scholarships.

“I have friends who graduated with thousands and thousands of dollars in debt, and they’re working at a restaurant,” said Hegedus, who wants to be a state senator. “I don’t know how anyone could do it and expect to buy a house.”

Shadow of student loans could hurt housing market as graduates swim in debt | Tampa Bay Times.

Bank of America returning to mortgage lending | Bedford NY Real Estate

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Bank of America Corp. is getting ready for a new run in the mortgage lending business after pulling back nearly two years ago, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) retreated from home lending in 2010 and 2011 as it worked to raise capital.
But at the time, declining interest rates and federal housing programs were causing a surge in refinancing, helping rival such as Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC).
Read more at the Wall Street Journal.