Tag Archives: Chappaqua NY Real Estate

Chappaqua NY Real Estate

Builder Sentiment about Multifamily Remains Positive | Chappaqua Real Estate

Builder and developer sentiment about the multifamily market held steady in the fourth quarter, according to results from NAHB’s  Multifamily Production Index (MPI) released earlier today.

The overall MPI—a composite measure of sentiment about production of low-rent apartments, market-rate rental apartments and condominiums—was unchanged at 54 in the fourth quarter.

MPI table 14Q4

The MPI and each of its components is an index that ranges from 0 to 100, where any number over the break-even point of 50 means that more respondents report conditions are improving than report conditions are getting worse.  The overall MPI has been above 50 for three straight years, indicating that builders and developers, on balance, believe the market has been improving consistently over that time.

Among the components of the MPI, the index for low-rent apartments increased one point to 52, the index for market-rate rental fell two points to 62, and the index for condominiums held steady at 50.

Historically, the MPI has performed well as a leading indicator of  starts in buildings with five or more apartments, often moving one to three quarters in advance of the construction numbers released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

MPI chart 14Q4

An overall MPI of 54 is consistent with NAHB’s view that the multifamily segment of the industry has largely recovered from the downturn, and that multifamily production has now reached a healthy, sustainable level.

For more information, including detailed tables on the components of the MPI, see the web page for NAHB’sMultifamily Production & Vacancy Indices.

 

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http://eyeonhousing.org/2015/02/builder-sentiment-about-multifamily-remains-positive/

Preview the Historic Knickerbocker Hotel’s Modern Makeover | Chappaqua Real Estate

The Knickerbocker, the iconic Beaux Arts hotel originally opened in 1906 by John Jacob Astor IV, is set to reopen next Thursday, and we recently got a tour inside the historic building, where the construction crew is putting in the finishing touches. Though The Knickerbocker is an individual landmark, which means that the facade must be meticulously maintained down to the smallest detail, on the inside practically nothing original remains, and the hotel has received a sleek, modern renovation (to the tune of $240 million) feature a lot ofCarrera marble, gold leaf, and other very high-end finishes. So, while the hotel may not look anything like it did back when in the days when Red Sox owner Harry Frazee met the team’s manager in the cafe to inform him that he was selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees, or when the house bartender invented the martini (depending on who you believe), it will be similarly luxurious. The 330 rooms averaging 430 square feet apiece, will start at around $500-$700 per night.

 

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http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2015/02/03/preview_the_historic_knickerbocker_hotels_modern_makeover.php

Housing In 2015: Four Reasons For Optimism | Chappaqua Real Estate

 

Six years ago, homebuilders and Realtors were facing brutal business conditions: millions of Americans were losing their jobs and homes.

As 2015 begins, hiring is strong and economic indicators are pointing up. Could this be the year when the housing market finally breaks out of its tepid recovery and takes off?

Economists see several reasons why 2015 might be a banner year for homebuying — and not just in San Francisco and Miami.

They also see One Big Factor that potentially could block a buying binge.

Before considering that possible downer, let’s first look at the upside:

Employers are hiring again.

When companies are hiring, would-be homebuyers feel more confident about taking on mortgage debt.

During the recession, companies kept slashing positions, sending the unemployment rate soaring to 10 percent and frightening potential homebuyers. But job growth has been strong lately, with employers adding 321,000 jobs in November. The unemployment rate has tumbled to 5.8 percent.

As that good news sinks in, optimism is rising. The Conference Board’s latestConsumer Confidence Index shows confidence is running 19.5 percent higher than a year ago.

Home prices just took a breather, which helps.

From January to October, home prices rose 4.5 percent nationally, according to the latest S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Index. That gain was subdued compared with October 2013, when home prices jumped 11 percent higher than the previous year.

 

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http://www.npr.org/2015/01/05/374232461/housing-in-2015-four-reasons-for-optimism-and-one-for-worry

Pending Sales Trend Up | Chappaqua Real Estate

Pending home sales increased 0.3% in September, suggesting continued steady improvement in existing sales. The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), a forward-looking indicator based on signed contracts reported by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), increased to 105.0 in September from 104.7 in August. The September reading was up 1.0% from the same month a year ago, and pending sales were up year-over-year for the first time in 11 months.

Pending Home Sales September 2014

The September PHSI increased modestly in the South and Northeast, but decreased slightly in the West and Midwest. Year-over-year, the West, Northeast and South increased 3.6%, 2.9% and 1.7% respectively, while the Midwest declined 4.0%.

Last week NAR reported a 2.4% increase in September existing home sales, and firming job and economic growth suggests that the existing home market will demonstrate steady growth throughout the fall. The housing recovery has moved towards higher ground reflected by a six-year high in September new homes sales.

 

 

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http://eyeonhousing.org/2014/10/pending-sales-trend-up/

American Horror Story: Floral Wallpaper | Chappaqua Real Estate

 

Floral House, not sane, stood by itself against its flowers, holding unimaginable horrors within…

What dark secrets lurk behind this house’s pleasant, unassuming exterior? Somehow, someone, possibly an escapee from a mental institution, committedunspeakable acts of wallpaper horror within. Not only the walls, but indeed the very ceilings are papered, closing in on you, yes, getting closer all the time… Not content, the interior desecrator added furniture upholstered in a contrasting floral. Then he or she slapped up a few Inuit plaques on the wall because why not and add a coffee table that looks like it’s going to get up and run away soon, and then it was time to wallpaper the next room.

Specifics: $895K for a 1900sf house with three wallpapered bedrooms and two rather nice baths. Plot is half an acre. House will probably be really nice after copious amounts of wallpaper stripper, holy water, and smudging sage.

 

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http://hamptons.curbed.com/archives/2014/10/21/american_horror_story_floral_wallpaper.php

 

Layers of Patina and an Artist’s Touch in a New York Colonial | Chappaqua Real Estate

The New York home of artist Jennifer Lanne and her husband Dick Lanne is equal parts family retreat and backdrop to display their work. The house and Jen’s two studios are filled with her work, which she rotates in and out on a regular basis, while Dick’s hobby as a blacksmith has yielded practical and decorative additions to the space. These are layered in with finds from flea markets, antique shows and, occasionally, the side of the road, plus pillows and collections. The result is a home that would make a minimalist cringe but is a perfect setting for the things both of them love.

What millennials want in a home | Chappaqua Real Estate

 

Millennials aren’t in a rush to buy their own homes. Heck, many of them aren’t in a rush to move out of their parents’ houses.

That doesn’t mean, however, that they’ll remain renters—or freeloaders in mom and dad’s basement—forever. And the housing and mortgage industries can’t wait.

“The story line has been that millennials are not forming households, they’re living with mom and dad,” said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist for Realtor.com. But this group’s usage of mobile real estate applications and websites is on the rise, Smoke says, up 61% year-over-year as of July based on his analysis of comScore data of people between the ages of 25 and 34. More than one-third of millennials used a mobile device in July to look at real estate data, he said.

That says to Smoke that millennials are at least thinking about buying or renting a home, and researching the market to learn their options.

What’s more, a recent Redfin survey found that 92% of people in this age group who don’t have a home want to buy one in the future, said Nela Richardson, the real-estate company’s chief economist. And there are some clear preferences in what they want in a home.

 

 

 

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http://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-millennials-want-in-a-home-2014-09-15

Down to Earth Farmers Market | #Chappaqua Real Estate

 

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FREE Yoga at Ossining Farmers Market;
Seasonal Melon Tastings at Many Markets + MORE

September 4th-10th, 2014

DowntoEarthMarkets.com

What’s New, In Season, and On Sale This Week
Apfelstreusel (Apple Crumble)
Locally sourced
Christiane’s Backstube

Apple Harvest Bread
Made w/fresh, local apples
Meredith’s Bread

Broccoli
Dagele Brothers Produce

Cantaloupe
Gajeski Produce
Mead Orchards

Early Season Apples: Fuji & Gala
Mead Orchards

Farm made Chili Sauce
Wright Farm

Farm made Spaghetti Sauce
Wright Farm

Moon & Stars Watermelon
Fishkill Farms

Sausage and Mushroom Pot Pie
in Horseradish Pastry

Stone & Thistle Farm

Sprite Melon
Alex’s Tomato Farm

Watermelon
Alex’s Tomato Farm


Click on a Market to see all vendor and event details…                  

Westchester
County


Rockland
County

Ossining

Saturdays
8:30 am-1:00 pm


Larchmont

Saturdays
8:30 am-1:00 pm

Piermont

Sundays
9:30 am-3:00 pm

Croton-on-Hudson

Sundays
9:00 am-2:00 pm


Rye

Sundays
8:30 am-2:00 pm

Spring Valley

Wednesdays
8:30 am-3:00 pm


Tarrytown/Sleepy Hollow

Saturdays
8:30 am-1:00 pm

New Rochelle

Fridays
8:30 am-2:30 pm


Headed to the city soon?

Visit a Down to Earth
Farmers Market in NYC!

Announcements
Melon Tastings

Stop by the manager’s tent at your favorite Down to Earth Farmers Market to try some of the season’s best melon varieties. The samples you try will be available from the market’s producers – it’s a great way to explore the season’s unique flavors. Please see our Event Calendar for exact times. ENJOY.

Ossining

FREE Yoga: From noon to 1 pm, join Dragonfly Yoga for a free yoga session in Market Square to celebrate National Yoga Month. Make sure to bring your own mat. After we’re done nourishing our souls, everyone can stop by the market to nourish our bodies with the summer harvest.

Raffle for Reuse: With the goal to eliminate plastic bags from the farmers market, the market manager in Ossining is accepting donations of clean, reusable shopping bags that people would like to drop-off. The donated bags will be offered to customers as an alternative to plastic bags for their market purchases. For each bag donated, customers can enter to win a $25 gift certificate for the market, and a winner will be drawn every 2 weeks.
We support this idea so much that we created this video to show how it works – enjoy!

For additional events, visit our Down to Earth Markets Event Calendar.

Stay tuned to all market happenings via our Down to Earth Markets Facebook page
and follow us on Instagram and on Twitter @DowntoEarthMkts.

Cleaning Up the Planet One Bag at a Time: Essay by Sharon Rowe
ECOBAGS

Down to Earth Markets is pleased to collaborate with ECOBAGS®, maker of sustainably-sourced, reusable shopping bags to encourage people to reduce the use of single-use plastic bags at our farmers markets. Both of our companies are based in Ossining, New York, and together we recently launched the BYOBag program at Ossining’s Down to Earth Market. ECOBAGS® Founder, Sharon Rowe, shares how she pioneered this effort over twenty five years ago:

“I believe that everyone has a right to clean air and clean water in a clean environment and that together we can ‘clean up the planet one bag at a time’.” – Sharon Rowe, Founder and CEO, ECOBAGS®

I started ECOBAGS® because I was tired of seeing plastic bags stuck in trees and floating in the Hudson River. It didn’t make sense that every time I went into a store, I left with a single-use plastic bag. Why use something once and then throw it away? This was back in 1989. So, I decided I would change my shopping behavior. I decided to bring my own cloth bags to the store, ones that I could use again and again, like the bags I used traveling in Europe years before. I wanted to find bags that would conveniently fold up and expand to hold my purchases – traditional string bags. I couldn’t find any in the USA, so I asked some friends to bring bags back from Europe. What happened next is what inspired me to start my company and my brand.

I began shopping with my reusable bags in NYC and people noticed. They wanted to talk with me. I found out, pretty quickly, that I wasn’t the only person tired of using or seeing plastic bags everywhere (and this was 25 years ago!). There was an interest in reusable options, so I decided to start making them and generate market demand. If you have a belief, like I do, that everyone has a right to clean air, clean water, and a clean environment, then being wasteful and seeing litter (and a lot of it coming from single-use) is personally hurtful in a very deep way.

I also began shopping differently when I started using reusable bags. While I hardly ever purchased processed foods, I now chose produce that wasn’t pre-packed and left other packaged items on the shelf. The end result was zero garbage after putting away all my purchases at home.

I started with the idea of creating zero waste. Twenty five years ago, it was an unsexy term called “source reduction.”

When you decide to question what is really “convenient,” you quickly run into, as Al Gore said, “Inconvenient Truths”. When you “choose to reuse” you can gain insights that will connect you more deeply to the environment. Don’t be surprised, if bringing your own bags to the market leads you to create other changes in your life. Simple actions can and do change the world. As Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Rotating* Vendors This Week
*Vendors who rotate through various markets during the season.
They enjoy getting to know many communities, and here’s where to find them this week:

Croton-on-Hudson

#Freedom Craft Brewery

Larchmont 

Flourish Baking Company
Hudson River Apiaries
Kontoulis Family Olive Oil
Trotta Foods

Ossining 

Sisters Wicked Good Soap

Piermont 

Bombay Emerald Chutney Company
e-Desserts
Kontoulis Family Olive Oil
Tuthilltown Spirits Farm Distillery

Rye

Christiane’s Backstube (Locally sourced, German-inspired baked specialties)

Down to Earth Markets 173 Main Street Ossining, NY 10562 Phone: 914-923-4837
DowntoEarthMarkets.com

2014’s new home market is ‘running in place’ | Chappaqua Real Estate

 

Sales of new single-family homes clung to their same bumpy path again last month, unexpectedly slipping to their weakest annual pace since March, the Census Bureau said Monday.

Neither markedly stronger nor dramatically weaker, sales over the past 10 months haven’t moved much.

“The new home sales figures by now have that lived-in feeling, with few signs of a significant change, in either direction, over the near term,” said Richard Moody, chief economist of Regions Financial.

The new home market is “basically running in place,” he said in emailed comments Monday.

July’s seasonally adjusted annual rate was 412,000, down 2.4% from June’s higher revised rate of 422,000, the Census Bureau said. Previously-reported sales rates for April and May also were revised up.

 

 

 

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http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/08/25/july-new-home-sales/14558325/

Home prices tick up 0.9% in May | Chappaqua NY Real Estate

 

Home prices continue to slowly trend higher, rising .9% in May, up 5.9% from a year ago, according to the latest home price index report from Black Knight Financial Services.

This is now just 11% off the 2006 peak of $268,000, with the HPI coming in at $239,000.

Meanwhile, Colorado and Texas both hit new peaks in May, reaching $269,000 and $195,000, respectively.

In addition, 20 of the largest 40 metros all experienced month-over-month growth.

Las Vegas still leads the largest metros in distance from its local market peak (-42.6%). For the 20 largest states, Florida holds that position, where prices are 32.4% lower than their April 2006 peak.

 

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Black Knight: Home prices tick up 0.9% in May