Tag Archives: Chappaqua Real Estate for Sale

Are foreclosure laws to blame for patchy US price gains? | Chappaqua NY Homes

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Why have many of the local housing markets that were hit hardest during the bust — especially in California — bounced back so vigorously and quickly, with prices close to or exceeding where they were in 2005 and 2006?

And why have many others along the East Coast and in the Midwest had a slower move toward recovery, with sluggish sales and gradual increases in values?

Though multiple economic factors are at work, appraisal industry experts believe they have isolated a crucial and perhaps surprising answer: Real estate markets rebound much faster in areas where state law permits foreclosures to proceed quickly, moving homes with defaulted loans into new owners’ hands expeditiously, rather than allowing them to sit and deteriorate, tied up in court procedures for years. Prices of foreclosed homes in such areas typically are depressed and negatively affect values of neighboring properties, but they don’t remain so for lengthy periods because investors and other buyers swoop in and return them to residential use rapidly.

By contrast, in states where laws allow large numbers of homes in the process of foreclosure to remain in legal limbo, often empty and unsold, home-price recoveries are hindered because lenders are prevented from recovering and reselling the units to buyers who’ll fix them up and add value.

Pro Teck Valuation Services, a national appraisal firm based in Waltham, Mass., recently completed research in 30 major metropolitan areas that dramatically illustrates the point. All the fastest-rebounding markets in October — those with strong sales, price increases and low inventories of unsold houses — were located in so-called non-judicial states, where foreclosures can proceed without the intervention of courts.

All the worst-performing markets — where prices and sales have been less robust and there are excessive numbers of houses available but unsold — were located in judicial states, where post-default proceedings can stall foreclosure completions for two to three years or even more in some cases.

 

 

http://therealdeal.com/blog/2013/12/06/are-foreclosure-laws-to-blame-for-patchy-us-price-gains/

Talking a Big Game About Energy Efficiency | Chappaqua NY Homes

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American homeowners may say that they prioritize energy-efficient home improvements, but their actions show otherwise, according to a new Shelton Group survey. The company’s annual Energy Pulse study finds that while homeowners say energy efficiency has a huge effect on their investments, they consistently prioritize more aesthetically focused improvements, such as a kitchen or bathroom remodel.

 

Is it true, as a Time magazine senior editor recently asserted, that we just don’t care about climate change? Or is it that we’re just not aware of the gulf that seems to exist between our intentions and our actions?

It seems we think we’re doing well in terms of prioritizing energy efficiency. After all, the Energy Pulse study found that 81 percent of respondents said energy efficiency would have somewhat to very much of an impact on their selection between two homes. This seems in line with other industry studies, such at the NAHB’s “What Buyers Want” study released earlier this year, which found that homeowners are more likely to pay 2-3 percent more for a home with energy-efficient features, and research from the University of California, Berkeley, that found homes sold with Energy Star, LEED, or GreenPoint rated labels commanded an average price premium of 9 percent. Sounds great, right?

Yet, the Energy Pulse survey reports that when hypothetically given money for a home improvement project, homeowners consistently prioritized a kitchen or bathroom remodel. On the upside, replacing windows came in second, and HVAC or furnace replacements came in third in terms of priority. But still: 55 percent of respondents were likely (with 19 percent of those saying “very likely”) to make non-energy efficiency improvements to their homes in the near future. In contrast, the overall average likelihood for energy efficiency improvements in the same time period dropped to 12 percent.

Does income play a role in this? Perhaps. Energy Pulse reports that higher income homeowners (defined as those earning more than $100,000) were 13 percent less likely to prioritize energy efficiency than those earning less than $25,000. That seems like a no-brainer: paying your electricity and gas bills hits your wallet a lot harder when it’s not as full.

Tapping into another can of worms, there seems to still be a misconception on the issue of cost in general: 44 percent of survey respondents said energy efficiency improvements are “too expensive.” This raises a slew of other questions, such as whether respondents are calculating payback periods and if they are, how they are doing so; and whether the challenge of properly valuing green home improvements is impairing investment. For more on these financial challenges, click here to read an essay from Robert Sahadi of the Institute for Market Transformation on how the home building industry must change its financial mechanisms, including those used for valuation, for green building in the years ahead.

 

 

http://www.ecobuildingpulse.com/energy-efficiency/talking-a-big-game-about-energy-efficiency.aspx?printerfriendly=true

NAR leaves list of MLS ‘basic services’ untouched | Chappaqua Real Estate

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The National Association of Realtors (NAR) did not change its classification guidelines for MLS “basic services” at its annual conference, ensuring that, for at least the near future, multiple listing services (MLSs) may confidently charge all their members to operate public-facing websites — a practice that has riled some large brokers.

Asked of his reaction to the committee meeting, Craig Cheatham, CEO of The Realty Alliance, said that public-facing sites should be switched from “basic” to “optional” in NAR’s MLS service classification guidelines “immediately and without hesitation.”

“Giving the committee and the board of directors the benefit of the doubt, they simply must not understand the stakes of what they have done and the direction they continue to head,” Cheatham said. “Our conscience is clear. We have sounded the alarm loud and clear. We were optimistic for progress, but actions speak volumes.”

In an announcement that has kindled anxiety among MLSs, Cheatham recently announced that The Realty Alliance is planning to roll out an unspecified “big initiative” to address some brokers’ concerns with MLSs.

Some brokers have clamored for NAR to remove public-facing websites from a list of examples of services that it considers reasonable for MLSs to choose to offer as “basic services” — MLS services that all members are required to pay for in their dues — ever since NAR added them to the list in May.

The inclusion of public-facing sites in a list part of MLS Policy Statement 7.57, “Categorization of MLS Services, Information and Product,” allows MLSs to force their members to pay for a service that can compete with their own websites, those brokers say.

 

 

 

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/11/11/nar-leaves-list-of-mls-basic-services-untouched/#sthash.utywKTka.dpuf

Chappaqua NY Weekly Real Estate Report | #RobReportBlog

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Chappaqua   NY Weekly Real Estate Report11/8/2013
Homes for sale92
Median Ask Price$1,156,000.00
Low Price$380,000.00
High Price$24,750,000.00
Average Size4101
Average Price/foot$369.00
Average DOM162
Average Ask Price$1,672,839.00

 

Greenstein Tops Paderewski In New Castle Supervisor Race | Chappaqua Real Estate

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With 81 percent of the precincts reporting, Team New Castle supervisor candidate Rob Greenstein and his 2,014 votes (55 percent) will be enough to defeat his Democratic opponent, Town Administrator Penny Paderewski, who had 1,672 votes (45 percent).

Greenstein is excited to begin a new chapter in New Castle.

“The voters have spoken,” he said. “They sent a clear message that they’re not in favor of a 120,000-square-foot retail development at Chappaqua Crossing and they’re not in favor of the Hunts Place affordable housing project.”

He added that he is relieved the campaign, which was contentious at time, is over.

“Contested elections can get heated. Change is never easy. It’s time to put the election behind us.  We have a special community with incredible residents. It’s time to work together, and move forward,” he said.

Greenstein, a Democrat who ran on bipartisan ticket, was endorsed by the Republican and Independent parties. He formed the Chappaqua-Millwood Chamber of Commerce in 2012 and lives in Chappaqua with his wife and three children.

Paderewski has been New Castle Town Administrator since 2011 and has worked for the town since 1986. She has lived in the town since 1984 and her three children attended Chappaqua schools.

 

 

 

http://chappaqua.dailyvoice.com/politics/greenstein-tops-paderewski-new-castle-supervisor-race

Chappaqua NY Sales up 75% | Median price flat | #RobReportBlog

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Chappaqua   NY Real Estate ReportRobReportBlog
20136 months ending 11/52012
121Sales69up 75%
$899,999.00median sold price$900,000.00flat
$405,000.00low sold price$465,000.00
$4,000,000.00high sold price$2,550,000.00
3477average size3673
$301.00ave. price per foot$288.00
148ave days on market174
$1,044,310.00average sold price$1,045,921.00
0.9736ave. sold to ask0.9591

Tight Lending Standards Slow the Economy | Chappaqua Real Estate

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Changes in lending standards by banks, undertaken to reduce their risk and preserve capital, have huge, macroeconomic effects on the economy.  Not are not only restricting credit, they simultaneously reduce the demand for credit by businesses homeowners, even creating credit shocks that impact GDP. However, banks loosen standards to create a competitive advantage in the marketplace according to a new study by economists at the Federal Reserve.

Tightening credit creates shocks to the credit supply and leads to a substantial decline in output and the capacity of businesses and households to borrow from banks, as well as to a widening of credit spreads and an easing of monetary policy.

Shifts in the supply of bank loans to businesses and households corresponds to changes in lending standards that-using an econometric model-have been adjusted for the bank-specific and macroeconomic factors that, in addition to affecting banks’ credit policies, can also have a simultaneous effect on the demand for credit.

The economists, William F. Bassett, Mary Beth Chosak, John C. Driscoll, and Egon Zakrajsek, used the Fed’s quarter Senior Loan Officer Survey as a way to measure and track banks’ lending standards and credit policies from the bottom up, using bank-level responses on changes in lending standards for businesses.

“This analysis shows that credit supply disturbances have economically large and statistically significant effects on output and core lending capacity of U.S. commercial banks. Specifically, an adverse credit supply shock of one standard deviation is associated with a decline in the level of real GDP of about 0.75 percent two years after the shock, while the capacity of businesses and households to borrow from the banking sector falls more than 4 percent over the same period, the economists found. Such disruptions in the credit-intermediation process also lead to a substantial rise,” they found.

Economic factors influencing banks’ business credit policies include a projected increase in the unemployment rate as does a deterioration in the current labor market conditions. Expected changes in longer-term interest rates again exert a significant influence-in both economic and statistical terms-on the probability that banks will modify their current lending standards: An expected increase of 100 basis points in the 10-year Treasury yield over the next four quarters is estimated to lower the probability of tightening in the current quarter about 6.5 percentage points and boost the likelihood of easing by nearly the same amount.

The capacity of businesses and households to borrow from the banking sector begins to decline within two quarters after the initial credit disruption, and the resulting reduction in this broad measure of credit inter-mediation is very persistent and protracted, they said.

 

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/11/tight-standards-can-rock-the-economy/

 

Pleasantville’s thriving Farmers Market on Saturday | Chappaqua Real Estate

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Hundreds of shoppers enjoyed Pleasantville’s thriving Farmers Market on Saturday as the local market enjoys the final weeks of its first outdoor season under the village’s control.Photo AlbumPleasantville Farmers Market Grows And Thrives In Village

“We’ve grown the market, included all 12 of the varieties of vendors our shoppers prefer and enlarged the footprint this year,” Market Executive Director Steve Bates said. “And this tear we’re moving inside for the winter season at the Pleasantville Middle School on Dec. 7.”

The Pleasantville Outdoor Farmers Market is in its 15th year and runs Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. through Nov. 23 at the Pleasantville train station in Memorial Plaza.

The Farmers Market is the largest in Westchester County and is home for 50 vendors providing regionally-grown produce, humanely raised meats, wild-caught Atlantic seafood, prepared foods sourcing farms for ingredients, and many other new offerings.

“We enjoy the atmosphere, the convenience and the variety of locally grown produce,” said Pleasantville’s Steve Jacobs, who shops the market with his wife, Jean. “It’s great to have products come directly from local farms and producers each week.”

Bates said the outdoor market has grown over the years as live music, children’s events and vendors came on board.

“The three goals are the bring the community together, attract visitors to our downtown and provide great local farm-to-table products,” Bates said. “We’re having a great year and we welcome everyone to visit.”

The winter indoor market begins Dec. 7 and will run through May 23, 2014, Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

 

 

http://whiteplains.dailyvoice.com/lifestyle/westchesters-largest-farmers-market-wrapping-outdoor-season