Tag Archives: Cross river NY Luxury Homes for Sale

Real Housewife Personally Drives Bulldozer Into 42 Star Island | Cross River Real Estate

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42%20Star%20Island%20Drive%20-%20December%202008%20-%20Credit%20Ronny%20Lorist%20X.jpg[Photo Via Ronny Lorist]

Lisa Hochstein is having a great day. The Real Housewife of Miami and her hubby Lenny have finally won her battle to demolish historic 42 Star Island Drive and she celebrated by personally demolishing the house’s porte cochere, she told news reporters yesterday. The house’s sad demise was all over the evening news.  “I actually tore down this entire front area here, it was actually really fun. This is a fun job.” said Lisa, contemplated a career change no doubt. The house should take about three weeks to demolish in its entirety, and the new one won’t be finished for another two years.

 

http://miami.curbed.com/archives/2014/03/19/real-housewife-personally-drives-bulldozer-into-42-star-island.php

Building boom signals stock market bust | Cross River Real Estate

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According to a study recently published in the Journal of Financial Research, not long after construction begins on a number of large buildings or they are actually finished, the stock market goes into the dumpster.

Its author, Guenter Loffler, a professor of finance at Ulm University in Germany, studied the correlation between skyscraper construction and stock market trends from 1871 to 2009.

He told the newspaper Real Estate Weekly recently that skyscraper construction is a better predictor of stock prices than more commonly used indicators, such as corporate profits or price/earnings ratios.

He offers plenty of examples.

In 1929, the Chrysler Building was under construction, while work was about to begin on the Empire State Building. This was an era that Real Estate Weekly considers to be “the greatest skyscraper boom in history.”

The stock market crashed later that year.

In 1993, construction began on the world’s tallest building, the Petronas Towers located in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. Before its doors were opened, this super skyscraper was engulfed in the Asian Financial Crisis that sent stocks sinking around the world.

Fourteen years later, in 2007, construction began on what was slated to be the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, the Chicago Spire. Like in the past, this was just one of the many towers being erected at that time. Indeed, the total square footage underway in 2007 was more than twice the average of the previous 20 years, writes Prof. Loffler.

As you might recall, the stock market peaked in October of that year and worked its way lower before plunging in September, 2008. The Spire was postponed indefinitely, as were a number of other buildings.

 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/building-boom-signals-stock-market-bust-2014-03-04?siteid=yhoof2

Katonah-Lewisboro Parents Not Surprised By Kreutzer’s Departure | Cross River Real Estate

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News of Superintendent Paul Kreutzer’s Tuesday resignation came as no shock to several Katonah-Lewisboro parents.

Nat Mundy, owner of Caps Country Market on Spring Street, said he thought Kreutzer would finish out the year, but didn’t expect him to stay long term.

“I always sort of felt like he was brought in to serve a purpose: find budget cuts, find ways to save the system money,” he said. “He did his job and he probably has another job offer somewhere else.”

Kreutzer’s departure comes less than a week after the board voted 5-2 to close the Lewisboro Elementary School in the fall, which is expected to save about $1.7 million annually. The 300-plus Lewisboro Elementary students will move to Increase Miller and Meadow Pond elementary schools, including Mundy’s fourth grade son, Hunter.

“He’ll change schools. Some friendships will be more distant than they were before. The hard part is he’s only been there three years and was just settling in,” Mundy said. “He was finding his clique of buddies and comfortable socially, and now that all changes.”

The Katonah-Lewisboro School Board announced the resignation at a special meeting Tuesday night. Kreutzer, 42, will receive a $90,000 buyout of the existing portion of his five-year contract in order to avoid litigation, the school district said in a message on its website.

 

 

http://bedford.dailyvoice.com/schools/katonah-lewisboro-parents-not-surprised-kreutzers-departure

Drop in New Home Sales | Cross River Real Estate

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Monthly data out this morning show sales of new homes fell 7 percent in December, to an annualized rate of 414,000, which was below the estimates of all 75 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Sales are up 35 percent since the bottom of the market in 2011, but as Calculated Risk notes, they are still basically at or below the levels seen during the bottom of every previous recession. New homes sales are just one piece of the market. And as Trulia’s Jed Kolko points out on Twitter (TWTR), they’re a historically small piece right now.

More broadly, there are signs of “remarkable resilience” in the recovery, according to a Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey released last week. It found that nondistressed homes spent an average of 9.7 weeks on the market in December, or 20 percent less time than in December 2012. Also, homes are selling closer to their asking prices. In December, homes sold for 97.1 percent of their list prices, on average, up from 95.5 percent a year earlier.

 

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-27/the-housing-recovery-continues-despite-a-drop-in-new-home-sales?campaign_id=yhoo

Home prices fall back slightly in November, soar from a year earlier | Cross River Real Estate

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Home prices in the nation’s largest cities declined slightly in November from  October, as the market showed signs of cooling during the slower fall season,  according to a closely watched index.

The S&P/Case-Shiller  index of 20 large U.S. metropolitan areas, released Tuesday, fell 0.1% from  October–the first decline since November 2012. But prices soared compared to a  year earlier, rising 13.7%.

David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones  Indices, called November a “good month for home prices,” noting strong  year-over-year price appreciation.

“Prices typically weaken as we move closer to the winter,” he said in a  statement.

Western metros continue to lead the recovery. Prices in Las Vegas rose 27.3%  compared to November 2012; San Francisco 23.2%; and Los Angeles 21.6%.

The Case-Shiller index, created by economists Karl E. Case and Robert J.  Shiller, is widely considered the most reliable read on home values.

The housing index compares the latest sales of detached houses with previous  sales, and accounts for factors such as remodeling that might affect a house’s  sale price over time.

Nine cities posted price gains from October. Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix,  Miami and Tampa,  Fla., have seen 12 or more straight monthly increases.

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-case-shiller-20140128,0,5908610.story#ixzz2rhqtcUVQ

The Google Bus Protests Are Really About Bay Area Home Prices | Cross River NY Homes

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So I haven’t been following this very closely, but I’m catching up on  the Google bus controversy in the Bay Area.

From what I’ve gathered, a growing number of Silicon Valley workers,  from Google and other companies, are finding themselves in San Francisco, some  40 miles from San Jose, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Mountain View and the  other towns that make up the high-tech hub.

Workers are moving to the City By The Bay presumably because they’re  drawn to the city’s attractiveness, amenities and dynamism, which the Valley  apparently lacks (never been there, so this is totally  impressionistic).
In response to this shift, Google and  others are orchestrating private buses to transport workers from the City to the  Valley, and paying the City of San Francisco good  money to use its bus stops.  This has prompted protests from  SF residents decrying the impact of the Valley workers on affordable housing and  in altering the character of the city.

Read more:  http://cornersideyard.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-wheels-on-bus-go-round-and-round.html#ixzz2qI1vy4Kg

Government thinks it can fix struggling communities | Cross River Real Estate

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The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development joined the education and agriculture secretaries Thursday in a press conference to elaborate on what will be involved in President Obama’s new “promise zone” initiative.

President Barack Obama announced that he is starting a new government program designed to help economically challenged communities.

The promise zone initiative, Obama said, will focus on attracting private investment to replace distressed housing with what they call “mixed-income” housing, reducing crime, providing tax incentives to stimulate economic growth, and promoting programs to help high schools retain and graduate students.

The first five locations will be San Antonio, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Southeastern Kentucky, and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. The White House plans to announce 15 more promise zones over the next two years in blighted rural and urban areas.

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said the effort will integrate housing, education and crime relief efforts, and bring together local community leaders with businesses through tax credits, coordinated by federal oversight.

“This is a sharp departure from the way the government provided aid in the past,” Donovan said. “Washington would swoop in and impose solutions without working with local leaders to support their visions and strengthen all assets needed for communities to thrive.”

“We want to bring together a wide variety of stake holders to better communities,” Donovan said. “Home is the foundation of all of our lives. Now we are going to connect housing with other efforts to expand opportunity.”

Donovan said that the tax credit component of the promise zone initiative is critical, especially for housing and job creation.

“Yes, these zones will work without tax credits, but no, not to full capacity,” he said. “Those tax credits that will be proposed are critical in accelerating job creation and improving housing.”

He added he believed the promise zones initiatives and tax credits will receive bipartisan support in Congress.

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/28537-big-promises-the-white-house-is-making-now-about-housing

NYC agent count surges in 2013, especially in Brooklyn | Cross River NY Real Estate

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It’s been an active year (to say the least) for New York City real estate, so it should come as no shock that the number of real estate agents and brokers licensed in the five boroughs has increased.

The rise was concentrated in Manhattan and Brooklyn. In Manhattan, headlines about mega-luxury apartments and reality shows about high-flying brokers who sling them prompted many to get into the business, while in Kings County the continuing tide of gentrification (and its attendant rising rents) may have brought on the nearly 10 percent increase in licensed agents.

The number of licensed real estate salespeople in New York City grew by 7.2 percent, to 29,503 from 27,530 since last year at this time, data from the New York State Department of State provided to The Real Deal show.

In Manhattan alone, the number was 15,798, up 7.4 percent from 14,708 last December. In Brooklyn, the ranks of salespeople burgeoned 9.2 percent, to 5,210 from 4,772, the data show.

In the Bronx, there were 54 new agents licensed with the state this year, bringing the total in the borough to 1200; in Queens the ranks of salespeople swelled 6.3 percent – to 5,887 from 5,538. Meanwhile, on Staten Island, the 1366 agents added less than 50 new licensees to their ranks, to reach a total of 1408 salespeople in Richmond County.

The volume of licensed brokers citywide ticked up slightly as well, to 23,690 from 23,134 last year –an increase of 2.4 percent. (Agents are typically greener salespeople, while licensed brokers must have at least two years of industry experience and pass a licensing test to earn the designation.)

While the DOS figures do not distinguish residential from commercial brokers, anecdotal evidence suggests that the bulk of agents are in the residential sector. And while commercial leasing had an up and down year and may have even shed brokers, the commercial sales industry thrived, said David Behin, head of investment sales at commercial and residential brokerage MNS.

 

 

http://therealdeal.com/blog/2013/12/23/nyc-agent-count-surges-in-2013-especially-in-brooklyn/

Foreclosure filings plummet in November | Cross River Homes

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U.S. foreclosure filings plummeted 37 percent in November from a year ago and 15 percent from October, according to the latest report from foreclosure data aggregator RealtyTrac.

The 113,454 properties that were served with a default notice, scheduled for auction or repossessed by a bank in November represented the biggest month-over-month drop in foreclosure activity since November 2010, when foreclosure activity dropped 21 percent after the robo-signing scandal broke.

“While some of the decrease in November can be attributed to seasonality, the depth and breadth of the decrease provides strong evidence that we are entering the ninth inning of this foreclosure crisis with the outcome all but guaranteed,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac, in a statement.

Only three of the 20 largest U.S. metros posted annual increases in foreclosure activity: Baltimore (up 46 percent), Philadelphia (up 34 percent), and Washington, D.C. (up 6 percent).

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/12/11/foreclosure-filings-plummet-in-november/?utm_source=20131212&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyheadlinesam#sthash.xJyMjjbG.dpuf