Tag Archives: Lewisboro NY Real Estate

Lewisboro NY Real Estate

Doctor Gives End Of Daylight Saving Time Tips | Katonah Real Estate

We’ll all be “Fall”-ing back this weekend. You can get ready for it now.

Changing the clocks back at the end of Daylight Saving Time can throw your body for a loop, but there are ways to help you ease into that one-hour change.

Dr. Praveen Rudraraju at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco has five tips to help adjust to the end of Daylight Saving Time.

  • Try to change one of the clocks on Friday and start following that clock to eat meals, sleep and wake according to that clock. When Monday comes, you will be better adjusted.
  • Exercise early in the day not too close to the bedtime.
  • Give ample time to digest your dinner before you go to bed.
  • Try to spend time outside during the daytime if weather permits, Dim the lights in the evening, so that your body understands that it’s time to wind down.

 

 

http://mtkisco.dailyvoice.com/lifestyle/nwh-doctor-gives-end-daylight-saving-time-tips

Land Banks Help Clear Paths For Neighborhood Renewals | Katonah NY Real Estate

What do Pennsylvania, New York, Missouri, Georgia, and Nebraska have in common? Your first thought might be practically nothing. But all of these states have passed comprehensive legislation in the past two years that authorized the formation of land banks for the purpose of reclaiming real estate whose market value in its present blighted or tax-delinquent condition is all but worthless.

For adventurous builders and developers, especially those whose business models include infill aspirations, land banks hold out the promise of inexpensive, albeit risky, redevelopment options. And if this phenomenon expands, as some experts predict it will, land banks could become a more important component in helping metros resuscitate left-for-dead neighborhoods and achieve their larger goals of attracting more residents and businesses.

“It’s an exciting time for land banks,” says Wade Kapzukiewicz, treasurer of Lucas County, Ohio, and chairman of the county’s three-year-old land bank, one of 16 in the Buckeye State.

Between 100 and 150 authorized land banks are in operation across the United States. Typically, the banks are set up to serve counties or metros like Chicago, whose Cook County Land Bank Authority is scheduled to open this fall. And if all things fall into place as planned, Philadelphia could have its first land bank by mid 2014, says Rick Sauer, executive director of the Philadelphia Association of Community Development Corporations.

Philadelphia has more than 40,000 residential and commercial properties that either haven’t paid taxes in years, are vacant, or abandoned. Various public agencies own about one quarter of these properties. The game plan over time, says Sauer, is to move a sizable portion of the land and buildings into the land bank, and repurpose as many properties as local real estate conditions will allow to get them back on the tax roles via redevelopment that could include everything from open space to market-rate and affordable housing.

Why Land Banks? Land banks “are a new tool based on a new reality,” says Dr. Frank Alexander, Sam Nunn Professor of Law at Emory University in Atlanta, and cofounder and general counsel for the Center for Community Progress, which advocates the creation of vibrant communities primarily through the reuse of problem properties in America’s cities and towns. Historically these properties have been located in dilapidated neighborhoods within a city’s urban core. But, says Alexander, the last housing recession spread this plague to the suburbs, where he’s seen whole subdivisions succumb to foreclosure.

A Quicker Fix. Land banks have become a solution for cash-strapped cities that want to rehabilitate rundown neighborhoods, but don’t have the money or manpower to chase down owners of abandoned properties or to tear down buildings.

Land banks have the legal authority to take ownership of properties within days or weeks, settle (often by voiding) title and lien obstacles, demolish what can’t be salvaged, and assemble and resell land and buildings through commercial brokers. By authorizing a land bank in the spring of 2012, Syracuse, N.Y., last November was able to initiate foreclosures on 3,900 properties that were at least two years behind in their taxes. Having someplace where the city could transfer ownership of those properties was a prerequisite for completing the foreclosure process.

 

http://www.builderonline.com/land-acquisition/land-banks-help-clear-paths-for-neighborhood-renewals.aspx?utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=jump&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EBP_100813&day=2013-10-08

 

 

7 Content Marketing Tips: Your Audience Attention Cheat Sheet | South Salem NY Realtor

I won’t lie: content marketing is hard. But  most of us make it harder than it needs to be. We  pour energy and resources into minute gains, instead of focusing our attention  on the simple changes that make a huge difference.

Today, I’d like to talk about 7 content marketing tips that will get you so  much more with so much less. It’s about working smarter, not harder.

Let’s get going.

#1. Start with the headline

Most content marketers and bloggers start with a post idea, write it up, and  then try to come up with a viral headline that will blow people away. This is  all backward.

Think about it:

  • People don’t read blog posts because they know the blog post is going to be  good. They read blog posts because the title catches their attention.
  • Blog posts don’t go viral, headlines do. It’s the headline that people share  on Facebook. It’s the headline that people talk about at the water cooler.  Complex ideas do not go viral. Viral ideas are simple, yet impactful.
  • Headlines set the expectation for the rest of the article. If you put the  blog post first, only to realize that the idea can’t be summed up into a viral  headline, you either settle for a crummy headline, or you write up a misleading  one.

The secret to writing headlines

The importance of a headline for content marketing

What’s the secret to writing headlines that people just can’t ignore? Well,  there are two ways to approach this:

  1. Copy headline structures that work
  2. Use the basic principles of viral attention

I would advise doing both.

That first one can mess people up, so let me explain. How many times have you  seen a title that went something like: “[X] Things Your [Trusted Person] Will  Never Tell You” or “[X] [Subject] Mistakes You Never Realized You Were  Making?”

Those look familiar, don’t they?

Headline hacks

Well, pick up a copy of Jon Morrow’s Headline Hacks (it’s free) and prepare to be  amazed. Pretty much every viral headline you’ve seen has been in circulation for  at least half a century, with a little bit of updated language and a healthy  dose of mad libs to keep things current.

I strongly advise you to take a look at the most viral headlines on the web.  Just copy the headline, and swap out a few words to make it relevant to your  industry. If there is only one thing you do to improve your headlines, (not to  mention your entire content marketing strategy) do this.

Trust me, those very headlines have been written thousands of times before.  Nobody is going to care.

6 principles of content that goes viral

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I’d like to address a few basic  principles of viral attention that are going to keep coming up throughout this  post. First, Dr. Jonah Berger’s 6 principles of viral sharing:

  1. Social Currency – People only share things because it helps them improve or  maintain their social standing. It doesn’t matter how much we love a piece of  content. We won’t share it if doing so doesn’t help our relationships or help us  define who we are to other people.
  2. Triggers – Context and associations shape how likely we are to share  something. Votes held in churches are more likely to be for conservative  politicians. Think of peanut butter and you’ll probably think of jelly. Play  French music in a grocery store and people will be more likely to buy French  wine.
  3. Emotions – Intense emotions like fear, anger, humor, and awe beg to be  shared. Disaffecting emotions, like sadness, do not. Of all emotions, awe is the  most powerful. When we learn something new, or learn to see it in a different  way, we are compelled to share the experience more than anything else. Humor  takes the silver medal, which is of course closely related to surprise, which  is closely related to awe.
  4. Public – This is about our inherent trust in the wisdom of the crowd. If  others have taken an action, we are more likely to follow them, especially if it  seems to be a crowd of like-minded people. In other words, it takes a seed of  sharing activity for something to go viral.
  5. Practical – Content marketers already know this one. Actionable content begs  to be shared.
  6. Stories – Humans are hard-wired to listen to and tell stories. Stories are  about facing struggles and solving problems. They are purposeful, not merely  descriptive. There is a reason why most people will say “what was the point?” to  a Cohen brothers’ film. When we listen to stories, we expect people to struggle  with problems and either succeed or fail tragically. We don’t expect a series of  purposeless events.

 

 

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/10/11/7-content-marketing-tips-your-audience-attention-cheat-sheet/#3IHq282PmgLXoCFP.99

A Revolutionary Renovation in Connecticut | Katonah NY Real Estate

year before the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, a man named Joseph Wheadon built a modest, one-room house in New Milford, Connecticut. Wheadon cut the lumber by hand and scavenged foundation stones from the surrounding property. After his premature death, a Greek Revival wing was built, followed by other less-distinctive additions.
More than 235 years after Wheadon first wielded his ax, a Greenwich woman discovered the property while searching for a weekend retreat. By this time, the house was dated and neglected, with systems that had outlived their usefulness. “It was my duty to the community to maintain and uphold the architectural history of the house,” says the homeowner, a former student of historic preservation, now earning a doctorate in environmental policy. “However, on the backside of the house, I wanted to bring nature in and to connect the house to its surroundings.”
Houzz at a Glance Who lives here:The home is a getaway for a local family of five Location: New Milford, Connecticut Size:  2,700 square feet; 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms That’s interesting: The old foundation stones were used to build a labyrinth behind the house.

farmhouse exterior by Blansfield Builders, Inc.

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Working with Mark Goodwin of Beinfield Architecture, and Jim Blansfield of Blansfield Builders, the owner remodeled and expanded the house, opening the interior spaces to each other and the view.
The new column-lined entryway across from the garage pays homage to the 19th-century Greek Revival facade in front. The wing to the right was newly built, and the whole house was covered in standing-seam metal roofing, which is both easy to maintain and environmentally responsible — a consideration that drove much of the project.
farmhouse living room by Blansfield Builders, Inc.

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“You venture into a different world when you venture inside,” observes Goodwin, who heeded the owner’s request to reduce every element to its simplest components.
The living-dining area is dominated by an original fireplace, now covered in reclaimed wood that’s been treated to a charcoal gray finish. “We tried to reuse as much of the wood as we could,” says Goodwin, who left some of the hand-hewn beams exposed and used one to create a sublimely understated mantel.
contemporary living room Circa 1700 in NY

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While the home feels like a radical departure from its Revolutionary past, the owner doesn’t see the two as incompatible. “If you look at the interiors, they’re contemporary in terms of being minimal,” she says. “But actually, those are the same materials that would have been used by the original builders. Instead of making it a relic of the past, we revived it and gave it a whole new identity.”
The living room sectional was custom crafted from Northern white pine, while the Andrianna Shamaris coffee table was fashioned from a tree stump. The engineered-wood floors (Castle Combe’s Worcester pattern) are made from oak, textured and treated to look like ancient reclaimed wood.
farmhouse living room by Blansfield Builders, Inc.

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The neutral decor defers to the view. The garden room is visible through the doorway at rear.

contemporary  Circa 1700 in NY

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When the owner bought the house, the kitchen had barely been updated since the 1950s and still sported its vintage metal cabinets.

Katonah Presbyterian Church to dedicate renovation-expansion | Katonah NY Homes

On Sunday, the First Presbyterian Church will end the 10 a.m. morning worship service with a ceremony dedicating the renovation and expansion of the church building at 31 Bedford Road, Katonah.

After almost six years of planning, permissions and municipal approvals, and an extended year of site work and construction, the 330-member congregation will unveil its largest capital project since the sanctuary was renovated in the late 1980s, according to a press release from the church.

This time, the church concentrated on providing greater access to the disabled, additional class- and meeting rooms, music rehearsal space, a new kitchen and new above-ground Fellowship Hall. KG&D Architects and Engineers, PC of Mount Kisco and M.J.C. Construction of Yorktown Heights provided specifications, design and execution of the project.

“This is a long time in coming and it will indeed be a celebration,” interim Pastor Gavin Meek said in the statement. “I’m sure you will enjoy the day and the former pastors, staff and members who will return for the event.” The public is invited to morning worship and to a reception and extended celebration in the new facilities from 11:15 until 12:45 p.m.

For more information visit www.katonahpresbyterian.org or contact the church office at 914-232-4568.KPC Front Entry Rendering KG&D

 

 

 

http://northernwestchester.lohudblogs.com/2013/09/25/katonah-presbyterian-church-to-dedicate-renovation-expansion/

Gorgeous Sagaponack Six-Bedroom is Yours for $10.95M | Waccabuc Real Estate

This house really is beautiful. We love all the white, which contrasts beautifully with the piano-finish floors (hopefully the new owners will have staff with Swiffers on standby). The kitchen and bathrooms are faultless, the pool and landscaping are perfection. There’s 1.6 acres in a great location, and six bedrooms and 7.5 baths inside. As for the artwork, we’re on record in favor of Damien Hirst dot paintings, but the Beatles? Unless you were actually in the Beatles (and that guy lives in Amagansett, not Sagaponack), come on. Also, photographers gotta be more careful with the wide-angle lenses. Yes, they can make the rooms look bigger, but they can also give a funhouse-mirror effect that’s offputting. Again, minor complaints in a stunning house. · Sagaponack Sanctuary With Style [Saunders]

Wells Fargo originations may be off by 30% | South Salem Homes

Wells Fargo (WF) Chief Financial Officer Tim Sloan says mortgage originations are projected to be off by 30%, while refinance volumes will be off by an estimated 60%.

Seeking Alpha elaborated on Sloan’s statements:

Still, he reminds business remains strong and those percentages are based on very strong comparables.

One bullish stat shows mortgage payments to disposable income is just 18% vs. a fifty-year average of 27%. At the height of the bubble it was 30%. Amid the high interest rates of the early 80s, it was about 50%.

                    Source: Seeking Alpha

NAR’s health insurance marketplace is worth a look | Katonah Realtor

Starting in January 2014, I will be getting my health insurance through an exchange.

For months, Minnesota’s health insurance exchange posted outrageously high sample rates on its site. I kept trying to look away, but could not. I’ve been carrying this fear in the pit of my stomach, because I know what it is like to spend more on health insurance each month than on housing.

It seems like the news media and politicians have done everything they can to keep me worried about the arrival of “Obamacare.”I have listened to scary news stories for months about how bad Obamacare is going to be for everyone. The state exchange has not helped alleviate those fears, publishing super-high and inaccurate sample numbers on the MNsure.org website.

Friends who work for insurance companies assured me that my current, somewhat affordable health insurance plan — which carries a large deductible and provides little actual health care — would go away at the end of the year, and be replaced with a much more expensive plan next year.

 

read more…

 

http://www.inman.com/2013/09/26/nars-health-insurance-marketplace-is-worth-a-look/#sthash.zh7Bqe0N.dpuf

Single-family housing starts jump | Waccabuc Real Estate

Single-family housing starts rose 7 percent month over month in August to a seasonally adjusted rate of 628,000, and were up 16.9 percent from a year ago, according to a monthly report from the U.S. Census Bureau released today.

 

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

 

read more…

 

http://www.inman.com/wire/single-family-housing-starts-jump/#sthash.7MoaTZH2.dpuf

12 Awesome Social Media Facts and Statistics for 2013 | Cross River Realtor

social media facts and statistics

As the world continues to embrace social media, the ways we use the social  networks are becoming clearer.

Twitter with its short and snappy messaging is very dependent on mobile usage  and smart phones. The rise of the visual web is making Pinterest and Tumblr the  fastest growing social networks on the planet. Facebook is where we share with  friends and family. Google+ is no longer an afterthought and is embedded in  Google’s web assets including Gmail, local checkins and the mobile Android  ecosystems.

Google is getting the data it wants from Google+. Demographics, usage and  content popularity. This is feeding into how it is ranking search results and  much more. The universes of content, social and search are being woven together  and creating a web experience that looks more like magic everyday. The social  and mobile web is becoming an extension of our lives as we share, search and  upload photos.

Artificial intelligence that adds other dimensions to humanity has already  arrived but we just don’t notice it. We take it for granted

So what are the latest social media facts and statistics provided by the  latest study by GlobalWebIndex for the second quarter of 2013?

#1. Google+ is catching up to Facebook

Facebook still dominates at 70% of account ownership but Google+ is not far  behind at just over 50%. Keep in mind though that Google+ account is mandatory  whenever you create a new  Gmail account. This is pushing up the account  ownership stats. No other social network has Google’s web assets leverage.

The large Chinese internet user population is producing some large Chinese  centric social networks including Sina Weibo, Tencent Weibo and Qzone. So  Facebook doesn’t just have Google+ breathing down its neck. The rise of China’s  social networks will possibly be a threat in the future.

Social media facts figures and statistics 2013 1

#2. Facebook active usage still dominates

Facebook has nearly 50% of all the world’s internet users as active users.  This is only set to increase as regions and countries in the developing world  including Africa, Asia and South America get connected to the web.

Social media facts figures and statistics 2013 1

#3. Pinterest is the fastest growing social network

The visual web is driving the rise of Pinterest and Tumblr with growth rates  of 88% and 74% respectively over the last 12 months. Twitter and LinkedIn though  are still rapid risers with growth rates around 40%.

Social media facts figures and statistics 2013 1

#4. LinkedIn is the most popular for older users

LinkedIn is the network of choice for most knowledge workers and  professionals. It is maybe the most conservative of the social networks due to  the fact it is all about business. It is becoming more social as it has realized  that this will enhance its user penetration and attractiveness.

The latest statistics show it having 7% of its users over 55 and 14% in the  45 to 54 age range.

Social media facts figures and statistics 2013 1

#5. Usage of social networks by older users is increasing

Social networks were and still are a hit with the younger demographics. Don’t  think though that social media is for the teens. The increase in usage by the 55  to 64 year olds is greater than 100% for Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

The young aren’t the only ones having fun.

 

 

 

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/09/20/12-awesome-social-media-facts-and-statistics-for-2013/#zcxL7Wyd1SvY5LVq.99