| North Salem NY Weekly Real Estate Report | 8/28/2013 | |
| Homes for sale | 50 | |
| Median Ask Price | $799,000.00 | |
| Low Price | $250,000.00 | |
| High Price | $18,500,000.00 | |
| Average Size | 3413 | |
| Average Price/foot | $357.00 | |
| Average DOM | 167 | |
| Average Ask Price | $1,511,404.00 |
Consumer confidence fell in August from a six-year high as Americans observed rising interest rates and fluctuating stocks caused by uncertainty surrounding the Fed’s plans for quantitative easing, Bloomberg reports
The publication studied the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment and released the following findings:
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment fell to 80 from 85.1 in July, which was the highest since July 2007. The median projection of 68 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for little change at 85.2. The decline this month was the biggest since December.
Measuring your startup’s Web analytics seems complicated enough. But with the rise of mobile-only users and visitors, there’s an added layer of complexity for startups to consider.
To figure out which tools are robust enough to handle both, I asked a panel of 9 successful entrepreneurs the following question:
Their answers are below:
1. Segment.io
We use Segment.io so that we can track analytics in a number of tools: Google Analytics, Mixpanel and KISSmetrics. We only have to implement the tracking of events on time from a development perspective this way. We tend to use Mixpanel to segment out the difference in usage between native mobile and Web browser usage across our user base.
– Danny Boice, Speek
2. TestFlight
We use TestFlight’s analytics package to monitor a variety of core mobile behaviors. This varies drastically from what we do on the website.
3. Google Analytics
With recent improvements to Google Analytics’ filters and segments, we no longer have any reason to use any other analytics program to track where visitors are coming from and what devices they’re using. For instance, you can filter mobile devices or go one step further and see who is using a tablet because Google Analytics now takes screen size into consideration.
Additionally, manufacturer model and marketing names have become available, so you’ll know exactly who is using an iPhone and who prefers Android. Using both filters and segments allows you to compare mobile to overall visitors.
4. Localytics
There is no substitute for Localytics when trying to turn your mobile data into information that will drive your business.
5. Geckoboard
For a while now, we’ve been using Geckoboard for monitoring a wide variety of analytics. One of our favorites is to monitor sign-up conversion rates from mobile. Although desktop users still sign up three to four times more than those browsing with mobile devices (especially true with smartphones), this trend is changing fast.
By tweaking our mobile experience and monitoring in real time how that affects our conversion rates, we are now able to understand much better which works and which does not.
– Juha Liikala, Stripped Bare Media
read more…
Despite an expected slowdown, Las Vegas housing prices keep going up.
The median price of a previously owned single-family home sold in Southern Nevada last month was $180,000, up 35 percent from $133,000 a year earlier, according to a new report from the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors.
Sales prices have now climbed 17 of the past 18 months after bottoming out in January 2012, at $118,000. According to research firm CoreLogic, Nevada home prices are the fastest-rising in the country.
“We keep expecting these price increases to slow down at some point, but it hasn’t happened yet,” GLVAR President Dave Tina said.
He’s not the only one to predict that Las Vegas’ housing market will cool off. Home values are expected to grow 9 percent by June 2014 after soaring 29 percent over the past year, the second-fastest rate among major metro areas, according to Zillow.
The surge has been fueled in large part by cash investors who buy cheap houses in bulk to turn into rentals, crimping the inventory of homes for sale. Availability also has been limited by homeowners who refuse to sell or can’t sell because they’re underwater or stuck in foreclosure processing delays.
Analysts say the valley is not mired in another housing bubble, as prices and values simply are rising from historic lows. Some experts, however, say the valley could be on the cusp of another false housing boom.
Yale University economist Robert Shiller, co-founder of the closely watched S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, said in late June that Las Vegas is one of several cities at risk of a bubble
read more…
http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2013/aug/08/nevada-home-prices-continue-steady-rise-surprising/
Wealth effects merit increased attention these days. They play a fundamental role in the attempt to find recuperative power as the U.S. economy struggles to exit from the financial crisis. The Federal Reserve, however, ignores wealth effects in its current policy statements. Its formula is outcome-driven. The Fed has identified 6.5% as a target unemployment rate as long as inflation remains below or around 2.5%.
An important issue that the Fed has not discussed in detail is the idea that rising asset values in housing and the stock market will translate into more economic activity, and a speedier economic recovery—the impact of wealth effects.
Wealth effects are determined by changes in asset prices. In the U.S., two asset classes determine the intensity of wealth effects. They are housing prices and the stock market.
IN SOME SEMINAL RESEARCH, economists Karl Case, John Quigley, and Robert Shiller examined the housing sector’s wealth effect for the 37 years ending in 2012. Their findings are published in National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 18667. The authors determined that a major change occurred with the financial crisis that started in 2007.
Prior to the crisis, the U.S. saw decades of housing and business cycles during which housing had only a positive wealth effect. The economists’ research showed that households increase their spending when house prices rise, but there has been no significant decrease in consumption when house prices fall. The wealth effect from housing was always positive until the recent crisis period.
Tim Foley for Barron’s
But the housing crash from 2005 to 2009 introduced a negative wealth effect to the U.S. Technical measures of the response of personal consumption with respect to wealth changes—elasticities, in economics lingo—were large. The Case-Quigley-Shiller study found that real housing wealth gains in the 2001-2005 period pushed up household spending by about 4.3% and the decrease in real housing wealth from 2005 to 2009 was associated with a decline in household consumption of 3.5%.
Separate research by Neal Soss and Henry Mo of Credit Suisse published in February reached a similar conclusion. They said, “Mortgage equity withdrawals, once the main channels through which consumers generated the cash flow to spend beyond their take-home pay, show no sign of recovery following the collapse from 2006-2008. Less cash from monetized home equity implies less purchasing power and consumer expenditures, and hence a smaller housing wealth effect.”
While the Fed says its policy is focused on employment and inflation targets, the Fed decision makers know that smaller wealth effects make their job more difficult. That is why interest rates are being managed to very low levels. The Fed wants housing prices to rise in order to achieve positive wealth effects. To do that, it must make the cost of financing housing cheap and keep it cheap.
In each Economic Update, the Research staff analyzes recently released economic indicators and addresses what these indicators mean for REALTORS® and their clients. Today’s update discusses construction spending, the ISM index, ADP payroll figures, and mortgage purchase applications.
Janet Choynowski
Sales of U.S. property to international buyers are heating up. According to the National Association of Realtors, international sales were up 24 percent last year, representing 9 percent of the total residential market.
NAR’s member surveys show that in the 12-month period ending in March 2012, international buyers bought U.S. property valued at more than $82 billion, generating about $5 billion in real estate commissions.
NAR defines international buyers as not only those who live outside of the U.S., but also recent immigrants and temporary visa holders.
Article continues belowIf international buyers perform a search for houses for sale in your city, does your website show up in their search results?
The chances are that your website is not being suggested to valuable international prospects unless you have taken steps to ensure that it can be indexed in other languages.
The reason is simple. Search engines are programmed to predict what their users want. That’s why when you perform a search in English, your search engine “knows” you expect to see results in English and that is what you get. The same is true for other languages.
Now here’s the catch: According to one estimate, about 72 percent of all people with Internet access speak a language other than English.
Because many people speak more than one language, it’s hard to say exactly what percentage of searches are conducted in a language other than English.
But across the globe, viewers get results that are relevant to them by using the approximately 165 international “Googles” and countless other regional search engines programmed to understand the habits and expectations of their own local users.
You can get a good feel for what a Brazilian prospect searching houses for sale in your market will encounter by performing this search: Visit www.Google.com.br and paste: “venda de casas em your city” into the search box to see which websites are included in the search results. You will find, no surprise, that the top search results are all websites with content in Brazilian Portuguese.
Buyers from Mexico were responsible for 8 percent of the international investment in U.S. residential property over the past year. A search on www.Google.com.mx for “Casas en venta en your city” will reveal who is most visible to prospects searching your area for houses for sale.
Chinese nationals made 11 percent of the 85 billion dollars in total international investment last year. A resident of China would likely visit www.Baidu.com to perform a search for ” your city 房产” to research your local real estate market. The search and results will be in Chinese of course.
Unless you already have some content in these languages, your website was probably not in any of the results above.
These search engines are programmed to deliver results in other languages and your English website is no more relevant to them than a page in Chinese is to Google.com.
There are two simple things you can do to start to improve your global visibility and increase the probability of attracting international prospects.
For a low tech and low cost solution, ask bilingual or multilingual associates or coworkers to write a few paragraphs about your local market in their own languages. Add this content to your website with links up at the top so search engines can easily index it. This content should actually be on a page within your website, not just linked from another site.
Write a blog in other languages if you can or hire someone to write the blog for you. Include hyperlinks from keywords in your blog post such as the translated phrases for “real estate for sale in your city” or “houses for sale in your city” linking back to relevant content on your website.
These small steps will allow international search engines to index your website and suggest it when an international prospect looks for real estate in your area.
Please do not add machine translation tools to your website in an effort to gain visibility, though.
This is what Google has to say: “We recommend that you do not allow automated translations to get indexed. Automated translations don’t always make sense and they could potentially be viewed as spam.”
Utilizing good-quality content in other languages can help you move your website to first-page results in the languages of your choice. After all, who knows where your next client might come from?
