Sunflower
| Pound Ridge NY Real Estate Report | RobReportBlog | ||
| 2013 | 6 months ending 11/6 | 2012 | |
| 41 | Sales | 36 | up 14% |
| $750,000.00 | median sold price | $660,250.00 | up 13% |
| $399,000.00 | low sold price | $355,000.00 | |
| $2,815,000.00 | high sold price | $2,400,000.00 | |
| 3505 | average size | 3140 | |
| $262.00 | ave. price per foot | $248.00 | |
| 184 | ave days on market | 204 | |
| $935,261.00 | average sold price | $777,217.00 | |
| 0.9657 | ave. sold to ask | 0.9332 | |
Perhaps feeling insecure after Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nayan stole the title as owner of the world’s largest yacht, billionaire Roman Abramovich has bought—well, he’s in contract to buy, according to the Post—this ridiculously opulent Manhattan mansion. The purchase would add a NYC home to an already robust portfolio (which includes, but is by no means limited to, nine-figure estates in St. Barths, Snowmass, Colo., and the English countryside), and provide Abramovich 22 rooms, eight bedrooms, 15 bathrooms, a grand ballroom, a reception rotunda, a library, a rooftop terrace, and some of the most lavish, gussied-up interiors in the city.
When the mansion hit the market last year, it was asking $72M for three units, all owned by the Monaco-based family of the late real estate developer Howard Ronson. That price was meant for uncombined—and frankly somewhat architecturally incompatible—units, but not the entirety of the building, as there were, at the time, still two of five holdout owners. If Abramovich was’t able to quietly convince them to vacate—and, really, who would want to be in the bad graces of a corrupt Russian billionaire?—perhaps his publicly profligate ways, surely a media magnet, will finally convince those guys to bid, uh, do svidaniya.
Curbed NY points out that if the deal goes through for $75M, it will become the most expensive co-op ever sold in New York. Oh, and that $3M over ask? Yep, that’s just about 0.03 percent of Abramovich’s net worth.
http://curbed.com/archives/2013/10/04/roman-abramovich-to-buy-lavish-almost-manse-for-75m.php
Utilizing home pricing data for the period ending July 2013, the Homes.com Price Index showed gains for single-family properties in all 100 markets, up from 87 in the previous reporting period
“Homes.com’s Rebound Report provides a deeper view into the 22 fully rebounded markets. Many never experienced the dramatic swings in home values that were a result of foreclosures and short sales that plagued many markets across the nation”
The Homes.com Local Market Index has been expanded to include midsized markets ranked from 101-300. It provides a closer look at smaller markets nationwide, showing increases in 293 of the top 300 markets, up from 250 the previous month. Year over year, all midsized markets increased.
As a complement to the Local Market Index, Homes.com publishes an exclusive Rebound Report, highlighting how the housing recovery process is unfolding across the country. Rebound data for July 2013 in the top 100 markets revealed that 22 markets across the U.S. are fully recovered – up from the previous month’s 19 markets. Additionally, 44 U.S. markets now show a rebound of 50 percent or more, up from 41 in last month’s report.
“Homes.com’s Rebound Report provides a deeper view into the 22 fully rebounded markets. Many never experienced the dramatic swings in home values that were a result of foreclosures and short sales that plagued many markets across the nation,” said Brock MacLean, executive vice president of Homes.com. “By contrast, most of the markets with the lowest rebound have experienced more dramatic changes in values as a result of foreclosures and short sales and will have a slower path to recovery.”
The latest Homes.com Local Market Index reports the following:
Monthly increases in all 100 of the top 100 markets and in 193 of the 200 midsized markets.
Honolulu, Hawaii remains the top gaining market on a year-over-year basis with a 29.17 index point or 13.51% increase.
California markets [Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, Calif.; San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, Calif., San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, Calif.; Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, Calif.] are the remaining 4 in top 5 and increased 25.26, 24.60, 24.19 and 20.16 index points respectively.
Six of the top 10 monthly gaining markets are in the West (up from two in the previous month), followed by four from the South.
Highlights from the Homes.com Rebound Report for the top 100 markets show:
22 have made more than a 100% rebound, indicating a complete recovery in these markets. This is up from 19 markets posting a full recovery in last month’s report.
http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/09/all-top-100-markets-gained-in-homescom-july-data/
Real estate sales in Fairfield County continued their strong growth in the third quarter, with closed sales improving 28 percent from the same quarter in 2012 and under contract sales jumping 59 percent, according to a report published by William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty.
“There’s nothing startling in the report,’’ said Brad Kimmelman, brokerage manager for William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty in Southport. “We are absolutely moving in the right direction. We saw a huge improvement over last year. Overall, we are enjoying a revitalization of the real estate market in Fairfield County, and across the country.”
The William Pitt Sotheby’s International report showed strength across the board, with closed sales running 68 percent higher for the third quarter in Ridgefield, 50 percent higher in Redding, 45 percent higher in the town of Fairfield and 40 percent higher in Danbury.
The closed dollar volume rose 31 percent in the quarter over the same time frame last year, with Weston (up 57 percent), Ridgefield (up 56 percent) and Westport (up 39 percent) among the top communities in the county.
Median sales price rose 6 percent for single-family homes in Fairfield County for the third quarter, to $500,000, according to the report from William Pitt Sotheby’s. In Wilton and Ridgefield, median single family home prices rose 17 percent, while Westport prices jumped 12 percent. In the past year, the median price for single family homes in Fairfield County has jumped 7 percent.
“The 7 percent increase in the average sales price is great,’’ said Molly Lane, who works for William Raveis Homes in Westport. “The rest of the country is down about a half a percent, another indicator that the market is strong.”
Lane said the historically low interest rates continue to help the real estate market. “For someone who is putting 20 percent down with a good credit rating, they could get a 30-year fixed mortgage for about 4.125 percent. That’s even lower than it was a few months ago,’’ Lane said. “If the rates continue to remain at historic lows, that would be great. It’s a good harbinger for the spring market.”
Kimmelman said one of the most encouraging aspects of the market growth is the steady increase. “Consumer confidence is up, and I think we’re going to see the market hold steady but not increase dramatically,’’ he said. “We don’t want double-digit growth year after year. We want to see a nice, healthy progression.”
Typically, there is some seasonality in real estate and summer tends to be slower. That was not the case this year. “Closings are up in the third quarter for single-family homes in both Connecticut and Rhode Island, which is significant due to the fact that we have not experienced the seasonality in the market for the third quarter which generally tends to decline,” said Terence Beaty, director of new homes and land for Berkshire Hathaway Home Services New England Properties.
High-end homes are also beginning to move a little more quickly in Fairfield County, Kimmelman said, and inventory levels continue to decline. The condominium market is also contributing to the gains.
Berkshire Hathaway Home Services New England Properties Third Quarter 2013 Market Report indicates that the luxury market, identified as those properties worth $2 million or more has been growing throughout the year. Sales of high-end single family homes rose 13.2 percent to 378 in Connecticut. Fairfield County closed most of the business. The strongest sales growth in this category was in Greenwich, Westport and Darien.
“This has been another upbeat quarter as far as real estate goes,” said Diane M. Ramirez, Chief Executive Officer of Halstead Property. “Though prices only increased modestly, it is still a positive trend overall. We were pleased to see the huge upswing in sales in some of the markets and in the decline in days on the market in many of the towns that reported.”
“We are optimistic that the market has balanced. Although pending sales went down slightly in September, interest rates remain historically low and prices remain stable,’’ said Candace Adams, president and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services New England Properties. “We anticipate there will be a balanced market through the end of the year.”
The Berkshire Hathaway Home Services New England Properties Report is attached as a PDF. The William Pitt Sotheby’s report and the Halstead Property report are online.
Attached: (bhhsnep-2013-q3-marketreport.pdf)
http://greenwich.dailyvoice.com/real-estate/fairfield-county-real-estate-stays-strong-3rd-quarter
Ever the organizer, I was extolling the virtues of closet purging to a friend. She was feeling a little overwhelmed. Her possessions had been slowly encroaching due to nothing more insidious than the steady march of time and life. Honestly, my friend is an organized person. Things have their place. But lately, there are fewer and fewer places for things. Yet she remained staunchly purge-resistant, especially when it came to her clothes. Sound familiar? Keep reading to learn more about how making a little room in your closet can be an exercise in self-discovery.
The mortgage business is a top source of revenue for banks, and mega bank Wells Fargo is no exception.
Wells Fargo ($40.55 -0.7%) CEO and President John Stumpf presented at the Sanford C. Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference on Wednesday discussing the overall health of the bank.
Stumpf said the culture of our company and the way we do business is about serving customers. “We work together. And if it’s not mortgage – its mortgage today, it might be credit card tomorrow.”
“It might not be an even tradeoff and might not be a quarter-by-quarter tradeoff, but if we provide great services and products, the rest seems to take care of itself,” he added.
However, Wells Fargo may adapt for the customer, but the bank’s revenue tells a slightly different story.
Mortgage is an important business, the CEO explained. “We love the mortgage business. For two-thirds of Americans, it is still the biggest asset purchase they’ll ever do. It is part of the way Americans save and it changes families.”
Despite the bank saying it will follow the customer, the bank shows no signs of backing away from mortgages anytime in the near future.
“To be in the consumer business, we think you have to be in the mortgage business. We like it that we love that business, but we also love the other 89 businesses we are in,” Stumpf said.
Mortgage rates surged again this past week, completing a consistently steep ascent in May, according to data released Thursday by Freddie Mac.
The 30-year fixed-rate average jumped to 3.81 percent with an average 0.8 point, its highest mark in the past year. May began with the 30-year hovering at 3.35 percent, well below last year’s reading at the start of the month; however, four straight weeks of increases have pushed the average above last year’s reading of 3.75 percent.
The 15-year fixed rate average followed suit, rising to 2.98 percent from 2.77 percent last week, with an average 0.7 point. One year ago, the average was 2.97 percent.
Hybrid adjustable rate mortgages, on the other hand, remained below their averages from last May. The five-year ARM rose slightly to 2.66 percent, down year-over-year from 2.84 percent, and the one-year dropped slightly to 2.54 percent, down from 2.75 percent a year ago.
A Freddie Mac executive pegged the rising fixed-rate averages to some recent signs of economic improvement, including higher home prices and improving consumer confidence.
President Obama praised lawmakers and Vice President Joe Biden after the House of Representatives voted to pass a Senate measure to avert the most serious impacts of the so-called “fiscal cliff.”
By Daniel Strieff, NBC NewsThe last-minute deal-making on Capitol Hill may have helped avert the fiscal cliff for now, but many commentators expressed pessimism over the agreement and the distressing sight of lawmakers allowing the world’s largest economy to teeter near economic disaster.
“This is a bad bill that made a bad situation worse,” Richard Haas, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said Wednesday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
“The only thing it did was avoiding sending the signal (to the rest of the world) that we’re reckless and out of control,” he added.
Consumers, businesses and financial markets have been rattled by the months of budget brinkmanship. The crisis ended when dozens of Republicans in the House of Representatives buckled and backed tax hikes approved by the Democratic-controlled Senate.
But even with the agreement, more budget drama is expected on the way. In February, Congress will have to decide what to do about a slew of other spending cuts. Then, in March, lawmakers will decide on whether to increase the federal borrowing limit.
“We could see an early lift in the markets because of relief the deal went through,” Gary Thayer, the chief macro strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors, told The New York Times. “The response may be muted because the deal left out many long-term issues.”
‘A missed opportunity’
Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, who headed a deficit commission for Obama, said lawmakers missed a “magic moment to do something big” for the American economy.“The deal approved today is truly a missed opportunity to do something big to reduce our long term fiscal problems, but it is a small step forward in our efforts to reduce the federal deficit,” they said in a joint statement released Tuesday.
In a scathing editorial, the Wall Street Journal called for the parties to go their own ways in Congress and tried to rally Republicans against Obama.
“Having been cornered into letting Democrats carry this special-interest slag heap through the House, Speaker John Boehner should from now on cease all backdoor negotiations and pursue regular legislative order. House Republicans should pursue their own agenda and let Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats pursue theirs. Mr. Obama has his tax triumph. Let it be his last,” it wrote on the editorial page.
Economists had been warning that the tax increases and spending cuts could take a chunk out of the U.S. economy.
But early Wednesday, world markets registered relief over the deal.
Benchmarks in Australia and Hong Kong boomeranged on the first trading day of the year. Asian markets had slipped on Monday, fearing that negotiations over the measure might collapse.
Many analysts were gloomy about long-term prospects.
“The process was so chaotic and the outcome so unsatisfactory that we are likely to see a further U.S. downgrade at some point,” Steven Englander, fixed-income strategist at Citi, wrote in a research note.
The House voted Monday to approve the Senate’s fiscal cliff bill by a vote of 257-167. Richard Lui, Luke Russert and Mike Viqueira report on MSNBC.
But China’s state news agency Xinhua took a more severe view, warning the United States must get to grips with a budget deficit that threatened not a “fiscal cliff” but a “fiscal abyss.” Most of China’s $3.3 trillion foreign exchange reserves are held in dollars.
For the Washington Post, the entire episode was depressing.
The newspaper expressed discouragement for what the episode suggests for political compromise going forward.
“The United States will have to wait longer yet for its inevitable budget reckoning,” it wrote in an editorial.
“We hope the nation’s leaders will be able to accomplish in stages what they have been unable to do in a series of self-imposed crises: raise more revenue and significantly reduce future entitlement spending. But the fiscal cliff episode offers little encouragement,” the newspaper concluded.
One of the great things about owning an iPhone, iPad, or an Android-based mobile device is all the fun applications that improve the quality of both your life and your business.
At our recent Awesome Females in Real Estate conference, Cary Sylvester, the executive director of technology for Keller Williams, spoke at a great session, entitled, “There’s an App for That: Technology Tools to Drive Your Business.” The cost of most of those apps she discussed ranges from free to $1.99.
The first category Sylvester discussed was communication. (Please note that these apps are available for both Apple and Android operating systems, unless noted.)
1. Google Voice
Most agents have multiple phone numbers on their cards and their marketing materials. The challenge is that clients have neither the time nor the inclination to track the agent down. Google Voice creates a single, personalized phone number that rings on all of your phones at the same time.
