Tag Archives: Pound Ridge Luxury Real Estate

Creating a big bang in the Los Feliz real estate market | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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Twilight”  film series vampire Robert  Pattinson found a warm body to pay $6.375 million for his Los Feliz  home. Jim  Parsons of “The  Big Bang Theory” is the new owner.

The 1922 Spanish Colonial-style house has a formal entry, a library/study, a  den, three bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms and 4,026 square feet of space in two  stories. Antiqued tile and stone, hand-carved wood and stenciled ceilings  maintain a vintage vibe.

The 1.5-acre sloping lot, enclosed by walls, features a lagoon-style swimming  pool, waterfalls and fountains. Stunning terraced gardens follow the hillside  down to the home, which has cityscape views.

The property was purchased by Pattinson in 2011 for $6.25 million. An earlier  owner of the house was Lakers great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Parsons also has listed his old Los Feliz house.

Priced at $1.85 million, the 1942 traditional home sits on a hillside with  city views. The 2,827 square feet of open-plan living space on two levels  includes a formal entry, an office, a breakfast area, three bedrooms and four  bathrooms.

There are fireplaces in the living room and dining room and on the entry  patio.

The actor bought the home in 2009 for $1.3 million.

Pattinson, 27, starred in the 2012 films “Cosmopolis”  and “Bel  Ami.” He will be in the upcoming films “Maps to the Stars” and “The  Rover.”

Parsons, 40, has won three Emmys and a Golden Globe award for his work on the  sitcom, which premiered in 2007. He will be in the upcoming TV movie “The Normal  Heart.”

David Gray of Partners Trust Beverly Hills was the listing agent for  Pattinson. Ronald Shore of Keller Williams represented Parsons.

Shore and Samuel Bernstein, also with Keller Williams, are Parsons’ listing  agents.

http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-hotprop-20140202,0,3518370.story#ixzz2sUAyeieI

 

http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-hotprop-20140202,0,3518370.story#ixzz2sUAtfWf6

The 8 most common tax filing errors, and how to avoid them | Pound Ridge NY Real Estate

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It’s tax time! The IRS started accepting individual returns for processing on Jan. 31 — later than usual, but better late than never.

Last year, the IRS issued a useful list of the eight most common filing errors made by individual taxpayers. Many of the mistakes people make are incredibly easy to avoid — it just takes a little care and attention.

If the IRS owes you a refund, it could be delayed if your return contains an error like one of these:

1. Wrong or missing Social Security numbers: Your refund could be delayed simply because you made a mistake listing your Social Security number. The number on your return must match the number on your Social Security cards.

2. Names wrong or misspelled: You’ve got to spell your own name right, or the IRS will get confused. Again, your name on your return should match the name on your Social Security card.

If you’ve changed your name since you filed your last return, you need to notify the Social Security Administration (SSA) and obtain a new Social Security card before you file your taxes. The SSA will issue a new Social Security card with your new name, but will keep your old Social Security number. This way, the name on your tax return will match Social Security records.

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2014/02/03/the-8-most-common-tax-filing-errors-and-how-to-avoid-them/?utm_source=20140203&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyheadlinespm#sthash.LpVsBQUg.dpuf

Thirty Somethings Flip-Flopped on Homeownership | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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An analysis by Chris Porter, a senior manager at the John Burns Real Estate Consulting practice, has some frightening findings for the housing industry.  Americans aged 30 to 34 years old in 2012 had the lowest homeownership rate of any similarly aged group before them… yet just five years earlier, in 2007, the same people had the highest homeownership rate at 25-29 years old than any group before them.

Porter calls it an amazing reversal of fortune and possibly the most amazing, underreported demographic fact today.

Using homeownership-by-age data from the Census Bureau, Porter compared households by years of birth to examine how homeownership changes over consumers’ lifetimes.

•            Lowest ever in 2012: 30-34 year-olds in 2012 (born between 1978 and 1982) had a 47.9% homeownership rate. This is a full 6.5 percentage points lower than those five years older had achieved at the same age and lower than any group before them! (This is based on data available beginning with those born in 1948.)  Porter calls them the “Subprime Generation.”

•            Highest ever 5 years prior: Those same 30-34 year-olds had a 40.5% homeownership rate 5 years prior when they were 25-29 years old in 2007. This is 6.2 percentage points higher than 25-29 year-olds in 2012 and higher than any 5-year cohort before them.

‘Our consulting team has been pointing out a real dearth of entry-level buyers over the last several years, which is counterintuitive when you consider that this has been the most affordable time in generations to buy a home. What we learned is that a huge percentage of households bought a home earlier than usual, and that same group has gone through more foreclosures than any generation before them,” Porter wrote in his blog.

What does this mean? It is more difficult than usual to sell entry-level homes today, but the pent-up demand for entry-level housing is huge, he said.

 

 

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2014/01/thirty-somethings-flip-flopped-on-homeownership/

Dallas-area housing market soared last year; 2014 looks promising, too | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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Last year’s bull housing market will be hard to top in 2014.

Dallas-area home sales rose almost 20 percent from the previous year, and prices jumped more than 10 percent — more than double the average annual increase North Texas usually sees.

With the local economy booming and consumers ready to buy real estate again, the only limitation this year will be availability and pricing.

“I don’t think 2014 will be as crazy as last year,” said D’Ann Petersen, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “Home sales would be doing better if we had more inventory on the market.

“We have seen good increases in prices, but I don’t know if that is going to continue at the rate we saw last year,” she said.

In 2013, median home sales prices were up by double-digit percentages in more than two dozen Dallas-area residential districts The Dallas Morning News tracks.

The biggest sales price increases were in neighborhoods in Oak Lawn, Oak Cliff, Mesquite, Irving and North Dallas, according to data from the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University.

The number of homes sold rose by more than 20 percent from 2012 levels in 13 area residential districts, including Sunnyvale, Hurst, Rockwall, Sachse-Rowlett and Far North Dallas.

Covering the area

Jim Fite, president of Dallas’ Century 21 Judge Fite Realtors, said that housing activity is good in neighborhoods across the Dallas area.

“We are looking forward to a 6 percent to 8 percent increase in sales in 2014,” Fite said.

The inventory of homes listed for sale with real estate agents last year fell to less than a two-month supply in several residential areas, including The Colony, Richardson, Grapevine, Coppell, Allen and Plano.

 

 

http://www.dallasnews.com/business/area-home-sales/20140123-dallas-area-housing-market-soared-last-year-2014-looks-promising-too.ece

Porch partners with Lowe’s just 3 months after official launch | Pound Ridge NY Homes

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Porch, a 3-month-old startup that’s taking the home remodeling industry by storm, has announced a strategic partnership with Lowe’s that will equip the employees at some of the home improvement store’s locations with tools that will allow them to use the Porch network to connect customers with local professionals.

As part of the partnership, Lowe’s employees in 139 stores in North and South Carolina and the Seattle area will quickly be able to use in-store kiosks or a special mobile app to pull up local professionals on Porch who provide services that Lowe’s doesn’t offer through its installation program, and then refer those professionals to customers, Porch said in a statement. Professionals who offer such services include handymen, painters and landscapers, according to the statement.

“By partnering with Porch, Lowe’s can help our customers achieve their home improvement dreams by providing them with the confidence of knowing who their neighbors have used successfully, and benefit our professional customers by providing them greater opportunities to grow their businesses,” said Jay Rebello, vice president of new business development and corporate innovation at Lowe’s.

Porch, which is one of Real Estate Connect’s “New Kids on the Block” and raised $6.5 million in seed funding in October 2012, claims to provide data on 90 million home projects and 1.5 million professionals. The startup has obtained that data mostly through an array of private partnerships that it cultivated for a year before officially launching three months ago, according to CEO Matt Ehrlichman.

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2014/01/14/porch-partners-with-lowes-just-3-months-after-official-launch/?utm_source=20140114&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyheadlinesam#sthash.HBQV39yy.dpuf