Tag Archives: South Salem NY Homes

Million Dollar Hamptons Summer Rentals | South Salem Real Estate

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The Hamptons is the proud home of the million-dollar summer rental. Since you as a hedge funder, Russian oligarch, or A-list rapper of course have one million or so to drop on your vacation house next year, assuming Wall Street stays hot, you evade the polonium-equipped assassins on your trail, and/or your next album doesn’t bomb, you’re planning to snap up one of them. Let’s look at some of your options for summer 2014.

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535 and 533 Flying Point Road, Water Mill, BHS Your first option is this eight-bedroom, four-acre compound in Water Mill. “A spectacular 14,000+/- sf manor, 50’x20′ heated gunite pool, luxurious pool house with outdoor kitchen and bar on 1.9+/- acre. Tennis court with Hydrocourt system and a 3-bedroom, 2 and one-half bathroom guest house on the adjacent 2.1+/- acres.” Hedgies: This is the place for you. It’s low key, elegant, and there’s room in the guest house for your peons spending the weekend working. Oligarchs: Pass. Not defensible enough to foil the assassins, though the guest house does offer room for security. Rappers: Pass. Not impressive enough.

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396 Meadow Lane, Southampton, Sothebys Your second option is this oceanfront house in Southampton. There’s nine bedrooms, seven baths, 7000sf, pool with pool house, tennis court, all on 3.2 acres; the interiors are kind of French and fussy. Hedgies: Maybe. The house is impressive but the French-style interiors might ping the radar of stuffy WASP Wall Streeters. Oligarchs: Go for it! This house’s setting is defensible from many sides. Plus the French style interiors ought to make you happy. Rappers: Maybe. Still, could be blingier.

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315 Rose Hill Road, Water Mill, Elliman The next rental is slightly less expensive than a mil, at 895K for the summer. Keep in mind, though, last year, Rose Hill was offered at $1.2M for the season, so it’s cheeeeeap now. The 20,000sf house features twenty-first century technology including state-of-the-art security and a Crestron entertainment system. Retire to the “grand master suite,” four guest suites, three staff bedrooms and eight fireplaces with antique mantels. Hedgies: Pass. PASS. Oligarchs: Worth a look. Supplement that “state-of-the-art security” with some burly Cossacks with semi-automatics. Rappers: We had you at “staircase in cast bronze and silver & gold leaf,” didn’t we? Don’t forget the “Crestron entertainment system,” though. · All Renters Week 2013 posts [Curbed Hamptons]

Dive Into Rental Listings Across Miami’s History | South Salem NY Real Estate

In Miami, renting an apartment always had a certain appeal, and was marketed—with reservations—towards tourists. Renting for the winter season was a halfway point between hotels and owning property. A renter was already someone who came to Miami Beach but who wasn’t ready, or perhaps couldn’t afford, to commit to purchasing.

It was a strange middle-space that ad-men marketed to with pretty ads, showing the beautiful spaces one could occupy, but without full embrace, and always next to the much flashier, much bigger, and much more glamorous ads of those spaces one could own. We tore through old issues of the Miami News on the Google News Archives. So here we present, without further ado, a selection of apartment advertisements from some key boom times in Miami’s history, the 20s, the 40s, and the 50s.

  • A ceiling fan, gas heating, closet space, jalousies!
  • The Carl T. Fisher company, builders of Miami Beach, which placed many, many luscious advertisements for land for sale, limited their rental advertisements to modest, one column listings in the classified section. Bias much?
  • It’s a ‘cooperative apartment’, a.k.a. a Co-op, not actually a rental and a total rarity in Miami.
  • Towards the middle of the century oceanfront, and near-to-oceanfront apartments became more common. An extension of the resort hotel experience, the resort ‘apartment’ duplicated the hotel but one lived there on a longer term basis. You’d rent an apartment for the season, or perhaps buy a condo.
  • The real money was always, of course, in real estate for purchase, not rent. From the beginning realtors and builders knew this. Although you could rent a garden apartment in Coral Gables, what they really wanted you to do was buy. The Biltmore wasn’t built in the middle of a residential neighborhood for nothing.

 

 

http://miami.curbed.com/archives/2013/11/18/dive-into-rental-listings-across-miamis-history.php

A Pond House in the Arizona Desert | South Salem Homes

Some of the best modern residential architecture can be found in the U.S. desert Southwest. Phoenix can be considered the epicenter of many of these houses, which seem to rise from the desert through the use of materials like stone and Cor-Ten steel. About 30 miles north of Phoenix is the Pond House, a 1,775-square-foot weekend house designed by Will Bruder, an architect who trained under Paolo Soleri (famous for devoting much of his life to realizing the experimental desert town of Arcosanti). Perched above part of Cave Creek in the upper Bajada desert, the Pond House is skillfully integrated into the landscape, giving a great view of it and being a part of it.
Builder: 180 Degrees Photography by Bill Timmerman

The view from the southeast, looking at the back of the house, shows the water feature that gives the house its name. This “year-round swimming hole,” as Bruder calls it, is an obvious amenity for the weekend retreat.
The front of the house, facing west, is much more opaque, defined by Cor-Ten steel walls that rise from the desert landscape. The curved wall in the foreground defines the edge of the property adjacent to the unpaved approach road. This wall, also Cor-Ten steel, is just out of frame to the right, to allow access to the house; a detached garage lies just beyond the opening.
As you drive alongside the house, its entry is signaled by a couple of small windows above a low roof next to the curved site wall. The rising Cor-Ten wall and roof reach a peak and then descend, only to turn into a stone wall.
Here we are at the break in the curved Cor-Ten site wall, where a water feature rises from the pavement. Water flows over the concrete walls of the fountain to descend toward the house’s entry.
In this dusk shot, the descent to the entrance is clearer, as is the way the stones follow the angle of the wall, something Bruder says gives “a sense of mythical ruins of past cultures.” Perhaps, but It reminds me of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West, particularly the rising and descending angular forms. Moving inside we’ll see other details that further recall Wright’s Southwestern home.

More properties going to the auction block as judicial foreclosure states clear backlogs | South Salem Real Estate

Foreclosure backlogs continue to ease in states where courts handle the process as the number of properties headed to the auction block climbed for the 16th month in a row in October, according to the latest report from foreclosure data aggregator RealtyTrac.

Overall U.S. foreclosure activity — filings of default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — rose 2 percent from September to October, but was down 28 percent year over year. Filings came in on 133,919 U.S. properties, or 1 in every 978 units. Florida, Nevada, Maryland, Ohio and Illinois posted the nation’s highest foreclosure rates among states.

But the total number of scheduled judicial foreclosure auctions, or “notices of foreclosure sale,” increased 7 percent on an annual basis last month and 10 percent on a monthly basis to 30,023. Judicial foreclosure states with the biggest annual spikes in auctions included Maryland (up 177 percent), Delaware (up 142 percent), New York (up 98 percent), New Jersey (up 97 percent), Pennsylvania (up 58 percent), Connecticut (up 35 percent), and Florida (up 32 percent), RealtyTrac said.

“The backlog of delayed judicial foreclosures continues to make its way through the pipeline, with many of these properties now being scheduled for the public auction after starting the foreclosure process last year or earlier this year,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac, in a statement.

“Lenders are likely moving these properties more rapidly to the public auction given that there is strong demand from institutional buy-to-rent investors at the auction and that rising home prices mean more of the loan losses can be recouped, either by selling to an investor at the auction or by repossessing the property and reselling as bank owned.”

 

 

 

 

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/11/13/more-properties-going-to-the-auction-block-as-judicial-foreclosure-states-clear-backlogs/#sthash.O8QuuyEh.dpuf

Even as Housing Prices Rise, Mortgage Rates Should Stay Low | South Salem Real Estate

The real estate market is stabilizing, as more foreclosures and short sales leave the market, and mortgage rates look fairly low going forward.

One fly in the ointment: Home prices may be rising, so buyers don’t want to wait too long to lock down a good property before prices rise too high next year — a real possibility.

The evidence? Two reports out signaling lower mortgage rates but higher home prices.

First up is data from the California Association of Realtors, which reports that housing affordability in California has fallen for a sixth-straight quarter.

That could lead to many homebuyers being locked out in a state that includes three of the most visible housing markets in the nation — San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.

According to the association, only 32% of Golden State homebuyers can afford to buy a median-priced single-family residence. That’s down significantly from the third quarter of 2012, when that figure stood at 49%.

What does it take to handle a median-price home in California these days? The association estimates it takes at least an income of $89,000 for a new home valued at $433,940. The monthly payment would clock in at $2,230 after a 20% down payment and an interest rateHYPERLINK  \l “” of 4.36%.

Compare that with the third quarter of last year, when the median home price in the state wa$339,930 and the bottom-line annual incomeHYPERLINK  \l “” to buy a property in that price range was only $65,828.

The association says every major regional housing market in the state saw home prices rise by 10% or more from last year to this year.

That sobering news is countered by data from Toronto’s RateSupermarket.com, a home mortgage Web exchange that shows mortgages rates in the U.S. and Canada should remain low well into next year.

“Canadian and U.S. bond yields remain low due to assurances that economic stimulus will remain for the longer term in both countries,” the company says in a report out this week. “This will lead to continued downward pressure on yields and, as a result, moderate discounts to fixed mortgage rate options.”

 

 

http://www.thestreet.com/story/12106829/1/

NAR takes steps to build ‘Rockefeller Center’-like headquarters in Chicago | South Salem Realtor

Chicago may have its own Realtor Plaza in the not-too-distant future, modeled on New York’s iconic landmark, Rockefeller Center. Cheers and applause followed a vote by the board of directors of the National Association of Realtors today in which the board approved a redevelopment project for the trade group’s Chicago headquarters at 430 North Michigan Ave.

The project would involve demolishing the existing building, which is more than a half-century old, and combining it with an adjoining parcel to create a mixed-use development that would include retail, condominiums, a flagship hotel, and office space. NAR currently has a nonbinding understanding with a partner to build the project.

The trade group’s leaders declined to name the partner at today’s meeting. Pamela Monroe, chair of NAR’s Real Property Operations Committee, said the unidentified entity is “a world-class partner with premium credentials” that is “very private” and “extremely well-capitalized.”

“Our No. 1 priority is to maintain a permanent high-quality, high-productive work environment of which members and staff can be proud,” Monroe said, adding that other priorities include opportunities for branding and a return on investment.

NAR Treasurer Bill Armstrong noted that he and NAR CEO Dale Stinton had been in discussions with the partner for “a long time,” but had been prohibited from mentioning the project to members due to nondisclosure agreements.

The partner, which has “billions to invest,” proposed a 93-story, 2 million-square-foot building that would be a “Rockefeller Center-type venue,” Armstrong said.“This is one really exciting project we are trying to look into. The economics are very,very good,” he added.

 

 

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/11/11/nar-takes-steps-to-build-rockefeller-center-like-headquarters-in-chicago/#sthash.V7yrz5Pf.dpuf

Home equity lines due for reset may be looming financial disaster | South Salem Real Estate

Could the real estate market be heading for a new financial storm? Maybe.

Some mortgage and credit experts worry that billions of dollars of home equity credit lines that were extended a decade ago during the housing boom could be heading for big trouble soon, creating a new wave of defaults for banks and homeowners.

That’s because these credit lines, which are second mortgages with floating rates and flexible withdrawal terms, carry mandatory “resets” requiring borrowers to begin paying both principal and interest on their balances after 10 years. During the initial 10-year draw period, only interest payments are required.

But the difference between the interest-only and reset payments on these credit lines can be substantial — $500 to $600 or more per month in some cases. If borrowers cannot afford or choose not to make the fully amortizing payments that reduce the principal debt, the bank that owns the note can demand full payment and foreclose on the house if there is sufficient equity.

According to federal financial regulators, about $30 billion in home equity lines dating to 2004 are due for resets next year, $53 billion the following year and a staggering $111 billion in 2018. Amy Crews Cutts, chief economist for Equifax, one of the three national credit bureaus, calls this a looming “wave of disaster” because large numbers of borrowers will be unable to handle the higher payments. This will force banks to either foreclose, refinance the borrower or modify their loans.

But refinancings often will not be possible, Cutts says, because the homeowners won’t qualify under the tougher mortgage rules taking effect in January, or the combined first and second mortgages may exceed the value of the house. Complicating matters further, interest rates are likely to rise from their current low levels as the Federal Reserve tapers its purchases of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities. Higher base rates would make the payment shocks even worse. Plus, according to Cutts, many of the owners with high-balance credit lines already have low credit scores — legacies of the housing bust and recession — and have an elevated statistical risk of default after the reset.

Financial regulators, including the comptroller of the currency, are aware of the coming bulge in high-risk resets and have been urging the biggest banks to set aside extra reserves for possible losses. Last month, Citigroup said it was increasing reserves on its nearly $20 billion in home equity lines and acknowledged that the reset payment shocks for borrowers could be a major challenge.

 

 

 

http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-harney-20131110,0,6997479.story#axzz2kHRdpZUW

Mortgage applications tumble 7% | South Salem Real Estate

Mortgage applications spiraled down for the week ending Nov. 1, decreasing 7% from a week earlier, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday.

The refinance index slid 8%, while the purchase index dropped 5% as refinance applications ticked up.

The refinance share of mortgage activity declined to 66% of total applications, slightly down from 67% the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage with a conforming loan limit dropped to 4.32% from 4.33%.

Meanwhile, the 30-year, FRM jumbo rose to 4.37% from 4.46%.

The average 30-year, FRM backed by the FHA grew to 4.07% from 4.06%, and the 15-year, FRM increased to 3.44% from 3.42%.

In addition, the 5/1 ARM tumbled to 3.08%, compared to 3.17% a week prior.

 

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/27818

 

 

South Salem NY Weekly Real Estate Report | #RobReportBlog

 

South   Salem NY Weekly Real Estate Report11/5/2013
Homes for sale75
Median Ask Price$699,000.00
Low Price$205,000.00
High Price$12,200,000.00
Average Size3029
Average Price/foot$338.00
Average DOM178
Average Ask Price$1,078,984.00