Tag Archives: South Salem Real Estate for Sale

Why are ‘steady’ Central Pa. housing prices lagging behind rest of the nation? | South Salem Real Estate

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They say slow and steady wins the race. If that is the case, then the all-but-flat housing prices in Central Pa. should be walking away with the title for most stable housing market. Area realtors insist this is the difference between boom and bust – and it’s a good thing.

 

But it’s hard not to be envious when one looks at the eye-popping housing price increases being realized at a national level. Consider these statistics, compiled by the National Association of Realtors (NAR):

 

The national median existing-home price – half the selling prices were higher, half were lower — hit $192,800 in April. That equated to an increase of 11 percent, compared to median national sale price in April 2012.

 

In May, the median national existing-home price zoomed up again, reaching $208,000, for an increase of 15.4 percent from May 2012. These are the most recent months for which national housing sale price stats were available.

 

Now, compare that with the just-completed quarterly numbers for Dauphin, Cumberland and Perry counties, as compiled by the Greater Harrisburg Association of Realtors.

 

Median home sale prices for the three counties did increase in the second quarter – but just barely: A scant 0.1 percent from the second quarter of 2012.

 

Basically, this means prices here held steady, overall. The median sale price of residential homes was $163,000 over the past three months, compared to the median cost of $162,900 in the second quarter of 2012.

 

 

Why are ‘steady’ Central Pa. housing prices lagging behind rest of the nation?: Boom & Bust | PennLive.com.

How to Target Only Your Customers With Facebook | South Salem Realtor

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What if you could reach your existing customers while they’re on Facebook?

Does the idea of displaying a Facebook ad only to your prospects list sound interesting?

This could give your marketing a boost and help build your brand’s image on Facebook.

In this post, I’ll show you two ways to use Facebook’s Custom Audiences to connect with your customers and prospects on Facebook.

And I’ll also show you how to create and use your first custom audience.

build brand image

How do you build your brand’s image on Facebook?

What’s a Custom Audience?

Your business undoubtedly has a database of customers. You may be using that database to keep email addresses, phone numbers, Facebook user IDs and app user IDs.

You can target the customers on these lists with your Facebook advertising, whether they are your current fans or not.

Instead of agonizing over demographics, precise interests and Partner Category targeting in an effort to reach your ideal audience, all you need to do is upload your customer list to Facebook. Facebook then matches up email addresses, for example, with the email addresses of users on Facebook.

Not all of the email addresses you collect are directly related to an email address of a Facebook user. Facebook tends to match up between 30-50% (sometimes more, sometimes less), depending on the quality of your list.

Once this list is generated in Facebook, you have a Custom Audience you can use in your advertising.

South Salem sales up 7% – Prices down 16% | RobReportBlog

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South Salem NY Real Estate ReportRobReportBlog
20136 months ending 7/82012
29Sales27
$500,000.00median sold price$600,000.00
$180,000.00low sold price$185,000.00
$925,000.00high sold price$1,325,000.00
2404average size2688
$237.00ave. price per foot$239.00
211ave days on market254
$546,043.00average sold price$629,575.00
96.26%ave sold to ask94.01%

 

 

South Salem sales up 7% – Prices down 16% | RobReportBlog.

The Strokes’ Nick Valensi & Wife Amanda de Cadenet List Home | South Salem Real Estate

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Does a home once showcased on a TV talk show help with a sale? It depends on the home, of course, but in the case of this New England-style traditional, the TV fame is just one more feature added to a list of amenities.

Located at 12701 Hortense St, Studio City, CA 91604, the home is currently owned by The Strokes’ lead guitarist Nick Valensi and wife Amanda de Cadenet, host of Lifetime’s “The Conversation.” The TV show is filmed in the residence, with the British actress and photographer interviewing Lady Gaga, Rita Wilson, Portia de Rossi and Gwyneth Paltrow, among others. Valensi and de Cadenet have it on the market for $1.799 million.

“An ideal buyer is a family with kids who love the proximity to Studio City’s best park and new library,” said listing agent Craig Knizek of The Agency. “It’s a wonderful neighborhood to walk your dog [or] have kids ride a bike past friendly neighbors.”

According to property records, Valensi and de Cadenet bought the home for $1.3 million in 2011. Built in 2009, the 4,000-square-foot house has an open floor plan, with the family and living rooms centered around a chef’s kitchen with center island. The 5-bedroom house includes a main-floor guest suite, and the space above the garage has been permitted for a 2-bedroom guest apartment. Currently, Valensi is using the space for his music. The walkable residence is filled with top-of-the-line finishes and tucked away behind every celebrity’s favorite feature: high-privacy hedges.

“A unique attribute about the house is what it retains from your own treasured past — memories of how you grew up and felt comfortable and safe,” Knizek said.

 

The Strokes’ Nick Valensi & Wife Amanda de Cadenet List Home | Zillow Blog.

Antique Homes Are Popular Again In Westchester | South Salem NY Homes

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Antique homes are making a comeback on Westchester’s real estate scene, especially among houses built before 1900.

Many homebuyers are looking to these homes because of their history, unique layouts, and to cultivate old-fashioned pursuits such as gardening, knitting, and even raising chickens. One Westchester real estate office,Douglas Elliman, has more than a dozen historic listings on the market in Westchester.

In Chappaqua, a 1740 red Colonial on King Street is listed for $1.39 million. Nestled on just under 3.5 acres, the 5-bedroom, 4-bath home has been updated to include a dishwasher, eat-in kitchen, central air conditioning, and updated electrical systems, while still maintaining its antique charm. The nicely landscaped grounds feature extensive stonework, perennial, and vegetable gardens. There is also a pool and a two-car detached garage.

“Antique homes are really in vogue right now because they appeal to people who want an authentic living experience. Some people like the new turn-key look, but we are seeing that people are also really adamant about living in a highly unique space with a sense of history that echoes the values of a bygone, simpler time,” said listing agent Nancy Strong. “Westchester is steeped in history, and we are lucky to be ahead of the trend when it comes to antique house hunting.”

 

Antique Homes Are Popular Again In Westchester | The White Plains Daily Voice.

Remembering The Granddaddy Of Miami Hotels, The Royal Palm | South Salem Real Estate

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Painted in ‘Flagler Yellow’ with white trim, green shutters, and a red mansard roof, Henry Flagler’s Royal Palm Hotel, along with Flagler’s railroad, was for many years the reason for Miami’s existence. Originally containing 350 rooms when it opened on January 16th, 1897, with an additional 100 for servants, the six story hotel would grow another huge wing before the rambling wood structure was eventually deemed a fire hazard and demolished in 1930.

Almost as grand as Flagler’s Royal Poinciana Hotel in Palm Beach, the Royal Palm was fabulously posh and established the basic elements of the city’s identity that really have held up, more or less, until today. Just as the Royal Palm was, Miami is still a tourist mecca. As the Royal Palm was, Miami is still a playground of the rich. The Royal Palm, with its 578 foot long veranda, gardens, and location on the mouth of the Miami River, celebrated Miami’s natural environment, and the pleasure of being outdoors in the winter months. The Royal Palm established the winter months as Miami’s high season. The Royal Palm’s location became the center of Downtown Miami, on the north side of the river, right up against the bay. The hotel’s outdoor pool, rudimentary by today’s standards, was a hot amenity, featured in many postcards,

For many years after its demolition, the site sat empty as surface parking lots, its lush grounds turned over to Bayfront Park, its marina still in operation where the Related Group’s One Miami condo towers are today. The DuPont family built the DuPont Plaza Hotel on part of the site in 1957, and the InterContinental was built on another part in 1982, but much of the rest remained empty, leading a 1996 Miami Herald article to suggest some thought the site was haunted. But rampant construction since then has filled up practically all the empty land. The last remaining bits of the hotel, a few steps of a veranda staircase and some bricks for decades buried under concrete and asphalt, recently were discovered by archeologists but, after documentation, will soon be buried again under a new tower. Aside from the park, and a few preserved worker’s cottages, just like that the Royal Palm Hotel, the granddaddy of all Miami Hotels, will be gone again.

 

Remembering The Granddaddy Of Miami Hotels, The Royal Palm – Hotels Week 2013 – Curbed Miami.

Housing will reaccelerate economic growth: Fannie Mae | South Salem Real Estate

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The year’s solid economic start faded late in the first quarter, but the recent setback is a temporary one, analysts claim.

The slow in activity is partly due to ongoing fiscal drags, including the budget sequester. However, a modest reacceleration is expected in the second half of this year, as the housing market continues to gain traction, according toFannie Mae’s economic outlook.

Housing is expected to act as a tailwind for the economy throughout the year and into 2014, even though there may be a few hiccups in overall economic activity.

“Our May forecast predicts that the second half of 2013 will be a little stronger than the first half, despite the slowdown during the past couple of months,” Doug Duncan, chief economist for Fannie Mae.

He added, “Employment numbers are getting better, albeit it at a relatively slow pace, and the April employment picture should help boost consumer sentiment toward the economy overall. However, we continue to keep an eye on potential headwinds to our forecast, including the long-term effects of sequestration, spending constraints, the sovereign debt crisis, and the impending debt ceiling.”

Residential investment contributed to economic growth for the eighth consecutive quarter, adding 0.3 percentage points during the first quarter of 2013.

Additionally, the annualized pace of total housing starts in March surpassed the one million market for the first time since the housing crisis, driven solely by a surge in multifamily housing.

Multifamily homebuilding has benefited from a shift in tenure choice over the past several years toward renting, according to Fannie Mae.

For instance, the homeownership rate continued to decline in the first quarter, dropping to 65% — the lowest rate since the third quarter of 1995, the report noted.

By contrast, new single-family home sales rose in March, jumping 51%, which is the biggest gain since the second quarter of 2003.

Despite the robust gain in new home sales in the first quarter, homebuilders’ confidence from the Nation Association of Home Builders’ survey continued to cool in April, declining for the third consecutive month.

 

 

Housing will reaccelerate economic growth: Fannie Mae | HousingWire.

6 ‘About Us’ Pages That Are Probably Better Than Yours | South Salem NY Realtor

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When you’re building a website, it’s tempting to get distracted by all the bells and whistles of the design process and forget all about creating compelling content. But having awesome content on your website is crucial to making inbound marketing work for your business.

So how do you balance your remarkable content creation with your website design needs? Why, with your ‘About Us’ page, of course! For a remarkable ‘About Us’ page, all you need to do is figure out your company’s unique identity, and then share it with the world.

I know … easier said than done.

Still, there’s no excuse for you to neglect one of the most important pages on your website — which also happens to be one of the most commonly overlooked pages. Let’s read on to discover six companies with awesome ‘About Us’ pages and see how you can emulate them on your own website. By the end of this post, showing off how awesome your company is won’t seem like such a challenging feat.

1) Yellow Leaf Hammocks

Why the ‘About Us’ Page Rocks: It tells us a story.

Have a cool story about how your product or service was created? Put it on your ‘About Us’ page. Good stories humanize your brand and provide context and meaning for your product. What’s more, good stories are sticky — which means people are more likely to connect with them and pass them on.

Yellow Leaf Hammocks does an amazing job of telling you about its product by describing the founder’s journey to Thailand and the birth of his “big idea” for the brand. Like any good storyteller, Yellow Leaf Hammocks uses words to paint a picture, rather than simply describing the events that happened. Sentences like “the hammock wrapped around him, cocooning him in its cloudlike embrace” immediately give you a mental picture of what’s happening.

Yellow Leaf Hammocks

Our_Story_

Every company has a story to tell, so break out your storytelling skills from that random English class you took years ago and put them to work on your ‘About Us’ page. Using descriptive and emotive copy, an ‘About Us’ page with a story works harder for your business than a generic one.

2) LessFilms.com

Why the ‘About Us’ Page Rocks: It shows some personality.

You’re not like everyone else — so why should you sound the same as everyone else? Stand out with an ‘About Us’ page that shows off who you really are with witty headlines and a real brand voice.

That’s exactly what video production company LessFilms accomplished on its site using witty copy and the image of a large wrestler (yes, a wrestler). Although the wrestler dude and the funny headlines have nothing to do with LessFilms’ business model or product, they show off the founders’ sense of humor and give the brand a personality.

LessFilms

For your ‘About Us’ page, you don’t need to pretend to be a comedian if that isn’t part of your brand’s personality. Find another aspect of your brand’s personality to showcase and make a lasting impression by being yourself.

3) Eight Hour Workday

Why the ‘About Us’ Page Rocks: It’s human.

People tend to think that ‘About Us’ pages have to sound formal to gain credibility and trust. Most people find it easier to trust real human beings rather than a description that sounds like it came from an automaton. Trying to sound formal on your ‘About Us’ page results in stiff, “safe” copy and design — the perfect way to make sure your company stays invisible.

Eight Hour Day does a great job of showcasing the people behind the company to make the brand seem human. Including the founders’ names in the header of the website and featuring the photos of them on the ‘About Us’ page drives home the point that Nathan and Katie are a “couple that loves to create.” Even the picture of their dog makes you think Eight Hour Day has real people behind the brand.

Eight_Hour_Day

 

6 ‘About Us’ Pages That Are Probably Better Than Yours.

Watch Out For Coyotes In Westchester This Spring | South Salem NY Real Estate

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WESTCHESTER COUNTY, N.Y. – While coyote incidents are on the decline overall, Westchester County experts say that coyotes are typically more active during the spring season and it could be the reason for an increase in coyote attacks on small pets in Westchester County.

Two recent incidents involving pets caused New Castle Police to send out an alert to residents about coyotes Monday, but the latest statistics on coyote reports to the Department of Enivronmental Conservation show that incidents in New York are on the decline. There were at total of 36 incidents reported to the DEC in 2012, down from 39 in 2011 and 80 in 2007, according to the latest reports released by the DEC.

Statistics may not be helpful for the Westchester families who have recently lost pets to recent coyote attacks. But Maggie Ciarcia, a licensed NYS wildlife rehabilitator who serves Westchester County, said there is a strong correlation in coyote attacks on small pets during the spring season.

“Right now is the time of year when coyotes have their babies,” Ciarcia said. “The coyote pups are typically born in late-March into early-May so they’re more likely to hunt for any food they can find in the spring. They’ve been here all along, not just to have their pups, but they’re typically more active in the spring.”

Coyotes view domestic dogs as a threat to their young during the “spring denning season,” according to the DEC. Ciarcia said the incidents in Chappaqua were most likely the result of one mother looking to feed and protect its young.

“My guess would be those all involve the same coyote family,” Ciarcia said. “Normally they eat mice or rodents and do a great job of keeping the rodent population down but coyotes can become very situated to humans and to easy food. So we always warn people not to feed coyotes or leave food for outdoor pets.”

 

 

Watch Out For Coyotes In Westchester This Spring | The Bedford Daily Voice.

Hong Kong Home Prices at Record Gap to Sales | South Salem Real Estate

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Bloomberg

The gap between Hong Kong home prices and sales is the widest on record as new taxes, rising supply and the prospect of higher mortgage costs deter buyers in the world’s most expensive housing market.

Enlarge imageHong Kong Home Prices at Record Gap to Sales

Residential buildings stand in the Mid-levels area of Hong Kong. Photographer: Lam Yik Fei/Bloomberg

The CHART OF THE DAY tracks Centaline Property Agency Ltd.’s weekly index of home prices against monthly sales of residential units, according to data compiled by Bloomberg dating back to 1996. Prices have fallen 4.2 percent from a record reached in mid-March, compared with a 77 percent contraction in sales from their post-global financial crisis peak in 2010. The lower panel shows the U.S. benchmark interest rate compared with America’s unemployment rate.

The Hong Kong dollar’s peg to the U.S. counterpart has kept borrowing costs in the city at near-record lows, underpinning a 109 percent gain in home prices since the beginning of 2009, even as the government imposed several property curbs to cool demand. The city’s housing market got an additional boost in January 2012 when the U.S. Federal Reserve pledged to keep interest rates low through at least late-2014.

“When people were expecting prices to rise, as they had been over the last couple of years, none of the government’s measures could deter buyers because borrowing costs were low,” said David Ng, an analyst at Macquarie Securities Ltd. in Hong Kong. “Now, the opposite is happening.”

Since 2010, Hong Kong has charged an extra tax of up to 20 percent of the value of homes on buyers who resell them within three years and raised the minimum down-payment on mortgages for homes costing more than HK$7 million ($902,000). In October, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying imposed an extra 15 percent tax on all home purchases by companies and non-residents, and promised to raise land supply

 

 

Hong Kong Home Prices at Record Gap to Sales – Bloomberg.