Tag Archives: Waccabuc Realtor

Mortgage rates barely budge from record lows | Waccabuc NY Homes

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After hitting record lows last week, mortgage rates have stayed tanked amid growing concerns that lawmakers won’t reach a compromise to avoid a “fiscal cliff” of automatic tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to take place next year, Freddie Mac said in releasing the results of its weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey.

Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 3.32 percent with an average 0.8 point for the week ending Nov. 29, up from 3.31 percent last week but down from 4.00 percent a year ago. Last week’s rate was a new record in Freddie Mac records dating to 1971.

For 15-year fixed-rate loans, rates averaged 2.64 percent with an average 0.6 point, up from 2.63 percent last week but down from 3.30 percent a year ago. Last week’s rate was a record in records dating to 1991.

Rates on five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) loans averaged 2.72 percent with an average 0.6 point, down from 2.74 percent last week and 2.90 percent a year ago. Rates on five-year ARM loans hit a low in records dating to 2005 of 2.69 percent during the week ending July 19.

For one-year Treasury-indexed ARM loans, rates averaged 2.56 percent with an average 0.5 point, unchanged from last week but down from 2.78 percent a year ago. Rates on one-year ARM loans hit a low in records dating to 1984 of 2.55 percent during the week ending Nov. 15.

A separate survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association showed applications for purchase mortgages were up 3 percent during the week ending Nov. 23 compared to the week before. The survey, which included an adjustment for the Thanksgiving holiday, showed purchase loan demand up 8 percent from a year ago.

A Federal Reserve report published Wednesday summarizing commentary on current economic conditions around the country found markets for single-family homes improving in 10 of 12 Federal Reserve Districts. Boston and Philadelphia were the exceptions.

The “Beige Book” report — based on reports from Federal Reserve Bank and branch directors, and interviews with business contacts, economists, market experts, and other sources — found sales growth generally slowed for both the condominium and single-family home markets in the Boston District.

Fed officials in the Philadelphia District said their sources noted that October “began as a disappointing month for some Realtors, only to be punctuated by Hurricane Sandy.”

Reports from the New York District were “mixed but generally firm prior to the storm. Selling prices were steady or rising.”

Declining or tight inventories were reported in Boston, New York, Richmond, Atlanta, Kansas City, and Dallas.

Single-family housing starts were up in the Cleveland District, while builders in the Richmond District reported “significant pent-up demand in the first-time buyer segment.

In the Atlanta District, existing home sales were up slightly compared to a year ago, with investors more active in Florida than in the rest of the District.

Residential construction of single- and multifamily homes increased at a slow but steady pace in the Chicago District, while reports from the Minneapolis District indicated that “segments of construction and real estate were growing at a double-digit clip.”

Real estate activity was characterized as “brisk” by the Kansas City District, with a solid rise in home sales reducing inventories.

The St. Louis District reported continued improvement in residential real estate market conditions.

In the Dallas District, single-family housing activity remained strong, with both new and existing home sales up.

Demand for homes continued to strengthen in the San Francisco District, and sustained growth in home sales has spurred new home construction.

via inman.com

Perks lure tenants to online rent payments | Waccabuc NY Real Estate

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About six years ago, Steven Van Praagh received a call from a friend who owned a couple of rental properties in the Harlem area of Manhattan. Praagh, who was a commercial website developer, listened to his friend’s rant about being sick and tired of dealing with paper checks for rent payment.

What his friend really wanted to know: Was there a way create a payment service online?

Praagh listened, and then asked, “Would this be like PayPal for real estate?” And his friend’s response was, “Yeah, exactly.”

Six years later, ClickPay is a bustling business. In short, the company provides property owners and managers the ability to accept secure online payments (rent, homeowners association fees and dues, maintenance fees, etc.) from residents via e-check, credit and debit card.


Steven Van Praagh

What apartment owners and managers like about ClickPay is that they don’t need a bunch of workers to hang around opening envelopes, processing checks and visiting the bank. What tenants like about ClickPay is that it saves them time. They don’t have to write a check and drop it off at management.

Tenants who use online banking to mail their checks think they are paying electronically. In reality, a paper check still gets mailed, Van Praagh said. “What ClickPay does is form partnerships with the banking networks to keep the payments electronic. The banks like it because they save the on postage.”

In New York, where rents can easily be four or five digits, it has become a marketing tool for the landlords.

This is the way it works. Let’s say you are an owner of 750 apartment units in 10 New Jersey buildings of 75 units apiece and you want to use ClickPay.

Someone from ClickPay interviews you to figure out the size of the portfolio, management and types of tenants, as the company wants to make sure ClickPay is marketable to those same tenants. Then ClickPay talks to property management about accounting software to make sure its program can integrate. Once all that happens, ClickPay offers a couple of different services.

Once live on the system, ClickPay does customer training for all bookkeepers, controllers, property managers and asset managers. There are no setup fees or set costs.

Finally, tenants get a note to let them know their rent is due. ClickPay will send rent bills, including emailing a PDF of the bill. In the invoice there is a link that says, “Pay Your Rent Now.” If tenants click on that link, they will be forwarded to the ClickPay website. All they have to do is check in, change the password and take over their account.

Other tenants in other buildings can use the search engine, find their complex and see if ClickPay is available. If so, they find their unit, put in the leasing information, and as long as it matches up, they can use ClickPay.

Although ClickPay works with more than 100 property management companies, a couple of real estate investment trusts, Apollo Real Estate Advisors and hundreds of thousands of tenants, you’ve probably still never heard of ClickPay or its payment system. That because it is still Northeast-centric. Property management in Toronto embraced the evolving trend.

“We work with 10 percent of the top multifamily managers in the country, but in New York, we have 30-40 percent of the top managers,” Van Praagh said. “We have deals with most of the who’s who in New York.”

ClickPay’s penetration in the Big Apple is partly due to the fact it was the first 100 percent electronic payment system offered in the city.

“There were other lockbox services that had other types of electronic systems, but we were the first totally paperless,” Van Praagh said. “We are still the only one in New York.”

Other companies that facilitate electronic rent payments include RentPayment, PayLease, eRentPayment, PayYourRent.com, and SmartRentOnline.com.

“Until recently, it was a fragmented market, but now there are some big players,” Van Praagh said. “Companies that were in the utility payment business have now gone after payment of rent as a new business line.”

At the moment, Van Praagh is not dismayed by the new competition. “It’s not all they do, so they don’t focus 100 percent on it like we do. That’s good for us,” he said.

This is a relatively new product and new product sector, so there’s a lot of expected growth ahead.

Even in buildings where there is ClickPay, penetration varies.

“We range from 30 percent to 70 percent adoptions per building. We have some buildings that are 100 percent, but they are small,” Van Praagh said.

The concept behind ClickPay as a kind of PayPal for renters seems so apparent — a basic service that the industry needed — that it was somewhat of a surprise to me that such a system wasn’t invented back in the 1990s.

ClickPay was founded in 2006, and development was very slow at the start because real estate is a very complicated business due, for example, to the vast amount of federal, state and municipal regulations.

“There are a lot of nuances when it comes to processing real estate versus any other business,” Van Praagh said. “Then you get into places like New York City, which has so many of its own regulations. When you start dealing with large property owners, you quickly see they are dealing with such challenges as collection, rent subsidy, Section 8 housing, etc., so you need a lot of bells and whistles just to be able to tie your software to the property management and accounting software packages.”

I would have thought once ClickPay signed with a management company, it would offer incentives early in the game to entice clients to come over to the new system.

That doesn’t happen.

However, ClickPay, like your airline, does have a loyalty reward program. A client who uses ClickPay gets access to its perks network that boasts a couple of hundred thousand vendors giving rewards of one sort or another.

ClickPay figured it had to do something to make tenants feel better about paying those substantial rents in places like New York. If you’re paying $2,000 a month for a studio apartment, you might just want a toaster to help ease the pain.

via inman.com

5 social media tips from a road warrior | Waccabuc NY Real Estate

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Over the last two years or so, I have traveled over 150,000 miles speaking at real estate events. Needless to say, I feel like I have become somewhat of a ‘road warrior.’

I’ve learned the ins and outs of traveling; how to get through security efficiently, the best places to park at the airport and what to pack (more importantly, what not to pack.) On my last trip to this year to Agent Reboot Austin, I realized that a lot of what I’ve learned traveling can be related to a real estate professional trying to get their feet wet and navigate through the sometimes murky waters of social media.

Looking back, I laugh at some of my first few trips. I over packed, I had a bag that was way too big for overnight travel, I wore the wrong clothes to get through security, I didn’t know where I was going, and the list goes on and on.

Here are my 5 road warrior social media tips:

1. Don’t over pack. When travelling, the more you pack, the more have to carry. In social, don’t try to to pack too much into each and every social media post. If your post on Facebook for the day is about a video – let it be about the video, not about your open house, or another link to go to, or how they should call you. Statistically, the Facebook updates that get the most engagement are under 80 characters!

2. Dress simply at the airport. There is nothing worse than being behind the person at security with six inch heels that lace up, dripping in jewelry from head to toe, who is rifling through her bags to find all of her liquids. When you travel, dress simply and comfortably. In social, don’t over think it. Post once a day to your Facebook business page. If you can do that consistently, you will over time, see your likes and engagement grow. The reason why most people “fail” at social media is that they are not there simply and consistently.

3. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Not sure where the taxi stand is at the airport? Ask someone! In social, if you aren’t sure how to do something – ask. Who in your world is doing a great job at social media? Take them out to coffee and ask them a few questions. Not sure who to ask? Peruse some of our articles here on InmanNext. Post a comment on our Facebook page, or feel free to message me directly and ask! We all were beginners at some point, so don’t be afraid to ask.

4. Be prepared. Travelling to Seattle? You may want to pack an umbrella. Travelling to Hawaii? Throw in some sunscreen. Be prepared when you travel. In social, be prepared by having a strategy. What are you trying to accomplish with social media? Brainstorm all the types of content you could share and where is it going to come from? Pinterest? Instagram? News links from Twitter? Google alerts? Take the time to be prepared with a simple social media strategy.

5. Be organized. When travelling, keep you email notifications from the airline in a place you can find easily, or use an app like TripIt to manage your travel itineraries. In social, be organized with your social strategy. Keep all of your passwords in an easy to locate place. Have a spreadsheet or a content grid that keeps track of the content you posted and what you want to post in the future. Keep track of your statistics monthly (or more often if possible.) Be organized with your social media strategy to make the most of it!

What are your most important social media tips you’ve learned along the way? Am I missing some? I’d love to hear from you – leave me a comment below!

via next.inman.com

What Every Agency Wants to Know—Feedback from the Other Side | Waccabuc NY Real Estate

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  • Every month, our agency invites a guest speaker from other startups and agencies around town, typically offering related but different services. The goal is always to expand our knowledge base and develop deeper relationships for strategic partnerships. We do these in the form of a “brown bag” lunch session for a more casual lunch-and-learn type vibe. This month, however, we decided to switch it up and invite a past employee of ours that has since moved in-house.

We thought it would be insightful to get the perspective from someone who not only has been on both the agency and client side, but who knows the ins and outs of how we as an agency operate on a day-to-day basis. An insightful experience, indeed it was. I’ve highlighted a few of my favorite takeaways as they relate to both sales and account management.

Top Sales Takeaways

1. Getting budgets approved takes a lot of legwork.

Depending on the size of the company, there can be A LOT of red tape in getting the green light to sign off on new budgets. For starters, many companies may need to write an internal brief detailing the pros and cons of working with the new vendor, making the case for outsourcing versus tackling in-house, projecting ROI, and more.

So, what does this mean for us vendors as we wait for proposals to get pushed through? For starters, manage your own expectations and be patient. Getting approval may take some time, depending on the number of hoops the prospective client needs to jump through. In the meantime, while you are being patient however, be helpful. Provide case studies, testimonials, references, etc. Anything that can help to build the case for internal buy off.

2. Understand what level of priority your solutions are to the prospective client.

This is something I’ve never consciously sought during discovery meetings, but makes perfect sense. If your solutions are

via searchenginejournal.com

Utilities make progress on NY storm blackouts | Waccabuc Real Estate

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NEW YORK — Frustrated Long Island residents have staged a protest against the Long Island Power Authority even as utilities made progress in restoring power to customers whose lights went out during Superstorm Sandy and Wednesday’s nor’easter.

LIPA says nearly 140,000 homes and businesses still didn’t have power by mid-afternoon Saturday.

Hundreds of people demonstrated in front of LIPA’s Hicksville office Saturday to protest what they call unacceptable delays. The utility didn’t return a request for comment.

Meanwhile, Con Edison says it will restore power this weekend to all its New York City and Westchester County customers whose buildings are in good enough shape to turn electricity back on. About 11,400 of them remained without power Saturday evening.

Those figures don’t include about 30,000 homes and businesses too damaged to juice up.

via online.wsj.com

7 steps to retexturing drywall | Waccabuc NY Real Estate

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It’s a pretty common scenario on the home improvement scene: You’ve removed some wallpaper or wainscoting, or you’ve relocated a door or a window, or maybe you’ve just repaired same drywall damage caused by one of life’s little mishaps. No matter the origin, you end up with some drywall that doesn’t have any texture on it. And now, you’re at a loss as to exactly how you’re going to get that flat, unadorned piece of drywall to blend in with the texture on the rest of the wall that’s surrounding it.

In truth, matching drywall texture is always a tricky process unless you’re experienced at it. Even the pros can have a tough time with it. You first have the issue of matching the existing texture for the main body of the patch, and then feathering the new texture out onto the old in ever-decreasing amounts so that the transition between new and old is seamless. It’s difficult to come up a perfect match, and the larger the area is and the more centered it is on the wall or ceiling, the more likely it is that you’re going to see it.

The other problem you’re likely to run into is what’s known as “flashing.” After the patch is done and painted, the new texture will tend to absorb paint differently than the old texture, due to differences in previous paint, materials and other factors. The result can be a difference in sheen that also contributes to the patched area standing out from the rest of the wall, even if the texture matches. And the more sheen the new paint has — satin or semigloss as opposed to flat, for example — the worse the problem can be.

Start fresh

For all those reasons, especially if you’re not an experienced drywall texture matcher, your best bet is to simply start over with a fresh, flat wall. That doesn’t mean that you need to tear off all the drywall and replace it. It just means that you want to get rid of the old texture.

Tarp the floor in front of the wall with plastic sheeting. Don’t use canvas painter’s tarps, as the dust is hard to get back out of them. Wear a respirator to prevent breathing in the dust from the sanding and scraping operations, and always wear eye protection.

Sand or scrape the old texture on the wall to remove the majority of it. You don’t need to get rid of all of it — in fact, you want to be careful not to sand too deep and cut into the paper cover on the drywall. What you’re looking to do is knock down all of the high spots. Brush the wall down with a dry paintbrush or soft broom to get the bulk of the dust off it. Roll up the plastic sheeting to contain all the dust and dispose of the plastic, then put down new sheeting for the next operation.

The next step is to apply a light skim coat of drywall joint compound over the entire wall. You can use all-purpose compound for this, but topping compound will go on smoother and sand easier. For best results, thin the joint compound with a little water first to give it a smoother, creamier consistency that will allow it to trowel on easier. Use a 12-inch or larger drywall knife, and spread it onto the wall in broad strokes. The goal is to apply a thin, uniform coat over the entire wall, with as few ridges from the trowel as possible. Some ridges are going to be inevitable, and don’t worry about them — they’ll sand off later. But the fewer the better, since that’ll save you some sanding labor.

Allow the compound to dry completely. It will become lighter as it dries — how long it takes depends on temperature, humidity, and the thickness of the coat — but be sure that the entire wall is completely dry before proceeding. Next, sand the wall again lightly to remove any ridges, and then check your work. Use additional compound to fill in any low spots or flaws, allow the additional compound to dry, then lightly sand again. Thoroughly brush the wall down again, and you now have a smooth, uniform surface to work with, eliminating the need to try to match textures.

You’ll now want to seal the wall, using a drywall sealer or other primer. This will help to prevent uneven absorption of the paint. After the primer is dry, apply the texture of your choice to the entire wall. When the texture is dry, prime everything a second time, which will seal the texture itself. This step is especially important if you’re using satin or semigloss paint. If you’ll be painting the wall with a dark color, have your paint store tint the primer for you, which will give you a more uniform finish color. Finally, paint the wall.

via inman.com

Right away, housing challenges for Obama | Waccabuc NY Real Estate

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President Barack Obama image via barackobama.com.President Barack Obama image via barackobama.com.

Now that President Barack Obama has won re-election, there are several housing-related challenges staring the federal government square in the face. These are some of the decisions that will have to be made in the coming weeks:

1. The “fiscal cliff”: The fiscal cliff is a series of tax increases and spending cuts that will go into effect unless U.S. lawmakers come up with an alternative plan to reduce the federal deficit by $1.2 trillion as required by the Budget Control Act of 2011. The spending cuts, known as “sequestrations,” would automatically go into effect on Jan. 2 and be split evenly between defense spending and domestic spending.

The credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s has said there’s a 20 to 25 percent chance the U.S. economy will go into a double-dip recession should Congress fail to reach an agreement avoiding the fiscal cliff. S&P’s deputy chief economist, Beth Ann Bovino, warned that such a scenario would cause home prices, currently at a bottom of 31 percent below their mid-2006 peak, to tumble to a record low of 40 percent below peak.

In a report released in September, the Obama administration called sequestration “bad policy” that “would be deeply destructive to national security, domestic investments, and core government functions.” The president has put forward two deficit reduction proposals that included both spending cuts and revenue increases, but has run into opposition from some members of Congress who oppose tax increases and want to reduce the deficit solely through spending cuts, the report said.

Given that Congress remains divided after the election — Republicans retained control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Democrats retained control of the U.S. Senate — whether lawmakers can come to an agreement over the coming weeks remains a question.

2. The mortgage interest deduction (MID): Revamping the mortgage interest deduction is one of the solutions proposed to head off the fiscal cliff and could be part of a broader plan to streamline the tax code by eliminating some loopholes and deductions. Some experts have said the MID, which costs the government about $90 billion a year, is unlikely to survive in its present form, though what would take its place, if anything, is unclear.

Two years ago, a bipartisan deficit reduction commission recommended scaling back the MID, which is currently capped at mortgages worth up to $1 million for both principal and second homes and home equity debt up to $100,000. The deduction is available only to taxpayers who itemize.

The commission, often referred to as Simpson-Bowles, proposed turning the deduction into a 12 percent nonrefundable tax credit available to all taxpayers, capping eligibility to mortgages worth up to $500,000, and eliminating the deduction on interest from second homes and home equity debt.

The National Association of Realtors, which has consistently defended the mortgage interest deduction in its current form, was highly critical of the recommendation, claiming any changes to the MID could depreciate home prices by up to 15 percent, and promising to “remain vigilant in opposing any plan that modifies or excludes the deductibility of mortgage interest.”

3. Mortgage debt forgiveness: Another homeowner tax break may be on the table in fiscal negotiations: the Mortgage Debt Relief Act of 2007, which is set to expire at the end of this year. The law exempts up to $2 million in mortgage debt forgiven by a lender in a short sale, loan modification or foreclosure from federal taxation. The law applies only to mortgage debt incurred to fund the purchase or improvement of a principal residence.

Banks have relied heavily on short sales to meet their obligations under the terms of a $25 billion settlement with the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers over so-called “robo-signing” practices. If the debt relief law lapses, however, homeowners would have less of an incentive to pursue short sales because forgiven mortgage debt could be considered taxable income.

4. Qualified mortgages: Now that we know the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is here to stay — presidential candidate Mitt Romney had vowed to repeal it — there are two controversial rules contained within the law that are waiting to be finalized: the qualified mortgage (QM) and the qualified residential mortgage (QRM).

QM would establish standards for borrowers’ “ability to pay” the mortgages they seek, while QRM would establish certain baseline standards for safe underwriting and require lenders to retain a 5 percent minimum ongoing stake in any loans they originate that don’t meet QRM requirements.

The regulations are under the aegis of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which postponed action on both rules in June after protests from Realtors, builders, banks, unions and consumer groups. Under Dodd-Frank, the CFPB is required to issue the qualified mortgage rule by Jan. 21, 2013.

via inman.com