Winged Bride Weds On New Suffolk Beach

(OK, so let me start by saying how lame I am that my phone camera photo file was full and you will be deprived of enjoying all the photos I snapped of the happy event...all for naught, my climbing around behind sand dunes, feet entangled in doggie leash, trying to be invisible in my pjs (always walk doggie in pjs), as the happy couple and their guests gathered around the chuppah in the morning sun.)
So I'm walking Luna this morning, half asleep, and as we approach the beach I see alldressedup people on the beach, someone laying out a long carpet on the sand ---- is that a chuppah blowing in the breeze, is that a female rabbi????? ----- amidst a few early stragglers arriving with umbrellas, coolers and whining kids --- move over and let these optimists have their wedding!!!! I am convinced it's a gay wedding. Smiling, barefoot bald guy in fashionable black suit and sunglasses, female rabbi -- gotta be gay! Yippeeeee!!! New Suffolk leads the way again!!! Wrong, bride arrives, fashionably late, flowing white, strapless, backless gown --- wait a minute --- she has WINGS TATTOOED ON HER BACK!!!!! Yippeeeee again! You just never know what you're gonna see when you're walking your dog, in your pjs, on a Saturday morning in New Suffolk.
All this AND the NOFO Rock and Folk Fest this weekend in Cutchogue!!

4 Steps To Smart Home Ownership

Not so long ago, in a not-so-distant land, owning a home was thought of as the safest "investment" around. Fast forward to the present day, and home ownership seems super scary to many people who can afford homes, and would like to own them, but are paralyzed by the fear of buying a lemon, or having a mortgage catastrophe.  

Here are 4 simple steps to minimize the risk that you'll become the main character in a homeownership horror story.  

1.  Stick with a fixed-rate mortgage.  Recent data shows that adjustable rate mortgages, or ARMs, are increasingly popular, rising from 9 percent of the mortgage market in the fourth quarter of 2010 to 12 percent in the first quarter of this year.  This might seem crazy to some, but in financially aggressive crowds, the lure of low, 3 percent(ish) interest rates on ARMs is enough to overcome any qualms.  As well, today's ARMs tend to have lower lifetime interest rate caps and require payment of principal, so they don't adjust as violently as the subprime interest-only and option ARMs that contributed to the foreclosure crisis.

If the thought of your mortgage payment changing over time gives you the shakes, you don't want to live in a state of interest rate obsession for the next few decades, or you simply crave the simplicity and predictability of knowing what your housing payment will be for the next 15, 20 or 30 years, then stick to 

a fixed-rate mortgage.  The rates are higher, but with a fixed-rate loan, the risk of scary payment changes are not only lower, they are non-existent. 

2.  Put - and keep - a home warranty in place.  One of the most frightening things about going from renter to homeowner is the prospect of being solely responsible for the care and feeding of your home and all its systems and appliances. Responsibility for both the costs and the actual logistics of repairing things like a leaky roof, a broken hot water heater or a haywire electrical fixture looms large in the minds of first-time buyers, in particular. 

A home warranty plan kicks in when escrow closes, and depending on the coverage you select, will cover your home against the breakdown of major systems and even some appliances, like furnaces and water heaters.  In some cases, you can even upgrade the coverage to protect against roof leaks and some plumbing issues. When a covered item breaks down, just remember to call the home warranty company first - for the cost of a service call you can get the item repaired or even replaced, if necessary.  I remember the home warranty company replacing a $900 water heater in my first home; what a godsend!

Talk with your agent - you might even be able to negotiate for the seller to pay for the first year's cost of the warranty.  Just remember to renew it when it expires every year, to keep a cap on your risk of unexpected repair costs for the duration of your tenure as a homeowner.

3.  Get repair bids and estimates, not just inspections.  After you find the home of your dreams (or the home of your budget!) and get into contract, you'll have a contingency or objection period ranging from 7 to 17 days during which you can obtain all the inspections you want.  Most buyers start out with a general property inspection, a pest inspection and a roof inspection, then get more specialized inspections if the property calls from it.  Pest and roof inspectors will generally provide an inspection report AND a repair bid for any work they find needs to be done.  

But the overall home inspection could very well list a dozen needed repairs, upgrades and maintenance items, without providing any information about how much those repairs will cost.  If your inspection report surfaces work you'll need to have done to fix things (or avoid bigger fixes down the road), work with your agent to schedule actual repair contractors to come in and give you bids on the work before your contingency or inspection period expires.  That will position you to negotiate around repair costs with the seller, or to know what you're getting yourself into, cost-wise, if you take the property as-is.

4.  Buy on the 10-year plan.  Warren Buffett once famously advised stock investors to "only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years."  The same advice is good for buying a home in today's real estate market.  Take on a mortgage you know you can sustain, buy at a price you can comfortably afford and avoid having to sell because you need to move for some urgent reason, or because the home no longer meets your needs.  

You can take this last step to hedge against losing money on your home by planning your space, career and lifestyle needs out 5, 7, even 10 years in the future - everything from how many bedrooms and garage spaces you'll need to where you'll want to be located, geographically - and selecting a home that will meet those needs for that foreseeable future. As a general rule of thumb, the harder hit the area was in the recession, the longer you should plan to hold it.

SOURCE: TRULIA.COM

Sellers: 4 Questions To Ask Your Buyer

On today’s market, some sellers struggle to get even a single offer - much less an offer from a qualified buyer, at a reasonable price, on terms they can live with.  But just because the market is down doesn’t mean sellers are utterly powerless. Proactively asking prospective buyers the right questions can help put together the best possible deal, and stacks the decks in favor of it closing, as well - so here are those questions!  

1. Where’s your proof?  Real estate transactions fall out of escrow on today’s market more than ever (that just means that a contract is cancelled sometime between the time buyer and seller sign it and the time it was supposed to close).  This is a seller’s worst nightmare - to get your hopes up and your moving plans in motion then have to cancel it all because the deal falls through. And that’s just where the awful-ness begins; every seller fears pulling their home off the market in reliance on a contract that later implodes because of the reality that they might forgo other good buyers while your home is marked “pending.”

Deals often fall apart because the mortgage lender fails to approve the short sale, or the home appraises way below the seller’s bottom line.  But another common deal-killer is when the buyer’s financing falls apart.  While nothing is bullet-proof, smart sellers have their agents ask the buyers agent for robust proof that the buyer can actually do the deal.  

If your home’s buyer plans to use mortgage financing, you should get a pre-qualification letter from a mortgage pro who has actually run the buyer’s credit, seen their down payment money and checked their income and assets - it’s not overkill for your agent to call the buyer’s mortgage contact and check on how recent and how strong (or tenuous) this approval is.  (The more recent the better - down payment savings can be spent and even jobs can be lost between the time of the approval and the time of the offer, if many moons have passed.)

If the buyer is using cash, the listing agent should insist on receiving a recent proof of funds, like a bank account statement, documenting that the buyer has the cash they’ll need to close on hand.

2. Is there anything you’d like?  This question is all about personal property - the “stuff” that’s inside your home, from your furniture to your home electronics (not including the children - or the in-laws, if you have some in residence).  If you have things that are in great condition, are difficult to move, are very well-suited or custom-made for the home or that you were planning to sell in the course of your move anyway, you might want to ask your home’s buyer if they are interested in them. Maybe you have a price in mind, or maybe you are willing to give it away for the convenience of not having to move it - I’ve even seen sellers who can’t meet a buyer’s counteroffer by reducing the price instead offer up a valuable item of property instead, sealing the deal that way.  

If you do agree to leave some things behind - whether for a fee or for free, make sure you explain to the buyer in writing that you cannot offer a warranty on the item(s), and work with your broker or agent to ensure that the paperwork doesn’t run afoul of any lender guidelines.

3. For offers over the asking price: What’s your plan if it doesn’t appraise? Even on today’s market, a well-priced home in a great neighborhood can generate multiple offers, with the top offer usually exceeding the asking price. The problem is that if the recent sales in the area aren’t in that same price range as your amazing offer, your home could very well fail to appraise for the asking price (low appraisals are a very common problem these days - causing thousands of transactions to fall out of escrow).  And the other problem is that some crafty buyers count on this, strategizing to make a sky-high offer to beat the others out, planning all the while to demand a price reduction when the property appraises low.

Before you accept an offer that is higher than you or your agent feels your home will realistically appraise for, ask the buyer what they plan to do if the property appraises below their offered price.  Better yet, when it becomes clear that you’ll be receiving multiple offers, let all prospective buyers know that before you accept an over-asking offer, you will either (a) require that the winning buyer waive the appraisal contingency, and/or (b) require an agreement that the successful buyer will make up the difference between the appraised price and the purchase price, and proof that they have the cash on hand to do so. This is a surefire shenanigan minimizer, and will cause people to make only offers they will stand behind later.  (Now, if the home appraises below the listing price, that’s a horse of a different color.)    

4. Did you read the reports? Some savvy sellers who know their homes need a little work here and there (or a lot, as the case may be) take the smart step of having their home inspected or appraised in advance of even putting it on the market.  If they can’t afford to do all the work indicated in the report, many will adjust the list price to account for needed repairs, some even going so far as to obtain repair estimates from local contractors and offer them up to prospective buyers in the home’s disclosure packets. 

In their excitement to find a property that meets their needs, some buyers barely skim the reports and may not realize that the list price reflects a discount for the needed repairs.  Best practices for sellers who have advance reports is to require buyers to acknowledge them (as by signing a receipt), and to even call out - in writing - the specific repairs for which the price is being discounted. Some listing agents in these situations even advise their sellers to insist on an as-is contract, so that the buyer has a crystal clear understanding that the seller cannot do any repairs.

That way, you don’t get two weeks into the transaction when the buyer understands the condition problems and (a) bails out of the deal, (b) asks for repairs or for more of a discount, or (c ) has their loan fall apart because a previous FHA appraisal came in low or their lender will not allow the home to be sold with your home’s particular “issues.”



SOURCE: TRULIA.COM

6 Questions To Ask Before You Buy That House

Half the fun of house hunting is visualizing the fun you’ll have when the seller clears out and the place is yours, all yours. But wait one second, partner – once the seller is gone, so is a rich repository of information about your new home.  Most sellers know things about their/your home, and the neighborhood, which could make your life much easier, for years to come.  
To help you tap into that treasure trove of information, here are 6 questions to ask your home’s seller -- before it’s too late! (Note - it’s not protocol, in most cases, to just knock on the seller’s door or ring them up and start firing away. If you happen to run into them during escrow or inspections, feel free to ask. Otherwise, it’s best to run your questions through your agent, who will collect answers for you or let you know if the sellers - and their agent - are up for a more casual conversation.)
1. What’s the history of the house?  Many state disclosure forms and laws require the sellers to divulge a number of things about the history of the property, from how it’s been maintained, to what systems have broken down, to whether someone has died on the property. However, you might like to go deeper, finding out such things as whether the property was a rental, whether they recommend a set maintenance schedule (grab the gardener’s number, if you like the lawn!) for any part of the property, or whether they are aware of any interesting stories about past inhabitants or uses of the property that might provide useful or just plain old interesting information.  
This also gives you the opportunity to do key things:

a)  find out whether there’s anything that works, but is kind of wonky and needs an extra nudge or a hard turn to get it open/closed/activated - I’ve known many a buyer that called a contractor out post-closing to fix something, only to realize it actually worked, and just needed a jiggle or a little extra love (e.g., the “broken” garage door opener that the seller unplugged when they moved out), and

b) learn about any upgrades or improvements the seller has done to the property, and request everything from names of paint colors, to warranties, receipts and instruction manuals for appliances that sometimes get inadvertently packed away, moved and tossed away.

2. Where to go and who to know?  Home sellers can be the best source of infomation that doesn’t seem super important, but can actually take a long time to figure out yourself, like which of the 6 dry cleaners on the main drag does the best alterations, or which neighbor organizes the Neighborhood Watch or the pug playgroups.
If your home is in a homeowner’s association, or HOA, of course you received several hundred pages worth of HOA disclosures, but the seller might be able to just point you to the community’s DVD library or the board meeting room, or show you where you can find the carts you can use to bring bulky items up in the elevator from the parking garage.  I’ve even seen above-and-beyond sellers leave binders full of menus from their favorite neighborhood delivery spots.
3. What surprised them when they moved in?  Pleasantly or otherwise - moving in is always the occasion for a surprise (or a dozen!).  They might have been surprised at how friendly the neighbors were, how much light a particular room gets at a given time of day, how many people could fit around the table in the dining room at Thanksgiving or how noisy/quiet the school across the street is.  If they were surprised, you might be, too - so it’s great to know what shocked them before you move in.
4. Where is it and how does it work?  Where do you take the trash out to, and on what day of the week?  Where are the emergency water and electrical shutoffs, the breaker box and the utility meters?  Where’s the thermostat or the special wrench that turns on the gas fireplace?  How does that work?  Some of these are things a good home inspector will cover, but if yours didn’t or you weren’t able to make the inspection, some kind home sellers will happily brief you on these items.
Then, there are things like appliances, landscape lighting, sprinkler operating systems, septic tanks, basement pumps, pool filters and covers and hot tubs, which general home inspectors might not even look at. Most home sellers will know how to operate these things - and will gladly share that information with you. (For the most part, if you want these types of speciality systems looked at and evaluated before you remove your contract’s contingencies, you have to hire the sort of contractor who works on these specific things to look at them.)
5. Is there anything you’d like to leave?  There are really two flavors of this question.  First, you might have your eye on some item of the seller’s personal property, like a perfectly-sized print or perfectly-shaped breakfast booth, that you’d like to buy from them - if so, make an offer!  
And second, the seller might get partway through their move when they realize they want no part of patching up the wall behind the flat-screen or trying to angle that impossibly long couch back out the window they had to bring it in through, so they’d rather just leave it. I’ve seen sellers offer very nice pieces of furniture and electronics to buyers, gratis or for a price, when offered the opportunity, via just this question.
6.  What did I forget to ask?  Whether you’re a new homeowner or new to the area, this is where you throw yourself on the seller’s mercy and ask them to tell you anything you might have forgotten to ask. It’s not overkill to exchange phone numbers or email addresses - now, every transaction isn’t this friendly or cordial, but many are or could be.  It’s definitely in your best interests to leave the transaction on good terms with the seller, if possible, for reasons karmic and utilitarian.
Asking this question can get you all sorts of useful information, like:

• the fact that you get 2 free bulky trash pickups every year,
• advance notice of the block party that’s coming up the weekend after you move in, and
• a warning that if you let your weeds grow too tall in the spring, the fire department will ticket you.

Okay - that’s just stuff I’ve personally learned when asking sellers this catchall question, but I can’t recommend it strongly enough!
Despite the fact that real estate transactions can get adversarial on occasion, the fact remains that the average home seller wants to be helpful, and wants their home’s buyer to be happy.  When these two wants collide, if you ask the right questions (okay, so there are more than 6 - but you get the gist!), you can save yourself untold amounts of research, time and energy!
SOURCE: TRULIA

Home Prices Edging Up?

One month after reporting that its home price gauge had officially double dipped, Standard & Poor’s says prices have inched up, in line with the expected seasonal boost that accompanies the spring buying season.

The 20-city composite reading of the S&P/Case-Shillerindices posted a 0.7 percent increase in April versus March. The 10-city composite was up 0.8 percent. It’s the first time the two measurements have posted monthly gains in eight months.

Both indices are lower than a year ago. The 20-city composite remains 4.0 percent below April 2010, while the 10-city reading is down 3.1 percent.

Looking at the monthly movement, even in the midst of the spring season, it wasn’t all up and up.

Seven cities experienced lower prices compared to March, and six showed new index lows in April: Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, Miami, and Tampa. Boston posted a 0.2 percent drop for April when compared to March, but managed to hold above a new low point.

The biggest monthly gain was recorded in Washington D.C., way out ahead of the pack with a 3.0 percent jump. The closest behind D.C. was San Francisco with a 1.7 percent increase.

“In a welcome shift from recent months, this month is better than last – April’s numbers beat March,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee for S&P.

“However,” Blitzer added, “the seasonally adjusted numbers show that much of the improvement reflects the beginning of the Spring-Summer home buying season. It is much too early to tell if this is a turning point or simply due to some warmer weather.”

SOURCE: DSNEWS.COM

Have We Hit Bottom?

After the headline news that home prices double-dipped, most forecasters are predicting a 2011 turning point for the U.S. housing market, according to the investment and risk management firm MacroMarkets.

The New Jersey-based company polled 108economists and real estate experts this month from the likes of BBVA Research, George Mason University, and Wells Fargo to gauge their predictions.

Nearly two-thirds of the panelists believe the bottom for home prices arrived in the first quarter or will arrive sometime before year-end.

At the same time, though, the same 69 panelists who are currently forecasting a “turning point” this year believe we will be treading water for several years to come with only a nominal increase in home prices of less than 2 percent average annual growth through 2015.

Robert Shiller, namesake of the closely-watched Case-Shiller Home Price Index, is co-founder and chief economist for MacroMarkets.

While the 2011 bottom would be considered a turning point, Shiller points out that the consensus among the

panelists would best be described as a forecast of price stability rather than a rebound.

“A two percent a year home price increase will not inspire a lot of consumer confidence,” Shiller said. “Given prevailing inflation expectations, this forecast implies virtually no change in real home values going forward.”

Still, he says a “significant majority” of the panelists would label the end to the free-fall days as a crossroads for the U.S. market, “despite persistent macroeconomic uncertainty and unprecedented housing market dysfunction.”

Terry Loebs, MacroMarkets managing director, notes that the individual views of the panelists run a wide gamut.

He says looking at expected housing market performance through the five year period ending 2015, the most optimistic quartile of panelists projects 15.3 percent average price growth, while the most pessimistic quartile projects 6.0 percent average price erosion from the levels seen at the end of 2010.

“This spread is huge, representing almost $4 trillion in housing market value,” Loebs said. “This is a gut-wrenching time for market stakeholders and policymakers, because each of these scenarios is plausible.”

Overall, expectations reached their lowest levels in the June survey since the MacroMarkets panel was assembled over a year ago.

Loebs added a sobering comparison of this month’s survey data to that collected in December.

“This month, for all panelists, the average expected cumulative home price change between Q4 2010 and Q4 2015 is just 5.71 percent,” he said. “This translates to $1.2 trillion less in aggregate U.S. single-family housing wealth at the end of 2015 than projected just six months ago.”

SOURCE: DSNEWS.COM

Smoke Gets In Your...EVERYTHING!

If you’re hunting for a new home, add “smoking history” to your inspection list. When researchers compared 150 homes, they found that the former dwellings of smokers had five to seven times the nicotine levels of nonsmokers’ houses – even after they had been cleaned for new tenants. More unnerving: Within a month of moving into former smokers’ homes, nonsmoking residents acquired up to eight times the amount of nicotine residue as did nonsmokers who had moved into smoke-free spots. “Ninety percent of nicotine in tobacco smoke stays in the indoor environment,” says lead study author George Matt, PhD. It’s likely these stick particles, as well as other tobacco pollutants, will become imbedded in a place that was the site of decades of heavy smoking. Although the risks of this third hand smoke have yet to be quantified, some of the compounds are known carcinogens, and others are strong irritants. Always inquire about the smoking history of a home that interests you and look for telltale signs like burn marks on the carpet and yellowed walls.

SOURCE: Melanie Spear, PDE