Al Capone's Fantastically Historic Miami House | #Armonk Real Estate

[All photos courtesy MB America]

In case you've ever wanted to see what it's like inside a notorious gangster's home, you will be happy to learn that the interiors of Al Capone's 1922 Mediterranean Revival estate on Palm Island are prepped and camera ready for the next booty-poppin' Rick Ross music video or riveting Telemundo novela. The 93-year old historic home recently underwent a major renovation spearheaded by Miami-based, Italian-run MB America, which has taken charge of the property's purchase, renovation and management. According to MB America CEO Marco Bruzzi, the property was acquired for around $8M and has so far had $1.4M in renovations. The architecture and design of the Capone compound renovation is led by MB America co-founder and architect Monica Melotti. According to her, the project is 75% complete and will be ready to lease this May.

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http://miami.curbed.com/archives/2015/03/26/

Housing starts in the United States plunged | Mt Kisco Real Estate

Housing starts measure the number of units of privately owned housing started in a given period. It includes single-family and multiple-family homes with the former dominating the private housing market.

Housing starts in the United States plunged 17% month-over-month to an 897,000 pace in February 2015, the lowest level since January 2014. Housing starts had clocked a more-than-one-million pace every month since July 2014. Even from a year-ago level, starts were down 3.3%. January’s starts were revised upward to show no growth over December after initially reporting a 2% fall.

Enlarge Graph

Information from this indicator is used to anticipate future production for homebuilders such as D.R. Horton (DRH), Lennar (LEN), and PulteGroup (PHM). It’s also used to anticipate future demand for raw materials and labor costs, which affects home-related retailers such as Lowe’s (LOW) and Home Depot (HD). DRH, LEN, and PHM all fell after the report was released.

The details of the fall

The possibility of harsh weather keeping construction workers away from work was the frontrunner among reasons for this sharp decline in housing starts.

Single-family homes on which construction began dropped by 14.9% in February 2015 from a month ago. Construction of structures with five units or more dived 21.6%. The fall in groundbreaking activity was across the United States with the Northeast bearing the biggest brunt. Total housing starts fell 56.5% month-over-month in February in the region. Starts for single-family homes dropped 60.7%.

The Midwest was also hit hard with total groundbreaking activity falling by 37% in February.

Among the four regions, the South saw the slowest pace of fall, with total construction activity falling by just 2.5% and construction of single-family homes falling by 5.9% month-over-month.

Building permits rise

Building permits indicate future demand for housing. This indicator is released in the monthly report. Permits for new construction of private homes rose 3.0% from January to 1.092 million. This increase may provide some solace to markets. While single-family permits fell 6.2%, permits for constructions with five or more units jumped 19.9%.

The South led the rise in overall permits among the four regions with permits rising 7.3% in February. For single-family home permits, only the West posted a rise, where permits rose 5.6% month-over-month. The Northeast was the highest decliner in both total permits and permits for single-family homes.

Housing starts and building permits are both considered leading indicators for the housing market. ETFs that focus on real estate or construction are affected by these indicators. These ETFs include the iShares Dow Jones U.S. Real Estate Index Fund (IYR), the Vanguard REIT ETF (VNQ), the SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (XHB), and the iShares Dow Jones U.S. Home Construction Index Fund (ITB).

In the next article, we’ll look at the status of industrial production in February 2015.

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http://marketrealist.com/2015/03/

Negative Equity Real Estate | North Salem Homes

Temperatures are warming and potential homebuyers are coming out to shop, but they are finding precious little for sale.

Weak housing construction and the growth of the single-family rental market have pushed down supply for sure, but one nagging leftover of the housing crash is literally trapping potential sellers in their homes: Negative equity.

Some 5.4 million homes, or 10.4 percent of all homes with a mortgage, were still in a negative equity position, or "underwater," in the fourth quarter of 2014, according to CoreLogic, as their owners owe more on the mortgage than the home is currently worth. This is down considerably -18.9 percent, from a year ago-but it still keeps these borrowers from putting their homes on the market, because they would lose money. 

Additionally, of the 49.9 million U.S. homes with a mortgage, approximately 10 million (20 percent) have less than 20 percent equity, and 1.4 million have less than 5 percent, according to CoreLogic. These homeowners also would have a difficult time selling because not only would they lose money in the process, but they also might not qualify for a new mortgage.

"Negative equity continued to be a serious issue for the housing market and the U.S. economy," said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. "We expect the situation to improve over the course of 2015."

Improvement will come with higher home prices. Rising prices in 2014 brought more than 1 million borrowers into a positive equity position. The problem, however, will take considerable time to work through and will continue to affect not only housing supply, but also consumer spending overall.

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http://finance.yahoo.com/news/millions-underwater-homeowners-trapped-160310034.html

Buying a House on the Lake | Chappaqua Homes

Many people dream of finding the perfect lake house. But once you’ve found it, is it really that easy to buy and finance the home? It is if you follow these four steps.

1. Decide how you will use the home

Before estimating your lake house purchase costs, you need to consider how you intend to own and use the property. You have three options:

• Primary residence. You can buy for as little as 3 percent down (if the loan amount doesn’t exceed $417,000), and you’ll get the lowest mortgage rates for this type of use.
• Second home. You can use your lake house with your family and friends, but lenders won’t let you rent the home. Mortgage rates are the same as primary residences. Most lenders require as little as 20 percent down for a second home. You qualify for the loan using your full primary residence housing cost plus your full second home cost.
• Investment property. You’d rent the home, plus use it when it’s not rented. Rates are .25 percent to .375 percent higher than primary residence or second home rates, and down payment requirements typically start at 30 percent. But you can use rental income to help qualify for the mortgage.

2. Understand the total cost of owning a lake house

You can determine what you can afford in seconds. Then you’ll find a lender and have them dive deeper into:

• Cash available for down payment, closing costs, and reserves.
• Total monthly cost of your existing home, plus the total monthly cost of the lake house (including principal, interest, taxes and insurance for both homes).
• Total cost to manage the lake house, including costs unique to a lake house. One such cost is flood insurance, which is an additional insurance fee on top of your normal homeowners insurance.

You also need to consider budget items that lenders don’t use in their qualifying calculations, but that are still very important for your own financial planning:

• Total cost for gas, electric, cable TV, and internet.
• Total cost for furniture and housewares. This is especially important for your budget if it’s a second home or investment property.
• Total costs to travel to your lake house for your desired number of visits each year (if it’s not a primary residence).
• Total cost of outdoor gear: kayaks, paddle boards, boats, jet skis, etc.
• Total cost of property maintenance including dock upkeep, cleaning, and landscaping.

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http://www.zillow.com/blog/how-to-buy-a-lake-house-171877/

Let's Spy on Ira Rennert's Mega Mansion | Cross River Homes

[Photo credit: Jeff Cully, EFAAS]

This is why you should have majored in junk bonds in college: instead of the hovel in which you now squat, you could own Fair Field, the tastefully understated home of minerals magnate Ira Rennert. You'd have three swimming pools and two pool houses. (A single pool house? Ha! That's for the Poors.) You'd also possess a hot tub clocking in at a cool $150K, your own 164-seat theater, a 10,000sf playhouse, and a main house that's 62,000 square feet, with 21 bedrooms and a 91 foot-long dining room. Let's not forget the synagogue, squash courts, and tennis courts. All this is set on 63 acres of Sagaponack oceanfront. Yep, it's good to be the junk bond king. OK, fine, there's that spot of bother with the lawsuit lately, but even if he has to pay back $118M plus interest, that's pocket change to the guy worth $6B.

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http://hamptons.curbed.com/archives/2015/03/10/lets_spy_on_ira_rennerts_mega_mansion_from_above.php

America's Next Top Kitchen Trends | Waccabuc Real Estate

When it comes to kitchen design, what’s the next stainless steel? 

Good question.

For nearly 30 years, the finish has reigned as the top choice for appliances, sinks and faucets. And despite reports every few years that it’s on its way out, the trend hasn’t faded just yet. (So you’ll just have to keep dealing with all those fingerprints for a while.)

That doesn’t mean new trends aren’t emerging, however. Here are a few to keep an eye on in 2015 and beyond:

(Can’t find the refrigerator? That’s the idea. Photo: DecorPad)

Matching Panels

As open-format home plans become more popular, people want large appliances to blend in rather than stand out. (In other words, you might not want to sit in your living room and have a view of a shiny, hulking refrigerator.) Paneling appliances so they resemble cabinetry helps them fit easily into a space.

“Among my clientele … integrating the refrigerator into the design scheme is much more typical, rather than [having] a large ‘mattress size’ swatch of stainless steel in the kitchen,” says leading kitchen designer Matthew Quinn.

Indeed, in its 2015 trend report, the National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA) identified French-door and built-in cabinet depth fridges as growing in popularity. And if you’re curious as to which cabinetry wood is on the rise, it’s walnut, says John Petrie, CMKBD, owner and designer at Mother Hubbard’s Custom Cabinetry in Pennsylvania. 

“Whether it’s entire walnut kitchen or as an accent we’re doing a fair bit of it,” he says. “It reminds me of a midcentury modern look.”

(Glass-front refrigerators allow everyone to see how healthy you eat. Photo: Bravo)

Glass-Fronts

Whites and off-whites are currently the most popular kitchen color schemes, according to NKBA data. And so, clean, modern, glass-front appliances are hot at the moment, says Jamie Gold, CKD, CAPS, a San-Diego based kitchen designer.

“I’m seeing glass fronts, especially white,” says Gold, also author ofNew Kitchen Ideas That Work. “There are black glass fronts, but the whites are popular with homeowners creating glossy, white modern kitchens.  I believe these glass-front appliances are gaining traction because of the popularity of white cabinets and white iPhones as a design inspiration.

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https://www.yahoo.com/makers/beyond-stainless-steel-americas-next-top-kitchen-112259152735.html