A Typical Town House Goes Modern Zen | Katonah Real Estate

Location matters in real estate, sometimes more so than a home’s other features.

When a young couple purchased a town home in Rosslyn, VA, just across the river from Washington DC, they did so because they loved the location. However, as they explained to architect and designer Andreas Charalambous, they were not fans of the home’s interior.

The home was largely outdated, and the couple wanted a modern and uncluttered space, explained Charalambous of DC-based Forma Design.

A red wall, dark floors and modern, low-slung furniture create a contemporary and inviting space.

“We didn’t set out to create this Zen home, but the decisions they made along the way created the Zen space,” he said. “It’s customized to who they are and how they use the space.”
His first step to redoing their home? A bit of homework for the couple.
“What we usually do with homeowners [is] we listen to what they liked about their house and what their lifestyle is all about,” he explained. “We have them write a one- to two-paragraph essay on their lifestyle so we can understand who will be occupying the space.”
He also requires clients to put together eight to 10 images of designs they like.
“When people say they like modern or transitional, it could be anything,” he said. “When we see images, they say this is what they like.”

In the case of his Rosslyn clients, they requested a few things: a red wall somewhere in the home, which would represent good luck, and a cabinet at the entrance of the home, which would display a Buddha statue and also hold a place for shoes. They were expecting their first child and wanted a home that would be modern, livable and uncluttered.

From there, Charalambous and his team began to work on the space.

The entry before and after.

“The first level of this house had the living room, then the dining room and behind the wall was the kitchen,” Charalambous explained. “The first thing we suggested was to tear out the wall behind the dining room to create one big entertaining space, and immediately the space would feel brighter and bigger and more cohesive.”

One wall — running from the entrance to the back of the kitchen — was painted red. And from there, it was a matter of redoing cabinets and updating the fireplace to fit the new modern layout.

www.zillow.com 10/24/13

Million-dollar homes: March Madness edition | North Salem Homes

Housing is entering the heart of the spring season, but buyers are still not warming up to the market. Home sales are down across the nation as higher prices, tight credit and higher interest rates hold demand in a headlock. The nation's home builders are seeing improvements, but only on their higher-priced homes, which is where much of the focus is now.

 

Sales of homes priced above $750,000 increased 13 percent in February from a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors. Homes priced below $250,000 fell 11 percent. Those lower-priced homes make up 64 percent of all home sales. The trouble on the lower end is that investors are finding less to buy as fewer homes fall into foreclosure. First-time home buyers, who should pick up the slack, are having trouble qualifying in today's mortgage market. Analysts argue this is no time for the Federal Reserve to be pulling out of the mortgage market.

"Until proven otherwise, these numbers are awful, and create a need for continued Fed accommodation and a positive technical backdrop for securitized products, especially credit," Bank of America analysts Justin Borst and Chris Flanagan wrote in a note to investors.

Read More Million-dollar homes: Super Bowl edition

The bright spot, again, is the higher end. Sales of homes priced over $1 million are up over 14 percent from a year ago. What buyers get for a million dollars, however, varies greatly market to market. More than 40 percent of for-sale listings in metro San Francisco are over $1 million, as are more than 20 percent in Fairfield County, Conn., according to a report from Trulia, an online real estate company. The smallest million-dollar homes are in New York, typically less than 1,500 square feet, but those homes stretch to 6,000 square feet in the Kansas City area and Pittsburgh.

http://homes.yahoo.com/news/million-dollar-homes-march-madness-114800575.html

New home sales hit 5-month low | Bedford Hills Real Estate

New home sales of single-family houses in February dropped 3.3% to 440,000, reaching a 5-month low, according to the latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

This is a dip from the revised January rate of 455,000 and is 1.1% below last year’s estimate of 445,000.

“This isn’t surprising. February is typically a slow time of year for new home sales across the board. Not many new home buyers sign contracts at the beginning of the year because buying a home isn’t a top priority after the holidays. We saw purchase declines in the MBA Mortgage Application Surveys during January and February and we’ll likely see some more slowdown before we get geared up for March and the spring season," said David Williams, vice president at RightStart Mortgage, based in Pasadena, Calif.

“The snow in the Midwest and Northeast also had at least some factor to slowing sales in the Midwest, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. It’s not so much that they were hit by snow, but it was on the weekends," Williams said. "Nobody is looking for a home when it’s snowing. We saw new single-family home sales up 3.2% for the month in January, which was still pretty good. I think we’ll see it bounce back in March.”





http://www.housingwire.com/articles/29424-new-home-sales-hit-5-month-low

Here's a Look at the Palm Beach Estate Stylings of 1942 | Bedford Corners Real Estate

9 images

In looking at the Palm Beach home Louis D. Beaumont, a philanthropist who made his fortune opening up May Company stores, it's fun to see that, when it comes to typical Southern Florida decor, there are some things that don't change: fireplaces astride pool pavilions, porticoed verandas, banana-leaf curtains, globby white furniture ... they're all on display in these photos from 1942. That's not to say that there aren't some relics of pre-midcentury design lurking about—the cushions of one chaise lounge are so overplump someone would probably roll right off—but that mix is exactly what makes the images so compelling. Have a look.


http://curbed.com/archives/2014/03/21/heres-a-look-at-some-palm-beach-estate-stylings-of-1942.php

25 Excellent Content Marketing Tools for Your Brand | Chappaqua NY Realtor

Creating powerful content that grows your business can be a discouraging process. It’s possible to spend countless hours producing something to help your brand reach the next level, only to discover that it does little in the way of improving engagement, traffic, or sales. The good news is that there are many content marketing tools available to help you streamline the process.

The team at Social Media Strategies Summit researched the marketplace of content creation, curation, promotion and distribution, and tracking/analytics tools to assemble the infographic below. It illustrates which brands use the 25 tools they reviewed, what’s great about each one, and who theywork best for. You’re sure to find something that will help you jumpstart your content marketing programs.

Content Curation Tools

These tools help you discover and gather content around the Web that is related to a particular topic, then display it in a meaningful and easily digestible format.

1. List.ly (free/paid)

Good for any brand or business with a blog, List.ly creates lists that can be shared easily, edited quickly, and embedded anywhere. It’s simple to curate, crowdsource, and engage readers. The available WordPress plugin makes it easy to share your lists on your blog.

2. Storify (paid)

A favorite of many brands and media companies, Storify enables you to build multimedia timelines and tell stories using a combination of digital content. Stories can be public or private, and can be created by collecting content from 20 different social channels and websites.

3. Curata (paid)

If you’re looking to increase visibility and generate leads, Curata’s content curation software will help you find, curate, share, and analyze content on numerous issues and topics.

4. Magnify.net (paid)

Publishers and brands interested in video curation will find Magnify.net’s fully-customizable cloud-based app ideal for digital publishing. It’s easy to curate, upload, and aggregate content related to your content marketing strategy.

5. Echo (paid)

Echo is a real-time comment and reaction-managing platform for companies and brands with vast amounts of content.

Content Creation Tools

Visualize digital content — without the need for designers — with these tools.

1. KnowledgeVision (paid)

Useful for all companies — from startups to enterprises — KnowledgeVision helps you create video and audio presentations and make them available via Web browsers and mobile devices. It’s a great tool for webinars, ebooks, and product demos.

2. Lingospot (paid)

Lingospot serves program-related content on TV viewers’ tablets and smartphones, anticipating what viewers of a particular show may be interested in.

3. Visual.ly (free/paid)

Great for all brands and media outlets, Visual.ly enables you to create or outsource the creation of infographics and data visualizations with a range of templates.

4. Prezi (paid)

Prezi is a robust tool for everyone. It’s cloud-based software helps users create dynamic visualizations and presentations. You can import your PowerPoint presentations and take them to the next level with this useful app.

5. Issuu (paid)

If you create digital publications, Issuu is for you. The platform makes it easy to collect, share, and publish ebooks, white papers, and any number of other content types and make them look their best for your audience.


Read more: http://www.pamorama.net/2014/03/23/25-excellent-content-marketing-tools-for-your-brand/#ixzz2wtT2wjR6

Google Tops Itself With Swings and Ball Pit at the Mexico HQ | Mt Kisco Real Estate

Photo via Design Boom
Another day, another completely bonkers office space courtesy of Google. As is the tech giant's way, this latest HQ in Mexico City offers a veritable playground of oddball features one wouldn't normally find in an office building—or even indoors—like a a refurbished telephone booth taxi, a faux subway car meeting room, and even cluster of rope swings centered around a fake pond that's actually (yep) a ball pit. Designed by the Mexican studio Space, the overall feel is meant to call to mind Mexico City itself, with the help of a Google map of the metropolis on the carpet and a traditional "trajinera" boat serving as inspiration for the office's lounge. Still, whether it be the aggressive, primary colored walls, cheery carpeting, or the fact that there is literally a ball pit adjacent to the conference rooms, the space feels much more like a crazed nursery school than anything else. Do take a look, below:




http://curbed.com/archives/2014/03/21/google-outdoes-itself-with-swings-and-ball-pit-at-their-mexico-hq.php

It's Official, All the Coolest Lofts Have Little Houses In Them | Waccabuc Real Estate

Photo via Design Milk
First, there were the white boxes in one windowless Japanese home, and after them, the cabin and the treehouse that sit inside the most Brooklyn loft ever. According to the rule of three, this redesign of a Brussels apartment by adn Architectures means that filling one home with a few smaller ones is officially a trend. And what a trend it is! According to a project statement from the firm, the point of the overhaul is to give shape to "two internal bodies that embrace the envelope without touching it, opaque, translucent, airy, abstract," but any five-year-old knows what we have on our hands here: forts, wonderful forts.

Check 'em out from the inside. >>

The clients requested a loft conversion that made efficient use of their limited space; little did they know they would end up with "purity of form and functional simplicity" in the form of two perforated metallic boxes. The first floors hold the laundry room and bathroom, with a bedroom and an office above them, each without a ceiling, leaving the second levels open to the entire apartment. With a deftly concealed wall of storage cabinets between the two, and a raw concrete ceiling lending the white and airy space some much needed weight, it seems like a pretty swell setup.


http://curbed.com/archives/2014/03/20/its-official-all-the-coolest-lofts-have-little-houses-in-them.php