Prodigy Real Estate - SI NY Real Estate Blog - Anthony Licciardello

Why Are Comfortable-Sized Multi-Family Homes in Short Supply?

A common complaint of home buyers in the Greater New York area is that the consumer is allowed little input on the new home construction process. The needs of the buyer are often not understood by developers when their projects are conceived.  A home style that has been in demand lately, according to RealEstateSINY.com agent Maria Giakas, is the two-family, six-bedroom and six-bathroom layout. This type of home contains two three-bedroom, three-bathroom apartments. Giakas has reported that several of her clients have recently expressed interest in two-family 6/6 homes. Two three-bedroom apartments allow for two medium-sized families to comfortably share the amenities of a private home, often at a reasonable price. As of right now, she says, only about ten…

1986 Views, 0 Comments

Is Staten Island’s upward real estate trend continuing?

The most recent real estate market statistics for the month of September showed some changes in home sales for Staten Island.

The monthly sales had already started to decrease—and that was before the government had shut down.

The mortgage rates had jumped up at the beginning of September, but started to decrease throughout the month.  You would think that people would take advantage of the low rates, but we actually saw a ten percent decrease in home sales, with only 291 homes being sold for the month.  While this is still a good number—and almost twenty-seven percent higher than what we saw last year—it doesn’t look like we will be seeing numbers even remotely close to this in the coming months.

The average cumulative number of days that homes…

1424 Views, 0 Comments

Are You At Risk of Facing Foreclosure?

In June of 2012, a program was launched by Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman in an effort to help struggling homeowners in New York keep their homes.  The Homeowner Protection Program, as it is known, was created with the intention of providing $20 million every year for three years to fund housing counseling and legal services for homeowners in need.

Yesterday, on October 23rd, the attorney general announced that the second round of funding would be distributed to thirty-four legal services organizations and fifty-four housing counseling agencies.  The purpose is so that these organizations can provide free services to homeowners at risk of losing their homes.  Of the eighty-eight organizations to receive funding, thirty-four are located within New…

1543 Views, 0 Comments

Staten Island's real estate market continues its upward trend, inventory of homes is becoming problematic.

An interesting turn of events with the latest market statistics for the month of August 2013.

The amount of homes sold in the month of August actually went down from the prior month, but hold on—we’ll get to that in a minute.

First of all, the amount of homes for sale on Staten Island took a drastic leap downwards, with only 2,291 homes on the market in August. This is a decrease of over four percent from July, with an additional 110 homes being on the market in the prior month.

With such a small amount of inventory to work with, homes have been selling like hotcakes.

The average number of cumulative days for homes being on the market in August was 129, which is a decrease of over twelve percent from July. This is also a decrease of about…

1837 Views, 0 Comments

Nothing seems to be standing in the way of Staten Island's hot real estate market.

We thought it couldn’t get any better, but it did. The latest market statistics for the month of July really blew away those from June.

First, let’s take a look at the monthly real estate sales on Staten Island. We saw an increase of more than eight percent from June to July, with 321 homes recorded as being sold in the latter month. The great part about this is that home sales have been rising steadily since March—that’s four months of increasing home sales! If you compare this past month’s sales to those of last year’s sales in July, we see an increase of over forty-five percent.

But hang on—let’s backtrack and compare it to when the sales started rising in March of this year. If you put March and July side-by-side, you’ll see an increase of almost…

1801 Views, 0 Comments

Landmark: The Alice Austen in Rosebank, Staten Island

During the late-seventeenth century and early-eighteenth century, a single-room, half-timbered Dutch Colonial home was built at 2 Hylan Boulevard. From its construction up until 1775, many additions were made to the house. Between the years of 1725 and 1750, a second room was added to the house. During the years between 1750 and 1775, another addition was made to the house, giving it an L-shape.

On maps from the early 1800s, various structures were shown as being on the property. In 1844, John Haggerty Austen purchased the home. Many repairs and renovations were made to the house, including the demolition of the structures not attached to the house. The years between 1844 and 1878 saw the addition of another room, a porch, and a projecting bay window.…

2279 Views, 0 Comments

Landmark: The Billiou-Stillwell-Perine House in Old Town, Staten Island

If you’d like to see the oldest building still standing on Staten Island, you won’t find it in Historic Richmondtown. It’s actually further north, in the Mid-Island section of Staten Island. Just below Todt Hill, in the Dongan Hills community, you will find the Billiou-Stillwell-Perine House, standing at 1476 Richmond Road. This building, which had served as a home for many generations, is one of the oldest buildings in New York, having been built in the early 1660s.

The first section of the home was erected by Pierre Billiou, whose name has been made known on Staten Island not only because of this house, but also because he was among the first permanent settlers on Staten Island. Pierre Billiou left his Amsterdam hometown with his wife in May of 1661…

2539 Views, 0 Comments

Landmark: Asbury Methodist Church in New Springville, Staten Island

The Asbury Methodist Church is one of the many landmarks located on Staten Island. It was named after Francis Asbury, an Englishman who came to America in 1771. Francis Asbury was born in 1745 and had begun his profession as a Methodist preacher by the age of twenty-one. He had volunteered to come to America when John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had asked his ministers for volunteers to travel to the Thirteen Colonies in 1771. Francis Asbury was a circuit rider, which means that he did not have one specific church at which he preached. Instead, he had travelled around the thirteen colonies, preaching to all those who wanted to listen.

During the American Revolutionary War, most of the Methodist preachers had left America. Francis Asbury, on the…

2264 Views, 0 Comments

Staten Island's real estate market sees its best month since June 2010

Staten Island's Housing Market grows at a robust pace, only bested by tax credit month of June 2010. However, with higher mortgage interest rates, the housing market is likely to cool off a bit in the following months. 

In the past few months, we saw some pretty incredible numbers in the housing market—and this past month was no different. With the numbers from this past June, we can definitely see an improvement in the market.

First, let’s take a look at the monthly sales. Two hundred and ninety-five homes were sold this past June. This is astonishing, since it’s an increase of almost fourteen percent from May to June, and an increase of about nineteen percent from the prior year. It seems like we’re quoting ourselves month after month, but really,…

1843 Views, 0 Comments

May's Staten Island real estate market heats up a cool month.

May's cool weather wasn't enough to cool Staten Island's consistently warming real estate market. 

It looks as though our assumption was correct. Just like the prior month, the sales for the month of May hit way over the 200 mark—something that, like last April, hasn’t been seen in the same month since 2008, when May had 250 monthly sales. This May surpassed even that number by four, with 254 total sales. This may not seem like much, with an increase of only about 1.6%, but it’s definitely better than May of 2012 and 2011, where we saw 188 and 168 home sales, respectively. As we can see, the monthly sales for May have been on an upward trend since 2011, but just by comparing this past May’s sales with the prior year, we see an increase of over…

1621 Views, 0 Comments