With the holidays right around the corner, it is essential to take steps to keep your home safe. After all, you wouldn’t want anything to ruin this joyous occasion for you and your loved ones. Luckily, there are several easy steps that you can take to ensure your holiday stays the happiest time of the year.

Light Things Up Safely

Your holiday lights can be a significant source of danger if they are not used properly. To ensure your lights are safe, check them thoroughly for damage. Any lights with broken sockets or frayed cords should be discarded and replaced in order to minimize the risk of fire. Furthermore, use care to follow the manufacturer’s instructions when comes connecting strings of lights together. As a general rule, you should never…

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How can this be? Housing hasn’t been this affordable in many years, and interest rates are at record lows. Yet as everyone knows, the market remains stuck in the mud. Too many unsold homes, too few interested buyers. Experts have a lot of complex things to say about what’s going on, but the answer is really pretty simple.

An uncertain job future makes taking on a mortgage—even a historically low-rate mortgage that right now can be used to buy an exceptionally well-priced home—a very tough sell. So with unemployment still at record highs, it just makes sense that the housing market too continues to struggle.

It’s a predictably vicious cycle. Stubborn unemployment stalls the housing market, which then puts even more people out of work. That’s because,…

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New York State has the dubious distinction of having the highest property taxes in the nation. Not just by a little either, according to a recent New York State study, our property taxes were a whopping 79% higher than the national average. Not surprisingly, this reputation as the most-taxed state of the union has had devastating effects on an already struggling New York housing market. It is a triple threat, hurting prospective buyers who may want to move to New York, lifelong residents who simply can’t afford to live here anymore, and businesses that also bear the burden of astronomical property taxes and receive few if any of the meager tax benefits being offered.

New York No Longer a Blue Collar State

People from all over the world are drawn to New…

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Ok, you’ve moved in, now let’s Party!

Buying a home can be the single largest purchase of a lifetime. What better way to celebrate this big achievement than to throw a housewarming party? Celebrating a new home has always been a great excuse for a party, and it also gives you the opportunity to present your new home to your friends and family.  Questions can arise as to what are the proper procedures and etiquette regarding a housewarming party. Are gifts mandatory? When should the party happen?  Can renters throw a housewarming party? This sounds like more work, why should I even throw a party?


Experts in the housewarming party field say that you should wait awhile after moving in and are completely settled. You don’t want people tripping over unpacked…

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So the leaves are going from green to crimson (and yellow . . . and orange . . . and red, and . . . .) and the wind suddenly packs a bit of a bite. It may be the heavy-hearted end of the season at the beach, but up here in the country things are just getting going.  And after this summer’s record heat, sweater weather and all the brisk fun it brings is being celebrated in Ulster County with even more gusto.

Hudson Valley Apple Picking

A traditional autumn pastime in Ulster, apple picking, is a prime way both to get out in the bracing weather and to enjoy the crisp and luscious harvest. Several local growers offer plump apples and an invigorating environment. Route 213 is home to a pair of beautiful orchards—Mr. Apples in High Falls (www.mrapples.com )…

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New York City residents may yawn or scowl when they see yet another film crew setting up in their neighborhood—closing streets and sidewalks, crowding curbs with huge service trailers, and generally disrupting the natives’ busy routines. But up here in Ulster County, we look at things a little differently. And we’ve recently been able to show that difference to a record number of visiting crews. The welcome mats were out all over.            

This summer especially was filled with film crew sightings. It appeared as though around every corner was a camper idling on the curb, or a crowd of young people milling around in funky retro clothes filming a 60’s scene. And though the abrupt descent into a small community of a 100-plus-person film crew can be…

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Are you planning to build a new Ulster County home? If so, you might want to consider implementing a few “green” ideas throughout the construction process. Not only will this reduce your carbon footprint as well as your energy bill, but it will also increase the resale value of your home if you decide to put it on the market someday. While there are plenty of “green” construction strategies that you can put to use when building a new home, keeping these three strategies in mind will certainly get you rolling in the right direction.

Ulster Green Construction Strategy #1: Use Recycled and Renewable Materials

One of the easiest ways to make the construction process more eco-friendly is to simply use materials that are either recycled or renewable. While…

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Each month, the government issues a stipend to active duty military personnel stationed in the United States to alleviate the cost of housing. This stipend is known as Basic Allowance for Housing, or BAH, and is dictated by a service member's rank, geography, and number of dependents.

How Does the Government Determine BAH?

The greatest determinate of Basic Allowance for Housing is location. The government carefully reviews data sources and rental listings, and even interviews real estate agents to calculate the proper Basic Allowance of Housing for service members. The government's releases BAH rates once a year, usually in January, and even if a service member who is currently receiving BAH notices that their rank's BAH has decreased, their current…

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When it comes to selling a home, it is essential to do everything possible to make it stand out as much as possible. After all, the more your Hudson Valley home reaches out and grabs a potential buyer, the more likely he or she is to make an offer on the property. While making necessary repairs is certainly one aspect of giving a home the best chance of getting sold, prepping a home for sale requires more than just replacing broken appliances and painting dull, worn out walls. Rather, it requires giving the home a warm and inviting feel with the help of a few home staging ideas.

There are several steps you can take stage your home for sale, ranging from simply cleaning up clutter to adding the finishing touches that really make a house feel like a home.…

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For those who missed out on the Home Buyer Tax Credit, there is good news: the credit has once again received an extension. Enacted on July 2, the U.S. Home buyer Assistance and Improvement Act of 2010, which was largely backed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, extends the closing deadline from June 30 to September 30 for buyers who had entered into a binding contract by the original April 30 deadline. Therefore, while it is still too late for those who didn’t get the ball rolling before the April deadline, those who had trouble with closing on the deal in time can still take advantage of the $8,000 maximum credit for first time buyers as well as the $6,500 credit for longtime homeowners who decided to purchase a new home.

In order to qualify for the…

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