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Long Island real estate guides
Compare communities, prepare for a home purchase, or plan your next sale. Start with a topic below, then explore the latest articles from the Pesce & Lanzillotta Team.
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Explore homes by community in Nassau County or Suffolk County, or start with our home buying guide and home selling guide.
Latest articles
April 12, 2019
Turbulent Mortgage Rates
Mortgage rates in the last 5-6 months have seen some turbulent changes with reactions from Federal Reserve policy. Mortgage rates have a direct correlation to home valuations. As interest rates go up, and the cost of borrowing money increases – asset prices go down. The reason behind this is that incomes don’t change very quickly over time (for most people). So, people have a finite dollar amount in mind that they’re able to afford every month in a mortgage payment – and whether that lump sum includes more interest, more principal, more taxes, or more insurances doesn’t matter to them, so long as it fits in their budget.
Read moreMarch 13, 2019
Neighborhood Realtor? Or The Realtor who has Reach?
This is the great debate for sellers in today’s fast changing world. We’re caught in this age of time where we have these extremely powerful technologically based tools, but real estate is still very much a local business. In todays world, most sellers have the choice to hire either the broker who only does business in one or two zip codes or the agent who covers huge geographies. So, who’s better? What’s the difference between the two? In this blog we will answer these questions and discuss where we think things are headed.
Read moreMarch 6, 2019
5 Questions for Sellers Interviewing Real Estate Agents
How to Interview a Real Estate Agent:
Read moreFeb. 28, 2019
Nassau County's Reassessment Nightmare
There are only two things that are absolute and certain in life, and that’s death and taxes… Here on Long island, we residents pay way more than our fair share in property taxes as compared to the rest of the nation. Nassau County ranks #5 in the country with regards to property taxes, and Suffolk is #16. Nassau county has recently declared that it will be reassessing every property in the county, thereby changing what everyone pays in taxes. All in, that’s about 400,000 properties in total. It is said that 52% of the properties in the county will have higher property taxes, and 48% will get property tax reductions when this is all said and done.
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Feb. 26, 2019
Mortgage Rates Hit 12 Month Low
The punch bowl has been given back to the housing market in the form of low interest rates. Mortgage rates are the lowest that they’ve been in 12 months, which is going to have a great effect on this spring selling season. This past week, interest rates on 30-year fixed rate mortgages averaged 4.35%. Towards the end of last year, we were just under 5% on a 30-year fixed. But why is this so significant?
Read moreFeb. 21, 2019
SALT Deductions & Long Island Real Estate
Here we are in the first year of Donald Trump’s new tax plan, and Americans are starting to digest all the changes that have taken place with this new policy. The new tax plan certainly has its benefits. The new corporate tax rate is 21%, the revised tax brackets are all putting more money in the pockets of workers, and there’s been a hike in the standard deductions to $12,000 for an individual and $24,000 if your married filing jointly. All these things are great, but what about the new SALT deduction laws and how does it affect us in Nassau & Suffolk County?
Read moreFeb. 21, 2019
A Few Quick Tips for Selling Your Home in the Spring
Even though it’s the middle of the winter season, before you know it, spring will be here. Typically in most real estate markets, the spring is when it really begins to heat up. The spring real estate market generally yields the highest prices for those selling their home. This is only possible though if the proper preparations are taken before spring is upon us!
Read moreFeb. 18, 2019
The 2019 Real Estate Market Outlook
Here we are, its February 18th and we’re just about a month and a half into 2019 and things are looking a lot better now than they did at the end of last year. In the last quarter of 2018, it almost seemed like we were headed towards a financial crisis. The Federal Reserve had been raising rates at a pace that the markets just couldn’t handle, we saw the Dow Jones lose 5,000 points, Trump’s new tax plan was a significant change that most people didn’t understand yet, and we’ve had a lot of political divide in our country.
Read moreFeb. 14, 2019
Amazon Pulls Out of Long Island City
Sayonara Amazon! We’re sure you’ve heard by now that Amazon will not be settling in Long Island City after all. The news was reported this morning, and its not being taken well by most in the real estate industry. Before we go down the rabbit hole and discuss the topic, lets try and understand the fundamentals of how this decision all came about.
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