Outdoor Patio Furniture

Your Home - Shopping for Outdoor Patio Furniture

Maybe you have just moved into a new home or just expanded your outdoor living space, either way if you are shopping for new patio furniture you have likely seen the brand Hanamint in you search. Hanamint sells nationally from coast to coast and is in almost every patio furniture store. But why is it so popular?

Over the past few decades, as patio furniture has evolved, one frame material seems to have moved to the forefront in popularity. That material is cast aluminum. Cast aluminum is a process that molds the most maintenance free material into beautiful pieces of patio art. Casting processes enables unique old world styling to become a standard feature in the furniture.

No one comes close to the value that Hanamint provides in their cast aluminum patio furniture. You could shop other brands but would probably be wasting your time. Hanamint has many different sets including; Grand Tuscany, Tuscany, St. Augustine, Mayfair, Berkshire, Stratford, Bella, and St. Moritz. If you want it for your patio, Hanamint makes it. Chaise lounges, dining sets, deep seating sofa arrangements, bar stools, bar height tables, counter stools, counter height dining tables, benches, fire pits, sectionals and bars.

Typically, the most desired finish is Desert Bronze but they also offer some sets in Black. Desert Bronze is a great finish because it looks great with most exterior home colors and patio color schemes. In the daylight, desert bronze shows a rich bronze color with many textures or layers in the finish. At dusk or in low light, desert bronze almost appears black. Desert bronze is that dark.

Hanamint offers an unbeatable amount of high end fabric to complement their beautiful frames finishes. Sunbrella is the industry leader in outdoor fabrics. Hanamint will buy many Sunbrella fabrics to offer as options on their cushions. Sunbrella became synonymous with quality after being one of the first to offer 100% solution dyed acrylic fabrics. An acrylic fabric will last and last because the sun can only fade the fabric one percent per year. Do yourself a favor and only buy acrylic fabric on your Hanamint cushions.

Hanamint recently introduced a 2014 collection called Stratford. Stratford appears more contemporary in design with straight line cross design.

No matter what Hanamint collection you choose, you will be making the right choice.

Young Adults Disappearing From Home Buying Market

By Gino Blefari
President & CEO
Intero Real Estate Services, Inc.
 
There was a time when many homeowners bought their first house in their 20s. It's not hard to see that trend has changed quite a bit in markets across the country.
 
Ten years ago, the homeownership rate among young adults under age 35 was 43.6%, according to Census data. Today, the rate stands at just over 36%.
 
But while some homeownership critics have tried to say in recent years it's because young people don't value ownership as much as they do experience and freedom, the underlying economics tell a much different story.
 
It's not that America's young adults don't want to buy homes. Instead, there are a number of factors at play: fewer jobs (or jobs that pay enough to afford a home), delayed marriage, higher debt, and poor credit scores.
 
Eric Belsky, managing director of Harvard's Joint Center of Housing Studies, told a crowd at the National Association of Realtors' conference in Washington, D.C., last week, "There really are serious issues in the first-time buyer market."
 
Belsky estimates that nearly 3 million more young adults live with their parents today compared with 2007, before the Great Recession kicked into gear. This no doubt points to underlying problems with debt, the job market, and increasing housing costs in many areas.
 
The average college graduate is already carrying a large debt load as soon as he steps off campus. Student debts collectively add up to $1.1 trillion. And the Federal Reserve Bank of New York says student loan default rates climbed to nearly 12% last year (up from 6% in 2003).
 
Of course, millions of young adults are already affected by these numbers. But what happens to the housing market when first-time buyers become more and more delayed by circumstance? At some point, many markets may start to feel the missing buyers just as much. For instance, who buys the empty nesters' homes when they're ready to retire and downsize? Who do the move-up buyers sell to when they outgrow their starter homes?
 
It's an issue that eventually impacts each stage of the housing chain. We haven't seen a lot of solutions being laid out – other than a few initiatives that aim to curb student debt or give those in some professions relief.
 
We'll be watching this area closely to see what new data impact home buying and selling.

Home Affordability vs. Cost of Living

Home Affordability vs. Cost of Living

By Alain Pinel
General Manager of Intero Prestigio international
Intero Real Estate Services, Inc.

Are the most expensive cities in the world in which to buy a home also the most expensive to live in?
The short answer is No. Not too surprising really. One factor depends mostly on qualified supply & demand; the other depends largely on what the town –or the country- can provide in terms of goods, resources & services (with a hefty dose of taxes). Believe it or not, only a handful of the priciest cities when it comes to real estate are also in the top 15 most expensive places to live. Double jeopardy, you might say. Usual suspects like Paris, Tokyo are on that short list.

As you might guess, if you have a lot of money, either or both of these high cost aspects are not likely to be a deal-killer. I mean, the wealthy homeowners -or soon to become homeowners-, in Paris for example, are not very likely to be overly concerned about the rising price of a gallon of milk. The shopping bill, however, can impact less fortunate “locals”. Many are progressively pushed out of the up-town districts and into more affordable suburbs (if not other regions, states or countries), while more fortunate buyers/consumers, predominantly foreigners, are taking a bigger share of the golden territory.

That’s the picture that we see, a little more clearly every year, in metropolis like New York, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, London, Paris, etc. Nothing new, although the trend is accelerating, as plenty of new money from many emerging countries is looking for a better & safer refuge, often contributing in pushing prices up in the process.

Let’s look at the Forbes/Savills list of the “Most expensive cities for luxury real estate”, and compare the results with another list, published by the Telegraph in the UK, showing the ranking of the costliest world cities, as far as cost of living.
 

 

If you are looking to purchase a pad somewhere on the planet, be aware that, everything being equal, the highest price tag will be found in Hong Kong. The Chinese island territory is not getting any bigger and buildings compete for the little space they can find, even on vertical slopes. A year ago, high-end housing averaged about $11,000 per square foot. As prohibitive Hong Kong is on the real estate side, it does not make the list of the priciest cities to live in. How nice. You can always stay in a hotel and enjoy playing tourist rather than going for broke buying a condo!

Tokyo is number 2 in the world for real estate. Forbes mentions that an opulent mansion-sized home totes a market value of… $121.6 million. Life is far from cheap either in Tokyo. Japan’s capital city ranks at the sixth place, tied with other renowned towns like Geneva, Caracas and Melbourne.

Next is London. On the list established by Savills and published by Forbes, we can read that the average billionaire abode, around 7,900 square feet, costs $42 million. A terraced house recently traded for close to $120 million. Interestingly enough, the price of everyday goods is OK.

Paris is #4 on the real estate list. If you cannot afford Hong Kong, or Tokyo, or London, now you know where to go! Don’t look for a deal though, as thousands of foreign nationals from Russia, the Middle East… and everywhere else, are fighting for a piece of the City of Lights. When it comes to the cost of living, be ready for another hit on the wallet: Paris is the most expensive city in Europe, and the second most expensive in the world, behind Singapore.

According to the list of the most expensive cities for luxury real estate, Moscow comes next. A bit of a surprise, although Forbes is telling us that Moscow has the largest community of billionaires in the world. So much for buying a cheap vacation home on the Moskva River!

And then, there is New York! The Big Apple does not seem very affordable when you consider large ticket purchases close to $90M for a penthouse over Central Park, but you still can get great real estate and a good life for the money.

As for the top “cost of living cities” in the wide-world, the list goes like this:

• N.1 & N.2, as we mentioned already, we find respectively Singapore and Paris
• N.3 is… Oslo, a town of only 650,000 in booming Norway. Who would have thought?
• N.4 is Switzerland’s business mecca, Zurich, with a population half the size of that of Oslo
• To round up the top 5, we go Down-Under to Sydney, where the dollar does not go very far.

Your turn to test the real estate market around the globe, and enjoy your stay, however expensive it may be, in all those fascinating cities!