Water comprises one-sixteenth of the state of New Hampshire, and much of it is in the central portion of the state known as the Lakes Region which contains 273 lakes and ponds in a variety of sizes from the mammoth Lake Winnipesaukee to small Duncan lake, with all sizes in between. The following describes just a few of the best lakes in New Hampshire.

LAKE WINNIPESAUKEE The Complete Package

Lake Winnipesaukee, the third largest lake in New England, is a sapphire-blue glacial giant with 274 habitable islands and a 240-mile shoreline containing many coves and inlets. The several lake communities can provide any kind of environment: beach activity and entertainment or a quiet nature walk; white-linen cuisine or campsite cooking; a small cottage or a gracious resort.

Meredith – Population 6,303

Meredith, situated on the western shore, is a place to relax and unwind with many walking paths along the lake. The old-fashioned downtown makes you feel that you’re back in the 40s or 50s. And, Meredith is not just about summer as the nearby White Mountain National Forest offers excellent skiing opportunities.

Wolfeboro – Population 2,838

Wolfeboro, on the eastern shore, claims to be the oldest summer resort in the US and has managed to retain that “get away from it all” ambiance. Wolfeboro is home to fine neighborhoods with large, old homes. A stroll down one of the eastern side streets will give you a view of the cool, calm lake surrounded by mountains. In the winter, more than forty miles of groomed ski trails offer scenic skiing.

SQUAM LAKE Lake Winnipesaukee’s Opposite

Squam Lake is composed of Little Squam and Big Squam. Big Squam, New Hampshire’s second largest lake, is famous as the lake on which the Fonda-Hepburn classic On Golden Pond was filmed. Click here to see scenes from the actual cabin used.

Only ten miles away from Lake Winnipesaukee; culturally, Squam Lake is more like a thousand. You won’t have to listen to noisy jet skis and speedboats as boating is low-impact. Squam’s rocky shallow shoreline is not suited to beach lovers, so most swimmers dive off boats or docks. Or, you can go hiking – the area around the lake has fifty miles of hiking trails. Evenings are spent listening to the clink of ice cubes in a gin and tonic and the calls of a loon.

Sandwich – Population 1,200 plus

Sandwich received its name from John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, the inventor of the versatile sandwich way of eating. Although Sandwich is one of the larger New Hampshire towns, its population density is less than fifteen residents per square mile.  With its classic New England setting of colorful forests, winding roads and rolling hills, it serves as the cultural hub of the Lakes Region.

OSSIPEE LAKE A fisherman’s delight

Ossipee Lake is a popular vacation site with housing developments (many with private beaches), condos, and cabins. It is also the location of the Ossipee Pine Barrens, a highly protected forest ecosystem that includes some rare butterfly and moth species.

The lake is classified as both a cold- and warm-water fishery. Species include brown bullhead, chain pickerel, lake trout, land-locked salmon, largemouth bass, rainbow trout, smallmouth bass, sunfish, white perch, and yellow perch. Nearby spring fed Duncan Lake is another great fishing spot.

Freedom and Ossipee

These two towns offer small community living at its best. Freedom (population 1,489), on the eastern side of the lake, is an historic rural town with plenty of open space and wonderful sunsets. Ossipee (population 4,345), on the western side, is where the snowmobile was invented.

NEWFOUND LAKE The most beautiful one?

Yes, Yankee Magazine gave it the title of the most beautiful lake in New Hampshire. Newfound Lake is a glacial lake fed by eight springs, and its water is touted as the most pristine in the state. The Newfound Lake Region Association diligently monitors the lake to keep milfoil at bay. The aptly named Paradise Point contains an Audubon preserve incorporating 3,500 feet of untouched shorefront. Four towns share the lake frontage – Alexandria, Bridgewater, Bristol and Hebron.

Bristol – Population 3,000

Early visitors compared the sand in this location to “Bristol sand,” the raw material used to manufacture fine china in Bristol, England. Bristol, the most developed town along the lake, has many condominiums and close-to-lakeside housing communities. Famous residents have included Thomas A. Watson, Alexander Graham Bell’s trusty assistant, and John Cheever, the novelist.

CONCLUSION

Looking to buy a vacation home? The Lakes Region of New Hampshire is a great option. Many lakefront properties have their own docks or mooring facilities, and some have private beach access. A vacation home on one of the lakes offers a home away from home in a setting of natural beauty.

There are dozens of communities in the Hudson Valley that people are proud to call home. Outstanding among them is Piermont with its cluster of houses on the face of the Tallman Mountains facing the Hudson River. The first impression of Piermont one receives is that of picturesqueness. This 0.7-square-mile hamlet, an incorporated village of the town of Orangetown, resembles a hillside village in a Mediterranean country or a place you would expect to find in Sausalito, California. It provides a sharp contrast to much of the surrounding neighborhood of Rockland County, New York.

Situated three miles south of the Tappan Zee Bridge, Piermont is insulated from the noise of traffic crossing the span from Rockland County to Westchester County. In Piermont, you will find artists, authors, musicians, and others looking for a peaceful refuge from the clamor of modern life.

Piermont’s Interesting History

The Tappan Indians were early residents. They were a farming community who traded game and fish with the Dutch explorers in the 17th century. Thereafter, this section of the Hudson River evolved into a busy port. In more recent times, Piermont was not its current idyllic self. Once a factory town, Piermont in the 1950s was the home of the Continental Can Company, and later the site of the Piermont Paper Company. With the closing of the paper mill in the 1970s, the village went into a decline. In the 1980s, it was still reminiscent of a village laid bare by hard times and provided an ideal backdrop for the 1985 Woody Allen movie The Purple Rose of Cairo, which is set during the Great Depression.

The pier, which extends into the river for one full mile, was constructed in the 19th century to accommodate river traffic and was used during World War II as an embarkation point for troops heading to Europe.

Piermont’s Varied Architecture

Ash Street, as it winds down from Route 9W, displays residences in various styles. These range from stone homes built in the 1700s, Greek Revivals from the 1800s, and Victorians to split-levels, ranches, and contemporaries. What you won’t find is a McMansion. Residential real estate in Piermont tends to attract the creative, do-your-own-kind-of-thing buyer.

Bogertown, a waterfront section, features renovated 19th-century fishermen’s shacks dating from the period of Dutch immigration. Close by on the pier, there are more modern townhouses and condos built in the late 1900s. An impressive tableau, contrasting with all this modernity yet reminding some of a modern sculpture, is made by an original 12-by-28-foot flywheel from the era of the paper factory. It was too heavy to remove, so remains mounted on a concrete base that was part of the original factory floor.

Restaurants and Shopping

Restaurants in Piermont attract diners from Westchester County and New Jersey. They include Xaviars at Piermont, Slattery’s Landing, the Freelance Cafe and Wine Bar, the Turning Point (with live folk music), and the Sidewalk Bistro. If you like celebrity spotting, you can sometimes see one of these luminaries (from the nearby exclusive enclave of Sneden’s Landing) frequenting one of Piermont’s restaurants or nightspots.

Lovers of quirky clothing and tabletop incidentals can find these items along Piermont Avenue and the pier. Stores include Abigail Rose, Lily Too (owned by Bonnie Chapin, the wife of Tom Chapin, the singer/songwriter), and Abercorn Place, which spotlights new designers. For more mundane, everyday shopping, there are many malls, shopping plazas and centers within driving distance.

Recreation

If you like being outside, Piermont is perfect for you. Children can spend afternoons and weekends biking on the long pier. There are fishing and crabbing in the river and canoeing and kayaking either on the river or Sparkill Creek. Piermont is the most popular fishing spot on the Hudson. Herring, perch, tommy cod, winter bluefish, and eels are common catches, but the “striper” run in late March/early April is the biggest draw for anglers. An estimated seven million striped bass, some of them as big as sixty pounds, make the migration.

Three marinas are within half a mile of the Piermont Pier and provide access to the river, the Atlantic Ocean, and Long Island Sound. Boats are available for charter.

Piermont is on the doorstep of Tallman Mountain State Park where you can espy the Manhattan skyline from the top of a mountain but feel a million miles away from a big city. The park offers a playing field, picnic areas, tennis courts, a running track, hiking trails, and cross-country skiing. Part of the park, the Tallman Beach & Pool Club provides access to a beach and a large pool.

On weekends, the village is a magnet for tourists and cyclists. Across the George Washing Bridge and up to Piermont is a favorite route for cyclists and walkers coming from New York City. Many walking, running, and biking trails are accessible from Piermont, including “The Footpath From Gotham” (aka the Long Path) whose turquoise blazes extend 357 miles beginning at the 175th Street Subway Station in New York City and terminating at John Boyd Thacher State Park near Albany.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a desirable residence in an attractive setting away from the big city lights but still in commuting distance, Piermont clearly fits the bill. 

 

 

The 2014 population figure for New York City is 8,491,079. What’s remarkable about this number is that it’s just 60,000 shy of the 2020 population projection. New transplants from other areas of the US and other parts of the world are constantly arriving and creating an ongoing need for housing. There are also investors out there looking for the next boom in the City’s real estate markets, which appears to be taking place in the Bronx, and, in particular, the South Bronx.

The Bronx is a Hot Market

The Bronx is the northernmost one of the five boroughs making up New York City with an estimated 2014 population of 1,438,159 and 522,149 housing units in a wide diversity of neighborhoods. Sections of the Bronx are currently experiencing a dramatic increase in real estate transactions. According to Ariel Property Advisors, total real estate investments in 2014 rose 39 percent to $2.39 billion and approximately seventy percent of all properties sold were multi-family buildings. According to a leading real estate company, Bronx home prices have appreciated 12.2% over the last five years. The median sales price for Bronx homes for the period September 15 to December 15, 2015 was $370,400, representing an increase of 5.8% over the prior quarter and 4% over to the previous year. For the week ending Dec 9, 2015, the average listing price for Bronx homes was $424,816, representing an increase of 1.4% compared to the prior week. The most popular neighborhoods included Edgewater Park, Jerome Park, Riverdale, Throgs Neck, Wakefield, and Williambridge.

Is The Bronx the Next Brooklyn?

That’s the question posed by a June 2015 article in Real Estate Week. If you’re standing outside Grand Central Station, the Bronx can easily seem like another planet. But the never diminishing need in the Big Apple for reasonably priced housing is in the process of transforming the area. This is comparable to what happened in Brooklyn, which was once considered to be an “outside” territory, where you would temporarily plant yourself until you could afford that dream residence on Park Avenue. Now, not only can’t you buy that apartment on Madison Avenue, but you also can’t afford to live in Park Slope.

Mark Stagg, CEO of the Stagg Group, one of the Bronx’s prolific developers, feels that the next wave of Bronx inhabitants will be millennials in search of affordable housing in a neighborhood they’d be proud to post to social media from and where they can settle down and raise a family. “Our model is that we provide market-rate apartments for working-class people. The nurses, nurses’ aides, firemen, policemen making $40,000 to $80,000. Those people need a place to live” Stagg says.

Mayor de Blasio’s Affordable Housing Plan

City Limits has identified dozens of Bronx addresses being eyed for rezoning and housing development as part of the mayor’s ambitious program to build or preserve nearly 200,000 units of affordable housing. The bulk of these addresses is in the South Bronx. The plan encourages developers to provide affordable units mixed in with those at market rates, and will contribute to the availability of both classes of housing.

Webster Avenue Vision Plan

This plan is an example of what is happening in the world of Bronx real estate. Webster Avenue is a major Bronx thoroughfare, extending from the communities of Melrose to Woodlawn. The plan focuses on the approximately 1.5-mile long section between Fordham Road and Gun Hill Road. The FBIA (Four Bronx Institutions Alliance – Fordham University, Montefiore Medical Center, The New York Botanical Garden, and the Bronx Zoo) in collaboration with the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) is facilitating a plan to turn Webster Avenue into a neighborhood “main street,” with more than 950 additional residential units and 430,000 square feet of new commercial development.

South Bronx Sizzle

Without a doubt, the dominant trend in Bronx real estate concerns the South Bronx. Once a picture of urban blight and burned-out buildings, the area is now a magnet for real estate investors. An area that has long avoided gentrification is on the way up, and it’s the perfect place for home buyers looking for affordability. The NY Daily News reports that $2.39 billion was ponied up by investors for Bronx properties in 2014, an increase of 39% from 2012, and 55% from 2013. The South Bronx accounted for fifty percent of that figure. The Real Estate Board of NY reports that home prices are up across the borough, but especially in the South Bronx neighborhoods of Mott Haven, Port Morris, and Hunts Point, where the average sales price in 2015’s second quarter jumped sixty-four percent from the same period a year ago. In June, the Buildings Department issued 759 new residential permits for units in the Bronx, a record for a single month since 2005.

Why is the South Bronx Turning Around?

Experts attribute this real estate boom to one critical factor: the Bronx’s dramatically improved crime statistics.  In the 41st Precinct, best known by its nickname Fort Apache in the  1981 film Fort Apache, the Bronx, the murder rate has fallen 91% since 1990 according to NYPD stats. In the adjoining 40th Precinct, which includes much of Mott Haven, homicides dropped from seventy-two to seven during the same period. Residents can now walk the streets and feel safe.

Conclusion

The Bronx is headed for a very interesting and exciting real-estate future that will benefit both investors and owner-occupants. Contact us now to find your perfect residence in the Bronx.