Parsonage Road
One of the nicest roads in town is the portion of Parsonage that stretches from the Nathaniel Witherall Home to Lake Avenue. With big, graceful houses, beautiful lawns and low stonewalls, this is classic Greenwich; it is also, sadly, one of the few such remaining streetscapes. Elsewhere in town owners are erecting six foot high walls or fences or evergreen hedges (or in the case of one house on Riversville Road, all three!) to block the view from the street and, presumably, create a sense of privacy for the new tenants. Fair enough; no one is obligated to provide a view for someone else, but we’re becoming a town of tunnels and alleyways and I, at least, find that unpleasant. Try this test; drive down Parsonage, then tour Riversville, Lake Avenue and North Street. Just like an SAT test, you can contrast and compare.
Run! It’s the Costimater!
The recent woes of southern California residents burned out by the brush fires prompted me to call Dave Beaty of Rand Insurance (637-1006) to get the low down on the right amount of insurance a homeowner needs. Here it is: you want, if you can get it, a “guaranteed dwelling replacement policy” so that your home will be rebuilt to the same quality as it existed before the calamity. Some firms don’t offer this and instead sell something called “Additional Replacement” or “Limited Replacement” policies which set a cap on the amount they’ll pay. For instance, if you have a $500,000 policy face amount and a “Limited Replacement” cap of, say, 20%, you’ll be paid up to but not more than $600,000. That’s not so good, particularly if the firm used a generic “Costimater” to calculate building costs. Just like those medical insurance policies that set their “customary and usual” repayment coverage to medical charges in Danbury and leave Greenwich residents with a whacking big hole in their coverage, some of these firms use building costs of $100 square foot for their estimates when Greenwich costs are closer to $225. In California, many residents are going to receive the full value of their policy and still be out of pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can avoid this by buying the right policy in the first place, making certain that you understand the exact amount of coverage and how replacement costs are estimated, paying the occasional policy increases that come along over the years and always notifying your carrier of any substantial additions to your home. As an aside, Rand Insurance has been around for at least three generations (Lindsey Rand appears to be about to contribute a fourth) and, in all my years in town, I’ve heard only good things about their expertise and service. I don’t get a cut of their fee and I’m not even one of their customers but readers with questions about their coverage could do worse than to call Dave Beaty.
Knotted Knickers
My disparaging comments a few weeks ago concerning the service home sellers can expect from some (note the word, “some”) of the big realty chains stirred up quite a ruckus. Several brokers called me to complain that, in trying to avoid naming specific chains, I had used too broad a brush. A fair comment, as I told the one general manager who called: Eric Bjork, of Prudential. Prudential was very much not one of the chains I was complaining about and I’m happy to make that clear. Another chain’s manager, one Nancy MacDonald, has written a letter to this paper accusing me of being lazy, stupid and ignorant as well as deliberately violating all sorts of ethical obligations; other than that, I guess she thought the column was okay. MacDonald closes her letter by expressing her hope that I’ll work hard and become a “spokesperson for the industry” but here’s a surprise for her: I am not a flack for the real estate industry nor do I aspire to be. This opinion column is intended to be a view from the trenches as seen by a single participant. As for writing “false and misleading” material, I plead innocent: a number of agents, including one who works for one the chains I had in mind, told me that they agreed with every word I wrote. And, finally, a bit of advice for letter writers everywhere: when corresponding with newspaper editors, eschew phrases like “I am shocked and dismayed”; someone may infer from your hackneyed writing style that you lack originality of thought. We wouldn’t want that.
One of the nicest roads in town is the portion of Parsonage that stretches from the Nathaniel Witherall Home to Lake Avenue. With big, graceful houses, beautiful lawns and low stonewalls, this is classic Greenwich; it is also, sadly, one of the few such remaining streetscapes. Elsewhere in town owners are erecting six foot high walls or fences or evergreen hedges (or in the case of one house on Riversville Road, all three!) to block the view from the street and, presumably, create a sense of privacy for the new tenants. Fair enough; no one is obligated to provide a view for someone else, but we’re becoming a town of tunnels and alleyways and I, at least, find that unpleasant. Try this test; drive down Parsonage, then tour Riversville, Lake Avenue and North Street. Just like an SAT test, you can contrast and compare.
Run! It’s the Costimater!
The recent woes of southern California residents burned out by the brush fires prompted me to call Dave Beaty of Rand Insurance (637-1006) to get the low down on the right amount of insurance a homeowner needs. Here it is: you want, if you can get it, a “guaranteed dwelling replacement policy” so that your home will be rebuilt to the same quality as it existed before the calamity. Some firms don’t offer this and instead sell something called “Additional Replacement” or “Limited Replacement” policies which set a cap on the amount they’ll pay. For instance, if you have a $500,000 policy face amount and a “Limited Replacement” cap of, say, 20%, you’ll be paid up to but not more than $600,000. That’s not so good, particularly if the firm used a generic “Costimater” to calculate building costs. Just like those medical insurance policies that set their “customary and usual” repayment coverage to medical charges in Danbury and leave Greenwich residents with a whacking big hole in their coverage, some of these firms use building costs of $100 square foot for their estimates when Greenwich costs are closer to $225. In California, many residents are going to receive the full value of their policy and still be out of pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can avoid this by buying the right policy in the first place, making certain that you understand the exact amount of coverage and how replacement costs are estimated, paying the occasional policy increases that come along over the years and always notifying your carrier of any substantial additions to your home. As an aside, Rand Insurance has been around for at least three generations (Lindsey Rand appears to be about to contribute a fourth) and, in all my years in town, I’ve heard only good things about their expertise and service. I don’t get a cut of their fee and I’m not even one of their customers but readers with questions about their coverage could do worse than to call Dave Beaty.
Knotted Knickers
My disparaging comments a few weeks ago concerning the service home sellers can expect from some (note the word, “some”) of the big realty chains stirred up quite a ruckus. Several brokers called me to complain that, in trying to avoid naming specific chains, I had used too broad a brush. A fair comment, as I told the one general manager who called: Eric Bjork, of Prudential. Prudential was very much not one of the chains I was complaining about and I’m happy to make that clear. Another chain’s manager, one Nancy MacDonald, has written a letter to this paper accusing me of being lazy, stupid and ignorant as well as deliberately violating all sorts of ethical obligations; other than that, I guess she thought the column was okay. MacDonald closes her letter by expressing her hope that I’ll work hard and become a “spokesperson for the industry” but here’s a surprise for her: I am not a flack for the real estate industry nor do I aspire to be. This opinion column is intended to be a view from the trenches as seen by a single participant. As for writing “false and misleading” material, I plead innocent: a number of agents, including one who works for one the chains I had in mind, told me that they agreed with every word I wrote. And, finally, a bit of advice for letter writers everywhere: when corresponding with newspaper editors, eschew phrases like “I am shocked and dismayed”; someone may infer from your hackneyed writing style that you lack originality of thought. We wouldn’t want that.
posted by Chris Fountain at 9:53 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home