November 25, 2004
Lazy Kids
The morning after Halloween, still possessing exactly the same number of candy bars I’d started out with the night before, I drove through Riverside with a growing sense of despair for our next generation. Not a single smashed pumpkin on the streets, no egged cars or soaped windows and only a single, lonely strand of toilet paper lying on a leaf pile. Where are the children (okay, the vandals) of yesteryear? I’m grateful that my mailbox still stands, mind you, but are today’s kids so cowed by the police that they’re all acting like ladies and gentlemen? Too busy cramming for the SATs to cause mischief? Sated by video games or just lazy? Inquiring minds want to know. And no, this is not an open invitation for teenage punks to stop by my house and display some initiative.
In Town Condominium
Charles McConnel has dropped the price of his two bedroom condominium at 50 Church Street, #10 (the project is named “The Nantucket”, but don’t hold that against it) from $895,000 to $799,000. At its new price, I think the unit is an excellent deal. These condos were built around 1985 then sat empty for a long time as the recession caused by “TEFRA” hit. Do you remember TEFRA? It was a tax law that, among other bad ideas (still with us) eliminated tax deductions for “passive” income. I was in an advanced tax law class in the early 1980’s when TEFRA was first proposed and I recall my professor predicting that it would never be enacted because it would wipe out billions of dollars in real estate investments. He was wrong about the bill’s future and dead right about its effect.
But I digress. The 50 Church Street condos went into bankruptcy – twice, I think– and eventually were completed and sold. They’ve been a good investment since and I think they remain so. Church Street is a very convenient location and “The Nantucket” condos are well built, bright and comfortable. Number 10 is an end unit that encompasses 1,939 square feet, not including its attached garage. A nice buy, in my opinion.
House Inspections
Back when I practiced real estate law, purchase/sale contracts were usually contingent upon a satisfactory building inspection. This caused all sorts of trouble, because there probably isn’t a house in town that can score 100% on an inspection. So a deal that had been agreed and set in stone became subject to a whole new round of negotiations, lengthening the process and increasing the chances that the deal would fall apart. These days, after an offer is accepted, the buyer is often given a short period: five to ten days, say, in which to perform an inspection. Depending on what the inspection turns up, the parties either proceed to contract along the original terms or at a lower price. Either way, the fully executed contract that emerges is a more final document, which is good.
What should you look for in a building inspector? We agents, I suppose, have conflicting interests: we want the deal to go through (otherwise we have to go find you another house, and where’s the profit in that?) so we don’t want to recommend some alarmist Chicken Little, like the inspector who, finding absolutely nothing wrong in a house two years old, spent fifteen minutes warning the potential home buyer of the dangerous condition posed by a loose flagstone on the front walk. On the other hand, the buyer/agent relationship is, we hope a long term one; we don’t want to sell you a house that’s termite infested, has a radon reading that will make your children glow in the dark and a furnace that’s held together with spit and bubble gum. So with all that as a caveat, here are some inspectors who I think do a very thorough, professional job: Mike Powers, at Pro-Check (800-338-5050), and Tom Comella at Carnelli Engineers (in Stamford, 358-8741). Cost? $600 to $5,000, depending on the how much you want done. As in the rest of life, you get what you pay for. Inspectors from either of these companies will inspect the mechanical systems within reason, but also caution you that they are not HVAC experts, and so on. Another inspector here in town, Rick Hvolbeck 661-1218 will arrange for an army of experts to descend on a house at the same time and they’ll inspect it within an inch of its life. Your call. Another issue to consider, especially in today’s hot market, is whether your inspector will come out on a weekend on a moment’s notice because often there isn’t time to wait for the workweek. In my experience, all three of these inspectors I’ve mentioned will do that.
The morning after Halloween, still possessing exactly the same number of candy bars I’d started out with the night before, I drove through Riverside with a growing sense of despair for our next generation. Not a single smashed pumpkin on the streets, no egged cars or soaped windows and only a single, lonely strand of toilet paper lying on a leaf pile. Where are the children (okay, the vandals) of yesteryear? I’m grateful that my mailbox still stands, mind you, but are today’s kids so cowed by the police that they’re all acting like ladies and gentlemen? Too busy cramming for the SATs to cause mischief? Sated by video games or just lazy? Inquiring minds want to know. And no, this is not an open invitation for teenage punks to stop by my house and display some initiative.
In Town Condominium
Charles McConnel has dropped the price of his two bedroom condominium at 50 Church Street, #10 (the project is named “The Nantucket”, but don’t hold that against it) from $895,000 to $799,000. At its new price, I think the unit is an excellent deal. These condos were built around 1985 then sat empty for a long time as the recession caused by “TEFRA” hit. Do you remember TEFRA? It was a tax law that, among other bad ideas (still with us) eliminated tax deductions for “passive” income. I was in an advanced tax law class in the early 1980’s when TEFRA was first proposed and I recall my professor predicting that it would never be enacted because it would wipe out billions of dollars in real estate investments. He was wrong about the bill’s future and dead right about its effect.
But I digress. The 50 Church Street condos went into bankruptcy – twice, I think– and eventually were completed and sold. They’ve been a good investment since and I think they remain so. Church Street is a very convenient location and “The Nantucket” condos are well built, bright and comfortable. Number 10 is an end unit that encompasses 1,939 square feet, not including its attached garage. A nice buy, in my opinion.
House Inspections
Back when I practiced real estate law, purchase/sale contracts were usually contingent upon a satisfactory building inspection. This caused all sorts of trouble, because there probably isn’t a house in town that can score 100% on an inspection. So a deal that had been agreed and set in stone became subject to a whole new round of negotiations, lengthening the process and increasing the chances that the deal would fall apart. These days, after an offer is accepted, the buyer is often given a short period: five to ten days, say, in which to perform an inspection. Depending on what the inspection turns up, the parties either proceed to contract along the original terms or at a lower price. Either way, the fully executed contract that emerges is a more final document, which is good.
What should you look for in a building inspector? We agents, I suppose, have conflicting interests: we want the deal to go through (otherwise we have to go find you another house, and where’s the profit in that?) so we don’t want to recommend some alarmist Chicken Little, like the inspector who, finding absolutely nothing wrong in a house two years old, spent fifteen minutes warning the potential home buyer of the dangerous condition posed by a loose flagstone on the front walk. On the other hand, the buyer/agent relationship is, we hope a long term one; we don’t want to sell you a house that’s termite infested, has a radon reading that will make your children glow in the dark and a furnace that’s held together with spit and bubble gum. So with all that as a caveat, here are some inspectors who I think do a very thorough, professional job: Mike Powers, at Pro-Check (800-338-5050), and Tom Comella at Carnelli Engineers (in Stamford, 358-8741). Cost? $600 to $5,000, depending on the how much you want done. As in the rest of life, you get what you pay for. Inspectors from either of these companies will inspect the mechanical systems within reason, but also caution you that they are not HVAC experts, and so on. Another inspector here in town, Rick Hvolbeck 661-1218 will arrange for an army of experts to descend on a house at the same time and they’ll inspect it within an inch of its life. Your call. Another issue to consider, especially in today’s hot market, is whether your inspector will come out on a weekend on a moment’s notice because often there isn’t time to wait for the workweek. In my experience, all three of these inspectors I’ve mentioned will do that.
posted by Chris Fountain at 8:08 AM
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