2007 Sept
2007 September Vol. 5 No. 9
Focus on...Community Finances
Borrowing Wisely
You just got a notice from your condominium board of trustees that they need to spend $3,250,000 on major projects that have been put off for many years. In theory, everyone has agreed to put off the repairs in favor of "saving" on the monthly condo fees. For the past several years, the roofs, windows and paving have been neglected and now it's time to pay the piper. This is the situation that a unit owner in a 75-unit complex now faces. Read More
Financial Mess is Equal Opportunity Employer
During recent years, while the real estate industry was inflating with breathtaking speed, the mortgage industry blossomed right along with it. When the bubble burst, what resulted in the overblown mortgage industry could be summarized as a tale of the good, the bad and the ugly Read More
Creative Marketing
As the housing slump continues throughout New England, developers in Rhode Island are adapting their projects to reflect the changing times. Some developers have opted to rent out their units as apartments instead of putting more product into an overcrowded market. Royal Mills at Riverpoint, a converted West Warwick mill, will rent out all of its 249 units, scrapping plans to sell 78 of them as condominiums. Read More
Where its @
It's decision time at a meeting between a board and a property manager and the discussion takes an unexpected turn to a document that is back at the property manager's office Read More
The Heart of the Home
Realtors agree: Kitchens sell. In fact, homeowners returned 85.2 percent of their investment on minor kitchen remodels and 80.4 percent on major remodels, according to a 2006 Cost vs. Value report in Remodeling magazine, prepared in cooperation with REALTOR Magazine. A minor remodel was defined as one that cost an average of $18,000 and a major remodel claims the heftier price tag of $54,000. Read More
The Beauty and The Beast
The previous columns in our Fiberglass Window series were about strength and efficiency properties as they apply to the use of fiberglass. Fiberglass enables windows to handle anything the demanding climate changes in New England throws at them. It is important to note that in New England, other materials such as vinyl don't perform well over time. Not only does fiberglass outperform other materials in strength, fiberglass also overachieves in its beauty! Read More
The Virtues of Telephone Calls
Those of you who use Yahoo, know that it runs "news" items in the center of its web page. Those news items are frequently updated, even though they are not always "news" items in the conventional sense of the word. Sometimes, they are curious tidbits that would be better fitted for Ripley's Believe It or Not, other times they contain career advice. A few weeks ago, one of those items proclaimed that watching television costs each person $1.2 million over a lifetime Read More
