Posted on July 31st, 2007 by Tim Menk
This weekend, I visited a friend who has been remodeling an upstairs room into a den. The design includes abundant indoor plants and a water fountain. To add more of an outdoor feel to the space, he has added a light tube that brings outdoor light into the room through a domed light shaft installed in the roof.
The same technique can be used to deliver natural light into rooms that lack a window, such as many bathrooms and utility rooms. They require relatively little space to install and are quite flexible in regard to where they are placed in the roof relative to where the light tube ultimately sheds the captured outdoor light.
If you’d like to read more on the subject, Realty Times has a fine introduction to the subject.
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Filed under: Design, Products, Vacation Homes | No Comments »
Posted on July 30th, 2007 by Florence Beaton
Sorry this is a couple of days late. There are a couple of repeats this week, and one listing that hasn’t been on the top viewed list. Here they are:
#1 is a Sunapee Lake-front home in Sunapee, NH that’s been featured before and is listed at $3.95 million and listed by the New London Agency.
#2 is a $549,900 log home near Snowshoe Resort in West Virginia and is listed by RE/MAX Old Spruce Properties.
#3 is the Echota development in Boone, NC listed by Foscoe Realty.
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Filed under: Buying, Selling, Vacation Homes | No Comments »
Posted on July 27th, 2007 by Florence Beaton
The New York Times has a great guide on what to do with 36 hours in Martha’s Vineyard. If you’re a newcomer to the island, or considering purchasing a vacation home there, this article can give you a number of hints on what to do and what to see (outside the normal tourist traps). It can also serve as a great guide to leave for your renters if you already own a vacation home rental on the Vineyard.
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Filed under: Buying, Investment Homes, Local, Vacation Homes | No Comments »
Posted on July 26th, 2007 by Tim Menk
Running counter to the national real estate trends of late is the continuing growth in the luxury real estate market. This part of the market seems to be largely unaffected by the economic slowdown in many areas that has been marked by steeply rising inventories of unsold homes in many markets. Some of the formerly hot second home markets have suffered steep declines in sales and home prices.
As it is said, to every rule there is an exception. The exceptional growth of the luxury home market in many parts of the country has been tracking with a new trend within that market segment: bigger is better. In Sagaponack, New York (next door to the fabled Hamptons), a 57,000 square foot home is rising in former potato fields. It has 25 bedrooms and 39 bathrooms. The gargantuan size of this home has stirred passions among local residents and other area second homeowners. How big is too big? At what point will communities decide that this trend needs to be reined in?
A recent article in the New York Times discusses this issue, and how communities are coping with this disturbing and disruptive trend.
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Posted on July 25th, 2007 by Florence Beaton
Even though this article on the “10 Top Mistakes of Novice Investors” from AOL’s Real Estate portal is a little outdated (it quotes statistics from 2004), it still has solid advice for potential real estate investors. Investing in real estate for the first time can be a bit scary, and there are a lot of things to consider before purchasing. Some things to consider included in the article are making sure that you perform due dilligence, and not studying the competition (after all, if every other vacation rental in your chosen area has a pool, and the home you’re purchasing doesn’t, are you going to need to put one in before you can get a good rental price, and how much is that going to cost you?). It’s a very good primer for anyone who’s considering investing.
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Filed under: Buying, Investment Homes | No Comments »
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