Doing Renovations? Your Homeowner’s Insurance May Be Void

Posted on February 7, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

We’ve formally applied for our rehab loan and gearing up to start construction (finally!!) One of the items we knew we’d have to deal with is insurance. The bank requires it, and we want it…

When we spoke with the insurance agent our real estate lawyer recommended, he told us we needed what’s called a “builder’s risk policy” and it would cost $6,000 per year. But in talking to our loan officer he was recommending we get a homeowner’s policy that would cost a fraction of that amount.

We resisted buying the builder’s risk until we were actually doing construction. Our agent found a renter’s policy (with Chubb) that gives us liability coverage at the building (not something renter’s policies usually do). But now we need to get a proper policy and we’re conflicted. The new quote came in for the builder’s risk policy and it’s $6,916/year – almost $7,000!

We’d like to get a homeowner’s policy to save money, but in reading up on it, most homeowner’s policies won’t pay out if the building is under renovation – which is why our agent was recommending builder’s risk. You’d think the loan officer would know that – he deals in a lot of rehab mortgages. Hopefully he’ll know which insurance companies issue renovation-friendly homeowner’s policies. But the issue is that our building isn’t even habitable – somehow I think we’ll be stuck with a builder’s risk policy.

So if you’re doing renovation – check your homeowner’s policy very carefully and make sure it will payout while you’re doing work. You don’t want to pay for insurance and then find out you’re actually uninsured when you put in a claim… As much as I don’t like paying $7,000 – I’ll sleep better knowing I’m properly insured.

NYC Cars Buried In Snowbanks

Posted on February 3, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

After weeks of snow storm after snow storm, these days when you walk around New York you see a lot of cars that look like they’re swallowed up by the snow. The piles of snow just flow up and over them. On wider roads (like Broadway) the snow even goes up and over them on the street side – so they’re completely encapsulated in snow – they just look like a little hill…

Here are some pics of a few of the cars in my neighborhood (Hudson Heights)…

A Stop Work Order When Violation Is Resolved?

Posted on February 1, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

Geez… It just never ends with the NYC DOB… We STILL have a stop work order despite the fact that all the violations have been resolved. Here’s our building page on the DOB website clearly showing that we have a stop work order…

When you click on the stop work order link to see which violations are behind the stop work order you see this…

Notice there’s only one violation and the status column is “RES” (resolved). But just to reiterate the point here’s the detail page about the violation. Notice “RESOLVED” in big block letters…

I’m really sorta sick of all these sorts of things. It’s one thing to be strict, it’s another to have computer systems that are incapable of removing a stop work order when the underlying violation gets resolved. Or issuing violations for not closing an approved job that can’t be renewed.

This is 2011… They need to get a computer programmer and put some common sense into their systems…

Interesting Comp – 944 St. Nick Sold For $935K

Posted on January 31, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

I haven’t actually delved into it too much, but I get the sense that townhouse prices are going down a bit again. It’s not really what we want to hear, but it is what it is…

Case and point is 944 St. Nicolas Ave (between 157 and 158). It’s technically in Southern Washington Heights – but just barely outside the northern boundary of Harlem (which ends at 155), and historically it’s in Carmansville – most of which is now called Sugar Hill, which is part of Harlem. Anyway, it just sold for $935K (291/sq. ft. including basement). I’d say the buyers got a great deal – a perfectly livable townhouse for under $1M. If you look at the pictures below you’ll see it was in pretty good shape and appears to mostly just need a little cosmetic work to suit the tastes of the new buyers. (That said, 100 year old townhouses always need some sort of work – sometimes it’s substantial despite pretty pictures).

There are some negatives though… Subway access is OK, but not great – just the A & C trains. It’s in a pretty sleepy neighborhood, and not in a historic district. Aspects of the layout are slightly awkward. It’s “renovated”, but it looks like each of the bathrooms was renovated in a different style. And it’s on a short, 50′ lot with just 10′ of back yard.

Still, it proves good deals are out there for any of you who have budget issues…

Round 1 w/ Historic Preservation – OK So Far

Posted on January 26, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

It took us forever to get our application together for the historic preservation tax credit, but we finally got it in just after New Years. Yesterday we got a call from one of the reviewers who asked a few questions and then sent us a PDF of their comments. All in all no huge surprises. They wanted a lot more detail on exactly what we were doing with the exterior masonry. How we were getting the stucco off the brick in the rear. How we were cleaning the brick. Exactly what we going to do with the front since the brownstone is currently painted, etc. If you follow historic preservation guidelines none of those items are big deals. It’s just important to make sure you know what they want before you do it. Today we had a meeting with our contractor and the masonry sub-contractor – none of it seemed to be a problem, though it did change how he was going to handle the brownstone in the front.

They also wanted to know what we meant about raising the parapets. They prefer we put railings on top of the parapets instead of raising them. However, on the party wall fire code requires that we actually raise the parapet. The sum total is that they want us to raise parapets as little as possible and prefer railings over taller parapets since railings are easily reversible.

One issue was that we had spec’d vinyl windows in bathrooms. The windows are in shower areas and vinyl is more appropriate in a wet location. Plus, it’s in a sidewall which is a few feet from an apartment building – so not generally visible. The said they understood why we had spec’d vinyl in that particular location, but said the National Park Service usually doesn’t like vinyl windows. But the sum total was that they cautioned us to not order the windows before we get NPS approval – so it sounds like they personally think vinyl is OK in that particular situation.

The last issue was that I told her we heard from our window and door manufacturer that they weren’t able to fabricate 10 foot tall doors. That means we’d need to have shorter doors with a transom on top. I said our other option was to get salvaged doors and restore them, but our concern was that they wouldn’t be identical to what was there originally. She thought salvaged doors were the stronger option even if they weren’t like the originals. As long as they were of the neighborhood and of the era we’d be fine. However, in talking to our contractor today he’d prefer to make new replicas of the original doors. We just have a photo of our place from 1940, but I think it should be good enough for him to come pretty close to what was there originally, so that’s what we’ll propose in our revised application.

All in all nothing major. That means we can proceed with getting a loan and going into contract with our contractor. More hurdles to jump through, but we’re moving forward…