Is your Home Ready to Sell?
Posted by Anthony Licciardello on
When selling your home one of the first thing buyers see are the pictures of the house, which could make or break if they want to go look at it. With these eight ideas, you can create a great looking house ready for those pictures to be taken.
- Remove clutter: If items aren’t needed or intended to be in the room, or on a table per say, then remove them. If you have some sort of collection—e.g. figurines—make sure you have a nice display area for them and that they are not just placed around.
- Make sure to have the right lighting: Lighting is important for many rooms, if you don’t have enough the room could be too dark and look small and if you have too much it may overpower the room. To obtain a good balance of light you would want an equal amount of…
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Today, Historic Richmond Town is operated by both the Staten Island Historical Society and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. It has many historically-significant homes, stores, shops, ad objects from the past. Of these historically-significant buildings, some of them had been originally built here, while others had been moved here to preserve them. A good amount of these homes are New York City Landmarks, as well.Â
As it starts to get colder out and winter moves in, your home heating and energy bills will be increasing. We have some good news for you, though. On Friday, November 15th, Senator Andrew Lanza announced that Staten Island residents will have the opportunity to apply for the Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP). Â This is a federally-funded program that was set in place to help out households that have a low income with their energy costs.
Historic Richmond Town was the first area on Staten Island to be used for a civic and county government center, being that it is right in the middle of Staten Island. It had its own courthouse, clerk’s office, stores, churches, hotel, residences, and more. Once Staten Island became a part of the City of New York in 1898, it’s civic and county center had moved to the North Shore of the borough, in St. George, to be closer to Manhattan. The courthouse, clerk’s office, and other county offices had been moved to St. George, since it was no longer a county-run government and it turned into a city-run government.
Before the City of New York was formed in 1898, Staten Island had been comprised of five townships: Northfield, Southfield, Westfield, Castleton, and Middletown. By 1866, however, some areas of Staten Island became their own incorporated villages, one of which was Edgewater. These new incorporated villages were no longer a part of the townships and had created their own local governments. The village of Edgewater was comprised of today’s Tompkinsville, Stapleton, and Clifton neighborhoods.
According to Realtor, it is not the real estate agent’s responsibility to know if a certain home needs flood insurance, but it is their job to disclose all adverse material features, conditions, and aspects of the property. If an agent does know that it needs flood insurance, has had it in the past, or that the area has recently flooded or is subject to flooding, they must disclose this information.
First off, did you know that flood insurance not only protects your home or business’ structure, but also some of the contents, or personal property, inside of the home? When purchasing flood insurance for a home or business, you can choose the amount you want covered, just like car insurance. For the structures, flood insurance covers up to $250,000 for residences, and up to $500,000 for businesses. If you want extra coverage for your home, business, or its contents, you can purchase an additional insurance policy through another company.
The National Flood Insurance Program has been around for quite some time. Recently, however, with storms coming in stronger each year, there have been an increasing number of homeowners putting in claims from these disasters. Since not all of the homeowners that put in claims had flood insurance, this put a burden on taxpayers’ money to create federal assistance programs to help fix the damaged homes.
This past Thursday, on November 7th, Governor Cuomo announced that letters are being sent to homeowners asking them to pay a fee to apply for the School Tax Relief property tax exemption, also known as STAR. If this has happened to you, do not be fooled! There is no fee to apply for this program.