Category Archives: Real Estate

Apr 06 5 comments
General, Real Estate

The town tax assessor came ’round the other day

I feel like I’ve been robbed.  You know how real estate prices have been dropping, the bubble has burst, etc.  Apparently the tax assessor missed that memo, our value went up by nearly $30K.    Frankly, I’d like to see the rational for it.

If it is the solar systems, then they are supposed to be tax exempt for ten years, according to this New York State real property law.  So, I suppose it is time to mosey on down to the town hall and see the tax assessor, find out were all that value has come from.  Honestly, the outside of our house looks the same way it has for the last 3 years.  I have done very little to make it look better or even good, for that matter.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Jan 31 6 comments
Real Estate, Repairs

Six years ago

We bought this house.  Unbeknownst to us, we got much more than we bargained for, in the bad department.  It was a fixer upper, that much we knew.  In 2004, the home inspection business was not regulated in NY state.  We hired a “home inspector” on the recommendation of the real estate agent.  When he showed up, in a beat up old van, and climbed out, I though, “This is not good.”  He proceeded to talk the talk, and made an effort to crawl around in the attic, and point out a few obvious problems, which we already knew about.

So, long story short, the trouble began soon after we started renovating.  Termite damage was extensive, and the two additions to the house had to be gutted and rebuilt.  Rather than pass our problems on to someone else, we decided to press on and finish the project.  The first 4 months were spent ripping out the entire floor system, including girder and joists, replacing the rim joist, replacing all of the doors, building a new kitchen.  Needless to say, our renovation fund disappeared at an alarming rate.

I decided then, to make the structure as energy efficient as possible.  That included adding extra insulation to all the walls.  In the attic, we added 18 inches of blown cellulose, we replaced some old single pane windows in the master bedroom and added zone heating, programmable thermostats and an outdoor boiler reset.  The effect of all this was to reduce our oil use from 800 gallons per year down to around 500 gallons.

Then, I installed a small Jotul F-100 woodstove in the living room.  This is not a full time, heat your house with wood appliance, it is much too small for that.  Rather, it is a nice warm fire on a cold night, with a nice big glass viewing area that makes in almost like an open hearth.  We use about 1 cord of wood per year, our oil use is now about 400 gallons per year.

Next came the solar hot water system.  Prior to this, our hot water came from an electric water heater.  Our electric usage was about 1,000 kWh per month, or 12,000 kWh per year.  The hot water heater reduced that by a third, making it about 8,500 kWh per year.

Installing the basement drainage system, in my opinion, is what saved the house.  Prior to installing it, we had several basement floods, some quite sever (up to 18 inches of cold, cold water at one point).  The sump pumps took care of all of that, since we installed the system two years ago, we have not had one flood.  The other result, the basement remains much dryer atmospherically as well, the dehumidifier runs two months per year vs. year round.  That has shaved another 500-600 kWh from the electric bill.

Finally, we installed the photovoltaic system this year, I expect that to generate all of our electricity annually.

Our annual energy consumption has gone from 1,521,440,000 BTU to 55,600,000 BTU or a reduction of 64%.   This is realized by the reduction of electrical use from 12,000 kWh to 0 kWh and reduction of oil use from 800 gallons to 400 gallons.  I did not calculate the wood stove contribution because it varies.

Now, there is a point of decision.  We need to fix up the front of the house and replace the siding.  My plan is to add 1 inch rigid foam installation to the outside of the house when we replace the siding, finish sealing up all the air leaks and make the house much tighter than it currently is. This project has been on hold since the economy went south two years ago.  It may take place over a two year period.  We also need to finish removing the old deck from the front of the house and replace it with a front porch.  This again has been on hold.

After that, we can either sell the house and move to a larger structure, or continue along the energy improvement process.  One thing I would like to do is to install a radiant floor heating system and tie it to the solar water heater.  Because of this, I have held off fully insulating the basement.  I believe we could get more out of our energy by installing a 95% efficient condensing gas boiler, replacing the 83% efficient oil fired boiler, which is 15 years old.  It is my dream to get down to 100 gallons or less of propane per winter.

That would make this house as near to zero energy as it can get, in my opinion.  We could possibly do a geothermal heating system, but I don’t like the complexity of that technology.  I believe using the sun’s energy directly to heat is simpler, less prone to failure, and in the long run, better for the environment (think leaking refrigerant, etc).

Popularity: 1% [?]

Nov 30 2 comments
Real Estate

Who lived here before we did?

I was in Kingston, NY this afternoon on business. Kingston is the County seat for Ulster County, and as such the County Court House and County Clerk’s office where the land records are kept. Since I had an hour or so for lunch, I decided to go and see who owned the property we live on before we did. In doing this, I discovered a problem with our deed which needs to be fixed before we can sell the house. I will do a separate post on this after we have resolved the issue. For right now I will say, when you are at a real estate closing, assume nothing, check, re-check, double re-check everything you sign. Even though you are paying money to your lawyer and or the title search company, don’t assume that they will do their jobs correctly.

New York State uses meets and bounds form of real estate recording. This means that each lot has an exact deed description on file. The previous owner grants the new owner all rights to the land through a deed transfer. Thus, if you have a copy of the current deed, it lists the old deed as a basis for its authority. In such a system, in theory, a person can follow the deeds all the way back to the original land owner, which in this case would be the British Crown. This is basically what a Title search company does. So, here is what I found:

We purchased our property from Guiseppe and Elvira (deceased) Rizzi. There were technically three lots merged into one. The land transfer for the third lot follows:

  1. Guieseppe and Elvira Rizzi purchased the land from Leonard and Teresa Sobieralski on December 2, 1988 recorded Liber 1883 page 183. Lot size 1 acre.
  2. Leonard and Teresa Sobieralski purchased the land from Ruth Kates on January 11, 1982 recorded Liber 1459 page 443. Lot size 5 acres.
  3. Ruth Kates purchased the land from Hazel Markle Kohut (deceased) on February 28, 1978 recorded Liber 1387 Page 876. Lot size 5.1 acres
  4. Hazel M. Kohut purchased the land from Marguerite Markle on November 19, 1954 recorded Liber 911 Page 184. Lot size 12 and 100/1200 acres
  5. Miles E Markle (Husband of Marguerite) purchased the land from Aurelle Markle (wife of Emzy, deceased) on September 30, 1933 recorded Liver 572 page 313. Lot size 98 acres.
  6. Emzy Markel and Aurelle Markle purchased the land from Mary Tam Rose on December 17, 1892 recorded Liber 311 page 419. Lot size 98 acres.
  7. Henry Rose (husband of Mary T. Rose) purchased the land from John T. Osterhout on July 26th 1869 recorded Liber 173 page 417.

From here things get a little obscure. The Osterhout family were some of the first settlers in the area. The first record I have is a Jan Jansen van Oosterhout who was born in the Netherlands, but moved to Kingston, NY (then known as Wildwyke, New Netherlands) sometime in the early 1660’s. He married Annatje Jellis in 1663 in Kingston. There family spread out and by 1720 or so were several descendants were living in the area that is now the Town of Rochester.

In 1869, John T. Osterhout owned the land which was part of lot 15, Groote (Groten) Transport. Groote Transport is dutch for “Great Transfer” which was the name of a very large land grant by the British crown in 1730. In order to further research this, I will need to go to the Ulster County Archive building and find out more about the land grant, who the grantees were and so on.

I speculate the the Osterhout family was one of the original grantees. If that is the case, then it is very likely that the lots were parceled out and passed down from generation to generation by the use of wills and probate court. If this is true, then I will need to go to the Ulster County Probate court to follow the ownership trail back to the original grant in 1730 should I want to further research this.

The land transfer of the second lot follows:

  1. Guiseppe and Elvira Rizzi purchased the land from Ronald G. and Annamay Williams on August 20, 1976 recorded Liber 1360 page 1190. Lots size 0.26 acre. Interestingly enough, water rights to a well across the street on the lands of Minna Sims were granted in perpetuity by the will of Morris Sims as well as provisions to replace the water piping and an underground right of way. Included in the sale are one Frigidaire electric stove, one Culligan water conditioner, one Franklin stove in living room, all wall to wall carpeting in two bedrooms and living room, electric pump and motor for well.
  2. Ronald G. Williams Purchased the land from Minna Sims on August 20, 1976 in a deed that was recorded on the same day as the above deed (Williams to Rizzi). Recorded Liber 1360 page 1185. It is noted in that the deed was executed pursuant to an agreement made on March 1, 1966 between Morris Sims and Ronald G. Williams and Annamay Williams, his wife, and recorded in the Ulster County Clerks office March 28, 1966 in Liber 1180 Page 136 (right of first refusal).
  3. Morris and Minna Sims purchased the land from Hazel Markle Kohut on August 6, 1965. Recorded Liber 1170 page 365. From here Lot 2 property transfer merges with Lot 3 above, as recorded in Liber 911 Page 184 (M. Markle to Hazel M. Kohut)

The land transfer for the first lot follows:

  1. Giuseppe and Elvira Rizzi purchased the land from Ronald G and Annamay Williams on August 20, 1976. Recorded Liber 1360 Page 1190. Lot size 0.21 acre.
  2. Ronald G. and Annamay Williams purchased the land from Minna Sims on August 20, 1976. Recorded Liber 1360 Page 1185. Lot size 0.21 acre.
  3. Louis Siminofsky purchased the lot from Leah Cherney on June 8, 1908. Recorded Liber 412 Page 154. Louis Siminofsky is the father of Morris Sims (the deed recorded at Liber 1360 Page 1190 notes that Morris Siminofsky adopted the name Morris Sims before he died in 1972) Louis died on February 9, 1918 and his will was probated on February 19, 1918 which passed the land onto Morris.
  4. Samuel Raskin purchased the lot from George Sherman et. al. on June 5, 1907. Recored Liber 404 Page 382. Samuel Raskin is the brother of Leah Cherney, who was the executor of his will. Lot size is noted as 40 acres.

From here the land transfer is unclear. The Shermans owned a large parcel of land, of which their descendants still own about 60 acres or so at the end of the road. I believe they purchased the land from an Osterhout who was owner of lot 15 Groote Transport, as noted above. If this is the case, the land was likely passed down by way of wills and those proceedings would be in the Ulster County Probate Court.

The more recent lot boundary descriptions are given by geographical positions with measurements in feet. As the records get older, the descriptions often include things like “Starting at a large white pine tree with a rock embedded in a V” or “a large flat stone next to an apple tree” or “a large pile of stones on the edge of a rock ledge.” I believe I have seen a few of those rock piles while I was walking around. The older measurements are given in Rods, Chains and Links, of which I have no idea how large each one is. It is interesting to read.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Aug 16 1 comments
Real Estate

Real Estate Bubbles, Mortgages and Stock Markets

In this country, we treat our houses as more than just a place to live. It is that, but it is also an investment, a tax shelter of sorts, a tangible asset which can be borrowed against as well as a source of pride.

I have been reading (and listening) with interest about the sub-prime mortgage problems, the effect it is having on the stock market and the potential economic problems for the rest of us. I am no economist but it seems that there is just too much money floating around out there that needs to be invested in something. No longer are people content with CD’s, bonds or other safe investments, likely because the return is too small compared to riskier mutual funds and stocks. Stashing money away in the savings account? That is so 50’s of you.

As they say, hind sight is 20/20. Here is the way the road lead to our current financial issues:

  1. Back in the late 1990’s the stock market super heated with tech stocks. Remember the whole dot com debacle in early 2000? People bought into the tech stocks hook, line and sinker. Companies that had yet to make a single penny had their values double then double again because their stocks where highly sought after. Then, as in many things, what goes up, must come down. People began cashing out, prices fell, The Company that was the Wall Street darling a yesterday went bankrupt and out of business today. Such is life.
  2. In order to create a “soft landing” The Federal Reserve began lowering interest rates, down, down, way down to levels that had not been seen since WWII. Since the stock market was still under performing, many people began to look for other investment opportunities. Real estate became attractive because of the very low mortgage rates available and it is something tangible, you can walk around on land, go inside a house whereas a stock is a value attached to something that can change drastically.
  3. The housing market slowly began to heat up in 2001 and 2002. By 2003 and 2004 things were really happening. People were buying unbuilt houses on speculation and reselling them for a hefty profit. Housing prices were appreciating at 10-20 percent per year in many real estate markets. It was a seller’s market.
  4. The Fed, which has always been preoccupied with inflation concerns, raised the interest rates repeatedly until the housing market began to cool off. Then, contrary to what everyone expected them to do, left them a little higher than the historical average.
  5. Housing values began to slowly go down in most places, not to anything close to the pre-2000 levels, but a few percent here and there. Many people are now stuck owning homes that are worth less than what they paid for them and many of those people owe more on the mortgage than what the house is worth. This is known as being upside down and is nothing new. What was new was the sub prime mortgage loan. These are ARM with a short two year initial period at an interest rate below that of prime rate. After two years, the interest rates are then adjusted upward, in most cases way upward. This has left borrowers with a choice, albeit, not a very good one. Either pay the ever increasing mortgage payments, or walk away from the house and default on the mortgage. Many are choosing the latter.
  6. This in turn has left the those lenders, especially those who were lending to the high risk investors, holding the bag. As mortgages default, banks foreclose on properties that are worth less than the mortgage principle. Again, much to the chagrin of the lending institutions in question, the Fed is not doing much of anything about it.
  7. This is sending shock waves through the rest of the investors on Wall Street, causing a ripple effect in the economy.

Even though I am taking a hit on my investments because of the stock market, I think the Fed should not bail out the failed sub prime mortgage market. There has to be some risk/reward relationship involved in speculative investing. If it were not risky, then everyone would invest in it and the returns would be much lower; for example US savings bonds. The fact that an investment is high risk means that the investor can loose value but at the same time, the payoffs are higher. I do feel badly for those who were swept up in the buying craze and now own a house with an upside down mortgage.

Part of that is impulsive purchasing and not negotiating hard enough with the seller. Part of it is other market forces driven by speculation and part of it is the belief in the mythical ever rising market. Just like the dot com bust before it, super heated markets generally do not last and make adjustments downward to more realistic levels. Hopefully this lesson will be remembered by those future home buyers.

How to avoid the sub prime mortgage pitfalls:

  1. Don’t finance more than you can afford. Carefully consider your housing budget, it should be not more than 35 percent of your gross earnings.
  2. Negotiate aggressively when buying a home. Some owners will not tolerate this and get angry. No matter, walk away from the deal and look somewhere else. Research the neighborhood and see what other houses have sold for recently. Do not over pay. Do not get emotionally involved or attached to a house before you own it. Emotions are strange, sometimes irrational things. They have no place in a business deal.
  3. Be very careful when refinancing. Many people refinanced to sub prime loans thinking they would be saving lots of money on there payments. That held true for the first year or two, but then not so much. Read the fine print, ask questions, or better yet, only deal with a bank that you know. If it seems to good to be true, it probably is.
  4. Finally, hire a good attorney. Ask questions, after all, you are paying him or her to look out for your best interests. They should earn that money.

Popularity: 3% [?]