Worlds Skinniest House!

It's 9 1/2 feet wide and 42 feet long and is billed as the narrowest house in New York City. But there's nothing small about its asking price: $2.7 million.

Located at 75 1/2 Bedford St. in Greenwich Village, the red brick building was built in 1873, sandwiched in a narrow space that used to be an alley between homes at 75 and 77 Bedford.

The narrow house is considered a curiosity and is one of the neighborhood's most photographed homes. A small plaque on the house notes that poet Edna St. Vincent Millay once lived there; so did anthropologist Margaret Mead.

The residential interiors are a tight squeeze even by New York standards, measuring just 8 1/2 feet wide and 42 feet long on each of its three floors.
Due to the narrowness of the house, I think you have to be very clever in how you decorate.

The broker's Web site describes it as a vertical suite, with a kitchen, dining room and parlor on the first floor, a double living room on the second floor and a top-floor master bedroom suite. A trapdoor in the kitchen floor leads to a finished basement.

Large windows in the front and back of the house and a garret skylight, plus a small backyard garden, give it airiness and a sense of light and charm.

The agent predicted the property will fetch its listed price due to its uniqueness, history and location in one of the city's most famous preserved neighborhoods.

For information on homes in the Denver area feel free to email me at joan@roglianorealestategroup.com.

Divorce the House Before the Spouse

Splitting up after years of marriage? Divorce your house, then your spouse. If you're still linked through the house, than you're not really divorced.

That bit of advice goes against the almost universal desire to hang on to the family home, especially by the spouse who ends up with custody of the children. Indeed, the courts almost always give special consideration to the parent who gets the kids: Keep the kids, keep the house.

However, the place is often so filled with memories, both good and bad it's not the family home anymore. It can be a huge anchor both emotionally and financially. People also tend to underestimate the true cost of homeownership, so much so that the remaining spouse's ability to afford the place is often drastically overstated.

Even in a friendly divorce, if there really is such a thing, certain key expenses are either forgotten or overlooked. Lawn care, homeowners' association fees, even the basic costs of maintenance and upkeep are among the costs that are rarely considered, either by the courts or the spouses.

Then there's the even bigger issue of hidden debt. Ideally there will have been no secrets between the husband and wife. But money is a major cause of divorce, and in many cases, one spouse has no clue that the other one has rung up big bills that have become undisclosed liens against the property.

In most divorces, the spouses determine what the house is worth, and the one who gives up the place is usually given a credit of some sort for his or her half of the equity the couple has in the place. Typically, the parties split the difference based on an appraisal.

But along with that appraisal one should obtain an independent, third-party inspection of the property to determine whether there are any latent defects that could impact its value. You wouldn't buy a house without an inspection, so why would you accept one in a divorce without an inspection? What if something's wrong or about to go wrong? You can use the inspector's report as a punch list, and either use the marital assets to make the necessary repairs or reduce the value of the property accordingly.

Make sure to ask your inspector to estimate the remaining life of the property's major appliances and systems. If something is on its last legs, you'll want to know in advance so you can adjust for that as well. While you're at it, order a termite inspection—the damage those little buggers cause is often significant.

One other item that needs to be factored in is the tax ramifications of any settlement. A settlement can not be fairly evaluated without checking with how the IRS will interpret your division of property.Fortunately, a major mistake is preventable—but only during your divorce, not afterwards. Information is the key – more of it and as early as possible. More due diligence and more information from more financial and real estate experts, all much earlier in the divorce process should safeguard you and your family’s financial future.

Joan Rogliano is a Certified Real Estate Divorce Specialist and has been educating women with practical information about real estate investing and home ownership for over 20 years. For more information feel free to email joan@roglianorealestategroup.com.

New Appraisal Rules are Causing Problems

Like politics, all real estate is local. You hardly ever see a report about state or national real estate trends without the cautionary caveat that "local markets are all different." So how, then, does it make any sense for real estate appraisals to be conducted by out-of-the-area appraisers who lack specific local-market knowledge?


Well, it doesn't, of course; but the practice has become commonplace thanks to the recent adoption of the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC). Its aim was to put an end to corrupt practices in the business of appraising residential properties. Perhaps, to some degree, it has achieved its aim; but what we know for sure is that it has caused a lot of problems so far.

The major emphasis of the HVCC has to do with the selection of appraisers. Believing that much of the abuse of appraisal practices resulted from quid-pro-quo selection practices, and good-old-boy networks, the Code seeks to insure that the selection of an appraiser will be an arms-length transaction. Hence, for example, under the HVCC neither a mortgage broker nor a real estate agent may be the person who selects the appraiser. A lender may select the appraiser, but the person who does the selecting can have nothing to do with the "loan production" staff.

The institutional response to this, following the path of least resistance, has been to employ a third-party Appraisal Management Company (AMC) to select the appraiser. An AMC is a middleman. It receives an appraisal request from a lender and then it assigns an appraiser from its list of approved appraisers who have agreed to take assignments.


The use of AMCs has a great appeal in theory. But, on the basis of outcries from around the country, in practice it is not working out very well.


The primary complaint about AMC appraiser selection processes is that too often appraisers are given assignments that take them out of their geographical area of familiarity and expertise.
Moreover, unlike earlier days, it is turning out to be much more difficult for an agent (the one who is likely to know the neighborhood and relevant comparables) to provide helpful information to the appraiser. Actually, the HVCC does not prohibit real estate agents and appraisers from talking to each other; but everyone is so uptight about the new regulations they have been interpreted to mean that no one can have a substantive discussion with the appraiser. The over-zealous attempts to avoid even the appearance of trying to exert undue influence have resulted in a diminished quality of the reports.


National Association of Realtors® (NAR) President, Charles McMillan, recently met with both the New York State Attorney General and with the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency – the overseer of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – to convey industry concerns. Representatives Travis Childers (D-MS) and Gary Miller (R-CA) have co-sponsored HR 3044 that would impose an 18-month moratorium on the use of the HVCC. It would seem a good time to pause and reassess.



For more information about housing in your area email joan@roglianorealestategroup.com.

Denver Ranks #5 on List of America’s Best Places to Grow Up

Low crime, strong schools, green spaces, and fun activities are key ingredients for a happy childhood.

If you could create the ideal community to raise a child in, what ingredients would you include? First off, you'd probably want a low crime rate.

A strong school system would also be key. From there, you'd need lots of other children, expansive green spaces to play in, and plenty of nearby family events. Toss in an abundance of artistic and recreational activities, and all of a sudden you've got one heck of a place to grow up.

At U.S. News, they wanted to find out if any communities like that already existed—and if so, where they were located. So they dug into their database of 2,000 different places all across the country and pinpointed the locales that met these criteria. They then examined these communities more closely to determine which places offered the best combination of safe neighborhoods, fun activities, and top-notch educators.

Denver came in at number 5 on the final list!

Whether you prefer snowboarding in the Rocky Mountains, biking through America's largest city park system, or heading over to Invesco Field at Mile High for a Broncos football game, Denver is a wonderful place to be a kid. Also among the country's safest big cities, Denver has 300 days of annual sunshine, eight different professional sports franchises, and countless opportunities for fishing, white-water rafting, and horseback riding.

For more information on the Denver area and the housing market email joan@roglianorealestategroup.com.

Don't Miss Your Chance to See Cirque du Soleil: Kooza!

Now, through September 20th, you can experience Cirque du Soleil: Kooza, at the Pepsi Center in Denver, CO.

Kooza is a return to the origins of Cirque du Soleil: It combines two circus traditions - acrobatic performance and the art of clowning.

The show highlights the physical demands of human performance in all its splendor and fragility, presented in a colorful melange that emphasizes bold slapstick humor. The Innocent's journey brings him into contact with a panoply of comic characters such as the King, the Trickster, the Pickpocket, and the Obnoxious Tourist and his Bad Dog. Between strength and fragility, laughter and smiles, turmoil and harmony, Kooza explores themes of fear, identity, recognition and power.

The show is set in an electrifying and exotic visual world full of surprises, thrills, chills, audacity and total involvement.

Dates: August 20th - September 20th

Ticket Information: 303-405-1100

Venue: Pepsi Center, 1000 Chopper Cirlce, Denver, CO 80204

Lobbyists Working to Extend the $8,000 Home Buyer Tax Credit

The House and Senate may have left Capitol Hill for their August break, but housing lobbyists are busy at work gearing up a major campaign to extend the $8,000 home buyer tax credit.

The credit for first-time purchasers is scheduled to expire November 30.

The National Association of Home Builders and the National Association of Realtors want to persuade Congress to nail down an extension of the credit, and maybe even broaden its coverage, as soon as possible.

The home builders are mounting an aggressive campaign during the congressional recess. The association is sending out local teams of members to meet with congressmen and senators in their home districts, urging not only a one year extension of the credit, but an expansion of the concept to cover all home buyers next year, not just first-timers.

Though the endorsement may, or may not, have been connected with the home builders' campaign, one of the most politically powerful Democrats has already signaled that he favors a one year extension.

In the House, two bills have been introduced to extend and expand the credit for either six months or 12 months. The National Association of Realtors is strongly supporting the extension efforts, and is sending its own delegations to lobby key members of the House Ways and Means committee and the Senate Finance committee.

So with all this going on, is it a sure thing that the tax credit will be available in some form for home buyers next year? Should consumers who can't quite make the November 30 deadline breathe easier?

Absolutely not. There is no sure thing on Capitol Hill whenever legislation looks like it's got a clear path to passage. That's when opponents hijack the bill or filibuster it in the Senate.

Nonetheless, extension of the credit looks like it has growing bipartisan support. Mary Trupo, legislative spokesperson for the National Association of Realtors, told Realty Times last week that “we feel Congress is receptive” to the message that the housing tax credit helps create jobs, and stimulates the economy.

If you would like more information about the tax credit and receive the most up to date information email joan@roglianorealestategroup.com.