Your Valuable Home

In our best practices segment today, Ron and Mike from one of the two companies that manage Ron’s rentals discuss the value of hiring a management company to procure tenants, collect rent, supervise repairs and do all of the other things that many landlords simply don’t have the time to do. If you have rentals that you self-manage, this interview could change your mind.  In our feature today Donna Hoffman briefs us on the move away from off-whites and greys and the introduction of darker colors. The good news: you inexpensively stay on trend with simple, darker accent pieces.

In our opening segment today ProVia’s product manager for vinyl siding provides a 101 course in residential cladding systems, best practices and the finer points of ProVia siding with Super Polymer Siding Technology. Then Marc Furber from the Bucks County, PA DA’s office briefs us on one of the latest cyber scams. Our Feature today is a fascinating discussion of Intergenerational Living, a concept that took shape recently at a symposium hosted by Washington, D.C.-based Generations United at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.

Our guest for our Best Practices segment today is Joelle Longo, newly promoted Product Manager for ProVia entry and storm doors. We talk about the curb appeal of ProVia entry doors and the painstaking process of how they are manufactured. We also get into the compatible design of ProVia storm doors and how they can be matched with any ProVia entry door. In our Horror Story, Ron draws attention to the page after page of cyber and other scams identified in the latest issue of the AARP Bulletin. AARP members can still access this issue of the online Bulletin. In our Feature, the second in a series on offshore rental properties that are owned by U.S. residents, we focus on Costa Rica. This residence in Costa Rica was creatively purchased with a self-directed IRA. Interesting!

Planning an addition to your home or a companion structure for your property?  There are many steps involved, and getting the job done right requires following those steps and super coordination.  In our Best Practices segment for this episode of Your Valuable Home, Jon Jacob, VP of Business Development for Hamilton Supply in Hamilton, New Jersey, walks us through the process of planning and constructing an addition or companion structure. If you’re a weekend DIYer, you probably want to leave a project of this scope to the pros. Feel free to take notes. Today, Jon also shares a Horror Story about what can happen when a large project of this type goes off the rails. Our Feature today is the first in a Your Valuable Home exclusive series about people in the U. S. who own rental properties in other countries of the world – and use them for vacations from time to time. First stop, a rental/vacation home in Fermoy, an idyllic, river town in East County Cork, Ireland.  

John Perna, President and CEO of Hamilton Building Supply in Hamilton, New Jersey, provides an eye-opening tutorial on framing lumber and why his company sells only the best. If you’re planning any home project that requires framing lumber, you should consider John’s advice a “Best Practice” for specifying framing lumber. In our second segment today, John offers an example of what can happen with sub-par framing lumber. In today’s Feature, we speak with the developer and one of the first buyers in Lighthouse Row, a stunning collection of new homes in the comeback town, Atlantic City, New Jersey.

In our Best Practices segment today, Mike McColgan, an accomplished masonry pro, provides a tutorial on the different materials available to create patios, walkways and driveways. Pavers are by far today’s material of choice for such projects.  In the case of walkways and patios, pavers are often combined with natural bluestone. Mike also runs down the different brands and styles of pavers. In The Bad Guy Bulletin, Mike Bannon from Bucks County Consumer Protection, Weights and Measures returns to fill us in on some scams dujour. In our Feature today, we learn about the early stages of a project to reconnect the people of Trenton, New Jersey with the Delaware River. For many years, the River was rendered inaccessible to Trentonians by a major highway that serves New Jersey’s capital city.

Marc from ABE Doors and Windows is back to offer expert advice on the proper way to install entry doors. ProVia® entry doorscome with a level built right into each door to aid foolproof installation. Marc also contributes to Our Horror Story today. Often his company is called in to replace entry doors that were improperly installed. Don’t let that happen to you. In today’s Feature, Steve Tybor, President and Founder of Eight Days of Hope, offers examples of his organization’s multi-level approach to victims of floods, fires....virtually any natural disaster that may come their way. A helping hand from Eight Days of Hope can take the form of rapid response to clear debris after a disaster, to feeding volunteers, to rebuilding homes and more. You should know about Eight Days..., in case a natural disaster ever comesyour way.  

For our Best Practices segment today, Marc Rapchak, General Manager of ABE Doors and Windows in northeastern Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, explains why his company sells the ProVia® brand of windows. Then in our Horror Story, Marc recounts some of the troubling situations his crews find, when they’re called in to replace old, tired or improperly installed windows with new ProVia windows. In our Feature of the week, we catch the current owner of the one-of-a-kind Buttermilk Falls shovel-ready home site in the car on his way to take the family skiing. He explains why he bought Buttermilk and why he’s selling. This is the perfect follow-up to the interview we did last week with Jim Rogers, the architect responsible for a an incredible home designed to bridge the base of Buttermilk Falls. Listen to both.

This episode of Your Valuable Home opens with Architect James Rogers explaining the science that made it possible for him to design a 3,000-square foot-home on a “bridge” spanning the base of a waterfall. This could be one of the most enchanting and coveted building sites in the Northeastern U.S. It beckons the visionary buyer eager to create a signature home on this spot. In our Horror Story today, Nancy explains why it’s so important to scrutinize the work of an electrician called to install a 220 line in your house. In our Feature, Cameron Jaggard from the PEW Charitable Trusts provides an update on the massive initiative to save 1,000,000 acres of salt marsh on the U.S. Atlantic Coast. Pew is one of the organizations guiding this initiative to enlist nature’s help in saving coastal towns, recreation areas and a number of military installations from rising seas.

Whether you’re buying or selling residential real estate today, it is so very important to work with the right real estate pro. How do you know which one is the right one?  That’s the topic for the first segment in this week’s Your Valuable Home, and we’re going to get right into it with Joe Bonacci, a realtor in New York City and a good friend of Your Valuable Home. Joe has great advice about getting to know the person, their experience, their knowledge of the local market and much more. Then it’s Bad Guy Bulletin time with Mark Furber from the Bucks County PA DA’s office. Marc talks about a colleague’s mother’s brush with one of the scammers who seize control of your computer to get your personal info and your money. In our Feature, Matt Troiani, Senior Counsel and Director of Legal Affairs for the National Association of Realtors, breaks down a relatively new scam that targets owners of raw land.  If you own raw land, a scammer can access your title, sell your land and get away with the money. After a certain point, a landowner is powerless to do anything about it.