Adaptive reuse is the process of reusing an existing site or buildings into locations that are economically useful… but for a purpose other than what it was originally used/intended. Unlike simple historic conservation, adaptive reuse transforms underused buildings and sites into locations that are economically useful. Examples include the renovation of abandoned warehouses into studio spaces and the use of abandoned parking lots for open-air markets such as farmers’ markets. Less commonly, the term can refer to the use of salvaged materials to construct or renovate an edifice. An example of this might be repurposing the wood from barns for flooring in a new home.
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MonthSeptember 2014
Even though modern humans are exceptionally (and increasingly) mobile, some Americans have been in the same neighborhood (or hometown) for years… often, for decades; maybe even for generations.
For the ones that leave ‘the nest’ for one reason or another, and move into a new area… we don’t know our neighbors… or what the new neighborhood is really like.
Follow the link below for Newport News VA Real Estate Information …
According to an article by Karyn McCormack posted by Reuters on 11/29/2010 entitled ‘How to research a neighborhood’, she says:
Collecting data about neighborhoods can help you decide which one matches your needs, and ultimately save a lot of time. In education, check the students per classroom relative to other schools in the state and the national average. If the class size is small, it could mean there are a lot of special needs students that require more teachers, Schiller says, and you might pay higher taxes to pay for them. If the class size is larger, the school may be underfunded, or doesn’t have a lot of special needs children.
“A home is the most expensive purchase for most Americans and fraught with so much risk, so it’s really in a person’s best interest to broaden their search to neighborhoods first before looking at home listings,” says Andrew Schiller, founder and CEO of Rhode Island-based Location, Inc., which runs www.NeighborhoodScout.com, a provider of vital data about neighborhoods.
“The risk you have when buying a house is not whether it needs a new roof,” Schiller explains. “The risk is where the house is located.”
Along with checking the school system, crime rates, and home resale values, make sure the neighborhood matches your lifestyle and stage in life. For example, if you’re a devoted outdoors runner, you’ll want a spacious park with a path nearby. If you’re expecting a baby, you might want a larger home with a fenced yard; a family-friendly community that hosts events, recreation, and activities for kids; and highly-regarded schools that you can afford. “There is no one best place for everybody,” Schiller says. “It depends on where you are in your life.”
For crime, look at the number of crimes per 1,000 residents and how that ranks in the area, as well as the chance that you’ll be a victim of crime during one year (Neighborhood Scout Reports provides these stats). “Any neighborhood can have a robbery or murder,” says Schiller. “You want to know if it happens every year.”
Here are a few sites to get more information:
- Neighborhood Scout: provides nearly 300 data points covering lifestyle (including demographics of neighbors and walkability), house values and appreciation rates, education (class size, how taxes are spent, and public school test scores) and crime.
- Homefair: Homefair offers free city profile reports, which contain information about demographics, incomes, education, climate and crime (data is from Onboard Informatics, which crunches data for many publications’ various “Best Places to Live” lists.)
- Realtor.com: put forth by The National Association of Realtors, this site provides home listings and home values.
- Google Maps: gives a view of street and homes that may interest you. Move the map around to view the surrounding areas.
Once you’ve narrowed your search, drive around the neighborhood and ask up to three people on the street if they enjoy living there, Schiller says. You also need to visit that neighborhood at different times of the day to see how quiet it is, he says. Also inquire about where they grocery shop, and how far it is. Then go to the grocery store and determine if it meets your needs and standards, recommends Schiller. You can also visit local shops and restaurants to get a lay of the land.
While it may take some effort to sort through the stats, you’ll sleep better in your new home when you’re sure you picked the right neighborhood.
As a property owner, it can be hard to know exactly what you can do to make it better. Especially when you have an invested interest in the well-being of a certain property, you may have a difficult time deciding what should happen with the house or land surrounding it in order to improve it as much as you see fit.
Many people consider additions be be a good idea for adding value to a home, also making it more appealing to the people who live there. One thing you can do is add an Elder-suite to your home. This is an addition to a home that is suited to accommodate only one person. While it is usually completely separate from the home, having its own bedroom and bathroom, there are several variations that are attached to parts of the house which the rest of the family shares. If you are thinking about building an Elder-suite on you property, here are a few things to consider as you continue to decide how to make that choice.
Consult your local building codes book to make sure that you don’t break any laws or regulations if you decide to build. The last thing you want as a property owner is to have to destroy an addition that you have been working on because you don’t have the proper building permits filed. Save yourself a lot of time and check all that information before you begin. You’ll be grateful you did.
Something that many people don’t know is that there is a lot of complicated work that is associated with adding a bathroom to a building. There are many piping and plumbing issues that can arise. If you are not completely comfortable with plumbing problems and approaches to solving these problems, then it would be in your best interest to get in contact with a plumbing contractor to consult with you about what your choices are. Some homes are already built with the ability to work well and fully with little tinkering of the pipes after a bathroom is built, but others need quite a bit of extensive plumbing work before and after the addition in order to ensure complete functionality of the bathroom unit. These issues are easily solved by those who know how to solve them.
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