Tuesday, June 22, 2010
6417 January Virtual Tour
For more information on this listing, or any other in the St. Louis area, visit www.MikeCromie.com.
Posted by Mike Cromie on Beyond Realty - St. Louis Real Estate Blog.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Tips For Home Buyers #2
Follow the home inspector around your house.
This tip can be especially helpful to first-time home buyers. Or for that matter, anyone that's unfamiliar with the various systems used to run a home. It's a great way to get acquainted with your new purchase.
Although not necessary, I often recommend to my clients that they be present during the home inspection and to feel free to ask questions. A good inspector will educate you about the home you're under contract to buy and should encourage any questions you have. After all, this is what you hired them to do. Their job is to inspect the home's structure, test all of it's systems, point out potentially hazardous situations and discover latent defects. But in the process, by following them through the house, you can discover the location and function of many of the home's mechanical, electrical and structural elements.
A complete home inspection will take anywhere from 3-6 hours, depending on the size of the home (Although, some of the time will be spent in areas that you most likely won't want to go, or shouldn't for safety reasons, such as the roof, attic or crawl space). This might seem like a long time to follow someone around your house, but may come in handy down the road. I'm sure even the most novice of home buyers know how to flip a breaker switch or even change their furnace filter. But, can you locate your main water supply shut off in the event of a leak? Or do you know how to determine when your brick needs tuckpointing? Or how to adjust the temperature on your water heater? These are just some of the nice tidbits you can gain from being present and curious at the time of inspection.
Posted by Mike Cromie on Beyond Realty - St. Louis Real Estate Blog.
This tip can be especially helpful to first-time home buyers. Or for that matter, anyone that's unfamiliar with the various systems used to run a home. It's a great way to get acquainted with your new purchase.
Although not necessary, I often recommend to my clients that they be present during the home inspection and to feel free to ask questions. A good inspector will educate you about the home you're under contract to buy and should encourage any questions you have. After all, this is what you hired them to do. Their job is to inspect the home's structure, test all of it's systems, point out potentially hazardous situations and discover latent defects. But in the process, by following them through the house, you can discover the location and function of many of the home's mechanical, electrical and structural elements.
A complete home inspection will take anywhere from 3-6 hours, depending on the size of the home (Although, some of the time will be spent in areas that you most likely won't want to go, or shouldn't for safety reasons, such as the roof, attic or crawl space). This might seem like a long time to follow someone around your house, but may come in handy down the road. I'm sure even the most novice of home buyers know how to flip a breaker switch or even change their furnace filter. But, can you locate your main water supply shut off in the event of a leak? Or do you know how to determine when your brick needs tuckpointing? Or how to adjust the temperature on your water heater? These are just some of the nice tidbits you can gain from being present and curious at the time of inspection.
Posted by Mike Cromie on Beyond Realty - St. Louis Real Estate Blog.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Summer, summer, summertime. Time to sit back and unwind.
Yeah that's right, I'm breaking out DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince lyrics. (Normally, I would assume if you don't recognize these lyrics you're from an older generation than mine. However, if you don't know them and you're reading a blog, I'm more likely to assume I'm the one from the older generation - and that scares me.)
What better way to sit back and unwind on a hot summer day in St. Louis than to hang out at the pool. My wife and I are city residents and thought our pool-going options were pretty slim. If you're like us and don't live in a community that runs their own public pool (unless, for us, you count the YMCA run Carondelet Rec Plex), you may also feel left out. But I've done a little research recently and was pleasantly surprised to find that a majority of the pools run by various St. Louis area municipalities are available to non-residents.
Although you'll almost always pay more than your tax-paying resident counterparts, in several cases you don't even need to be an accompanying "guest" of someone else. Some aquatic centers are only available with a season pass, whereas others offer daily passes.
Next time you want a break from the heat, check out these St. Louis area pools (click the link to find detailed information on fees, locations and schedules):
Daily and Season passes available without accompanying "resident/member":
Crestwood Aquatic Center
Sunset Hills Aquatic Center (New in 2010)
North Pointe Family Aquatic Center (Ballwin)
The HEIGHTS (Richmond Heights; Indoor pool and water park)
St. Louis County Parks Aquatic Facilities (Kennedy Pool, North County Pool, St. Vincent Water Park)
Aquaport (Maryland Heights)
Season pass available without accompanying "resident/member":
Carondelet Rec Complex (New in 2010)
Shaw Park Aquatic Center (Clayton)
Daily admission as a "guest":
Carondelet Rec Complex (New in 2010)
Shaw Park Aquatic Center (Clayton)
Recreation Station Aquatic Center (Kirkwood)
Webster Groves Aquatic Center
Posted by Mike Cromie on Beyond Realty - St. Louis Real Estate Blog.
What better way to sit back and unwind on a hot summer day in St. Louis than to hang out at the pool. My wife and I are city residents and thought our pool-going options were pretty slim. If you're like us and don't live in a community that runs their own public pool (unless, for us, you count the YMCA run Carondelet Rec Plex), you may also feel left out. But I've done a little research recently and was pleasantly surprised to find that a majority of the pools run by various St. Louis area municipalities are available to non-residents.
Although you'll almost always pay more than your tax-paying resident counterparts, in several cases you don't even need to be an accompanying "guest" of someone else. Some aquatic centers are only available with a season pass, whereas others offer daily passes.
Next time you want a break from the heat, check out these St. Louis area pools (click the link to find detailed information on fees, locations and schedules):
Daily and Season passes available without accompanying "resident/member":
Crestwood Aquatic Center
Sunset Hills Aquatic Center (New in 2010)
North Pointe Family Aquatic Center (Ballwin)
The HEIGHTS (Richmond Heights; Indoor pool and water park)
St. Louis County Parks Aquatic Facilities (Kennedy Pool, North County Pool, St. Vincent Water Park)
Aquaport (Maryland Heights)
Season pass available without accompanying "resident/member":
Carondelet Rec Complex (New in 2010)
Shaw Park Aquatic Center (Clayton)
Daily admission as a "guest":
Carondelet Rec Complex (New in 2010)
Shaw Park Aquatic Center (Clayton)
Recreation Station Aquatic Center (Kirkwood)
Webster Groves Aquatic Center
Posted by Mike Cromie on Beyond Realty - St. Louis Real Estate Blog.
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