A School in the West End: Site Visit

Yesterday we began our series on CREC’s proposal to buy the former Hartford College for Women campus from the University of Hartford and redevelop it into a permanent home for their Museum Academy magnet School. Today we take a photo tour of the site to identify the different buildings and share basic observations and information that we have gathered. Site Overview The site under discussion makes up most of the block of land that is

February Contracts: Full Speed Ahead

We had a sense that the real estate market was picking up, but numbers are even more impressive than we would have guessed. The number of single-family contracts written in Hartford County was up 50% over February of last year. The pace of deals this year is also ahead of 2010, when there was a first time home buyer tax credit. The strong January result is starting to look less like an abnormality. February continued

Buyers and Sellers Talking

As an agent, part of my job is to be an intermediary. My client communicates through me, I then relay a message to the other agent involved and they then communicate that information to their client. Buyers and sellers typically don’t talk to each other directly and, honestly, I prefer it that way. But how would a buyer and seller communicate directly if there are agents involved? And what can go wrong if they do

Interest in Landlording

Landlords are required to follow rules while handling the money of their tenants. One of them relates to the security deposits that they collect when someone first moves in. Tenants are supposed to earn interest on their deposits at a rate defined by the state. For many years (since 2002) the state held the required security deposit interest rate at 1.5%. This page on the CT Department of Banking site shows the historical interest rates

Gardening in Greater Hartford

The snowless winter has made sledding nearly impossible this season. We got a few runs in after the Halloween storm, and a few more after a modest snowfall in January, but since then the sleds have been idle. Instead we’ve been thinking about spring and the upcoming gardening season. And it seems like others are on the same page. Last week we learned about an updated plant hardiness map from the USDA. The map for