3br/2ba $200,000
Energy efficient Artistic Home, great floor plan. 2 living areas, huge master bdrm & bath, his & her closets, jetted tub, separate shower & dbl sinks. A gorgeous fireplace, archways & nichos. The centrally located kitchen – a must see, with oak cabinets & upgraded appliances; a cook’s dream for all occasions. Outside under-eve holiday lighting package; beautiful yards are landscaped. A powered & insulated workshop in the back. Pride of ownership throughout. Don’t wait to see this home.
This model was sold for $252k in December of 2006. We know that was the peak of the market, but come on, at this price I think we have a winner. Very popular Seville neighborhood in NW Albuquerque. Nothing has to be done to this home – it is move in ready.
Reduce your electricity bills by systematically purging your family room of wasteful energy practices.
The fun-a video game console, TV, DVR, DVD, and stereo system-that your family room provides comes with a price. By reducing standby power, using rechargeable batteries in remotes, and replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents, you could save up to $130 a year in energy costs.
And if you’re in the market for a new TV, you can save even more energy by being flexible on the type you buy.
An annual check-up on your homeowners insurance can result in a healthier policy and a healthier pocketbook.
It’s time for your annual check-up. The good news is that for this one, you won’t have to don one of those revealing hospital gowns-and you may walk away with a healthier pocketbook. We’re talking about a homeowners insurance check-up, a task you should complete once a year, ideally around renewal time. This will ensure your policy still provides the right level of coverage for your family, and your premium isn’t costing you more than it should.
Remember, homeowners insurance is essential. The coverage is designed to protect your home and its contents, as well as shield you from liability for accidents and such on your property. Block out an hour of your time, call an insurance agent, and get answers to these three important questions.
Paying for more homeowners insurance than you need is a waste of money, but it can prove even more costly to get caught without enough coverage.
Trying to get just the right amount of homeowners insurance for your house and possessions may leave you feeling a bit like Goldilocks searching for a chair, a bed, and porridge that are just right. If you underinsure your home and suffer a devastating loss-flood, fire, theft-then you risk not being able to return to the lifestyle you’ve worked hard to achieve. Yet if you overinsure, you’re throwing money away every year on unnecessarily high premiums.
What you need is coverage that’s just right. Here’s how to get it, and it shouldn’t take more than 4 or 5 hours of your time spent reviewing your homeowners insurance policy, talking to your agent, and doing a little research.
Paying all of your bills on time is one good way to improve your insurance score–and, in turn, lower your homeowners insurance premiums.
Most people expect the cost of homeowners insurance to go up after a claim is filed. But it may surprise you to know that how good you are at managing your finances can have just as big an effect on your premium as the tree that fell on your house.
Insurers look to your credit history to calculate an insurance score that’s used to judge how much of a financial risk you are. The lower the score, the higher the risk-and the higher the premium you’ll likely pay on your homeowners insurance. Don’t despair. There are strategies, including paying bills on time, that can help improve your insurance score.
Albuquerque Northeast Heights Home For Sale – Foothills Estate
13205 Skyview Dr NE, Albuquerque, NM 87123
- Beds: 3
- Baths: 2(1 1 0) (FTH)
- Sq Ft: 1117
$149,900
Fabulous floor plan and Impressive mature trees in both the front and back. Easy access to freeway, shopping, trails, and a short walk to Lauren Bolles park w/ tennis courts, basketball and playground. Let’s be direct, this well maintained home could use a little updating – but at this price and location it is a must see.
Wow what a tree!
An error in your CLUE insurance report can increase your homeowners insurance premium or even prevent you from getting coverage at all.
Errors or misleading information in your CLUE insurance report, which details the claims history of a person or property, can cost you. Worse, you may not even know there’s a mistake until you get turned down for homeowners insurance or see a huge jump in your premium.
Insurance companies use the claims history stored in the CLUE database–CLUE is short for Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange-as a principal factor in deciding if they will insure your home and how much that insurance will cost. So correcting a mistake or misstatement may bring you a direct financial savings. Unfortunately, the burden of proof is on you.
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HOW TO DISPUTE REPORT INFORMATIONIf you decide to contest information about a claim, your first step is to contact ChoicePoint(http://WWW.CHOICETRUST.COM), the owner of CLUE. You can either call the phone number listed on your CLUE report or write to P.O. Box 105292, Atlanta Ga. 30348. (The general toll-free number is 800-456-6004.) You can’t submit a dispute statement online. A-PLUS, operator of another claims-history database, follows a similar dispute procedure.
You’ll need to provide the following information to dispute a claim:
* The CLUE reference number, which appears near the top of the report;
* The name of the insurance company;
* The date of the loss;
* A brief explanation of the facts as you see them.
Once ChoicePoint gets your dispute statement, it will investigate the claim and contact your insurance company, if necessary. The investigation can take up to 30 days, according to a ChoicePoint spokesperson.
If ChoicePoint’s investigation supports your assertions, it will make changes in your CLUE file. Whether it agrees or not, the company will send you a letter explaining its findings within five days after the investigation is concluded. Many insurers offer a claim-free discount. Just 5% off means $40 in savings on an average annual premium(http://www.iii.org/media/facts/statsbyissue/homeowners/) of $804.
SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT
If you’re not satisfied with the results of the investigation, you can submit your side of the story. ChoicePoint will add your statement to any future CLUE reports that include the disputed claim.
Even if the claims information in your CLUE report isn’t wrong, you may decide the report doesn’t tell the whole story. You can add comments to any entry in your CLUE report to explain the circumstances of a claim. For example, perhaps you made a claim for damage to your roof after a limb from your neighbor’s tree broke off in a storm. Since then the neighbor has cut down the tree and you’ve repaired the roof. You could attach a comment to the claim history indicating that this problem won’t reoccur.
LOOK OUT FOR THESE COMMON ERRORS
What should you look for in checking your CLUE report? Of course, look for any claims that you didn’t file. You can also review the specific information about each claim for accuracy, in particular:
* Social Security numbers. An incorrect number could mean someone else’s claims history is in your report;
* Policy numbers. Check them against your original policy or your most recent bill;
* Dates of claim. Since claims only remain on the report for seven years, an incorrect date could mean that the claim is listed for too long;
* Amounts of claim. Be sure that these amounts agree with any payments you received.
If you haven’t owned your home for seven years, you might also want to contact the previous owners to verify that any claims they filed are stated correctly in the report. If you got a copy of ChoicePoint’s Home Seller’s Disclosure Report(https://www.choicetrust.com/servlet/com.kx.cs.servlets.CsServlet?channel=home&product=ror&subproduct=order) from the sellers when you purchased your home, you might also want to compare that report with the “Claims History for Risk” section of the current CLUE report. This part of the CLUE report lists recent claims related to your home, not just those you filed. One catch is that the Home Seller’s report, which shows the claims history of a property without divulging personal information about the sellers, only goes back five years.
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Mariwyn Evans has spent 25 years writing about commercial and residential real estate. She’s the author of several books, including “Opportunities in Real Estate Careers,” as well as too many magazine articles to count.
Reprinted from HouseLogic (houselogic.com) with permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS (R).
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved.
Your CLUE insurance report keeps your homeowners insurance claims alive for seven years–and that could cost you on your premiums.
A tree falls on the roof of your house. You file an insurance claim with your agent, collect a settlement from the insurer, and fix your roof. End of story, right? Not quite. Every claim you make on your homeowners insurance is recorded in a widely used insurance industry database called CLUE, short for Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange.
Almost all insurance companies use CLUE to check on the claims history of prospective policyholders. The CLUE insurance report also includes claims made on your home before you even bought it. A-PLUS is another company that maintains a loss-history database. What’s inside these reports can affect your insurance premiums, or even prevent you from getting coverage.
Using tips and resources from the experts, work with local government to expand waste recycling programs in your community.
Most neighborhoods and communities have programs for recycling plastic and paper. But what about the whole range of other materials filling your local landfill? Increasing the amount and types of household waste that can be recycled can help preserve your community’s precious open space and natural resources, and save your town money now spent on landfilling trash.
Point your city or town toward a cost-effective, expanded waste recycling program, and you may be putting more green in your own pocket as you protect property values.
Salvaged building materials allow you to improve your home inexpensively–but might require an extra investment of time and energy.
If you’re looking to improve your home on the cheap, consider using salvaged building materials. Besides being less expensive than new materials, secondhand features can add character, quality, and value to your home. But note that the savings in dollars may require a greater investment in time and effort.
Remodeling with secondhand building materials has many fans. Some are owners of historic houses who improve their homes by adding period elements. Others follow green building practices and appreciate conserving resources and keeping materials out of landfills. And still others are looking for quirky elements that will break their homes out of cookie-cutter molds.
