Omega Real Estate Blog » Burlington Real Estate

Summer Vacation That Pays You Back?

admin_omega — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 16:00:23 +0000

Consider Purchasing a Summer Camp for Equity

This camp in St. Albans is for sale - what a GREAT Get-away

By now, cabin fever has hit me full force. I wistfully look at my friend’s pictures of St. Maarten and desperately want to plunge my toes in the sand. I even tried plunging my feet into the snow on my deck, but alas, the sensation just wasn’t the same.

So to keep me placated until the snow melts, I started remembering summer camp. My folks rented a camp for a week on Lake Champlain and it was one of the best summers I’ve ever spent. With the economy the way it is, many families are looking for ways to make their vacations pay for themselves and owning a great getaway is not only a treat for yourself, but an obvious equity builder. Here are some tips when shopping for your summer retreat and how to rent it out to ensure a tidy profit at the end of the season.

1) Location, location, location. This is a no-brainer, but still, people will look at the “great deal” and neglect the essentials. You want to make sure your retreat is close to entertainment, hiking, biking, kayaking. Is it easy to find? Is it in a desirable spot? Does it overlook the lake or a swamp? Remember, you get what you pay for.
2) Accessible – Sometimes, summer camps aren’t plowed out in the winter. Make certain you know who takes care of the plowing, road maintenance, and how often it’s done. You don’t want to book a December get-away if your guests can’t access the driveway.
3) Year-Round or Seasonal Retreat – If it’s seasonal, what exactly does that mean? What maintenance needs to be performed each winter to protect your investment? Are there other vacation properties rented out close by and what’s their rate of fulfillment?
4) Show Me The Money – Check with the local town zoning laws to make sure you can even rent it out in the first place. A top-notch real estate agent will go to the town clerk’s office to check over the deed, zoning, etc to make certain your intentions can be followed through on. NEVER go blindly into the deal assuming you can just “do it under the table.”
5) Right-of-Ways – If you’re getting a summer lakefront camp, make sure you know who has the right-of-way not only to the driveway, but to the dock, beach and lake access.
6) Water and Septic – Some summer camps may have a shared well or septic. A good realtor will have already done their homework and can tell you what the story is with the property.
7) Get an Inspection – Especially with a 3 season property, you’ll want to make certain maintenance has been done to avoid headaches down the road.
8) Tax Impact – Make certain you know the state tax laws concerning second homes and see if it outweighs the equity you’ll be building over time.

So if you’re still suffering the throes of cabin fever, snap yourself out of it by checking out this beauty of a summer camp right on the lake. If you’d like to view it, we’d love to show it to you (we get cabin fever too!) Just contact us for a viewing.

New Burlington Vt Condos Coming Soon!

admin_omega — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 20:17:08 +0000

Quite some time ago I posted something about new apartments in Burlington VT that we are going to be building. At the time of posting I wasn’t sure if they were going to be condos or apartments but I think we have finally settled on condos. I am proud to announce that we have started building and we should be ready to sell by June or July. This is a picture showing some of the progress so far. As a reminder, this is what the building looked like before the renovation. The building will feature 8 units, each with a generous sized storage locker in the basement. Two of the units will be town home style meaning they will be two stories with the kitchen and living area on one floor and the bedrooms on another. The rest of the units will be Flats with everything on one level. We are thinking the prices will range from the $180,000′s to the low $200,00′s depending on the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. We are pretty excited to get these on the market. Condos in Burlington Vermont usually sell very well and this is sort of a unique project for Burlington. Most of the condos on the market in Burlington and surrounding areas fall into two categories. One is the converted apartment (which was most likely converted from a single family house). There are tons of these condos, especially in the downtown area and around the university. The other is the Condo complex. This is a more common site outside of the downtown area but nonetheless, they make up a good percentage of the condo market. This project is being built as a condo building so your entrance won’t be up some sketchy staircase to the roof where you climb through a window to get in. I’m exaggerating a little but I have seen some crazy things out there. Also this building is a classic example of infill. It is right in a neighborhood so you still have all the conveniences of city life unlike many of the aforementioned condo complexes. The bus line is just a short walk to the end of the street and there are tons of amenities right across the bridge in Winooski.

I will post more information and photos as it develops.

Burlington VT Commercial Real Estate News

admin_omega — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:09:45 +0000

This Just In!

In an effort to make your life easier Omega Real Estate Associates, Inc. In Williston Vermont is now hand aggregating relevant Burlington VT area business and real estate articles and putting them on their website! Omega Real Estate Associates aims to be your one stop shop for all of your Real Estate needs and now you can read up on the latest business news before you pull the trigger on the new Williston office space.

Stay informed as to what’s going on in the Burlington Vermont business world. Find out about proposed developments, new Vermont businesses and whatever else happens in the Burlington VT area.

Here is the link to the page: http://www.omegarealtyvt.com/commercial/real-estate-news/

This page will be updated frequently so visit often or bookmark us for your convenience.

Where’s all the buzz about Google Buzz?

admin_omega — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:17:12 +0000

If you haven’t already heard, Google announced another new product the other day called Buzz. It’s basically another social networking tool . Really Google? As if we aren’t already overwhelmed enough? Between Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and email (yes, some of us still email), who has time for another one? I guess Buzz is supposed to make your life easier by linking these all together and clogging up your inbox. Perfect! Now I can find out what Peter had for breakfast and get updates on the traffic jam Allison is stuck in right in my inbox. Do stupid waste of time tweets and facebook updates go into a special Buzz SPAM folder? Now that’s a feature that would sell me on Buzz. Here’s the thing, the only buzz on Buzz is that it nobody likes it. I did a quick Twitter search to see what people are saying about it and 80% of the tweets were negative. Is Google losing it’s edge?

What’s really puzzling about all of this is that the Real Estate community hasn’t jumped all over this thing like they did with Twitter and Facebook. Realtors are notorious for finding a way to plug listings through any and all platforms; to get the buzz going so to speak. I guess time will tell. Maybe people are still trying to figure out whether Twitter is helping their business or killing productivity.

Here is a screen shot of a listing on Buzz

No escaping social email: Facebook and MySpace coming to Outlook (digital.venturebeat.com)

How Much House Can You Afford?

admin_omega — Thu, 21 May 2009 14:54:10 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

I was doing some research on the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) website and I came across a pretty cool calculator that figures how much house you can afford with an FHA loan. It’s pretty cool how it breaks everything down. Use the detailed explanation for more info. This could be particularly helpful for first time home buyers.

http://www.ginniemae.gov/2_prequal/intro_questions.asp?Section=YPTH

Thank God we don’t have anything in Burlington, Vermont that looks like that!

Exciting New Downtown Burlington Multi-Family Listing and Video to Showcase it.

admin_omega — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:47:44 +0000

This is an especially exciting post for me for two reasons:

1) I have been wanting to introduce video tours into our marketing strategy for a while now. Not enough people offer it and I think it’s something that potential buyers really want and I think sellers deserve it. We are there taking pictures anyway, why not grab some video while we’re at it. The technology is there. There’s really no excuse.

2) I REALLY like this new Multi-Family listing in Downtown Burlington where I shot this trial video. If executed properly, I think this is the type of property that could really benefit from video. The reason being that there are 4 apartments in this building and it’s pretty hard to get the flow of the property (how rooms are connected, etc.) from still images. Of course you could just go see it in person. Another reason is that in a property like this there are a lot of small spaces that are extremely difficult to photograph without a wide angle lens.

Now for the disclaimer: This video wasn’t executed properly. It was more of a spur of the moment thing so don’t judge. I was walking around taking pictures, talking about how I wanted to start doing video tours. Then it occurred to me that the camera has a video function so I started shooting. As you can see from the video below, it was such an afterthought that I didn’t even think to shut the toilet seat! It’s only a couple of seconds long, it’s shaky and it’s just a small portion of one of the units in the 4-unit building.

With that said, Enjoy!

57 North Winooski Ave. Burlington, Vermont from Omega on Vimeo.

Why video is good for marketing real estate online. (unionstreetmedia.com)