Top 7 Advantages of New Construction Over Resale Homes

Once you start house hunting there is no doubt one of your first stops will be at a new homes website or community to see what they have to offer in the area you would like to live in. In fact, new homes have stepped up to win the hearts and minds of homebuyers for the better part of the past decade where we’ve seen an unprecedented explosion in new home construction and buying. What was once considered a luxury reserved for the rich and famous, new construction has opened the door to all price ranges and styles including luxury high-rise condominiums, townhouses, active adult communities and single-family homes.

There are a tremendous number of benefits to owning a new home including the ability to customize the home to your liking, meeting all the new neighbors as they move in and substantial savings in utility costs with new homes now being built to a higher, more energy efficient and green standard.

1. It’s your house. No, REALLY your house. – When you buy a resale home you are purchasing a home that someone else crafted to suit his or her lifestyle. Sometimes it’s just perfect and exactly what you are looking for but more often than not there are a few “Why did they do that?” issues with a home that you will have to renovate or remove when you move in to fit your lifestyle. When you build a new home you will be able to choose exactly what you want and where you want it so you can move in and not have to touch a thing.

2. Everyone else is new too! – Resale communities are great because you can see the neighborhood, how people care for their homes and everything is already established but those same benefits can prove to be cons when you are the only new neighbor on the block. Moving into a new home grants you the privilege of meeting the neighbors when they are also looking to meet new people and settle into the community. There won’t be any pre-established social circles to work your way into and you will be discovering new things about your neighborhood at the same time everyone else does.

3. Newer homes are more attractive when you resell… - Life happens. You might have to relocate or you make a lifestyle change a couple short years after you move in. The good news is that newer homes are more attractive to prospective homebuyers because it’s their opportunity to buy a newer home without the price premium associated with new construction. Better yet, you’ve already purchased all the appliances and upgrades for the home and many parts of the home are still under warranty making the home a great inclusive value. This will compare favorably to older resale homes that may require renovation or updating to make it livable for the modern homebuyer.

4. Location, Location, Location! YOU choose! – When you shop for resale homes the homes you find are obviously fixed to their current location. How many times have you seen a great resale that would be absolutely perfect if it were a little closer to the community clubhouse or offered a larger back yard for the kids to play? New homebuilders typically offer a range of model homes to choose from and you can usually place that model on a lot of your choice. Now you can have the home of your dreams in the cul-de-sac you’ve always dreamed of!

5. In the current market new homes may be a better deal than resale homes. – That’s right, the market shift has turned the tables. Now buyers have the market in the palm of their hands and can get some really outstanding deals on homes but you have to know where to look. Resale home owners may be willing to deal but in the past thirty days I have been able to successfully negotiate $69,117 off the asking price of a new home for a client and then shortly after located a home for another client and negotiated $91,000 off the asking price and we are still in negotiations to get even more from the builder. By the way, these home prices included upgrades! I have never met homeowners who were willing to accept a substantial reduction on the price of their home to the tune of more than $60,000. As a matter of fact, many homeowners have overpriced their homes on the market because they owe more than the home is worth and they cannot afford to go lower in price.

Buying Tip: To score a new home deal you can’t walk in and offer builders $400,000 under what they are asking for the home. Fantastic deals can be found however if you find the right buyer’s agent who specializes in new homes because their experience, relationships with builders and negotiating ability will help you save thousands of dollars.

6. That brown carpet and tiny kitchen? Soooooo 1970s! – Kitchen big enough for one? Small closets, shower only bathrooms and carpet everywhere? Not for today’s homebuyer! The modern lifestyle is drastically different from what it was even ten years ago and resale homes often lack the oomph and space to satisfy. Today’s homebuyer wants a bright, open kitchen with breakfast bar and high-end appliances. We now do most of our living in the kitchen! Soaking tubs in the master suite and walk-in closets are now considered standard staples of the modern home. New homes often feature these amenities as a part of their standard offering and are even starting to prepare homes for the future including the addition of whole house networking and walk-out basements that can be finished as future living space.

7. New homes save money with efficiency and green building techniques. – Many new homes are taking advantage of the Energy Star standard which sets forth a number of requirements that products like windows and doors must adhere to in order to achieve an Energy Star rating. In addition to Energy Star many builders are now offering green building and living options like the installation of solar panels on the roof of a home to harness the sun’s energy and convert it to electricity. If you install enough solar panels you may just have the electric company paying you for the electricity you are producing! These features are often very costly to retrofit a resale home with if it wasn’t initially built to these standards.

The next time you start searching for homes be sure to consider all of your options including new construction. When buying new construction you should take into account the fact that most new homes take approximately four to six months to build. You will also devote more of your personal time to building the home as you will need to choose home upgrades and work with your agent through the inspection and financing processes.

Happy hunting!

Miami Real Estate And The Effect Of Hollywood On Sales

Miami is a major city in the state of Florida, which covers 55.27 square miles, and is the seat of Miami-Dade County. This urban enclave is the largest city within the South Florida metropolitan area and the largest metropolitan area in the Southeastern United States with a population of 5.4 million. Miami and its surrounding cities make up the fifth largest urban area in the United States.

The importance of Miami as an international financial and cultural, and real estate giant has elevated Miami to the status of world city. Miami's cultural and linguistic ties to North, South, and Central America, as well as the Caribbean is well-entrenched, and this city is often times referred to as "The Gateway of the Americas." Florida's large Spanish-speaking population and strong economic ties to Latin America also make Miami and the surrounding region an important center of the Hispanic world.

Miami also has enshrined itself among TV and movie buffs, and on a large number of occasions has the city been the set of a wide array of blockbuster television and movie projects. Emmy-award winning drama shows such as CSI: Miami, Nip/Tuck and Dexter all take place in Miami.

The NBC show Good Morning, Miami was fictionally based around the workings of a Miami television station, as well as popular sitcoms The Golden Girls and "Empty Nest," were also based in outlying Miami Beach. In the 1980s however, one TV show, Miami Vice succeeded in revitalizing the city's image as the 'place to be' for the new generation.

The remake of the new Miami Vice film takes a colder, darker look at the city's underworld, although laid out in a cool and exciting manner. Video games like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories also take place in Vice City, which is a fictional city inspired by Miami, and includes some of the area’s architecture and geography.

Miami is also a mecca for Latin television and film production, owing to it's proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America. As a result, many Spanish-language programs are filmed in the many television production studios, predominantly in Hialeah and Doral. These include game and variety shows, news programs, and telenovelas, as well as daytime talk shows Cristina Saralegui and El Gordo y la Flaca. All these add to the glitzy, seductive and sweetly sinister look most folks would crave of Miami.

Throughout the past decade, Miami has emerged as one of the most vibrant real estate markets in North America. People from overseas have descended into the city and have made an unprecedented revitalization of this long neglected southern jewel. The new dynamism has carried across Biscayne Bay to Miami's worn-out downtown area, up Biscayne Boulevard, and throughout its historic east side neighborhoods.

Currently, along Miami's bay front corridor, there are around an estimated 17,000 new luxury high-rise and loft style condominiums being built or awaiting permits. That upswing has been overflowing into the adjacent Miami neighborhoods. The past decade has seen the Miami cityscape changing dramatically.

A large part of these changes have been made just over the past three years, as the city's skyline is now crowded with a mix of high rises and construction cranes. The city's real estate market has been extremely dynamic, the main Miami preconstruction condos development areas are, Downtown, Brickell, Edgewater, the Miami River as well as Coral Gables. A large number of older Miami buildings are disappearing to give way to luxury hi-rise buildings.

The city's commercial real estate market has also been very strong; it is estimated that over 4 million square feet of brand-new retail space will enter the market in the future. A flurry of real estate investments come from Latin America, the north east of the United States and also from Europe, where European investors are banking on the emerging Euro to acquire large pieces of the Miami real estate market.

Maintaining Your Homes Value - Six Quick Tips

In todays real estate market, selling your home may not be as easy as in years past. The home that stands out as "better than average" has the advantage.

One way to insure that your home sells for top dollar in the future is to keep up with the repairs and maintenance every home needs. Not only will your home remain attractive, but it will likely sell more quickly and for more money some years down the road. Being proactive about handling routine beautification and maintenance tasks will help your home retain its value over the years, and will be less costly in the long run than putting things off.

Here are six things you can do to stay on top of home maintenance issues:

1. Maintain your interior. If you have the carpets cleaned regularly it will not only improve the appearance, but will improve their wear as well. Check wood and vinyl flooring for warping and tears and replace it when needed. Make sure wood cabinets are properly cleaned and finished to improve the longevity of the wood.

2. Check for plumbing leaks. Small leaks can often be overlooked until they become large leaks. Repair the plumbing problems early. The cost of repairing water damage is often ten to twenty times the cost of repairing the leaking plumbing itself. Don't wait until the problem shows itself with a water spot on the wall or a soaked carpet. Leaks are most damaging on the second floor of a home, as the water runs inside the walls or first floor ceiling and causes extensive damage.

3. Paint your home before it really needs it. Don't wait until the paint is cracked and peeling, or you can't remember the color of the stucco. By that time you may be looking at costly repairs in addition to the painting.

4. Keep your yard in good shape. Trim the bushes and maintain the lawn and shrubs. Keep mature trees trimmed from overhanging the house so they don't deposit leaves and debris on the roof, which accelerates the aging of shake roofs. Follow your community's rules for brush clearance for fire safety.

5. Check the roof often. The rainy season is not the time to find out you have a missing or cracked shingle, or some other unseen damage. If you don't know how to check your roof, call in a roofing inspection professional.

6. Inspect your home. Walk around your home and yard frequently to look for things that need repair or replacement. Be objective. Put yourself in the place of a home buyer. What would you be looking for as you walked around the house and yard of a home you were about to buy? If your home is more than 10 years old, it is a good idea to call in an inspector and have a "Whole House" inspection. This will give you an idea of things that might need attention and can save you money on more costly repairs in the future.

Owning a home is a great joy. It's also a big responsibility. Taking on the responsibility pro actively will make home ownership more joyful, and prosperous, for you in the long run.

Investments In Property Verses Investments In Other Business

Ever since man has been earning money, he has been looking to invest his hard earned money in the right and most profitable channels. Investments have been on the minds of people since we can remember. Formidable investment options have competed with each other with shares, bonds and property leading the show. Of the three, property has always held the upper hand when it comes to a safe and sound investment option. Yet, despite all its risks, shares continue to find its own league of followers. If you are a new entrant into the investment market, you need to have a deep understanding of all the investment options in order to invest rightly. The smart investor is the one who spots the best investment option miles away.

Measuring returns:-

There are several ways to measure the returns that you get from an investment. One is to measure the net income and the other is to measure the change in the value of the asset. And of course you have to keep the risk factor in mind. In more recent times, the definition or the way by which you measure the returns has undergone a change. Returns is now defined as the percentage net income over a period divided by the value of the property or the net yield, and the percentage change in value over an equal or the same period of time. For example a property with a total yield of 15% and an increase in the value of 5% gives a total return of 20%. At the same time, the risk is defined as the volatility or the deviation over the same period of time.

Why Property?

In the US, shares were declared as the riskiest investment option in the last few years according to a survey. But they also gave the highest returns. The lowest returns were given by bonds and the risk was the minimum as well. While property fared in between the two. So wouldn’t you like to invest in a channel that does not have as much risk and at the same time, delivers a standard percentage of returns? A lot of investors look to invest a part of their income in each of the above mentioned assets. This is a smart investment policy because even if a bad situation were to arise, each one of the assets would react differently to it. Not all of them would go through a decline at the same time. The co relation of property with equities is quite less. Hence even if equities fall, it is not necessary that property will follow suit.

Sub classes within the same:-

Even within property there are two distinct sub classes. One is listed property and the other is directly held property. Of the two the later is the more stable option and also has less risks involved. So if you too are confused by the greatest investment debate of all times, then be rest assured that property definitely holds the upper hand. A two fold income source, least risks involved and an ever growing demand are what fuel’s the property market ahead. So what are you waiting for?

Why Property Is The Best Investment Option Today

Each and every person in this world works 24x7 to earn. A lot of us then look to stabilize and multiply the earned money by investing it in potentially lucrative avenues. There are a lot of investment options which can be chosen. But there are risks involved as well. For example the capital market was once the chosen investment option for most investors. But the risks involved were just too many and this led to a gradual decline in the numbers. Then people looked to invest in small businesses. Over time this investment option too failed to sustain the large numbers and is now fading away. But one investment option has stood against the test of time and stayed as reliable as it ever was. Yes, we are talking about property. Property is one of the best and most recommended investment options of all times. But what is it about property that makes it so lucrative an investment option?

The positive cash flow:-

Property is probably the only investment option which allows you to have a positive cash flow all along. After all what is more attractive than making money while you own the property? A lot of people are today looking for loans with low interest rates. The trick is to look for property which will then generate a positive cash flow. A lot of people look for three to four less expensive properties than looking for one which is rather expensive as it increases the positive cash flow. Interest only loans are another way of generating positive income. Since you will only be paying the interest for the first few years, you can easily use this loan to keep the cash flow going. Then by the end of the interest only term period, most people sell or refinance the property. There are of course several other ways by which you can maximize the income that you can generate with property.

The rules of the game:-

Like any other investment, property too has its own set of rules. If you play your right cards at the right time, you will be maximizing your profits. Have you ever heard of opportunity cost? Well, it is the cost of something in terms of a lost opportunity. For example if you invest an amount like $100K, in a property in Maine, the opportunity cost would be the amount of money you could have made by investing the same money in a city like New York. The opportunity cost would also be the amount of money that you would have made by investing the same money in some other business. In property, it is extremely important that a person understands the opportunity cost factor. A lot of people try to invest in a couple of properties and then keep it for a time frame of 20 to 25 years. But what they do not realize is that in doing this they are limiting the earning potential that the property has. There are options of selling or refinancing as well which might need to be looked into before investing in ay property.

Real Estate Financing - Creative Financing Tips

This year, Americans are expected to borrow $1.33 trillion in acquiring 7.4 million houses, condominiums and co-ops. Before you do any real estate financing, if you have bad credit because of consumer debt like credit cards or personal loans, you'll want to try to eliminate or reduce this debt since it will affect your ability to qualify for a commercial or home mortgage and make the estimated monthly payment. If you have monthly obligations like car payments, credit card payments, personal loan payments, student loan payments, etc., be sure to take these into account when you are determining your bottom-line affordability figure.

If rates in the current market are high, you'll probably get a better price with an adjustable-rate loan. A fixed-rate mortgage means that the interest rate and principal payments remain the same for the life of the loan but the taxes may change. Loan programs for down payments of 20% or less require that you purchase Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI).

Interest rates may go up if a rosy picture is painted that the economy is flourishing - like more jobs being available; this can lead to inflation which will send the rates up. You'll also need to consider closing costs and the escrow account for your taxes and insurance. Also keep in mind when you're financing or refinancing that most people move or refinance within seven years.

Most of all you'll need to decide what you can afford to buy. And if a loan application isn't approved for the first time, it can always be resubmitted after modifying it, for example, like raising the amount of the down payment. If you're a first-time home-buyer it is possible that you may qualify for a lower down payment or lower interest rate; check with mortgage brokers, online mortgage companies, your county housing department or your employer to see if they know of any programs like this available.

Revealing a FICO credit score is not a requirement for most conventional or government loans like FHA loans or VA loans. Thirty-year fixed-rate mortgages offer consistent monthly payments for all of the 30 years you have the mortgage; if the market is good, you can benefit from locking in a lower rate for the full term of the loan. 15-year mortgages are an ideal option if you can handle the higher payments and if you'd like to have the loan paid off in a shorter period of time, for example, if you plan to retire.

A 20-year fixed rate mortgage term will mean higher payments, when compared to the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. If you've applied to other lenders, when you finally do select a good lender you may have to explain why there are other inquiries from lending institutions on your credit report. Check with your CPA or accounting professional; you may be able to deduct the interest you pay on the mortgage loan and some of the financing costs of the home, like points, on your income tax return.

Be careful when working on your real estate financing; if you make too many loan inquiries, with applications, it may look like you're shopping for credit; this can be a red flag for many lenders. Keep in mind that adjustable rate mortgages are best for homeowners who aren't planning on staying with a property for a very long period of time.

Collect a few of the local home guides you see stacked up at the local grocery stores or supermarkets and look at a few of the ads in the real estate section of your Sunday newspaper for houses you might consider buying. Get lots of advice about real estate financing, mortgages, interest rates, mortgage rates, mortgage refinance, bad credit mortgages, etc., from many different sources, don't rely on one source, and think about what makes sense to you. And thinking positive about real estate financing is important but so is being realistic.

World's First Billion Dollar Home

Nestled in the heart of one of the world's poorest countries lay the construction site of all construction sites. Ranked #14 according to Forbes' latest edition of the world's richest people with an estimated net worth around forty billion dollars, Mukesh Ambani is building the world's first house with construction costs that could break the billion dollar threshold.

Mukesh Ambani serves as chairman of the India-based conglomerate Reliance Industries and is constructing a towering edifice that will be called Residence Antilla, after the mythical island. A maverick that split from his brother a few years ago over the family business, Mukesh Ambani has seen his wealth soar as the petrochemical company, Reliance Petroleum has seen profits skyrocket the last five years. With that growth as well as strategic investments in a number of other industries and developments, Ambani has become the obsession of many young men's dreams and arguably one of the most disliked people in all India.

When Mukesh Ambani joined his father's company, he recreated it, shifting its focus from textiles to petrochemicals and polyester fibers. He also oversaw the construction of sixty technologically-advanced manufacturing facilities that enabled Reliance to raise its capacity from one million tons annually to over twelve million. He also spearheaded the building of the world's largest, non-corporate governed refinery in Jamnagar, India. It produces over 660,000 barrels a day. Coupled with the other power generation and port infrastructure investments, Mukesh Ambani spent upwards of twenty-four billion dollars.

Such savvy have helped Ambani develop the conglomerate that is Reliance Industries. His most ambitious undertaking may be Reliance Infocomm. A network of information and communications technologies, Reliance Infocomm looks to connect over 1,100 cities across India with a broad array of voice, data, and other services along a fiber-optic network at the lowest cost in the world.

Part of his charm and problem is ventures like the new billion dollar home he is constructing in the financial heart of Mumbai. A nation with significant problems, Mukesh Ambani is moving forward in constructing a grand tower that will serve as his permanent residence but be the ire of peoples contentment just as long. According to architectural plans, the billion dollar house will measure in excess of 570 feet tall. It will have twenty-seven floors. Of that, six will be used to park the one hundred and sixty-eight cars he owns. Another four will be used for living quarters for the Ambani family of six. There will be one floor for vehicle maintenance. One floor set aside as a theatre floor with some expensive garden features. And one floor completely dedicated to gym equipment. The roof will have three helipads, one for him, one for his wife, and one for the kids. It is believed that a staff of 600 will be used to maintain and keep the house and its dwellers.

With hanging gardens and high ceilings, the billion dollar home on Altramount Road will be eco-friendly as well. The frame of the building will be serviced by a spine, similar to a human one that will be supported by structural pillars. Included in the construction are waterfalls and a huge garden that will cover an entire floor. The outside of the home may be even more impressive than the inside with what is being called, a living wall, running the length of the home. Plant life will scale the entire height of the building, setting a world record for the tallest continuous living thing.

That six hundred staff will be citizens in one of if not the poorest countries in the world. While the Indian economy is doing extremely well, there has been very little trickle-down to the working class citizens of the country. In fact, the amount of money that Mukesh Ambani will spend on the home is equivalent to the annual income of over 1.5 million Indian workers. Mumbai is home to over seven million slum dwellers. And an additional three to four million live in substandard housing. Mumbai is a study in contrasts. With square footage costs exceeding $1,800 in the district where Ambani is building, housing in Mumbai is hard to come by.

With the economy in India, the practices of the newly minted wealthy have ruffled the feathers of the established, old money. A generation ago, wealthy families had little desire for material possessions. Many of them avoided owning cars and lived in small apartments. They did not drive Mercedes or BMW. They did not want to have any association with appearing eccentric or indulgent. That practice has gone out the window with men like Mukesh Ambani building extravagant, opulent buildings to suit their fancy. With tracts of land unavailable, wealthy families have decided to build up. Skyscraper construction has risen in Mumbai as evidence that land is at a premium.

Recently Mukesh Ambani had construction of the billion dollar home put in jeopardy as a government agency attempted to rule the land deal that paved the way for the house illegal. The tracts were owned by an orphanage who received what was considered fair market value for the property. In fact Ambani's offer was the highest received by the orphanage. With work only a year away from completion it is difficult to believe that the government will be able to do anything more than fine Ambani if it is found that he did something illegal. But with his bid being the highest and the orphanage believing it got the best deal available Ambani hardly has a worry. Therefore he can look forward to his birthday celebration in October when a portion of the house will be made available.

Mukesh Ambani must have found his current home, the 14 story Sea Wind unsatisfactory to hold the gala. It does not have the ballroom the billion dollar home has. But it also does not have the headache.

Outsmart Uncle Sam and Keep Your Real Estate Profits!

What if you could have a cool million dollars in your IRA within a few years so you'd never have to worry about retirement income?

What if you could do this without writing another check to your IRA?

The information you're about to read is unknown to most of the world.

Most people think the way to grow your IRA is to make annual contributions and let the manager of the IRA invest it in stocks and mutual funds.

Then, over a period of 20 to 40 years, it grows into a large sum of money for your retirement.

That's the thinking of conventional wisdom.

Let me tell you how I feel about conventional wisdom.

It's almost always wrong!

Let's take a look at a better way.

I speak to groups of people all over the country and sometimes

I ask how many in the room have an IRA. I have never had more than a third of the class answer yes.

So, why don't more people invest in an IRA?

Here's what they tell me:

They can't turn loose of the $2,000 or $4,000 maximum contribution.

Having the money at hand for immediate usage is a lot more important than retirement.

They never thought about it.

They feel they can invest in other investments that can produce more income.

They know they should but never seem to get around to it.

If you're one of these people, it's probably time for you to wake up and take action before it's too late.

You see, an IRA is about all we have left that our ‘’Uncle’‘ will allow us to use to grow filthy rich without paying taxes along the way.

''But my accountant tells me I can't contribute more than $2,000 for me and $2,000 for my spouse each year.''

Your accountant may be right.

There is a limit to how much you can contribute.

But wait!

Go back and ask your accountant if there is any limit on how much your IRA can make in a year from its investments.

He'll scratch his head and tell you no. . . There Is No Cap On How Much Income Your IRA Can Produce!

''OK, so tell me how I can make my IRA wealthy without making any contributions.''

Keep your shirt on, I'm getting there.

If you're a real estate entrepreneur, you're making money from buying and selling or keeping houses.

If I've trained you, you're doing this by using little or none of your own money. The objective is to create cash and cash flow by leveraging your brain, not your wallet or credit.

Your IRA Can Do The Same Thing

That's right. Your IRA can buy houses, the same way you do.

Of course, there are a few rules and more questions.

I strongly suggest you do not do this without good, competent advice and participation.

I must warn you that Uncle Sam frowns on buying a house in an IRA with the intent of flipping it quickly.

They may tax you on the profit.

Perhaps you may want to hold it in the IRA awhile before you flip it.

Perhaps you'll only do one or two a year.

I can't answer these questions for you and frankly, many accountants can't either.

Seek the best advice you can find and do what you feel is best for you.

Your IRA must be self-directed.

You shouldn't get your IRA involved in any deal you or your entity was previously involved in.

If your IRA buys a house, it should go directly from the seller to the IRA and not pass through you. Don't take back notes on houses and give or sell to your IRA.

Keep it clean.

The last thing I want you to do with your IRA cash is to buy real estate. Why?:

Because You Don't Need Money To Buy Real Estate . . . And Neither Does Your IRA

Put some deals in your IRA that don't require cash.

Of course, there are exceptions and rules. So, take the time to learn about the ROTH and use it.

If you qualify I promise you it will be a huge return on your time investment.

Can you option a property without money?

Yes!

Can you wholesale a house without money?

Yes!

Can you take a house ''subject to'' without money?

Yes!

Can you lease/option a house without money?

Yes!

Did you know your child or grandchild can have an IRA you can start without their knowledge, that can become their own when they come of age?

What a way for you to provide for your child's educational future. Without Writing A Check! Without Borrowing A Dime!

Most people spend more time buying a car, planning a vacation or taking in a football game than planning for retirement.

So, what about you?

Getting the Most Out of Your Investment!

Great, you have decided that you want to invest in real estate, perhaps you are thinking of flipping a house or thinking of renting it for long term appreciation. Regardless of your exit strategy, more likely your investment will include challenges such as finding the funds to support the project, finding the right property, dealing with contractors and so on.

The truth is that everyone invests in something throughout their lives. Some of us invest in stocks, gold, stamps, cars, their hobbies or real estate. Personally I believe in real estate not because of what the media says on the 6 o’ clock news but rather due to the fact that history shows that over 90% of all millionaires have become wealthy by owning real estate. If this is true, why isn’t everyone doing it? Unfortunately there is more to investing than most people might think. The first obstacle that most of us have to cross is coming up with the money to invest.

Who says it has to be your money to invest? Lets get high on OPM or other people’s money. Generally humans go through three phases in their lives. When we are born we are dependent on our parents, then we want to become independent and finally we realize that we cannot do everything ourselves therefore we become interdependent of others. You can easily approach your circle of influence to partner with you in a project. For example if you know someone who has some cash sitting around and he is tired of earning 2%-3% at the bank you can create a win-win relationship by offering your real estate expertise in exchange for his investment. Your expertise could include finding the property, renovating it, and taking care of the day to day management activities. The key is to remember to make sure that each one of you brings different values to the relationship. If neither of you have any investment funds but you are great buddies, it’s not going to propel you forward.

If you have owned a house in Calgary for the last couple years you should have seen a substantial equity increase in your home. The money sitting in your home is a great feeling, it gives you security and piece of mind to your family. Ask yourself the question, how much profit is that equity putting in your pocket each year? Banks nowadays will be happy to provide you or your investor partner with a PLC (personal line of credit) against your home and then you can use those funds to invest in real estate and earn a lot more than your savings account would generate.

The Calgary real estate market is so expensive, where do I buy? Probably 99% of the listings today aren’t going to fit your criteria. But that still leaves you with lot of options available to choose from. One of the biggest mistakes that I see Investors making is calling up their REALTOR® and asking them to give them a call when he sees a great deal out there. In my point of view this statement is no different than saying to a Doctor to fix your problem but you won’t let him to examine you. My suggestion to serious investors is to decide what part of Calgary or communities he is planning on investing and get familiar with the neighborhood. The investor will need to consider the type of homes he is after, general size, garage or no garage etc. The more specific the criteria the better chances a REALTOR® have of finding a solution. This approach will also forge the investor to become a specialist in the area and he will have a great insight on property values. It will take some time to go through the learning process but dividends will be rewarding especially when an undervalued property shows up on the market.

You think you’ve found the right house, how do you make sure it’s going to work? Doing too much due diligence will never get you into any trouble, not doing any research will cost you a fortune. At this point you should be educated enough to know approximately how much do certain renovations will cost. It’s worth the effort to visit suppliers to get familiar with prices. I suggest outsourcing the same suppliers as builders are using, this could easily save you 10%-25% compared to retail price. If you just need to replace a couple of doors you can find business in the city who sells recycled materials. Most of the time if you just paint it, it will look brand new and you could buy it at 1/3 of the new door. At the time of making an offer, you aren’t going to have any time to ask contractors to provide you with a quote. Plus homeowners wouldn’t appreciate strangers coming through their homes. Prior to your house hunting, you can interview a few contractors and have a general idea of what their prices are. For instance to replace a carpet in a house it would probably cost $3.50/sq.ft. supply & install or paint $2/sq.ft. I don’t recommend starting to measure floor space when you are viewing a home but you should be able to estimate an approximate cost of repairs in 5-10 minutes by using round figures to the nearest thousands. Always over estimate your expenses because it’s guaranteed that you will have surprises.

What kind of renovations should I be doing to maximize my profit? The trick here is to renovate the house to the point where the potential buyer will fall in love with it but it doesn’t cause the resale price to be above the norm in the community. According to the Appraisal Institution of Canada finished basements will only return about 1⁄2 of the investment and the greatest values are usually gained from the renovated kitchen and bathrooms. If you are planning on doing multiple renovation projects you need to set up a system to follow. You need to now exactly the type of colors, carpet, baseboards, window coverings that you are going to use. Once you have this information nailed done, you are just repeating the same process over and over until it becomes “cookie cutter” and that will save you a lot of time.

After the renovation is complete staging always helps to sell a home quicker and for a higher price. To speed up your learning curve on how to stage a house you can visit a few show homes on the weekend. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel you just need to get some ideas from what works for others.

Finally you’ve got the keys to the house and you are ready to swing the hammer. Prior to submitting your offer you’ve decided what kind of renovations you will be doing and you have an idea how much it’s going to cost. How do you orchestrate the contractors so it won’t be nightmare? First and most importantly who ever you choose to hire at whatever price, make sure that both of you understand the exact plan. The best way to avoid any misunderstanding is to have everything in writing and in great detail. If you want to establish a long term relationships with contractors it doesn’t hurt to discuss your policies and perhaps have them to sign off on it.

Keep in mind that you must take action. As with anything in life, knowledge without action equals nothing. Although, dreaming is an enjoyable and important process, only actions can transfer dreams into reality.

The Best Time to Sell a Vacation Home

Whether a vacation homeowner is trading a house in the woods for a pied-à-terre or exiting second-home ownership altogether, he or she needs to know that putting a vacation property on the market requires a different strategy than selling a primary residence.

Towns with a predominance of second homeowners have seasonal quirks to their real estate markets. Sales activity is driven not only by the time of year when most visitors descend, but also by the season when potential buyers hope to get the most use out of their homes. Pinpointing when demand ebbs and flows is the first step in deciding when to put a vacation home on the market.

On Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where second-home buyers flock for summers on the lakes or winters on snowmobiles, the busiest sales months are from March to October. Putting a house with lake frontage on the market in the dead of winter will not attract many buyers, said Jeff Dohl, the owner of Yooper Land Realty in Iron River, Mich. Buyers want to see the house when the lake shore is not piled high with snow.

If a property must be listed in the colder months, Mr. Dohl said, selling it requires elbow grease: At one listing last February, he shoveled and drilled through several feet of ice and snow to the ground level for the benefit of two potential customers from Chicago. “They wanted to see the beach,” he said.

And while buyers are looking for lake homes in the warmer months, by late fall, Mr. Dohl, said, there are more buyers on the lookout for hunting cabins. “It shifts gears,” he said. “You move more into camps and hunting properties out in the wilderness.”

Sales activity on the East End of Long Island is driven by year-end bonuses, usually distributed in December and January. Many buyers look to close on homes by April in order to be moved in by summer, though sales are still strong throughout the summer season, too.

In Sedona, Ariz., the opposite is true; there is little foot traffic from second-home shoppers in the hottest months. “We don’t get a lot of second-home buyers over the summer,” said Lon Walters, a Sedona real estate agent. “Spring is absolutely the biggest time. It’s double of anything over fall.”

And in Truckee, Calif., 12 miles north of Lake Tahoe, sales traditionally peak after the Fourth of July, when cold summer fog settles over the San Francisco Bay area, the home base of most vacation-home buyers. The selling season goes through the winter ski season.

Rich Harter, the owner of Pacific Crest Properties, says some owners take their properties off the market if they don’t sell by the start of ski season; that way they can rent out the house to skiers. “A lot of sellers are under the misconception that winter is a slow sales time,” he said, “but that is erroneous. We sell a lot of homes in the winter, especially if there is good skiing.”

Realtors say that second-home sellers have an advantage because their homes generally have less in the way of belongings and furniture. “Vacation homeowners typically don’t have as much clutter,” said June Slusser, the owner of Coldwell Banker High Country Realty in Blue Ridge Ga. “That is so important in showing.” She noted that many of the cabins she sells are outfitted with high-end log furniture, and those that are not, are increasingly staged to create a cozy mountain atmosphere.

Those looking for a summer home want to see houses set up to look like warm-weather retreats even in the cooling days of fall, brokers say. Second homeowners in the Hamptons might not open their swimming pools until Memorial Day, and might close them up for the winter by mid-September, but Cathy Tweedy, a vice president at the Corcoran Group in Bridgehampton, recommends that sellers stretch the season. “The earlier they can open the pool and start landscaping the better,” she said. “And the longer they can keep it going, the more attractive the property.”

Five Key Things to Consider When Choosing the Estate Development for Your Investment Property

Purchasing a home or unit as an investment is often one of the biggest challenges you will face in life, outside of the purchase of your own home. We all know what we like and do not like and because of this it is really easy to buy a home that you like but quite often what you like in a home does not translate to the likes of potential tenants.

There are five key things to consider when choosing where to purchase your investment property and what Estate Development you should choose.

Key Issue 1: Choose an Estate Development with Lots of Parks Close By

Nobody wants to live in a concrete jungle. Even in large unit developments today, you will notice that developers spend an enormous amount of money ensuring they build a complex that contains at least one large area that residents can use like a park, so why would you want to buy a home in an estate that has no parks.

If you look at the majority of people who want to live in rental properties, they are one of two types of people, they either have children or are grandparents with grandchildren. Having a park close to your investment home will ensure that people will want to rent it because they know they will be able to let the children play in the park with some level on safety.

In many estate developments in Australia, the developers are ensuring that all homes are within viewing distance of a park. This means you as a parent can be working at home but still able to see you children. This will give a potential tenant with children a certain level of comfort.

Key Issue 2: Choose a Development Close To Public Transport

When I am choosing to purchase any property, especially an investment property, I always assess how close the property is to Public Transport. Throughout the world, many people are dependant on public transport and if your property is not close to public transport you may find it difficult to lease the property.

For example, my own wife comes from Brisbane in Australia, because she grew up in a city which has a very well defined train system and because of this she actually didn't get her license to well into her 20's because there was no need. This meant that when we were choosing a property to live-in we had to ensure that we were always close to the Public Transport system. I have found that people who live in cities with quality Public Transport, have a larger number of people without licenses which means if your investment property is close to public transport it will certainly attract potential tenants.

Key Issue 3: Choose a Development Close to Public Facilities

No one wants to drive a million miles or spend hours on public transport to access public facilities such as Hospitals, government services etc. The general rule of thumb that I use for choosing sites is that a range of government services such as social security, hospitals, Centerlink etc should be within a 10 km radius of the potential site.

Key Issue 4: Choose a Development Close to Schools

Many tenants are choosing today to live close to the school their children go to for one of two reasons. The first being safety and the second being for the health of the children. With the world's politicians on a major push to deal with childhood obesity, many people are moving into properties that allow their children to walk to school. Being close to school ensures that they will be safe but also ensure that they do their daily exercise.

Key Issue 5: Choose a Development Close to the Shops, Doctors etc

Most new developments today are required to include land that has a commercial use for services such as shops, doctor's surgeries, offices etc. However, some older developments have not had theses requirements and you will often find that they are more difficult to lease properties to tenants because the tenants need to travel too far to access these types of facilities.

Whilst there are many issues that will affect whether a property will be rented such as vacancy rates, number of rental properties on the market and the type of property etc ensuring that these five key elements are satisfied will give you a certain advantage to those who have not met these key issues.

How A Cash Out Mortgage Can Help You Get Your Equity And Save Money

Getting money out of the equity in your home is certainly one of the cheapest ways to get the money you need. No matter what the money is to be used for, the equity money on your home is probably the best way to pay for it. Here is how a cash out mortgage can help you to finance your projects - and do it cheaper than any other method.

In order to get a cash out mortgage, you will need to refinance your existing mortgage. The idea behind this, though, is to save money - not add to your existing debt. By waiting until you can get an interest rate that is lower than your current rate, by at least 1%, you will be able to save some money. But there is more - if you can shorten the length of your existing mortgage, by at least 5 years, you will be able to save a lot more money - possibly many tens of thousands of dollars.

Although it is possible with some lenders to refinance your mortgage for as much as 100%, or more, of the value of your home, this is not advised. To avoid having to pay Private Mortgage Insurance, you want to stay away from a mortgage that involves more than 80% of the loan to value of the home, and some lenders may only let you borrow 75% of it. This may cut down on the amount of equity you can obtain - but you still should be able to get a lot of it.

The amount of equity that you add to the total amount you owe to the lender, is the amount of equity available to you. This means you want to carefully select how much equity you will get, and it should be determined by how much you need for particular projects or bills. It is not a good idea to take out all you can. The lender may also limit the amount of equity you can obtain because they will decide how much debt, and the payments you can afford, which will be based on your credit report and current income.

A cash out mortgage is a great way to get access to your equity. However, you do need to remember that there are costs to getting a first mortgage - which involves a few thousand dollars. For this reason, you should not consider refinancing, unless you are planning on staying in that home for at least another 5 years. The added costs will take you at least 3 years just to get back your money and break even. Only after that period of time will you begin to enjoy the savings, and start seeing more equity being built up in your home.

After you get the equity out of your home, you do have the liberty of spending it the way you want. This means that you can use the money for a wide range of things including, vacations, debt consolidation, college education, getting another car, and more. Because of the low interest rate (lower than any with other form of borrowing), it gives you the best way to go as far as interest is concerned.

However, your greatest investment, though, will come from equity money that is to be put back into your home by remodeling, additions, or other improvements that you make to your home. Not only will this improve your level of living while you are in it, but it also could instantly raise the value of your home, too - giving your home even greater equity.

What the Future Looked Like Yesterday

HOW do old buildings disappear? Sometimes all at once, under the wrecking ball. But more often they fade away on little cat’s feet, first the cornice, then a doorway, then the windows, then a balcony ... leaving behind nothing but an architectural zombie.

At the moment that’s what seems to be happening with one of the most astonishing apartment houses in the Bronx, indeed in New York City: Horace Ginsbern’s fantastical but neglected 1937 art moderne essay at 1150 Grand Concourse.

At the Grand Concourse and McClellan Street, just north of the present Bronx Museum of the Arts, Mr. Ginsbern and Samuel Cohn, a developer, let loose on what Mr. Cohn called Grand Towers, probably because of its sweeping views south and west. There are four towers — that is, four seemingly separate blocks of apartments — with light courts in between. Each one has a rounded corner, and the parapet wall once formed a sort of windbreak made of strips of glass block.

The wall itself was originally topped with big metal railings in a circular futuristic pattern that resembled a ray gun. From a vantage point across the street, you can see peculiar latticework structures on the roof. These look like little Eiffel Towers with globe shapes on top.

The rooftop structures might have been Martian fortresses in a Buck Rogers episode, although period advertisements suggest a more terrestrial use: roof gardens.

Flanking the ground-floor entrance is what stops people in their tracks: a brightly colored glass-tile mural of an undersea scene in brilliant, sometimes iridescent colors. Two marine creatures the size of Great Danes — perhaps colossal angelfish — wiggle through the water, both of them chaotic whirls of pink, orange, gold, green and blue.

They are swimming toward some kind of undersea plant (a sea anemone?), itself surrounded by watermelon-size amoeba shapes with long, fingery edges. In the background are long, lazy currents of gold, silver and blue tile and some feathery underwater plants rocking back and forth.

The ends of the murals curve in to meet the doorway, and the entire assembly is set into a 15-foot-high field of speckled cast stone the color of a pencil eraser. It is decorated with rows of small square recesses that mimic classical coffers like those on the ceiling of the Pantheon in Rome. Each recess originally had a bottle-green glass disk at its center.

It is doubtful that any graffiti artist has ever had such a wildly colorful inspiration as the unknown artist who conceived the fish mural, which is unsigned. Miraculously, it is untouched by vandalism or any other kind of damage.

The drama continues in the lobby: exuberant painted chevrons on the elevator doors; partitions made of frosted glass tiles; highly figured red marble walls; and a terrazzo floor with random polygons of silky black stone floating on a green field.

Two painted murals of nominally classical inspiration depict a faun, nude dancers and a bearded man playing a fiddle with Cubist shrubbery and a distinctly menacing cactus. The murals are signed Renée Graves and C. D. Graves, but neither name can be pinpointed in directories or census records.

Grand Concourse real estate is mostly just no-frills housing these days, and at No. 1150, Buck Rogers is long gone. The parapet has been stripped down and covered with brown aluminum capping. Most of the green glass disks within reach have been pried out of their little coffers. The outer doors, which appeared to be a mix of nickel, brass and steel, were removed a few years ago. In the lobby, the signatures of the Graveses have been joined by others — “Junior,” “Dark Cide” and “DRD” — scratched into the plaster. A work crew covered the Art Deco elevator doors with brown paint a few years ago, although a skilled tenant volunteer stripped it off.

Another tenant, Beverly Beja, calls the building her “magnificent obsession.” She said she tried to save the doors, but the $20,000 it would have cost to rehabilitate them was far too much for the tenants to bear.

She lives in a two-bedroom apartment with a sunken living room and two original bathrooms — one with cobalt blue fixtures and yellow and blue tile, the other with plum-colored fixtures and rose-colored tile.

Ms. Beja says the current owner, a company headed by Labe Twerski, “has worked very, very hard” trying to repair problems that developed under previous owners. Mr. Twerski did not respond to three calls and two letters seeking comment about the entrance doors and the building.

Ms. Beja says that she hopes that her focus on a few small details might spark a larger restoration movement.

“Just buff the floors, and give the security guard a doorman’s hat, and it would be nice,” she said.

“Every day, I walk home and I think, ‘Dear God, let no one have damaged the mosaics.’ ”

E-mail: streetscapes@nytimes.com

When New Building Dries Up Resources

UNTIL five years ago, it seemed that the breakneck pace of development in Effingham County, a Savannah suburb in southeast Georgia, knew no limits.

But like other fast-growing areas across the country, Effingham had to learn that large-scale expansion often comes at a price. In the county’s case, it was the long-term integrity of the vast underground water supply that serves it as well as other major areas in the South.

“The prevalent mentality that natural resources have no end has come to an abrupt halt here,” said John A. Henry, chief executive of Effingham’s Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Authority. Because overuse of its wells could draw in saltwater, the county can no longer rely solely on the wells for business and residential use, he explained, and it has been buying water from Savannah for the last five years.

As a result, cities in the county have had to spend millions of dollars and expect to spend millions more to try to keep up with growth. Residents’ water bills have risen significantly, and yet, the growth continues.

As recently as the early 1980s, Effingham County was still dotted with farms and corner gas stations. But in the last two decades it has grown rapidly, becoming home to subdivisions and to businesses like Wal-Mart and McDonald’s. The county’s population was 37,535 in 2000, a 46.1 percent increase from the 25,687 population in 1990, according to census figures. By 2006, it was 48,954, up another 30.4 percent.

Effingham’s development has been most noticeable in the city of Rincon, 20 miles north and slightly west of Savannah along State Highway 21, where new building permits for single-family houses rose to 268 last year from 65 in 1996. The city’s population in 2006, according to census data, reached 6,922, an increase of more than 58 percent from 2000, when it was 4,376.

The water problem became widely known about a decade ago, after years of investigation by scientists at the United States Geological Survey. They said that intense industrial and residential development had caused a cone of depression in the Upper Floridan aquifer, straining the key underground water source past its limits.

The problem in Effingham County, said Timothy Baumgartner, an engineer with EMC Engineering Services Inc., which works for Rincon, was that continued high use there of underground water could intensify saltwater intrusion in wells throughout the area served by the aquifer.

The strain on the underground supply has already caused some saltwater to be suctioned into low-lying coastline areas near Hilton Head, S.C., about 40 miles east of Rincon. Federal officials said that unless action was taken, future generations would draw saltwater instead of freshwater.

“Maybe not in one year or two,” said Steve Liotta, an Effingham County engineer, “but in 5, 10 or 15 years, wells in cities served by the Upper Floridan aquifer would increasingly become contaminated with saltwater.”

Last year, in response to the federal government’s findings, Georgia ordered sections of Effingham and all of neighboring Chatham County to lower daily groundwater use to five million gallons below 2004 levels. Rincon and other areas in the county were forced to pipe in water, from surface sources like rivers and streams, that is treated in Savannah and then sent out. In addition, no new wells could be drilled.

So far, Rincon has spent nearly $10 million to build a water treatment plant, and it is about to spend $3.5 million more to upgrade the facility. The goal is to reprocess water already used by households so that it can be reused for nondrinking purposes like watering lawns and irrigation, said David Schofield, Rincon’s acting city manager.

Stacie and Preston Taylor, who moved to a starter home in a development in Rincon four years ago and then two years later to a larger colonial in another development, were initially able to draw their drinking water from a community well. Now they must tap into municipal supplies, and that, Mrs. Taylor said, is taking a hefty bite of their household budget.

Mrs. Taylor, a mortgage banker, and her husband, a sales representative, used to pay $30 a month for their water; their monthly bill for water that now comes from Savannah is $300, and sometimes more. “It can be very hard on a family’s budget,” she said.

But the high quality of the local public schools and the “family-type, small-town feeling” in Rincon, despite its growth, offset other negatives. The Taylors have a 2 ½-year-old daughter, Kaylee, and are expecting another child in December.

Sandy Martin and her husband, Stan Milam, retirees who used to own a home near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and now live in Springfield, another city in Effingham, said that the county had changed since they first moved there six years ago. Not only water problems but increased traffic have resulted from new development, Ms. Martin said.

The couple, who live in a three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath ranch on 28 acres that they bought in 2001 for less than $250,000, still draw from their own well and do not have to pay for municipal water. But their friends and neighbors pay for water, Ms. Martin said, “and they can get grumpy about that, especially when it comes time to fill their pools.”

“People complain about paying for water,” she said, “but lots of things that used to be free, like TV reception, now cost money.”

Residential real estate in Effingham remains a bargain compared with Savannah, according to LaTrelle Pevey, the owner of ERA Adams-Pevey Realty in Rincon. In today’s market, a new 1,400-square-foot subdivision house with three bedrooms, two baths and a fenced yard on one-fourth to one-half an acre in southern Effingham would cost $130,000 to $175,000. In Savannah, the same house would cost $160,000 to $195,000, Ms. Pevey said.

What prompted the decades-long land rush in the 480-square-mile Effingham County? According to V. Elaine Seabolt, the president and owner of Seabolt Brokers/Harry Norman Realtors in Savannah, the county owes its growth to two groups.

Young families, seeking to escape the higher cost of housing in Savannah, began migrating in the early 1990s in search of small starter homes selling for $125,000 and up, Ms. Seabolt said. Empty nesters, many priced out of retirement havens like Hilton Head, also gravitated to Effingham, where the climate is warm most of the year, the cost of living reasonable and the threat of hurricane damage far less than in Florida.

“The bottom line is that dirt is a lot cheaper right outside of Savannah,” Ms. Seabolt said, “and certainly less expensive than in Hilton Head.”

The Floridan aquifer system, according to the Geological Survey, is one of the most productive in the world, underpinning about 100,000 square miles in southern Alabama, Southeastern Georgia, Southern South Carolina and all of Florida. It provides water for cities including Savannah and Brunswick in Georgia; and Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Orlando, and St. Petersburg in Florida.

Effingham’s water problems are not unusual. In Naples and Tampa in Florida, in Southern California and in Scottsdale, Ariz., aquifers have similarly been stressed by intense development, Mr. Baumgartner of EMC Engineering said. But those cities, he said, do not have the saltwater problem.

Ken Lee, Rincon’s mayor, said that the city, which was “now trying to play catch-up to solve the problems,” had no plans to cut back on either residential or commercial growth because of the water problems.

But not everyone agrees that the explosive development of the last two decades should continue, according to Levi Scott, Rincon’s assistant mayor, who grew up in the city during the 1950s and 1960s.

“You hear a lot of griping at council meetings,” he said. “Some people think the city has already paid too high a price for all this growth.” So far, there is no organized opposition to growth.

Mr. Liotta, the county engineer, said the focus should be on how best to conserve water for future generations. “One way to do that,” he said, referring to the county’s new policies, “is that the more water someone uses, the more they will pay.”

Real Estate Still the Best Investment?

Impending Real Estate Doom? Not if most AMericans can have their way. Hopefully perception is reality as Americans are confident their homes are retaining, even gaining, value, according to a nationwide telephone survey conducted this month by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In fact, Americans are nearly as optimistic now about the rising value of their homes as they were a year ago, according to the research.

According to the survey:

• 55% of Americans say their home would sell for more money now than it would have a year ago. (Last summer, 59% of American homeowners felt that way.)
• 85% of Americans believe their house will be worth more five years from now than it is today.
• Nearly three-quarters (74%) of homeowners say they're confident they could sell their home within the next six months at a price they think it's worth.
• The majority - 63% - of Americans think real estate is a good or excellent investment.
• 76% of Americans say the current real estate market has no impact on how they're spending now. (However, 16% say they're cutting back because of a perception of lower residential real estate values.)
• Most home owners - 69% - say they're likely to make renovations or improvements to their home over the next 12 months.
• 27% of Americans say they're likely to purchase a better home over the next five years.

An evicted house finds a new home

To the casual observer, Heather MacEachern's future abode — with its sections surgically cut apart and walls sealed off with duct tape and tarp — might seem like a Frankenstein-like mess. But this situation doesn't faze Ms. MacEachern: She's recycling an unwanted house that's in perfectly good condition by moving it — and saving a few bucks in the process.

Ms. MacEachern, a Toronto resident, wanted to live near her mother in Clearview, Ont., about an hour's drive north of the city. "To realistically build a new house [costs] an arm and a leg," she says. "This is our way of being able to be [in Clearview] without having to kill ourselves with mortgage payments."

The road she travelled to find her new home wasn't an easy one. Finding a homeowner willing to hand over a house headed for the landfill in perfectly good condition isn't exactly an easy task. But fate was kind to her: She found exactly what she was looking for … at a garden party.

Enter HGTV's Design for Living Kimberly Seldon. Last August, Ms. MacEachern's sister catered a party Ms. Seldon was hosting on her property in near Creemore, Ont., adjacent to the Niagara Escarpment. Ms. MacEachern, who was assisting her sister that day, struck up a conversation with Ms. Seldon as she toured the quaint, country-styled home.

Ms. Seldon mentioned that although she enjoyed the location of the property, the house itself wasn't something she was exactly thrilled about. Plus, she wanted the opportunity to flex her interior decorating skills and build her own dream home.

"I was quite surprised to hear that from Kimberly, to say the least. It was a great house," Ms. MacEachern says. "Just walking in there, from the get-go … it felt like it was something I would have built if I started from scratch."

The teal-coloured house, described by Ms. Seldon as a "sweet, little country clapboard," is a "E-shaped" three-bedroom bungalow with two bathrooms. The amenities are practical, featuring a full kitchen, spacious living area and two-car garage.

"It's kind of country kitschy on the inside. Before the Seldons bought it, a rural couple owned it, so there's rooster wallpaper all over the place," Ms. MacEachern says.

After the party was over, Ms. MacEachern mentioned to her mother, a real estate agent, how unfortunate it was that such a nice house would go to waste.

"So [my mother] said, 'I have a great idea. I know a house mover. Why don't you call the Seldons and see if they would be willing to have you take on their house,'" Ms. MacEachern remembers.

"[The Seldons] thought about it later that night and the next day, it was a go."

What was even more generous was that Ms. Seldon wanted nothing for the house.

"Everybody saves a bit of cash this way," Ms. Seldon says. "And we've kinda bonded through it all."

After the necessary permits were acquired, Ms. MacEachern has begun the process that will see all the parts of the 2,300-square-foot residence moved about two kilometres to a lot alongside her parents' home by the beginning of September.

To do that, Ms. MacEachern hired an independent contractor, Ivan Weatherall, who has been moving houses for more than 25 years.

First, Mr. Weatherall had to separate the house into five sections. After the eves and shingles were removed, a sawsall, or reciprocating saw, was used to make precise cuts along the walls of the house to ensure that everything would easily fit back into place.

Once the house was separated, Mr. Weatherall began lifting each section onto a trailer, using wooden stilts and large airbags. Temporary plastic tarps are attached to ensure the exposed walls aren't damaged in the moving process. When the house is transported to its new lot, the sections will be reattached using nails and fresh drywall.

Mr. Weatherall says that for a house of that size, the move usually takes six weeks and will cost the MacEacherns about $65,000.

Ms. MacEachern estimates that she and her husband have saved just under $200,000 by recycling a home rather than building a new one.

Ms. Seldon will also save $40,000 in demolition costs, and will likely receive a healthy dose of good karma by gifting the residence away.

Along with saving some cash, there is also the green benefits of recycling a house.

"Living in Toronto … I see all these bungalows being torn down and these monstrosities set up. I totally believe that if someone had the vision to start something up where these little bungalows can be relocated for affordable housing, it would just save a lot of garbage in the landfills," she adds.

While moving a house is something that Mr. Weatherall does about 10 times a year, he rarely sees a house recycled to a new homeowner. When homes are demolished, they often end up in landfill sites But some conscientious contractors try to recycle things such as windows, doors, trim, baseboards and crown mouldings by using them in other residences. There's also the option of giving the parts to a Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

Ms. Seldon thinks such houses should be moved more often. "People don't realize that it's a viable option. It actually saves you money as the homeowner because you don't have to pay demolition costs, and the house doesn't end up in a landfill."

The realization that a lifelong dream of living in the country is about to come true now preoccupies Ms. MacEachern. She checks up on the house's progress weekly, and can hardly contain her excitement.

"We go up every weekend to my parents' place and there's four of us in one bedroom, so we all can't wait to have a bit more space" so her children can have their own rooms.

"I have recurring nightmares that the house is going to fall apart or collapse," she adds, "but I'm pretty confident it will turn out okay. I'm just excited that we're finally going to have a larger place to live and a home to start our own traditions and memories."

A Pleasant Surprise in the Bronx

WHEN it comes to buying a home — to buying anything, really — a good value isn’t enough for Caroline Chiti. “Because of the type of person I am, I don’t want something good for a dollar,” she said. “I want something great for a dollar.”

Ms. Chiti, a marketing consultant who grew up on West 84th Street in Manhattan, had always rented apartments in Manhattan. But about seven years ago, after a sublet fell through, “I moved in with my mom to the room I grew up in,” she said.

She decided to begin hunting for a co-op in Jackson Heights, Queens, a neighborhood she could afford. Meanwhile, on vacation in Dublin, she met Ian Hardies, a Belgian who had grown up in Estepona, a resort town on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. They married after a long-distance courtship of a year, and bought the one-bedroom co-op in Jackson Heights she had chosen. They renovated before moving in, and their home nearly quadrupled in value by the time they sold it last spring.

Wanting more space, the couple began figuring out where they might replicate their success. But this time, with two-bedrooms nearby starting at around $350,000, “I felt hopeless,” Ms. Chiti said. “It’s not that we couldn’t have sold and upgraded, but I didn’t want to pay that price. I am skeptical of the market.”

They thought Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, with its lovely row houses, would be likely to grow in value. The couple checked out fixer-uppers there. The bigger, grander homes were at least $700,000; the smaller, narrower ones were well over $550,000.

Those 15-foot-wide brownstones were a problem for Mr. Hardies, who is a furniture designer. “It is very restrictive because the stairway takes up so much room,” he said.

Several of the brownstones were rooming houses, “so when we went to look, we had to knock on everybody’s door,” Ms. Chiti said. “It was weird going to someone’s apartment when they were in bed.”

She worried about overpaying. “Brooklyn is beyond on-its-way,” she said. “I wanted to find something that needed gut renovation that was very inexpensive.”

It was her mother, Judith Chiti, who suggested they consider the Bronx.

“In my head, the Bronx didn’t exist, even though my mother grew up there and I went to visit my grandparents there when I was young,” Ms. Chiti said. “It was a nonborough to me.”

But the couple listened. They visited nearly every weekend for months and decided the housing stock had real potential. About $400,000 to $450,000 could buy a row house ripe for renovation.

The Bronx “was at such zero in people’s minds it could only go up,” Ms. Chiti said — especially the High Bridge neighborhood near Yankee Stadium, poised for new stadium construction.

Mr. Hardies said, “I remember stories her mother told, looking at the Grand Concourse like it was Fifth Avenue.” He doesn’t quite agree, but “you can see the grandeur.”

They visited 811 Walton Avenue, a co-op building, where the space seemed small for the price — $220,000 to $240,000 for two-bedroom apartments with one bathroom. Besides, they were already beautifully renovated, Mr. Hardies said, and “I’d like to take a project on my hands.”

They were charmed by the area’s row houses, and considered a two-family house on Grant Avenue. The top floor was more of an attic, however, and renting out the apartment there would leave limited space for themselves. And it was imperative to have a tenant, for financial security. “I am always thinking of the worst-case scenario,” Ms. Chiti said.

But the one they really fell for was a two-family brick house on Walton Avenue.

They were never clear on who was selling the house. The owners had divorced, with the husband in a nursing home and the wife recently deceased. It seemed that her relatives, who had inherited her half, began to gut the place, intending to sell it, then stopped work.

The couple planned to offer $390,000. On one visit, though, the pipes burst. “We watched the basement flood,” Ms. Chiti said. “I still wanted it. It didn’t matter — I was like a dog with a bone.” They instead offered $360,000. Mr. Hardies drew up floor plans.

But the offer went nowhere. Overwhelmed after months of pestering the agent, they gave up.

Then they saw an ad for a Grand Concourse co-op building with apartments of varying sizes for sale. Ms. Chiti wanted to buy one of the two-bedrooms, which were listed in the $150,000 range.

“I am the logical one,” she said. “My husband is completely emotional and he had to have the three-bedroom. He nagged me. I am, like, forget it — it is too much money. He wouldn’t let go.”

Mr. Hardies liked the layout as much as the size. “For me, it is the psychology behind the floor plan,” he said. “When we saw the three-bedroom, I fell in love with it. Caroline thought it was too big.”

But the three-bedroom had a second bathroom, and “I started to research what two-bathroom apartments went for, regardless of bedrooms,” Ms. Chiti said. “I concluded that two bathrooms were a very good thing. In every borough you have a large number of two-bedroom, one-baths. Two bathrooms are not that easy to come by.”

In some cases, a two-bathroom place sold for nearly twice the price of a one-bathroom place.

That convinced her. In June, the couple bought their 1,800-square-foot apartment for $220,000. Maintenance is around $800 a month.

“When I told people where we were going, they looked at me in horror,” Ms. Chiti said. “The South Bronx? Everybody’s reaction is emotional. If it was factual, they wouldn’t have that reaction.”

The two were able to move into the building temporarily, renting a vacant one-bedroom for $900 a month while $50,000 worth of renovations are in progress. They are upgrading the wiring, rerouting the gas line and relocating a wall to enlarge the kitchen and shrink the dining room.

They added triple-paned windows in the master bedroom, which faces the street. One bedroom will be a home office, while the other will double as a workout room and workshop for Mr. Hardies.

“The neighbors are the nicest people I have ever met,” and feel passionate about the building, Ms. Chiti said. “I am really pleasantly surprised. I feel terrible for being so surprised, but I am.”

The Cost of Saving Energy

NEW YORKERS have often been told that they use less energy than most Americans, partly because they live in the most densely populated city in the country.

And that’s true, up to a point.

Sure, New Yorkers have the benefit of an extensive mass-transit system, which means lower auto emissions, but the city’s residential buildings are less energy-efficient than those in many other places in the country, particularly in eco-friendly states like California and Vermont.

“The main reason that New Yorkers use much less electricity is that our apartments are so much smaller” than homes in other cities, said Rohit Aggarwala, the director of the Long-Term Planning and Sustainability Office, part of the Mayor’s Office of Operations.

In fact, most big New York buildings, both commercial and residential, are wasting thousands of dollars a year on energy, the city says. Energy use by buildings accounts for almost 80 percent of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions, and residential buildings for about a third of that. These gases are released in creating the energy used to heat, cool and light the buildings, as well as to run myriad household appliances and gadgets.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has created a blueprint, called PlaNYC, to control future development in the city, with a goal of reducing total greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 by 30 percent, compared with 2005 levels.

While some reductions can be accomplished by toughening the requirements for new construction, about 85 percent of the buildings that will exist in the city in 2030 are already standing.

And those buildings need to go on an energy diet.

There are a number of relatively inexpensive things that residential buildings could do that would immediately lower their energy costs and that would reduce their “carbon footprints,” the emissions these buildings are responsible for, Mr. Aggarwala said.

The easiest, and cheapest, is to install energy-efficient light bulbs in all common areas. More expensive plans — the costs of which can often be offset by loans and grants from New York State — include replacing old inefficient boilers with more efficient modern ones and installing solar panels on the roof.

Ashok Gupta, a senior energy economist and the director of the air and energy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit environmental group in New York, said many buildings start with the least expensive measures with the biggest immediate payoff — buying fluorescent bulbs for about $4 each, for example, or thermostatic radiator valves for about $90 each.

But that is where a lot of buildings stop, and Mr. Gupta said he would like to see them reach a bit further, to measures whose costs could be recouped in two to five years. The next step, for example, might be installing motion sensors that would dim the lights by 50 percent when the hallways and stairwells were not in use.

In a 60,000-square-foot building with 40 apartments, hiring an electrician to install motion sensors might cost $11,000, according to estimates produced by Optimal Energy Inc., a consulting company in Bristol, Vt., that has done regional energy-efficiency studies for New York State and Con Edison. The building could save that much in lower electricity bills over two years, assuming that it was already using fluorescent bulbs, and the sensors alone would reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by about 40 metric tons per year, the company said.

That would be the equivalent of driving a car that gets 25 miles per gallon for 110,250 miles, according to Dr. Stuart Gaffin, an associate research scientist at the Center for Climate Systems Research at Columbia University.

As you would expect, it would take longer to recoup the costs of the more expensive measures.

Optimal Energy estimates, for example, that it would cost about $20,000 to weatherize that 60,000-square-foot apartment building, which could be paid for by five years of lower heating bills. Weatherizing would include sealing gaps around windows, exterior doors, and interior pipes and wiring.

Some residential buildings might also consider installing solar panels on the roof, to provide a nonpolluting source of electricity to light the hallways and run the elevators. Experts recommend doing this only after more glaring energy inefficiencies have been addressed, because in a large apartment house, solar panels are not going to produce enough energy to replace Con Edison.

Solar requires patience. It could take up to 15 years to break even on $19,000 spent on solar panels, and that is after subsidies and tax breaks offered by the state and federal governments. Mayor Bloomberg has proposed an additional subsidy for installing solar panels on buildings in New York City.

Mr. Gupta of the Natural Resources Defense Council contends that environmentalists often sell themselves short by focusing too much on payback periods. “Nobody asks what the payback period is for a marble lobby,” he said. But if a lot of large commercial and residential buildings installed solar panels, he said, that could go a long way toward reducing the city’s overall impact on global warming.

“From a societal perspective, the benefits are huge,” Mr. Gupta said.

As it stands, very few apartment buildings in New York have taken the first step and hired energy consultants. The first step most consultants suggest is to switch to fluorescent bulbs (a cheap fix), and then to solve the heating problems (to keep residents from being uncomfortable).

The Towers Cooperative, an eight-building complex with 111 apartments in Jackson Heights, Queens, last year hired Power Concepts, an energy auditor in Manhattan.

Once the audit was done, Bobbi Turner, the building’s manager, sat down with the board. They decided to start with the fixes that their in-house maintenance staff could do — for example, installing fluorescent bulbs as the old incandescents burned out. Ms. Turner said the electricity bills for the common areas were 7 percent lower last year than in 2005.

For now, Ms. Turner and the board have decided to forgo many costlier measures that were recommended, including installing separate boilers for hot water and heat to cut down on the fuel the co-op uses in the warm weather when residents need hot water but not heat.

It would have cost $86,000 to do this in all eight buildings, with a payback period of five and a half years.

But the buildings’ staff did implement other suggested improvements to the heating system, which included installing thermostatic radiator valves in all apartments.

“Our job is to make sure that we are doing things as efficiently as possible,” Ms. Turner said.

The co-op did not have a maintenance increase this year, and Ms. Turner attributes this largely to the cost savings from the efficiency measures that have been implemented so far.

Other buildings have needed to take more extensive measures to solve more complicated problems.

At 395 Riverside Drive, a 15-story co-op at the corner of 112th Street, the apartments on the west side of the building were often cold because of wintertime blasts of wind off the Hudson River. If the heat was turned up to offset the cold, apartments on the east side of the building got too hot.

The board at 395 Riverside Drive ordered an energy audit from the Association for Energy Affordability, based in Manhattan, which recommended installing additional heat sensors and upgrading the computer that regulated the heat.

These changes were made last fall, at a cost of almost $8,000. The building paid $8,500 less on fuel bills, a decrease of nearly 16 percent, from December 2006 to April 2007, despite a spike in heating oil prices, according to the building’s management company.

And the residents were more comfortable, said Dr. Eric Linden, a periodontist who is a former vice president of the co-op board.

The building also replaced the bulbs in the hallways with fluorescents, although, as at the co-op in Queens, the in-house staff replaced them gradually.

Dr. Linden credits these changes with keeping a lid on maintenance. The monthly fees, which range from $500 to $2,200, depending on the size of the apartment, rose 3 percent this spring.

“But we might have had to raise them 4 to 6 percent if the energy costs had gotten completely out of control,” Dr. Linden said.

Remarkably, the age of a building seems to have no correlation with how energy efficient or inefficient it is. Some of New York City’s most efficient are old brick-and-mortar buildings “that just have amazingly good maintenance staff,” said Michael Colgrove, a senior project manager at New York State Energy Research Authority, whose goal is to make multifamily buildings more efficient.

On the flip side, Mr. Colgrove said, owners in condominiums built 5 or 10 years ago should not be complacent. “Almost all new construction in this city can easily improve their energy efficiency by 20 percent,” he said.

Daniel M. Krainin, a lawyer who is the president of a Brooklyn co-op, had an energy audit done for his building, a converted brownstone with eight apartments in Park Slope.

F. L. Andrew Padian, the director of multifamily services at Steven Winter Associates, an architecture and engineering firm in Norwalk, Conn., that performed the audit, recommended five measures. So far, the co-op has acted on only one, installing a mixing valve on the boiler for $550. Mr. Krainin said that this cut the building’s oil bill by more than $400 in the last year.

Sometimes, Mr. Padian said, cutting fuel use is simply a matter of recalibrating some controls. “When I can walk in with a screwdriver and cut energy bills by 40 percent, people are really happy,” he said. “In other buildings, the old boiler is responsible for 85 percent of the energy waste.”

The four other measures that he recommended for the building would cost about $30,000 in all: replacing the old boiler with an efficient unit, replacing the old beat-up windows with new double-paned windows, insulating the roof and installing motion sensors on the lights in the basement.

“Thirty thousand dollars would be a lot of money for a co-op our size,” Mr. Krainin said.

After reading the audit report, residents voiced their reservations until they learned that the co-op could finance the work with a below-market loan subsidized by the state.

“Now everyone is sold on the idea that if we can do it without increasing the maintenance fees, then it makes sense,” Mr. Krainin said. “But I think we might have had more objections if we’d gotten to the point that it would cost people money in the form of higher maintenance fees or a surcharge.”

That may be the sentiment of many co-op and condo boards now, but energy-efficiency experts say that attitudes are changing fast.

Jonathan F. P. Rose, a New York developer who specializes in energy-efficient construction, said the public is much more aware of environmental issues like global warming than it was a few years ago.

Developers are racing to build new condominiums that can be marketed as “green.” And Mr. Rose said that older condos and co-ops could distinguish themselves with “energy smart building” certificates if they successfully completed the new state energy-efficiency program and cut their energy use by 20 percent.

“This isn’t a fad,” Mr. Rose said. “I think this is a cultural transition. In the future, I think there will be such a preference for green buildings that those buildings will have an edge.”

Not One Pied-à-Terre, but Three

On paper, the story of Laurie Pike would make anybody envious. A style director for Los Angeles Magazine, she jets four times a year from Los Angeles to Paris, where she has not one, but three, pieds-à-terre, in three very different parts of the city.

But hers is not the story of a silver-spoon life. Rather, it is about learning to turn difficult situations into opportunities.

“In 2001, my business went under — a magazine in L.A. called Glue — and I was $100,000 in debt,” said Ms. Pike, 44, sitting on a blue pullout couch in her studio in Montmartre. Yet, four years after entering a debt-management program, Ms. Pike suddenly found herself receiving her paycheck as supervisor of fashion coverage at the influential Los Angeles monthly magazine — much more money than she had learned to rely on — and decided to invest.

Buying in Los Angeles did not appeal to Ms. Pike, who says that although she finds it the easiest city to live in, she is turned off by its natural instability: “the earthquakes, the landslides, the fires.”

And then there is the cost. Prices vary widely across the sprawling city. In the once-again chic area of Hollywood, apartments average $640 a square foot, not necessarily including taxes, utilities or maintenance costs, while small apartments in Paris average a bit less, and those charges are included.

Ms. Pike spent time in Paris over 20 years ago as a student at the Sorbonne. On a recent visit there she realized that mortgage rates were affordable — about 5 percent — and property values were not as costly as she had thought. Aided by the Bonapart Consulting agency, which specializes in finding homes in Paris for clients from abroad, she went on the hunt for an apartment.

The third one she saw was a studio on the Rue Nobel, a short street in Montmartre that has access to the stairs of Rue du Mont Cenis — a picturesque site for which this Parisian neighborhood on a hill is known. Ms. Pike had lived in the neighborhood when she was a student.

She bought the place in 2006 for 148,000 euros ($176,000 at the time), and spent 9,000 euros ($10,700) on renovations. The 22-square-meter, or almost 237-square-foot ground-floor studio, which has a glass chandelier, also has a small bar to separate the kitchen area from the rest of the room; the bathroom has a bathtub. To supplement a 20 percent down payment, Ms. Pike got a mortgage with a French bank that she found through a broker, France Home Finance. She generally rents out the apartment, which generates enough income to cover the mortgage, taxes and all costs associated with its upkeep.

Emboldened by the success of the operation, she partnered with her New Jersey-based accountant, a friend of 20 years, and bought two more properties: a small one-bedroom in eastern Paris, between Bastille and Nation, and a studio in the Marais, on the Rue aux Ours.

Each apartment cost about 170,000 euros, or about $230,000, and has been furnished in a low-key way. As they, too, are being rented out by short-term visitors, Ms. Pike has avoided setting out much memorabilia. She did not want the apartments to feel “too lived in” and turn off American tenants.

But there are some personal touches: a coffee-table book about fashion sits on the low table at the center of the Rue Nobel studio, and she has prepared a little booklet about the neighborhood for visitors.

The apartments are rented through Craigslist, the popular Web site, or through referrals. They are also advertised on The Paris Blog, a site that Ms. Pike founded in 2006. The group blog features contents from several English-speaking bloggers, most of them expatriates who write about the daily intricacies of life in Paris. “It’s a great way to take the pulse of the city,” she said.

The appeal of buying a pied-à-terre in Paris — “I love flying in here with just a few changes of clothes,” she said — is not out of reach if approached the right way, Ms. Pike explained.

“If they are doing it for the first time and don’t speak really, really good French, they should hire a consultant,” she said. In France, as in much of Europe, real estate agents generally represent sellers, but buyers are usually on their own.

A consultant can help with any red-tape issues that come up, she said, adding, “When things go wrong, you have somebody on your side.”

Mortgage consultants, too, are helpful. Although Ms. Pike arranged the mortgage for her second apartment on her own, she turned to a mortgage adviser for the Marais apartment.

She emphasized the importance of actually being in Paris when conducting the transaction. “If they want to buy from the U.S.,” she said, “they are out of their minds.”

Ms. Pike’s boyfriend, whom she described as “a real California boy,” has yet to visit Paris, but the pair are planning to make a trip in November. “He thinks it’s great; he thinks it’s very exotic,” Ms. Pike said. “He’s a real foodie. He’ll have the time of his life here.”

Ms. Pike, meanwhile, has carved out time for a second life in Paris. “It’s such a double life here. I speak a different language. I smoke, which I never do at home, I eat different foods. Here my friends are philosophy professors, writers,” she said. “You kind of have a different identity.”

Getting Away by Pressing the ‘Up’ Button

OF course, the whole idea of having a second home is to get away from it all. For most people, that involves a plane or car trip to some unspoiled corner of nature.

Others, however, just take the elevator.

“We love the serenity,” said Karen Wilson, who, with her husband, Doug, recently bought a 22nd-floor Manhattan pied-à-terre at the Visionaire, a building under construction in Battery Park City. “My husband and I like the busyness of the street, but we also like to escape and see that busyness from a distance,” she said.

The Wilsons, whose primary home is in Laguna Beach, Calif., are among those second-home owners who crave city views rather than country vistas and have chosen homes in high-rises to realize their dreams. And real estate agents say such high-rise pieds-à-terre are a growing part of the residential market in many cities.

“It’s the majority of my business,” said Gingi Beltran, a saleswoman with Related Cervera Realty Services in Miami. “I have clients who are married to being on high floors. They believe the higher the floor, the more magical the view.”

Gabriel Bedoya, vice president of the Corcoran Group in New York, said, “I sell a lot of pieds-à-terre to people who specifically request very high floors. There’s a certain cachet to an apartment with a great view, and that almost always means an apartment high up in a building.”

One such buyer is Dr. John Leonard, who recently bought a two-bedroom second home on the 22nd floor of 840 Lake Shore Drive, a new condominium in downtown Chicago.

“I love the mornings when the sun comes popping up over the lake all pink and orange,” said Dr. Leonard, a pharamceutical executive whose primary home is in Chicago’s northern suburbs. “No matter what, it makes me feel that this is going to be a good day until proven otherwise.”

Other buyers can sound almost mystical when they describe the attractions of a lofty apartment.

“Being up high gives you a breadth, an expanse and a feeling that you just don’t get on a lower floor,” said Betty Saks, who, with her husband, Bart Kavanaugh, recently purchased a 5,100-square-foot condominium on the 27th floor of the Canyon Ranch Living building soon to be completed in Miami Beach, Fla.

They seem to have a certain affinity for great heights: their primary residence is a condominium on the 74th floor of the Time Warner Center in New York. Ms. Saks said the view has a calming effect.

“There’s a peacefulness that comes with being up high,” she said. “You feel like you’re away from everything.”

Jim Sexton, whose primary home is in a golf course community north of San Francisco, agrees. He and his wife, Monica, recently purchased a second home on the 19th floor of the Bath Club in Miami Beach.

“It’s a great escape,” he said. “Last night, we were out on the deck, looking at the lights along the Intracoastal Waterway, the Miami skyline, the pink and turquoise neon lights everywhere. And I thought: does it get any better than this?”

Dr. Leonard makes the point that a high perch is the best place to observe urban activity. “The city has so much going on,” he said. “It’s nice to look down on it or into it as opposed to up at it, where you lose a lot of the drama.”

There’s also a sense of safety that comes from being distant from the street.

“I love pulling up to the building at the end of the day,” Dr. Leonard said. “You press the transponder, the garage door opens and you’re back in the cocoon.”

DEVELOPERS, of course, have long been aware of the value of a great view, which is why the upper floors of most condominium buildings are reserved for larger, more expensive apartments. And because pieds-à-terre are luxuries, many buyers are drawn to these units.

“I think people are willing to splurge a little bit,” said Thomas O. Weeks, chief executive officer of Related Midwest, a developer in Chicago. “If you’re going to have a place in town, it’s not a budgetary issue. It’s about luxury and convenience. And when people make the decision to buy a pied-à-terre, they want to make sure the unit is going to give them what they want, which is to have an exciting — but also a relaxing and luxurious — experience in the city.”

There is also no denying the status factor.

“In many of these high-rise buildings,” Mr. Bedoya said, “there are fewer apartments the higher up you go, so it feels a bit more private and exclusive. And the views are certainly something that people value. When you’re entertaining, everyone is always impressed by a lot of lights.”

Prices vary from city to city, but the general rule is that the higher the unit, the more it will cost. In Miami, for instance, “We usually go up between $30,000 and $50,000 per floor,” Ms. Beltran said.

An upper-floor unit also can create some unique decorating challenges, particularly in modern buildings with floor-to-ceiling windows. Leslie Jones, the owner of Leslie Jones & Associates, an interior design firm in Chicago, said, “A west or a south view can be really hard, especially when you’re doing something like a media room, where you want a fairly low light level for most of the time.”

A characteristic of all urban second homes, high or low, is that they give owners an excuse to cut loose or at least have a little fun when it comes to designing and furnishing them.

Mr. Sexton, for example, saw it as a chance to indulge a fantasy of his earlier years — in this case, an obsession with the 1980s television show “Miami Vice.”

“When I was younger, I would be glued to that show every Friday night,” he said. “I always wanted to live like that. When we came here, I told the designer I wanted a “Miami Vice”-meets-New York look. It’s pretty amazing. We’ve got purple walls that go into yellow walls and turquoise walls that go into silver walls.”

He describes the final effect as being a blend of Art Deco and the W Hotel.

Dr. Leonard had a more down to earth request for his Chicago getaway. “I wanted to have rooms, compartments,” he said. “I’ve always lived in the suburbs in houses with what they call great rooms — these huge spaces that are like airplane hangars. I wanted a dining room. I wanted a living room. I didn’t want them to be the same room.”

Light, and views, also affect how people live in their units. Dr. Leonard’s building, for example, has a large corner turret. In the developer’s original layout, the circular space, which provides views of Lake Michigan as well as downtown Chicago — is used as a dining room. Dr. Leonard, however, changed it into a family room.

“The lake is only interesting during the day,” he said. “At night, it’s a black void and not that exciting. So I thought, why not turn that space into a day room or family room? That way, I’ll use it when I can actually see the water.”

WEATHER takes on a more personal aspect the higher up one goes. In Chicago, for instance, it’s not unusual during certain times of the year for the upper stories of high-rises to be shrouded in clouds for all or part of a day.

“I woke up one morning and it was like the city had disappeared,” said George Mayorga, who recently purchased a studio on the 54th floor of 474 North Lake Shore Drive, a new condominium building near the Loop. Mr. Mayorga’s primary home is in San Francisco.

Pieds-à-terre also tend to reverse the traditional hierarchy in terms of the importance of various rooms. Whereas kitchens grow ever larger in most houses, in pieds-à-terre they are, if not afterthoughts, distinctly secondary.

“We do coffee and maybe breakfast and that’s about it,” said Elizabeth Walter, who with her husband, Sean, recently bought a pied-a-terre on the 22nd floor of the Downtown Club, in the former Downtown Athletic Club building in Lower Manhattan.

While many couples view high-rise second homes as escapes from the responsibilities of family life, others regard them as extensions of it. The Walters, for example, whose primary residence is in Monroe Township, N.J., frequently bring their two children in for urban weekends.

“We go to Yankee games, we do Central Park, the museum and ESPN Zone,” Mrs. Walter said. “Sometimes, we just go in and don’t really have a lot of plans. We just kind of wing it.”

For Mrs. Walter, who grew up on Long Island, these weekends are an echo of her childhood:

“My mother was very urban — she lived in Paris before she got married — and on weekends she would take me and my brothers and sisters into the city to see everything Manhattan has to offer. I feel like I’m following in her footsteps.”