Maintaining Your Home's Value In The Ocean State

The National Association of Realtors revealed August sales of existing homes were down 10.7 % from last year while the median home price fell 9.5 %. In the Northeast, sales dropped 15.0 % below a year ago, with the median price $271,000, down 3.8 % from August 2007. So with everyone scared about the value of their homes, why is National Grid trying to devalue them even more? They are laying high-pressure gas lines to to replace the existing pipes that date to the 1860's. For safety reasons and to make inspections and shutdowns easier, they want to move meters from the basement to the exterior of the house, and in several neighborhoods have placed them right on the front of the house! There have been well attended meetings at The West Broadway Neighborhood Association to address the situation not just for themselves , but for the whole state. National Grid has been laying about seven miles of high-pressure line a year for the last six years, and plans to increase that to 25 miles a year. I spoke at the Public Utilities Commission hearing last week. I feel that while special consideration in regards to Historic Homes is a positive development, the exclusion of other housing stock is short-sighted. Eventually, every home will reflect some type of historic significance. What was once sold for tear-down just a few years ago, a pristine home from the 1950s or 1960s has become a mid century masterpiece, and is now considered a candidate for historic preservation. If this home has an unsightly gas meter on the fa袤ade, it makes for at least aesthetic devaluation if not lower resale value. I urged National Grid to take all homeowners concerns into consideration as they move forward. This Week's Real Estate Insight: Contact the WBNA at wbna@wbna.org if you would like to help in the fight to keep gas meters from the front of homes in Rhode Island.