Many historic home owners who are contemplating selling their homes, do not know what questions to ask to determine the ability of an agent to be successful. There are certainly important questions that every prospective seller wants answered - “how much is my house worth and what do you charge for your fee”? I am a believer that those questions are best addressed after a seller is confident that he has a Realtor who knows his market and how to best express the virtues and benefits of his historic home to the largest pool of buyers. I recently had the experience of interviewing for the position of listing agent for a beautiful historic home, where one of the other agents being interviewed, advocated bulldozing the house and building a “nice house” in its place. Clearly this was not the agent for this family, but not all interviewing experiences will be so obvious. A seller may interview a selection of equally successful agents who all run the comparables on his historic property and come up with similar evaluations of value for the size, location and lot size. They will all put the property information in the MLS, put up a sign and run a few ads. I have put together a list of 10 questions that a home seller may want to ask a listing agent to further ascertain the agent’s qualifications to successful sell that historic home. (more…)

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This gorgeous historic home was renovated and restored with its historic integrity and modern amenities as top priority. Originally, a small log house it evolved over the years into this beautiful home. Located in Montgomery County Maryland in the quaint community of Barnesville (town’s motto is “a caring community”), this lovely home is minutes from schools, shopping & transportation and convenient to downtown DC and suburban centers.

[Show as slideshow]

Front double doors with vintage side glass

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Historic Home for sale in Portugal!

A Portuguese estate with Italian roots

Thursday, March 22, 2007, 12:10:31 PM

Tucked on the western slopes of the Serra de Sintra range and looking out to the sea, the Quinta do Rio de Milho appears deceptively small amid the steep hills, narrow valleys and lush vegetation surrounding it. Antonio Simas, the quinta’s current owner, says “milho,” the Portuguese word for corn, used to grow along a sinuous strip of land that wound its way through the property like a stream, giving the estate its name.

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Following is an excerpt from a very interesting article published in the Washington Post, December 13, 2005, written by Marc Fisher. Many local historic home enthusiasts were not aware that Uncle Tom’s Cabin exists and is located in Rockville, MD. Since the article was published, Montgomery County has been successful in funding the property’s purchase. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” summons visions of racial brutality in another place and time. But Uncle Tom’s Cabin stands today in Rockville, shaded by a row of trees from the speedway that is Old Georgetown Road.
And the property is for sale.
Its owner, Hildegarde Mallet-Prevost, died in September at 100, and her family is selling the three-bedroom colonial (literally) with the attached log cabin that was once home to Josiah Henson — the slave whose 1849 autobiography was the model for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” (more…)

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Recording History

StoryCorps is a national project to instruct and inspire people to record each others’ stories in sound.
StoryCorps website

“We would go to the window and listen for my mom out in the field.”
Barb Fuller-Curry tells her son Craig about growing up on a farm.

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Following is the feature on today’s NPR “This I believe” series that I think will be of interest to historic home owners.
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Natural Links in a Long Chain of Being
by Victor Hanson

Courtesy Hoover Institution
Classics and military history scholar Victor Hanson is a professor emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. His family farm includes 40 acres of seedless grapes grown for raisins. Hanson hopes his son, William, will succeed him in tending the farm.

“I believe there is an old answer for every new problem, that wise whispers of the past are with us to assure us that… we are not alone.”

Morning Edition, December 19, 2005 · I believe we are not alone.
Even if I am on the other side of the world from the farmhouse I live in, I still dream of the ancient vines out the window, and the shed out back that my grandfather’s father built in 1870 with eucalyptus trunks. As long as I can recreate these images, I never quite leave home. (more…)

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I came across this article and felt it was worth passing on. Replacement value of a rare historic home can far surpass its appraised value, when you consider the materials and craftsmanship required to recreate it. We sold a house recently built in 1780 and an extraordinary historic home. The sales price was a little over $600,000 while the insurance replacement value was well over $2,0000,000.
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Protecting a Historic Home
Historic Homeowners Insurance

Most homeowners have serious gaps in their insurance coverage, especially if they are owners of an older or even historic property. Standard policies often do not cover the features that make older and historic homes special — raised panel wainscoting, hand-hewn true dimensional lumber, double-hung or fanlight windows, and stepped wood crown moldings. (more…)

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