Episode 14 | PropertyLens: This "New" Beach House Has 3 HIDDEN Problems! (You Won't Believe #2)
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In This Episode
Hosts: Bob Frady & John Siegman
Guest: Todd Rissel
Property: 15 Sea Road, Rye Beach, NH 03871
Topics: icedams noreaster coastalproperty propertylens underinsured newhampshire ryenh replacementcost
Episode Summary
Ever heard the phrase "It's new for New Hampshire"? Join Bob, John, and insurance expert Todd Rissel, CEO of E2value, for a fascinating look at a coastal property in Rye, NH, where that phrase takes on a whole new meaning. This seemingly idyllic home, nestled near the beach and a country club, hides a surprising number of potential risks.
Discover the destructive power of ice dams, those winter woes that can wreak havoc on your roof and lead to costly interior damage. Learn about nor'easters, the fierce storms that batter the New Hampshire coast and threaten even the sturdiest of homes. And find out why a 26-year-old roof, considered "new" by New Hampshire standards, might actually be on its last legs.
But that's not all! Bob, John, and Todd delve deep into the complexities of insurance, explaining why replacement cost is the most critical factor in determining your coverage. They reveal the shocking truth about underinsured homes and offer invaluable advice on how to protect your investment.
Plus, get an inside look at how PropertyLens helps you uncover a property's hidden history, potential risks, and crucial information like building permits (or the lack thereof!). Don't get caught off guard by unexpected costs and potential disasters – tune in and learn how to make informed decisions before you buy.
Key Takeaways
✅ Always investigate a property's history, permits, and potential risks with PropertyLens.
✅ Even a "new" roof in New Hampshire might need replacing!
✅ Ice dams can cause serious interior damage (and insurance claims).
✅ Proximity to the coast can impact insurance options and costs.
Resources
🔹 E2value
🔹 Zillow
🔹 Try it: Propertylens.com
🔹 Questions Contact us: support@propertylens.com
Transcript
[00:00:00] Bob Frady: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, ships at sea, elephants in the jungle. This is this week's episode of Property of the Week with PropertyLens. For those of you who don't know, by now, my name is Bob Frady, the CEO and Co-founder of PropertyLens. With me, as always,
[00:00:27] John Siegman: John Siegman, President and Co-founder of PropertyLens.
[00:00:31] Bob Frady: John, today we have a very special guest. A longtime friend of Bob and John. Who has set the insurance world on its ear by producing replacement cost estimates that are the best in the industry as far as I'm concerned. So. Welcome Todd Rissel from e2Value.
[00:00:58] Todd, why don't you give us a little intro about yourself?
[00:01:00] Todd Rissel: Sure. I, as I can't really top that, but that's awesome. Thank you, Bob. My partner and I started e2Value 25 years ago because we felt we could build a better way to value structures in the USA. And we're doing that every day now. And we met you fine gentlemen along the way, in our, in our journey.
[00:01:22] And so we do things from little cabins in the woods to huge commercial structures and everything in between. Now, today we include Canada and have for the past 10 years. So we do from, I'm not sure if it's still called Mexico, but the Mexico, US a border all the way up to the Arctic circle.
[00:01:41] Bob Frady: All right. Well, full disclosure, Todd and his company are partners of us at PropertyLens, we happily display their data inside of our reports. And what we do on Property of the Week is, we have one of our friends send us a property, we take a look at it, and then we see, are we right, are we wrong, what do we see in the property?
[00:02:02] Normally what happens when you come to PropertyLens, you type in an address. And then you get a whole bunch of stuff that walks you through a purchase funnel. We're going to skip all that exciting part for now. We're just going to get right to the meat and potatoes, which is the report itself. So the address that you gave to us Todd was 15 Sea road in Rye, New Hampshire.
[00:02:23] Todd Rissel: Well, I thought it was a good address to look at because I have lived in the area. I live near there. And if I was putting myself in the shoes of a buyer. And on the outside, it looks pretty good. It's built in the 90s, which for New Hampshire is pretty new. It's right by the ocean, it's by a beach, it's by a country club.
[00:02:42] So it looks very attractive from the outside.
[00:02:45] Bob Frady: So what we do at PropertyLens is think of it as like a beehive. We send out hundreds of bees. They bring back the powder and then we turn it into honey on our platform. We use a combination of rules. We use a lot of AI to see exactly what we can see about a property.
[00:03:03] But the data is confusing. To a lot of people. So what we do is we try to give you a series of questions that you should ask if you were considering buying this lovely home in Rye, Hampshire. And John, why don't you kick us off?
[00:03:18] John Siegman: All right. So in the BuyerLens, we see that it's subject to wind, 65 miles per hour, greater damaging winds had three within the last three years, or excuse me, five within the last three years.
[00:03:32] And, you know, we want to check for things that are associated with wind. So shingles, cracks, all damaged siding, all that stuff that's associated with it. The roof seems to be in great shape, because we probably could not find any permits. We're estimating it to be at 26 years old. So it would be at the end of its life.
[00:03:56] But the fact that it's in great shape means that something's been done probably along the way. So there's a lot of questions about the roof because if you move in and then all of a sudden you have leaks, to replace the roof is about $27,000, that would be a totally unexpected expense. So you'd want to figure out, Hey, did this roof get replaced?
[00:04:16] Was it not permitted? What, what went on?
[00:04:20] Bob Frady: As you can see, the property is 26 years old and the roof is 26 years old. So it looks like an original roof. We don't have anything to indicate that it's not.
[00:04:28] John Siegman: So the place that gets cold and then gets warm, then gets cold again. So frozen pipes, ice dams. Both of those can be very unusual, and in fact, you know, if there, if the roof has been relatively new, since it is in great shape, one of the reasons that they may have replaced the roof is because of ice dams.
[00:04:49] There'd be a lot of questions that you'd want to ask around that.
[00:04:52] Bob Frady: John, why don't you tell our friends at home what exactly is an ice dam?
[00:04:56] John Siegman: Oh, an ice dam is when the snow on your roof melts and then it freezes, turning to ice. Typically along your eaves, and then it does it again, except that because there's ice there, it doesn't melt as quickly as the snow.
[00:05:10] The melting snow further up on your roof causes the water to go down the roof, the ice blocks its way, essentially damming it, and then it flows backwards up under the shingles and into your house, causing a rainstorm inside your house..
[00:05:25] Bob Frady: One of the most miserable claims ever, because it's cold when it happens. Doesn't happen when it's 80 degrees outside. It happens when it's minus 8 degrees outside.
[00:05:35] John Siegman: It's near the ocean, so you got lots of humidity. Lots of humidity turns to mold. Especially getting the right temperature ranges. Not in the you know, it's got a higher than average little bit of crime going on.
[00:05:50] Fairly variable thing because the crime scores are updated every year based upon the data available. So you could have just a bad year cause the following year to look bad in a place that's normally okay. But you would want to know if there's a security system and locks and all the rest of that stuff.
[00:06:07] We talked about snow loads and why the roof may or may not have been replaced at some time. One was the water heater replaced. People's furnaces go out at all different times, but they typically last about 20 years. If it's not used all that often, it can go further. But their furnace may be, you know, essentially at the end of life, which is, you know, anywhere $4,000, $5,000, $6,000, $7,000, $8,000 thousand dollars to replace.
[00:06:34] So it's not, not a cheap expenditure. And then, no solar panels on the property. Lots of places get sun that you wouldn't think of, and especially here, seems like it wouldn't be the world's worst thing to go get on.
[00:06:48] Bob Frady: So Todd, given what you know about the area, yay, nay, somewhere in between.
[00:06:54] Todd Rissel: Yay. That's all yay, because I'm, I live in the area.
[00:06:58] I'm driving around, of course, I'm an insurance nerd. I know about ice dams and all those things, and I'm driving down the street going. Ice dam, ice dam, ice dam, ice dam. We've had a particularly rough February as far as snow and cold and now it's warm. And, my partner who lives in New Jersey, who is an experienced home inspector, you know, worked with me at an insurance company, but he comes from Maryland and I sent him a PropertyLens.
[00:07:27] I said, what do you think of this for your house? And he goes, you know, I wish I had known that part about the ice damming. Cause I would have. Purchase what they call a, a snow rake roof rake. Roof break. Yeah. Roof roof rake. He, and he had, he did have, water damming and he got, you know, the homeless damage.
[00:07:46] There was a lot of work and a lot of pain. And it was, you know, replaced by the insurance company, but it was a very painful event that he never wants to repeat.
[00:07:55] Bob Frady: The best type of claim is the one you never have. So, you'll notice on the bottom here, there's a button that says print questions. So when you're shopping for a house, if you were to go look at this house, you can push this button and it'll give you a PDF that says, here's the questions you should ask.
[00:08:14] And then you go to the selling agent and you say, Hey. Answer this for me. Have you seen any of these issues? And this is how you get ahead of the game before you fall in love with the place. And when you walk in, you're like, Oh, tra la la. But what about ice dams? What about the mechanicals? What about the roof?
[00:08:33] You know, tell me more about it. So that's the whole goal of this is to inform the buyer before they get in too deep, exactly what they're going to be looking at. Listen, you might live with it anyway because it's beautiful. It's a great location. It's near you. So, you know, those are all good things about this place.
[00:08:50] So let's say you've already decided to buy the house. Then you go into what we call our InspectorLens. And basically it takes the same data, but it reclassifies it to say, have the inspector check on this. When you get an inspection, a lot of times the inspector is referred by one of the real estate agents.
[00:09:09] Now, technically, they work for you. I didn't even know that. I bought like 6 houses. I didn't even know that. But the inspector wants to make sure that they're invited back for more inspections. So sometimes they soften some of the language that they see in a house. This is a list that you hand to them and say, make sure you check things out so we get a good inspection.
[00:09:31] Not the, not the easy inspection. So, you know, we've seen that we've got some wind events here, so we want to check for shingles. Want to do a shingle check. Even though the roof data says it looks pretty good, you still want to do a check. you want to validate the age of the roof. It's in good condition.
[00:09:48] but it is according to the data that we have at the end of its useful lifespan. Now again, we don't have building permits for this location. And that's a lot of times where that information will live. We don't have it for this location. So you want to check. you want to check about ice dams. You want to check about frozen pipes.
[00:10:06] Place has a basement. You want to look for water intrusion. You're close to the ocean here. And you're also close, fairly close to a flood zone here. So you want to make sure that you do a good job on the inspection and have that inspector do those things for you. Then we get to the insurance lens. John, why don't you handle this part?
[00:10:24] John Siegman: Here are the things that an insurer is going to take a look at. Property is 26 years old. Older properties cost more to insure. And so while it is new for New Hampshire. It's still old by an insurance standpoint.
[00:10:38] Bob Frady: I think that's something that we have to make a phrase. It's new for New Hampshire. So whenever something is like 35 years old, we're like, well, it's new for New Hampshire.
[00:10:46] John Siegman: Yeah. Depends upon how old you are. I guess every baby, new for New Hampshire, the property has a high risk of experiencing crime. We saw that crime is typically not taken into account for homeowners policies, but certainly commercial policies. And then, you know, roofs are expensive, and so every insurer wants to know about the roof, because that's something that they end up replacing a lot of.
[00:11:16] So, here's all the pieces and parts, we put that together. Further down, we actually even give an estimate of what it costs to insure.
[00:11:25] Bob Frady: So here, the magic number. This house has a replacement cost of $983,000. I know that's accurate because Todd, you made it. Question is, are people insured properly for the replacement cost on their houses?
[00:11:39] What are you seeing when it comes to replacement cost and insurance levels? And how should a user look at this and say, Does my schedule A need to be $983,000? How does it all work from your perspective?
[00:11:54] Todd Rissel: So a great question and just I'll throw in that I'm, I'm new for New Hampshire, but my home is 200 years old.
[00:12:00] So I'm, you know, I'm like typical for New Hampshire and that's why this 30 thing is brand new compared to a lot of New Hampshire. But so the replacement cost, and this is an example where I think the market value was probably a couple of times higher than the replacement costs. And so people tend to go to where the mortgage level is.
[00:12:20] They tend to go where, you know, where the buy and sell value is. And in some cases, because if you go just around the corner from that house, it might be a few places that are reversed. So the sale value will be lower than the replacement cost value. And so we, as an industry have done a pretty poor job explaining what replacement cost is.
[00:12:42] I've only been doing it for 30-some odd years and I'm still trying. but it's a confusing thing for a lot of consumers, especially when we get into buying a home because usually it's not really thought of. Insurance, I'm trying to qualify for a mortgage, I'm trying to get all the paperwork, whatever you need to prove you have the income.
[00:13:00] And then at the last minute, someone's going to say, you need an insurance policy. And so just kind of with the inspector, the realtor, the bank, somebody might know an insurance person to call. And they're just trying to get the insurance at a mortgage amount. If you're getting a mortgage to get that thing closed, where you really should be looking at it.
[00:13:17] Obviously, I do replacement costs, so I'm a little more leaning towards that end of it. But really understanding what's going on with coverage A because coverage A or the replacement cost of the home dictates every other part of that policy.
[00:13:31] Bob Frady: So should your coverage A be at least the replacement cost for the property?
[00:13:37] Todd Rissel: In my opinion, absolutely. At least the replacement cost and not that the PropertyLens report isn't a great report or E2value is a great report, but I would make sure that all the facts match up and that's the right square footage and all those things are known right at the beginning to make sure that that is a good number.
[00:13:55] I look for, just because it's me, I'm not giving insurance advice, but I look for policies that have 125% or 150% replacement cost or more. Because, you know, things change over time and you want to make sure you're fully protected. At least I think that way.
[00:14:10] John Siegman: When you look at all of the requests that come in and things like that for replacement costs, what percentage of the U.S. Houses in the U.S.
[00:14:24] Are priced below their replacement costs.
[00:14:27] Todd Rissel: Oh, yeah. So that's more of a phenomenon of, of, you know, in between where properties like if you're in between the coasts or you're, you know, Midwest, it depends on the age of the property, and where the housing stock is. So I would say, the United States, you had to press me down 70%.
[00:14:47] Somewhere, the replacement cost value is going to be higher than the purchase value.
[00:14:53] John Siegman: So a lot of people, when they go to insure their house, they go, well, I paid 250 for it. So I insure for 250 and then. then they start out thinking they're properly insured and they're underinsured from the beginning.
[00:15:08] Todd Rissel: From the beginning, because again, it doesn't market value and replacement costs aren't really correlated in any way because what you're buying like this house is next to the ocean that's next to the beach, as I mentioned. So it has a different market value than one, maybe five miles further inland.
[00:15:24] from it. And so, the market value has very little to do with replacement costs, your financial health, your financial impact of the loss has everything to do with replacement costs. And that's the part that, you know, we spend a lot of time on. And, you know, probably today, 60% of the United States or the homes of United States.
[00:15:44] Are underinsured by at least 40%.
[00:15:46] Bob Frady: We have a neighbor in Minnesota where the house would cost far more to rebuild than the market value because. The person who built it just built a crazy house, you know, they built a, they built a castle basically. And to rebuild that, you know, not, not only can you have trouble finding the right labor, that labor is expensive.
[00:16:10] Todd Rissel: Absolutely. And the, the, the thing of it is, if you don't necessarily, maybe they won't put back that castle next time, right? Maybe they're like, ah, that wasn't paying. I don't want to do that again. But you, you have a certain investment in it. And as long as the, I think as long as the parameters are explained to the consumer.
[00:16:26] Properly like, look, this is what you have at stake. This is what's going to impact your finances. You know your finances can make the right decision about.
[00:16:36] Bob Frady: So now we get into the data itself. This next section is featured in construction. This is the sort of thing that you'll see on a real estate website, or you can get from a bunch of different places.
[00:16:47] It's the year built, bedrooms, bathrooms. Is there a garage, parking spaces, et cetera, et cetera. Is there an attic? There's not an attic, but there is a basement. Combination of real estate data from the MLS, but also from the County Assessor. so lots of data. You are 760 feet from the coast. And while we didn't flag that, and probably should, there are some insurance companies who have a restriction where they won't, they won't write within a certain distance of the coast.
[00:17:22] So that's an insurance flag. You know, make sure that you can get insurance for this type of a property because you are close to the coast. Electric heating, central air, it's on public sewer, which is always lovely. The roof is 3,100 square feet. And, it's got a slight slope and it's in Rye, which is in Rockingham County in the Rye school district.
[00:17:51] Okay, here we go. The most recent listing, it was listed for a lot more than the risk, but replacement costs for sure. So my guess is that if you're using this number as your trigger for insurance, that you will be in an okay shape in case you know, you need to replace it,
[00:18:12] Todd Rissel: I think, but the, the other part of what you said there is.
[00:18:15] I think also for the location, I'm not so sure any admitted carriers right in that location. And that will also impact the number that somebody chooses up there. So if you go to market at $2.9 million and a non admitted area might be in for a surprise in the insurance costs.
[00:18:31] Bob Frady: Yep. For sure. There's no HOA. Okay. So we saw that this property was last sold on June of 24. Now what's interesting is that this house was on the market for a long time. It went up 2.9 million in September of 23 and sold for 2.4 million. In July of 24, which is a fairly hefty discount off of, off of where it was. Then again, it's the first time it was listed since it was built.
[00:19:06] Taxes have been fairly level throughout the life of the property. The last year we have is 2022. do you know, when does, when does New Hampshire reassess taxes? Is it on the sale that they give you a new tax or are they just coming through every year and do a little something.
[00:19:23] Todd Rissel: Well, it's, it's like every seven, I think they do a revaluation, but it's based on the market value and I think they take like, like 80% or 85% of the market value.
[00:19:34] Bob Frady: Okay. so that may be a shift in the tax base, but if you look at the pictures, it's a lovely home. These grounds are incredible. You are close to the ocean. You have an ocean view. You know, you like the tile, all that good stuff. A very late 90s construction. And then we get into the roof.
[00:19:51] John Siegman: So we look at information from our aerial provider and how the condition of the roof looks, how old the house is, what permits have been pulled, is there any indication in the MLS write up that it's a newer roof.
[00:20:11] so there's lots of different pieces and parts that come into this. And then, you know, if we can tell you exactly how old it is, we will, based on any of those sources. If not, then we look at how old the structure is and does the material last that long. So we know for every state how long a shingle roof lasts, how long metal, how, concrete tile, membrane.
[00:20:41] So we know the types of roofing materials, how long they last on a state basis. And then whether or not it's within range. So, given that a roof span right here for shingles in Maine or New Hampshire is 26 years, you've got zero years left on this roof, but it looks to be in great shape, so it's probably a question that you're going to want to ask, how old is the roof?
[00:21:10] When was it last done? since this person was the first time it was sold, they're the original owner, they should have an idea of when it was done. Now they may have done it themselves, which is why a permit wasn't pulled. Some places have different cost levels that require a permit or not. So, you know, basically every place requires a permit, but the permit conditions themselves.
[00:21:38] Very greatly from place to place.
[00:21:41] Bob Frady: So this is the basic information about the roof. and then we give you a condition of the roof and an exposure risk for that roof. So we show this roof is pretty good. It looks like it's in pretty good condition from the imagery. Now the imagery was taken in April of 2024.
[00:21:58] So that may have been updated. It's 3,100 feet of roof. It's a two story house. It's a shingle roof in the hip formation. and it doesn't have a lot of staining. So it looks like it's in pretty good shape, but there is an exposure risk in New Hampshire, you're neck near next to the ocean, you get winter time risks, you get wind risks from that proximity, to, well, New Hampshire and to the water.
[00:22:29] So there's all sorts of things that could go wrong. So the sore thumb that is sticking out here is kind of need to check. Exactly what's going on with this roof, but I also think that the listing agent kind of blew it here because the listing agent, if you replace the roof in the last three years, you should just say roof replaced in 2019 or whatever it happens to be, put it in the listing because that way all these automated systems can pick it up and eliminate this question as a risk for a potential buyer.
[00:22:56] Todd Rissel: I will add, this is New Hampshire, the license plate says live free or die. So we don't need those thinking permits. You understand if you're replacing the roof, you don't need those thinking permits here. But I, I, listen, I applaud you guys because, because he is a carpenter and you know, background and being from New England.
[00:23:15] Everything you're saying is music to my ears because it's just such an important part of keeping your house together. Start with that roof and we get, and you didn't say it, Bob, you're going to throw it in or John, we get nor'easters. And so that's right where the nor'easter is and they love to rip shingles off a roof when those winds come in.
[00:23:33] So I, that's why I think it's a hugely important thing. I, kind of, echo your thoughts of why you wouldn't want to brag about having a new roof for a house.
[00:23:42] Bob Frady: Chances are, if you don't know the condition of your roof, your insurance company is going to figure it out pretty quickly. My sister lives up on the New Hampshire border, and they're flying drones over her house all the time.
[00:23:53] A couple of shingles are out of place, so they'll send her a cancellation notice. I'm like, come on, what are you doing? And it's like, but that's how, that's how aggressive insurance companies are getting using this imagery to help judge the quality of your roof. And you need to be aware of that before you plunk down all this money.
[00:24:10] Now, listen, $25,000 to repair a roof might be short dollars for you. In which case, congratulations. But better to know it upfront than to not know it.
[00:24:18] John Siegman: Damaging events. Well, we saw that there were five wind events. There's still five wind events. Here's the dates that they occurred, wind speed, 65 miles per hour or greater.
[00:24:31] so you know, that's just, and if this is actually a fairly short list, for some of the properties that we've seen, where they just go on and on and on and on. So not a lot to get worried about, not a lot of convective storms, things like that in the area. Just, you know, given that there's a preponderance of Winter ish winds.
[00:24:55] Those are the nor'easters. And so, as Todd stated, you get them.
[00:25:00] Bob Frady: Yeah, we also track things like, has there been a fire at the property? Has it been involved in a prior disaster? We have about three and a half million locations where something has happened at a property. And this hasn't, which is great. It's a little bit more of a clean bill of health.
[00:25:15] And then if you want to go in and look at Imagery, you can see historical imagery. We've got 2020, 2018, and 2024. So, here's the roof, here's how it looked. It looks like the, yep, it looked colorful, and now it's less colorful. We go to 2020, same thing, lots of trees, and then we've got the wintertime in 2024.
[00:25:39] The roof is the most critical, the roof and the basement are the two most critical pieces of your home. And you need to understand that before you go in. Now, unfortunately, we do not have permits for this area, and that may be for one of two reasons. The first is that the location doesn't publish them, which happens, or they publish them in a format that we can't read, which also happens sometimes.
[00:26:05] They'll put a CSV up on their website somewhere, and we have to go and manually pull those down. So we don't have them for this location, and we check two different sources. for permits. Homeowner service is a future deliverable, as well as property inspections. We can look at the estimated utility cost for this location, as well as solar cost savings. So, you know, electricity costs in this area are pretty expensive. And especially in the wintertime, you're going to have some pretty steep bills, more in the winter than in the summertime. Eversource, is the provider for this area. and average estimated consumption is about $450 a month, for this location.
[00:26:50] If you want to get a solar system, you can click on there. Some people like them. Some people don't. It's about a seven and a half year payback, with federal incentives for that location. We have the carbon footprint for the utility. This utility is mostly nuclear, which is the Seabrook, I believe nuclear facility, a little bit of coal and then some of the greener ones.
[00:27:15] Okay. Now we get to risks, John.
[00:27:18] John Siegman: Well, as we discovered there's winter risk, a little bit of pollution. That can come in the form of radon as well as man made. We'll see that a little bit further down. And then the rest of it is just average. not going to be overly concerned about any of that, not likely to get a hurricane, not likely to fall in a sinkhole, and almost impossible to get a tornado.
[00:27:41] That's because you lack convective storms. So, you know, when looking at this Other than the winter risk, not really a lot to be concerned about.
[00:27:55] Bob Frady: Then we get to the next risk, which we have is flood. So it's not in a 100 year flood zone or a 500 year flood zone, but look where the 100 year flood zone is.
[00:28:03] It's in the backyard. And your neighbor's house is in the flood zone. Now, the problem that we have is that water doesn't respect these boundaries. It just goes where it wants to go. Especially when you're living on a thing called Sea Road. an ocean boulevard. Chances are there's going to be some water there.
[00:28:24] So you don't have to have flood insurance on this location, but you may want to get it. You're 59 feet away from the nearest side of your flood zone, and you're four feet above that. So the sea will have to rise eight feet. In order for it to, for sea level rise to be impacting this property, which is a lot.
[00:28:48] Then we get to weather. Winter, ice dams, frozen pipes, roof snow. Get that snow rake for sure, or have a service that comes and does it for you. And everything else is fairly moderate. So, oh, storm surge. We do have a high risk of storm surge here, which is probably what that flood zone is, is a reflection of the storm surge risk.
[00:29:14] Hurricane Bob was the, the last big hurricane that was in this area. and can cause some nasty problems with search. Okay. John, environmental pollution.
[00:29:30] John Siegman: We got mold and we've got a nearby nuclear site, a little bit of radon risk. So this would be something that you definitely want to get tested when you're buying the house.
[00:29:42] And if they showed up like, yeah, it's here, you would definitely want the seller to put in a mediation system. And because it's got a basement, that is certainly a concern. Otherwise, Pretty clean. no, no major risk of termites, minor, you know, not near an asbestos source. So it's, and everything else is just non-existent.
[00:30:09] So, very solid from that standpoint.
[00:30:14] Bob Frady: Seabrook's the power plant, seven miles away. Now, some people are very comfortable living near a nuclear plant. Other people are less comfortable. It's your call, but at least you know where it is. And again, a lot of blanks on here because there's not a lot, there's no toxic release facilities or formerly clandestine drug labs or Superfund sites, which is great, great bill of health.
[00:30:36] So then we get into insurability and claims and what we do is we take this data and we run it through. the admitted market, which may not be a factor here because it's so close to the shore. And we would expect this premium to be between $2,200 and $3,900 a year. But since it's so close to the shore, you're probably going to want to check.
[00:30:55] with a replacement cost of about $983,000. There is a little bit of crime risk. A little bit of hail. very moderate risk of wildfire. The wildfires in New Hampshire tend to be very small. And then here's more information about the property. If you want, you can go get a quote, from our friends at Progressive in this case.
[00:31:17] We don't have any claims on this property. Not because there haven't been any, but because we don't have any. And then finally, we get into the neighborhood section. And John, why don't you walk us through this?
[00:31:28] John Siegman: Sure. So neighborhood, crime scores. Like I said, something bad could happen last year. It's reflected in this year's crime scores.
[00:31:36] They're very variable. But If this is also a tourist type area, you've got a lot of activity going on, people moving in transient, you'll get these types of events. So you've got burglary, forcible robbery. Both of those, well, you don't want an alarm system on the house. motor vehicle theft, park in the garage.
[00:32:02] murder is average. Understand that the U.S. is a relatively safe country. So, that's, you know, average is okay. You don't typically want to bring home a C on the report card, but in this case, it's alright. And then, less likely for forcible rape. Probably no high schools or colleges around. That's where you see a lot of activity, on that type of spectrum. And then as you scroll down, there are no reported sex offenders that are registered within a half mile radius. So if you're looking to, you know, have a family move in, probably not a bad choice, looks like it's safe for that.
[00:32:42] Bob Frady: And it isn't a beach community. That's where you see a lot of this.
[00:32:45] Type of activity, like you said, John, it's like, and it, and people say, well, do you mean my neighborhood's dangerous? We don't, my neighborhood's not dangerous. Well, down here where the bars are is where a lot of this stuff occurs.
[00:33:00] It's got about average fire protection. It's got a hydrant nearby, less than 250 feet. I've got nine hydrants within a thousand feet, five stations within five miles. But it looks like this fire station is probably a blended fire station, which means that it's staffed during the day, usually staff volunteer at night.
[00:33:20] And that impacts your insurance. Those are more expensive to insure than a full time, 24 hour, type of station. Nearest police station is close, nearest hospitals are pretty close. and then finally, we get the property timeline, which is where we take all this data and lay it out into a timeline, so you can see exactly what happened at which time.
[00:33:43] And they not only bought this property, they placed it in a trust when they bought it. We don't display who owns it. We have the data, but we don't display it. So you can see there's the timeline for what we have. And that, gentlemen, is 15 Sea Road in Rye, New Hampshire. Based upon everything that you've seen here, what would be the three things that you would look for at this property?
[00:34:09] Todd Rissel: So my, my top three things are, I look for, through my case because of where I'm on, but where it's sitting, I'm looking for flood. I'm looking for a winner, you know, does it have a good roof structure and whether I had this report or not, I would do that. And I'm going to look where I can get the service that's going to come, rake my roof because you need it.
[00:34:31] And there are plenty of services that you don't have to own your own roof rake for that. and then my, in your case, the proximity to the nuclear power plant, is of interest to me.
[00:34:43] Bob Frady: All right, John. You're thinking about buying this house. What are you looking for when you walk in the door?
[00:34:49] John Siegman: Well, the first thing I'm looking for is updated information on the roof.
[00:34:54] How old is it really? Because if it is really 26 years old, I'm about to have to replace the roof. And that was like $30,000, $27,000, $28,000. I either want to negotiate that away or I want to, you know, understand that I'm going to have that expense relatively soon, same is true for the furnace. on the HVAC system as well as the water heater because water here I'm probably on water heater number two maybe number three if it's number three yay great because that means it's relatively new if it's number two I'm probably gonna have to replace it and if we're still on furnace number one that's coming up for replacement so there's a lot of cost along those lines and same is true for the windows on the property because those are also 29 years old And windows last 30 to 40 years.
[00:35:53] So, you know, depending upon how long I'm staying and if anything's been done, that could be, you know, if the place has 40 windows at $1500 a window, there's a $60,000 expense that I wasn't counting on. So I'd want to look at all of those. The second thing I would look at is the ice dams, right? You know, has there been previous ice dam problems?
[00:36:21] As it grows in, as it, you know, as there's stuff that sends up the person into the attic, we know mold grows there. And now, you know, if you've got a nice dam, that's just feeding the mold. And then the third thing that I would be concerned about is radon, even though it's a C, not a D. because I do have a basement.
[00:36:42] you know, is there a mitigation system? Let's get it tested. Do I need to have a mitigation system? Because it's the number two cause of lung cancer in the U.S. Those would be all of the things in the associated costs that I'd be looking for.
[00:36:58] Bob Frady: If I were looking at 15 Sea Road in Rye, New Hampshire, here's what I'd be looking for.
[00:37:05] The pictures tell me that this house looks like its original construction. All of the internals look like the original construction. Which would lead me to two things. Number one, is the roof original or has it been replaced or repaired? Since we don't know, it's the first question we would ask. It is the single most important aspect of a whole. And if it's, and if it's. Not been replaced, I would ask for a credit, for the amount to replace it because I'm going to be replacing it sooner rather than later. The second thing I would look at, because it looks like original construction, is, and there's a flood zone 50 feet away, I would look for water intrusion into the basement.
[00:37:47] Have there been any issues with the basement and water coming into the basement? Because that is the second most important part of your house is the foundation and then the third thing I would look for is have there been any building permits pulled for this location, you know, because right doesn't share them or we can't get them.
[00:38:13] So have there been any? Maybe they don't need any, but has there any work? Is it documented? So, and, but then, the last thing I forgot, there's four. What's gonna, gonna be the cost of insurance? I'm very close to the shoreline here. So, it's gonna be probably not admitted market. You know, state firm are not, probably not gonna insure this.
[00:38:36] You know, it's going to be some Lloyds or some MGA company that will more probably insure this than not. So get that question answered up front. Get an insurance quote right away because the benefit of getting the insurance quote is you'll be able to see, they can pull the claim data. You'll be able to see whether there are any claims on the property as well.
[00:38:56] So those are the three slash four things I would look for. But otherwise it looks like a nice location, you know, you see the, if you like the ocean, if you like that kind of thing, it's beautiful. And you know, it did sit on the market for a while. So that's another thing I might take a look at is what was up with that?
[00:39:14] Why was it? but it's not for sale right now. So we don't have to worry about that question. All right. So Todd, I did want to ask you one question about replacement costs. It seems like they're skyrocketing. Is that still going on? Is that true? Is it just sort of cherry picking observations? What's your take on the change in replacement costs?
[00:39:36] Todd Rissel: Well, it's been dramatic. I mean, you know, there was a huge change after COVID because a lot of times what people said, I don't care what it costs, you know, when they go buy a car, they will buy the house and go talk about, I don't care what it costs. And they never mean it. Well, after COVID, they had lots of money, nothing to do.
[00:39:52] They didn't mean it. And so the market shifted a great deal. and this is all over the USA. Demographically places change because people moved because, you know, work from a further location, et cetera, et cetera. And so there's just only so many electricians, so many plumbers, so many people to put things bottleneck.
[00:40:11] You can make more shingles, you can make more lumber, et cetera. but really the ability to charge more money came into the contractors world, they could charge more. I happen to live not too far from this home. I can't get a contractor. You, you know, you could put a giant pile of money in the middle of your kitchen floor and say, just come over and only every time you come over, you can grab money out of this big pile.
[00:40:33] They're still not coming up. And so that is increasing the costs. you know, I, people talk about the LA fires and from the insurance perspective, what's that going to do? The replacement costs and realistically not a huge amount because it's, it's again, it's under 20. 2000 structures, which doesn't sound, it sounds like a lot of structures when you live there, it's a lot, it's an impactful thing for where those folks live, but you know, from a country that builds two plus million structures a year, 20,000 is not a huge, huge piece of it.
[00:41:07] but then and depending on where you fall in this, this, this process, we're not sure what we're going to do with the tariffs. You know, we get a lot of lumber out of Canada, we got a lot of building materials out of Canada and labors from different parts of the world. And, there's a little bit of upset in that process.
[00:41:27] So our prediction is this year and next year, everything else being equal, cause things can change, daily, everything else being equal. Probably as another 6%, 7%, 8% bump this year, the same bump in the years behind. So if you go back to 2020 to two years from now, you're pretty close to a hundred percent price change.
[00:41:49] So if your policy was $250,000 of coverage in 2020, am I telling you it should be $500,000 now? Yes. Wow. Doubling. Yeah.
[00:42:04] Bob Frady: All right. Well, Todd, any parting thoughts?
[00:42:09] Todd Rissel: Well, I want you two to come with me when I go look at a house, cause obviously I forgot the three most important things, but you guys are like, bam, pam, pam.
[00:42:15] But I guess what I'll do is I'll buy a property in Leatherford instead. But no, it's awesome though. This is good. And I want to make sure we throw the phrase out there. It's new for New Hampshire.
[00:42:29] Bob Frady: Yes. This is new. We're all new to New Hampshire. Yep. My house is 200 years old. That Mr. Oh, wait, that's more Maine.
[00:42:38] Sorry. I get, you know, anyway, for this week's episode of property of the week, I want to thank our guest Todd Russell, CEO of E2Value. So for this week's episode, that's a wrap. Once again, I am Bob Frady.
[00:42:57] John Siegman: I'm John Siegman.
[00:42:58] Bob Frady: Thanks for being here.
[00:43:00] Todd Rissel: Thanks.
