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 façade, it makes for at least aesthetic devaluation if not lower resale value. I urged National Grid to take all homeowner’s 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.

 

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