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Thinking of putting in an offer for a house in Babylon Village. Beautiful view from the back of Southards Pond. No flood insurance required and supposedly there has never been an issue with flooding. House has a full basement which i think is rare with a house that has a water view? It was a flip but is priced high at $678 but the finishes are low end and sloppy. But just love the view and close proximity to trails and more parks. Even though it is in Babylon village is definately North Babylon schools. For my daughter maybe an issue? Looking for any advice or thoughts. Thank you
Give your insurance agent a call and ask him how much your homeowners premium will be on that house.
Even though homeowners doesn't cover flood, many companies either won't insure a house (as a new customer) that is within 2 miles of the south shore waterfront OR will do so at a significantly higher premium.
My previous house was south of Montauk Highway in West Islip. It was rated Flood Zone X so the premium for that was less than $400 ... but the cheapest homeowners insurance I could get on that house cost $6000/year.
Forewarned is forearmed.
Some insurance companies define "distance from the water" as "distance from the juncture of the property line and the edge of the Great South Bay". Others will define it as "distance from any large body of water".
Give your insurance agent a call and ask him how much your homeowners premium will be on that house.
Even though homeowners doesn't cover flood, many companies either won't insure a house (as a new customer) that is within 2 miles of the south shore waterfront OR will do so at a significantly higher premium.
My previous house was south of Montauk Highway in West Islip. It was rated Flood Zone X so the premium for that was less than $400 ... but the cheapest homeowners insurance I could get on that house cost $6000/year.
Forewarned is forearmed.
Some insurance companies define "distance from the water" as "distance from the juncture of the property line and the edge of the Great South Bay". Others will define it as "distance from any large body of water".
Some insurers won't even touch the zip code if flood zones even touch it. Fortunately smaller, more specialized insurers enter the market to capture the demand.
Southards Pond is a pond, a body of standing water, IMHO that is why you can have a basement; probably also why no flood insurance is required.
Difference between a pond and a lake? A lake is a still water body surrounded by land from all sides except a side where it is fed by a river, stream or any other moving body of water.
I lived in Babylon on the water, but it was on an inlet fed from a river, so we only had a crawl space (in the 15 years I lived there, we had water in the crawl space only two or three times, and only once in part of the living space (the bathroom - lower level of a split).
Do yourself a favor. Look at the house (if you can,) without the view of the pond and compare it to others you have seen. If the finishes are low-end and the price is high end, what are you ultimately paying for the view? Obviously, you can't put a price on it, but if you update the finishes to something to your liking, are you now the highest prices house on the block? If this is your forever house, forget about what I just stated, but if this is a transitional home, I would seriously think about that factor. BTW, there are no right or wrong answers to the question.
Fortunately smaller, more specialized insurers enter the market to capture the demand.
Yes indeed, and those are called "excess lines" insurers and are the ones charging premiums up the wazoo. This from personal experiece.
All the 'normal' insurers had kicked our south of Montauk/not-waterfront but 150 feet from the end of the canal house to the curb by 2008. Going through independent insurance agents and price shopping premiums every year, the premiums from all the excess lines carriers ranged from $5000-$6000/year for less coverage and higher deductibles than the normal policies had provided. Scottsdale, Lloyds, and Kingstone to name a few.
There is a risk with these insurers because they are all based out of state which means customers are not protected by the NY State insurance pool.They are licensed to sell policies here under certain circumstances but that's it. If as a result of a major event one of these insurers goes belly up and can't pay some or all of their claims, the homeowner is out of luck. By contrast, if a domestic NY state insurer does the same, the State steps in -- just like the FDIC does for bank deposit accounts -- and makes sure the insured gets the coverage he paid for.
By 2013 the excess lines premiums had become so crazy that we went completely without insurance for a year and a half until the house sold. The buyers discovered, just prior to the closing, that they couldn't get affordable insurance either (which is why it's best to find this out BEFORE buying any house within 2 miles of the water nowadays) and had to get a temporary bare-bones fire-and-vandalism-only (no liability or extras) policy from the NY Property Insurance Underwriters Association. This coverage is available only to those who have been refused coverage by normal insurers. It is just barely acceptable to mortgage lenders but there's a catch: Within 60 days the homeowner has to have all sorts of engineering inspections done and if there is ANYTHING that the NYPIUA then says they want you to do to your house, it has to be done or they will cancel the policy and you're back where you started, looking at obscenely high premiums from the excess lines companies.
That said, there is a company called US Coastal that has come into the market on Long Island in recent years. They are a NY-based insurer and so the consumer protection does apply. I don't personally know anyone who uses them so I don't know how their premiums compare to the usual insurers but I would assume they would be at least somewhat higher but hopefully not as insane as the excess lines companies. You'd need to compare to find out whether the coverage per dollar is comparable to the regular guys though.
Thinking of putting in an offer for a house in Babylon Village. Beautiful view from the back of Southards Pond. No flood insurance required and supposedly there has never been an issue with flooding. House has a full basement which i think is rare with a house that has a water view? It was a flip but is priced high at $678 but the finishes are low end and sloppy. But just love the view and close proximity to trails and more parks. Even though it is in Babylon village is definately North Babylon schools. For my daughter maybe an issue? Looking for any advice or thoughts. Thank you
I checked Urban Dictionary and it looks like it means somebody who is not white. the only 2 definitions were from like 2002 so the word looks pretty played out lol
The cool thing about North Babylon is that it's been pretty diverse for so many generations; and that most of the residents seem to embrace it and see it as a positive. You don't really find a lot of towns with progressive mindsets in such a segregated place like Long Island. But just my opinion..
Last edited by MemoryMaker; 03-05-2019 at 07:34 AM..
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