It’s difficult to imagine life without the appliances and technological perks to which we’ve become accustomed. But the scores of appliances found in a typical home create a huge demand for energy and costs for both the consumer and the env…
Government spending may get a bad rap, but there is one federal program that saved consumers $4 billion last year and benefited the environment as well. It’s called Energy Star, and it’s a voluntary labeling effort that identifies both prod…
Alan Greenspan and the Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve have received a lot of press coverage recently for their aggressive attempts to revive the economy and ward off a recession. Their unprecedented program of mostly half-poin…
As construction insurance has evolved into a highly specialized and complex field over the past few decades, effective management of risk and insurance is critical when undertaking a construction project. Unfortunately, there is still no si…
By definition, insurance doesn’t fit into the mold of predictability. It’s something we buy, but hope we’ll never need. With some 30,000 structural fires taking place in New York City last year, it’s clear that the unexpected can and does h…
The eccentric widow who lives in apartment 3F with her 16 cats claims that undue noise from the musicians in 3G caused her to have a nervous breakdown-and you, the board president, are to blame because the wall between the apartments-two fe…
The 1990s were good times for those paying insurance premiums. "We had almost a decade of severe, severe cost cutting," says Coletta Kemper, vice president of industry affairs for the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers. "They were abou…
Picture this: The power goes out in Washington Heights. When it comes back on in Washington Heights, it goes out in Clinton. When it comes back on in Clinton, it goes out in Battery Park City. And so on, across the city. Panic sets in, chao…
With mortgages as common as they are today, most borrowers know the standard steps in securing a loan for a condo or co-op. In the simplest terms, a borrower must first pick a lending institution, be it a commercial bank or mortgage banker.…
The economic boom of the last few years has been a remarkable period of prosperity for the real estate industry in general, and co-ops in particular. Shareholders no longer need to feel trapped; the time is now for co-op boards to tackle th…