No matter what borough you live in, you’ll reap benefits from lower crime
Location is everything in real estate. Naturally, you want to live in a safe part of the city. Before you buy a new place, you should find out what the crime rate is there. The NYPD maintains a website with recent crime statistics for every precinct. What may surprise you, however, is that your NYC condo or coop insurance premiums won’t be affected.
Photo by aherrero / Flickr Creative Commons
That’s because crime rates have dropped so much in New York City in recent years, it’s not much of a factor anymore when it comes to insuring your home and its contents. That’s great news for people who want to adventure into one of those “fabulous transitional neighborhoods” their Realtor is trying to sell them on.
From Brooklyn to the Bronx to Manhattan, you can insure your largest investment for about $230-280 annually. The policy will cover you for fire, theft, liability if someone is hurt inside your home, certain types of storm damage, water damage from a ruptured pipe or accidental overflow and a variety of other insured losses, depending on the type of coverage you buy. You can trim the cost of your policy just by selecting a home in a low-crime area. A professional at Gotham Brokerage will be able to tell you if the area you are considering living in has a high number of crime-related insurance losses.
Insurance companies set their rates based on a rating matrix that have traditionally included factors such as crime, lifestyle choices, proximity to fire hydrants, your credit score and, in some cases, the claims made by your neighbors. But with crime trending downward across the city, that factor hasn’t been an issue. It’s still a good idea to help offset some of your insurance costs by investing in a fire and burglar alarm system, increasing your deductible and buying fire extinguishers for your home.
But you should never risk your investment without insurance coverage. No matter what the crime trends in your neighborhood, it only takes one crafty thief to carry off several years’ worth of earnings, and one fire could completely wipe you out.
Gotham Brokerage, a family-run business in New York City for more than 50 years, can match you up with the right agent. For more information, give us a call at [telnumlink]212-406-7300[/telnumlink] or fill out the form at right.
