• Important Greenwich Contacts
• Most Popular Greenwich Links
• Most Popular Travel Links
• Greenwich Newspapers & Magazines
• Financial Calculators
• Mortgage Rates & Information
• Credit Information
• Consumer Information
• Home Improvement
• Contractor Registration
• House Plans
• Referral Network

Whether you are new to the area or have been here a long time, we hope you will find these Links and telephone numbers helpful. If you are just moving to the area, you will find many of the contacts you will need to make your relocation easy.
Links to Important Greenwich Contacts

Town of Greenwich Website
Greenwich has a comprehensive website, where you can look up almost anything, from town meetings, your local RTM member, to beach, tennis or golf passes. Be sure to sign up for emergency notification emails.

Anderson Guide To Enjoying Greenwich
Written by Anderson Associates, this guide is sold on Amazon.com as well as in many of the Greenwich Stores. This 400 page insiders' guide now in its 6^th edition has reviews of over 160 restaurants as well as reviews of the many shops in town.

Anderson Guide to Volunteer Opportunities in Greenwich
A booklet produced as a public service by Anderson Associates to help people easily find all of the opportunities in their area of interest. Use the web site or get the free booklet.

Greenwich Library
The Greenwich Library is a special town treasure. The library is the most used public library in Connecticut and the second most used library in New England. Besides being able to search the collection and check out books or CDs, it has a very strong Health Information Center as well as 100 databases most of which members can search from their home. The Library has two other branches. In addition Old Greenwich has its own Library, unaffiliated with the Greenwich Library, Perrot Library.

Community Answers
Community Answers, a group of helpful volunteers, can answer a wide variety of questions about the Greenwich community, including questions on such things as community organizations, services and special events in Greenwich. They maintain a very helpful community calendar.

Greenwich Hospital
The Greenwich Hospital, so convenient and caring, just keeps getting better. Recently they hired a top rated chef to provide gourmet meals to patients. With amenities similar to a Hyatt, there is clearly no better place to recoup or have a baby.

Bruce Museum
The second most popular museum in Connecticut. It is placed in the top 10% of museums in the USA.

Greenwich Newcomers Clubs
The Old Greenwich-Riverside newcomers club is active and fun. It is very welcoming, has a wealth of activities and is a great place to meet new friends. It has a good mix of new and long term residents.

GREENWICH SCHOOLS
Links to all of the public and private schools in Greenwich

Greenwich Continuing Education
Greenwich has a very strong continuing education program. Take a look at all of the courses offered.

TRAVEL LINKS
How to find the Anderson Associates offices. Instructions for driving to Greenwich, train schedules, hotels, airports, taxies and maps.

Greenwich has one daily newspaper, the Greenwich Time and two weekly newspapers, the Post and the Citizen plus a monthly magazine.

Greenwich Time

Greenwich Magazine
A magazine devoted to life in Greenwich.

calendar of social events.

BankRate.com Financial Calculators
An independent source for rate information and consumer finance issues. This site also has a wide collection of financial calculators for real estate, such as Buy or Rent, Amortization Schedules, Cost of Living Comparison calculators and How Much Can I Afford calculators.

Microsoft Office Financial Calculators
This site has more than 60 calculators, such as Gain on Home Sale calculator, Closing Costs Calculator, Kitchen Remodel Cost calculator and ARM vs. Fixed Mortgage Comparison calculator. To download these templates you need Excel version 2000 or later.

Fannie Mae Calculators
Six calculators to evaluate the various components that are factors in buying a home and getting a mortgage, such as Is Now a Good Time to Refinance.

Home Loan Learning Center
This site is run by the Mortgage Bankers Association. It has five financial calculators directed at home buyers, including What Difference Will the Mortgage Interest Rate Make calculator.

BankRate.com Mortgage Information
Mortgage Calculators and information on Mortgages as well as on other financial issues.

BankRate.com Mortgage Basics
A seven chapter course covering all of the basics.

Hartford Current Mortgage Rate Center
Current Connecticut mortgage rates from a variety of companies. We recommend that you do not use an internet provider. We suggest you choose a local mortgage broker or a Greenwich Bank. We will be happy to provide you a list.

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
An excellent source of information on your rights, what is current and who to contact.

Free Annual Credit Report Site
This is a reliable site to get your free credit report mandated by law. However, unless you are sure your computer is virus free, it is wise to call their toll free number, (877) 322-8228. You can use this site to get reports from all three major credit reporting agencies, Experian, Equifax or TransUnion. Ask that only the last four digits of your social security number be used when the report is sent to you. Kiplinger recommends AnnualCreditReport.com for credit reports.

Experian (888-397-3742)

Equifax (800-685-1111)

TransUnion (800-888-4213)

Your FICO Score
FICO scores are used by most banks to decide on mortgage rates. This site will tell you how to get your score and how to improve it and provide a monitoring service. Once you know your FICO score you can use their site to see what your mortgage rate should be and compare it to the ones you have received. You can estimate your FICO score free at bankrate.com

FICO says the USA median score is 723 and the top score is 850. Apparently any score over 750 will get you the best rate.

Credit.com
Credit.com is one of the many sites offering a credit monitoring service. This independent site, run by the former head of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, has a wealth of information on credit issues

Federal Information Center
Hundreds of publications and information on a wide range of consumer oriented topics. It serves as a gateway to many other consumer oriented web sites.

FirstGov
"Front Door" to government information, services, and transactions. This site pulls together more than 180 million Federal, state, and local government web pages. Use the Citizen's Gateway for information on such topics as Social Security, filing taxes, buying surplus Federal property, and more.

Federal Consumer Action Website
If you have a consumer complaint, feel you were scammed or just want to sign up for the Do-Not-Call list, this site is for you.

EPA Indoor Air Quality
Good information on Radon  (Recommends remediation if the Radon level is 4 pCi/L or more) and Mold

National Lead Paint Information Center
Everything you ever wanted to know about Lead Paint. Federal Law banned lead in paint after 1978, so for houses built or renovated after that date, Lead Paint is usually not an issue.

EPA Asbestos Information
Links to a variety of Asbestos information sites.

Connecticut Sex Offender Registry
By CT law, Realtors are not allowed to provide sex offender information. You can use this site or talk to the Greenwich Police Department for this information.

Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO)
OFHEO provides a price index for single family homes and allows you to compare indexes between states. There is an interesting calculator which can be used to estimate the value of your home. Because of Greenwich’s unique real estate market, the calculator is of minimal value.

Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection

The Franklin Report rates service providers (aka contractors) by price and quality. We have found their ratings to be reliable. However, most contractors charge more when they are busy and less when they are not, so be sure to get at least two estimates.

Angie's List

Another website that rates service providers and has customer comments (good and bad) about their services. One annoyance is you have to register to use the site.

Each year for the last 18-years the magazine has published a chart of the value of different remodeling projects. They are a good indication. Each house and neighborhood is different. You should ask one of our Realtors if your specific remodeling project will "pay off" at resale.

Home Depot and Lowes
Both sites offer expert do-it-yourself advice.

Better Homes and Gardens
Has a Home Improvement Encyclopedia on how to do just about every home project. Unfortunately you have to wade though a great many advertisements.

Home Time
Good library of home improvement How-To articles.

HomeTips.com
Sound home remodeling information

DIYNet.com
Advice on everything from gardening, to building to home improvement.

Check to see if your Contractor is Registered in Connecticut

Home Improvement Contractors must be registered in Connecticut with the Department of Consumer protection. If your contractor is not registered they will not be able to get a building permit. It is always advisable to get a building permit, not only will the town inspection give you some assurance that the job was done correctly, but the Certificate of Occupancy (CO) will be necessary when you try to sell your home.

New Home Contractors are registered separately

There are over 8,000,000 sites selling house plans. Unfortunately we have not been able to check out all of them. Below are some we believe may be useful. We organized the sites by traffic rank to give you some idea of their popularity. This does not necessarily mean the most popular are the best. The smaller the traffic rank number the more popular the site is. For instance the traffic rank for Google is 3, MSN’s rank is 2 and Yahoo’s traffic rank is 1.

Cool House Plans
Traffic rank 15,000
Very busy site with almost too much information. Some users feel the designs are outdated, others don’t.

Dream House Source
Traffic Rank 18,000. Gets high ratings from users.

E-Plans
Traffic rank 19,000
Site belongs to Hanley Wood who publishes very good building magazines.
Site gets high ratings from users for currency and ease of use.

House Plans on Line
Traffic rank, 32,848
They claim to have the largest collection of house plans on-line.

The House Designers
Traffic Rank 87,000
Limited number of designs from 10 architects.


Design House
Traffic rank 262,000
The staff will help you sort through the plans.

INTERNATIONAL

SPAIN

Spanish Property
Property showrooms.com are leading experts in Spanish Property. Specializing in Investment Property in Spain

FRANCE

French Property
French property offers unbeatable value for money making it popular with second home buyers and international property investors.

CANADA

A page about Condos in Nanaimo.

Toronto Royal LePage realtor Julie Kinnear will help you find the Toronto house of your dreams.

Looking for Calgary Real Estate? Look no further than top Calgary Realtor Jim Sparrow!

USA