Communication-friendly housing for workers-at-home
Several of my clients have jobs where they work one or more days at home. This creates a need for not only a pleasant place to park a desk, but also a good cell phone signal. It has become part of the checklist for buyers in the past couple of years. I don’t really want to get into which carriers are the best or the worst. I have found problems with every carrier one place or another within my real estate territory.
Dead zones are not necessarily just in remote areas. I used to work with a lawyer in Lexington center who reported that there was a dead zone there for a major carrier. He had to change his carrier, mid contract.
Did you check your cell signal before buying? If you didn’t, did you regret it? Where are the dead zones and with which carrier?
When high-speed internet cable was first being laid, I had a client who worked for www.townonline.com and was required to be able to log into the administration end at any time. She could not live in a dial-up household. (If you don’t remember dial-up, click here.) Her housing choices included only areas that were already connected to cable.
Currently, I have some clients who strongly prefer to live in FIOS territory, but I have not had one say it is a deal-breaker to live beyond the pale. In recent years, was available internet as criteria in your housing search, or are there enough acceptable options around Boston?
And lastly, all this stuff runs on electricity. Electricity is needed for the most basic things, like lights, food refrigeration, and heating and cooling systems. I am seeing a trend toward household generators. I see it more in the suburbs. At first, I saw it in houses where there was a medical need for power at all times for people who had power-assisted medical equipment. Next, I saw it for young families. Now, I just see it. Are you considering a generator?
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