Whether you are buying life insurance, auto insurance, or homeowners insurance, there are certain qualities you look for in an insurance agent. We were watching The Incredibles recently and were kind of surprised to see the protagonist, a washed up former superhero, was working as an insurance agent. While Mr. Incredible actually did a pretty good job as an insurance agent, even getting himself in trouble for helping out his clients, there are some superheroes we really wouldn’t want as our insurance agents:

• Wonder Woman. Not only is she really not dressed for business, but she has that golden lasso which forces you to tell the complete truth. And let’s face it, there are times when you’re making a homeowners insurance claim that you may not want to divulge every single little fact. Not that you would lie, of course. But you don’t want to be put in the position where you have to be more truthful than you want to be, either.
• Superman. Some people are just a little too goody-goody. We don’t know about you, but we’re not sure we’d want to do business with Superman. Besides, we’ve seen Superman II and we’re a little concerned that outlaws from planet Krypton might wreak havoc on anyone who has had dealings with Superman while he’s off cavorting with Lois Lane.
• Wolverine. He’s cool, but he isn’t entirely reasonable and we’re not sure we would want to have any business dealings with him.
• The Incredible Hulk. Have you ever run into a salesperson you simply could not say no to? There’s a good reason why the Hulk’s alter ego isn’t into sales, insurance or otherwise. After all, you wouldn’t want to see him when he gets angry.
• The Wonder Twins. Besides the fact that they’re a little young to be insurance agents, the Wonder Twins would be able to fix just about anything that would go wrong with your house. So, what’s wrong with that, you ask? We don’t know about you, but we’d rather not have a wall or window on our house made of ice if we can help it, even temporarily.

With all of the superheroes we don’t want as insurance agents, we have found one that we think would be completely acceptable. The Flash. After all, he’s as quick as lightning. And when you have an insurance claim, you want someone that can spring into action immediately or sooner.

You’ve dreamt all your life of owning your own home, and now you do. Congratulations. But before you start adding all of those features you’ve always wanted to have in your house and yard, consider the fact that some of them are going to cost you extra when it comes time to write out your check for homeowners insurance.

We’re not saying that you shouldn’t add anything you want to add. We’re just saying that you need to consider the ongoing costs before you do. With that said, here are some of the coolest things you can add to your home or yard that might cost you a bit extra on your homeowners insurance policy:

• A water feature. Whether it’s a small water garden, a waterfall, or a big pond, you can expect to shell out extra money anytime you add anything that involves water. You save some money if you put a fence around your water feature, but who really wants a chain link fence surrounding their waterfall?
• A trampoline. If you have kids, a trampoline is a lot of fun. Heck, even if you don’t have kids yet, a trampoline is a lot of fun. Unfortunately, they’re one of the main things insurance companies look for when determining how much of a risk your property represents. As with most hazards, you are much better off if your trampoline is fenced in.
• A tree house. Who hasn’t wanted a tree house since they were little kids? We recently heard of a man who built a $600,000 dream home which included two tree houses, one of which was to be used strictly for having Chardonnay and Brie with his buddies. We’re all in favor of tree houses. Insurance companies? Not so much.
• A pool. The deeper they are, the cooler they are. And the more they’ll cost you on your insurance policy. Make sure you put a fence with a locked gate around your pool or your insurance company may refuse to carry you altogether.
• A fireplace. There’s nothing better than curling up with someone you love next to a roaring fire. But while you see the potential for romantic evenings, your insurance agent sees the potential for a big payout after your house goes down in flames.

Chances are, you grew up pretending to be your favorite superheroes. Or, if you were the younger brother, you may have had to play as the super villains. Either way, you got to pretend you had a totally rockin’ lair. After all, next to a pony or a tree house, what could any kid want more than a totally cool lair? In our case, the tree house usually doubled as the lair, but that’s another story. Of course, as adults, most of us avoid actually building secret lairs because they tend to make the homeowners insurance premiums go up.

Still, if you could have a secret lair, which one would you want? We’re sure everyone has their favorites, but here’s our list:

1. The Batcave. This is the place for you if you’re a gadget guy. Bruce Wayne had the place outfitted with state of the art computers before such things even existed. Besides, who wouldn’t want a lair with the Batmobile in the garage?
2. Castle Grayskull. Admit it, when you’re all by yourself in the attic, you still pull out your He-Man and Battle Cat action figures. It’s OK, we do, too. As much as we’d love to have Castle Grayskull and that unnamed, mysterious power guarded inside that Skeletor and all the other baddies on Eternia wanted so badly, we’re afraid anything worth building a castle to protect would probably cost extra on the homeowners insurance policy.
3. The Fortress of Solitude. If you’re looking for a little peace and quiet in a pristine environement, you could do worse than the Fortress of Solitude. In addition to being away from it all, Superman’s lair features alien technology including a holographic image projector. While we don’t really want to listen to Jor-El lecture on the proper use of power, we can imagine watching John Wayne while kicking back and enjoying an ice cold beer.
4. The Sewer. OK, at first glance this doesn’t sound appealing. But when you add in four kickass turtles and a talking rat sensai and all the pizza you can eat, it would make one heck of a hangout.
5. Atlantean Temple. Aquaman may have been the lamest superhero ever created (well, besides the Wonder Twins), but his lair rocks. Atlantean babes are hot. Enough said.

If you’re an insurance agent, you understand that there is a certain element of risk the insurance company takes on with any coverage it grants. If the house is lost or damaged due to one tragedy or another, then the company ends up footing the lion’s share of the bill. After all, that’s why people buy homeowners insurance. Here are the top 5 movie houses you wouldn’t want your company to have insured:

1. Aunt Josephine’s house in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Not only is it precariously perched on a cliff, but the whole thing looks like it’s ready to crumble at any given moment. Chances are most homeowners insurance companies wouldn’t touch this one to begin with, and if you’ve seen the way the movie ends, you’ll understand why not.
2. Lars’ farming house and complex on Tattoine. The Imperial Stormtroopers in the original Star Wars movie really put a hurting on poor Uncle Lars. And to think, it was all in a vain search for a couple of chatty robots. Everyone inside was killed, and the complex was torched. Of course, that’s nothing compared to what Luke would later do to the Death Star, but until we start insuring planet sized battle stations, that’s irrelevant.
3. The house in Mouse Hunt. Who would have thought that a 3 ounce rodent could bring down a house valued at more than $10 million. Come to think of it, technically, it was the brothers’ attempts to get rid of the mouse which destroyed the mansion. Still, you wouldn’t have wanted to be the insurance adjuster assigned to that case.
4. The house in Home Alone. Miraculously, the house survived the movie, and a number of sequels. Still, we have to think that there must have been extensive damage done to the house by the time all of the contraptions and traps Macaulay Caulkin’s character were sprung. In any case, in today’s screwed up world, the criminals would have sued you for damages incurred while breaking in. Fortunately, homeowners insurance usually covers such damages.
5. The house from Disney Pixar’s Up. After being carried away by helium filled balloons and traveling to remote parts of the world and set on fire, the house eventually falls from sight from above the clouds. We’re not sure, but our guess would be the house is completely destroyed. But, how are you going to explain that on an insurance claims form?

The Biltmore was constructed over a period of six years during the late 1800s. In order to build it, the Vanderbilt family employed an entire community of contractors. A railway line was run right to the property, and sawmills, lumber yards, brick factory, and woodworking shop were constructed right on the grounds.

The house is located near Asheville, North Carolina, and is still owned by descendants of the Vanderbilt family. These days, you can stay the night there. It’s certainly worth doing if you’re willing to pay for a 4 star hotel in North Carolina. The Inn, as the part where you’d be staying is known, has a number of unique features, including guided tours of the expansive estate.

So, how much house can you build in 4 acres? Apparently, 250 rooms in all, including 34 bedrooms, 65 fireplaces, 43 bathrooms, an indoor swimming pool, a gymnasium, a bowling alley, servant’s quarters, changing rooms, and rooms whose exact purpose no one really knows.

Believe it or not, the Vanderbilt family actually lived in the house. George Vanderbilt, who had the house built, moved his new wife in shortly after their Parisian wedding, and the couple raised their only child at Biltmore.

While I’m sure homeowners insurance premiums were not a big deal for a family like the Vanderbilt clan, it makes you wonder how they ever managed to find each other in that huge place. It must have been great for kids. Can you imagine the hide and seek games when little Miss Vanderbilt had her friends over?

Believe it or not, the Biltmore estate, whose architecture was designed to resemble a 16^th century French chateaux, was built in a very environmentally conscious way (for the time). Much of the estate is reclaimed forest, having been farmland previously. The estate, in fact, boasts the country’s first managed forest, in addition to numerous gardens.

Photo via Kamoteus (A Better Way)

The house’s exterior consists of alternating stripes of Lego’s most common colors: white, red, blue, yellow, and black. Transparent colored blocks are used for the windows.

On the inside, all of the home’s furnishings are crafted of Lego blocks, including beds, other furniture, and working sinks, toilets, and showers, complete with running water. May insists that the house is a fully liveable house.

Or it was, anyway. When May originally set out to build the house, with the help of over 1,000 volunteers, he had an agreements with Legoland in Britain for the house to be moved to the theme park. When that fell through, the house went up on the market. Alas, it turns out there really isn’t much of a market for houses built out of Legos. And just when we were hoping to go into business building them.

Because the land was needed for growing grapes, the house had to be torn down and the Lego bricks donated to charity. Apparently, Lego was concerned that if the bricks were sold to recoup part of the cost of the project, it could seriously dig into Lego sales in Britain.

I’m not sure the homeowners insurance industry even has any actuarial tables that deal with covering houses constructed of Lego bricks, but wouldn’t it be a fun house to live in? In a day when most homes being built are modular construction anyway, maybe we should all build Lego houses for ourselves. It would have to be cheaper than the average cost of construction. And, let’s face it, most of us have experience building Lego houses (albeit a little smaller). We could start a whole new cottage industry.

With the instability of the housing market, and the rapid decline of house and property values, you can never tell if you’ll be able to get back what you put into a house anyway. With a Lego house, even if it falls apart, you will at least have something to play with.So, you go ahead and build your house out of brick and mortar if you want to. As for me, I’m skipping Menard’s and heading to Toys’R’Us for some Legos.

Photo via Acutance

So most of us scrimp and save until we buy our first house. Or, we apply for government aid programs and buy the house with nothing down. Either way, presumably we move into our new neighborhood, glad to be alive and to finally join the ranks of the American homeowner. And then we meet them. The neighbors. No, not the nice ones across the street who came over to say hi and introduce themselves. The other ones. You know. Those ones.

“Those ones” come in several different varieties, but here are the worst:

1. The neighbor who never cuts his grass. Inevitably, he’ll be next door. Just as inevitably, someone will have managed to cut his grass when you were house shopping. Don’t hold your breath waiting for next time. His grass gets cut once every other month whether it needs it or not.

1. The neighbor who cuts his grass every damned day. And then looks at you as if you were bozo number one who never cuts your grass. Of course, this guy is either retired, or has a wife so annoying that the riding mower is his best friend. Still, grass should be mowed once per week. Twice, tops. Any more than that is crazy. And who wants to live next door to crazy people?

1. The neighbor who asks about your homeowners insurance right after you move in. You learn later that he has a long history of slips and falls.

1. The city inspector. How’d he get in the neighborhood? Well, even if it isn’t literally the city inspector, there’s always a guy who seems to know every arcane city code and ordinance passed since the Civil War (usually this guy looks like he might have lived through the Civil War). And he expects that you should know them, too.

Welcome to the neighborhood. We hope that none of these folks live next door to you. But, we wouldn’t bet the mortgage payment on it.

Photo via Kris Haamer

Come to think of it, the Beverly Hillbillies weren’t even all that comfortable in their mansion. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you couldn’t be. If you think your home value took a hit with the housing, crisis, though, imagine what happened to their home. Valued at over $25 million at the peak of the housing market, the value plummeted to a trifling $8 million. Admittedly, most of us would be thrilled to be able to own an $8 million dollar house, but still.

One of the TV houses that we think many of today’s families wouldn’t mind living in is the Brady Bunch’s house. While the California split level home screams 1970s, we suspect that there are a lot of step parents who would love to discover the Brady’s secret for solving all of the problems of a blended family in the space of half an hour.

How about the Addams Family’s house. Or The Munsters’? There are a few of us out there just oddball enough that we wouldn’t mind giving it a shot, at least on a trial basis. But can you imagine what the homeowners insurance would run? Yikes!

We can’t think of many places that would be cooler to live that the house on Silver Spoons. Ricky Schroeder never did quite outlive the image of the plucky little kid on the show, but hey, if you got to live in a house with a real working train and an arcade in the furnished basement, why would you even want to grow up in the first place?

Of course, most of won’t ever have the opportunity to live in homes like that, but it’s OK. As the old saying goes, our home is our castle anyway.

Photo via cliff1066™

Here are a handful of neighbors from the small screen that we wouldn’t mind having:

• Ned Flanders from The Simpsons. Ned’s lovable. OK, he’s religious, and probably at least a little bit annoying. But Ned doesn’t shove his beliefs down your throat. He keeps up his yard, and he’s not going to bring down your property values. Borrow stuff from Ned and you don’t need to worry about giving it back because, well, Ned figures you can use it more than he can if you don’t return it.
• Monica and Rachel from Friends. These two would be awesome neighbors. There’s always hot breakfast over at Monica’s. She’s just as likely to help you clean your own kitchen as to feed you, too. If you have a party, she’ll bring an awesome side dish. Just watch out for all of the Ross-Rachel drama.
• The Mertz’s from I Love Lucy. You could just as easily name the show I Love Fred and Ethel. These two are plain fun. Fred is a little uptight, but he never really gets in the way. And, even if you move out of the country, these ideal neighbors follow.
• Wilson Wilson, Jr. from Home Improvement. Thoughtful, interesting worldly advice is just over the fence. Who doesn’t love Wilson? Sure, you might not be able to understand half of what he says, and you surely can’t articulate any of it to someone else, but that’s just part of what makes him lovable.
• Barney and Bettie Rubble from The Flinstones. Who needs Ed Norton when you’ve got Barney? Barney will go along with any hair-brained scheme you can come up with, and he’ll even take the fall for you when it goes south.

Photo via Frenkieb

Then again, your home might just be haunted.

Take, for example, the infamous Amityville Horror house. This is the home of Ronald DeFeo Jr. Its story was made famous in the movie of the same name. It’s now up for sale.

When this five-bedroom house located on Long Island first went up for sale after DeFeo shot six of his family members in their sleep in 1974, the price tag was a mere $55,000. That’s a heck of a deal on such a large house, especially on Long Island.

Even by 1997, as things sort of settled down after more than 20 years, the house sold for $310,000, below the market value of similar homes in the area.

Today, however, the stigma seems to be gone. The newly renovated Amityville Horror house is back on the market, and it has a hefty price tag. The owners are asking for $1.15 million.

The house has inspired a series of films, as well as a book. Probably the most famous of these is the 1979 classic The Amityville Horror, starring Margo Kider and James Brolin. The movie tells the story of a family that stayed in the Amityville Horror house during the years after the murders. The Lutz family actually lived in the house, and they eventually lost that house to foreclosure.

Some former owners even changed the address of the home to protect their privacy. The house was renumbered 108 Ocean Avenue from 112 by James and Barbara Cromarty, who lived in the house between 1977 and 1987. The home was sold again in 1997 to the current owner.

Photo via Anemone Nemorosa