Looking to move close to the city without the price tag?
Very spacious and Well maintained single fam in a great location waiting for your personal touch. This beauty
feature 2 Kitchens, 2 full bathrooms and 5 bedrooms. 1st floor Kitchen was recently updated and 2nd floor
kitchen was added in 1988. Formal dining room has a built-in china. Conveniently located near schools, public
transportation, restaurants, library, etc. Roof is approximately 10-15 years old. First showing will be Sunday 8/3
at open house from 12-1:30pm
Monday, August 25, 2014
Monday, July 22, 2013
Boston's Waterfront and North End......Hot or Not? A Buyers Perception
The Boston real estate market is hot again and for the North End / Waterfront, the data shows a very healthy upswing in average sales values. However, the neighborhood also has the highest percentage of properties selling below the original asking price. We may even have the highest percentage of “Price Reductions” before a sale occurs while it appears to be the opposite in other parts of the city.
My opinion is that if we had agents using a realistic pricing strategy, the home values would/could be much higher while experiencing “at” or “above asking” sales. Pricing is essential when it comes to procuring the highest and best price for our sellers and waterfront home owners.
64% of all the condominium sales in the North End/Waterfront are actually “Sold” by agents outside of the neighborhood. Why is that important to know? The fact is that every Buyer is represented by a Buyers Agent and when 64% of them are looking at the sales data from MLS (Multiple Listing Service) it appears that asking prices for homes here are unrealistic resulting in low offers and a real potential for lower sales price for the Sellers.
The perception is not the reality, but the “List to Sell” data is compelling. We are not experiencing the “buzz” like the rest of the city.
Share your thoughts in the comments section under the charts below:
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Wednesday, May 15, 2013
2013 First Qtr. Condominium Report
Wondering what's happening around the city as far as the condominium market?
Owner property is a huge investment and having the ability to track the most accurate sales data is critical.
There are many websites one can visit hoping to capture "Data" but often times what third party sites post may not accurately depict the true nature of the market.
Owner property is a huge investment and having the ability to track the most accurate sales data is critical.
There are many websites one can visit hoping to capture "Data" but often times what third party sites post may not accurately depict the true nature of the market.
Statistical reports can give you a lot of important information about the market. Actually, whether you’re a professional real estate agent or simply an average home owner who is concerned about their investment, nothing is more valued than a clear sense of things.
They are a great way to answer to one of the biggest questions on everybody's mind right now..."how is the market doing?"
If you are interested in something specific relating to your needs, I am happy to provide you the most accurate data.
You can view the full report for this quarter here............
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Monday, April 8, 2013
Public Record.......What are the real numbers?
Accuracy in pricing is essential. What should have been versus the end result.
Is this a successful sale for the Seller?
Why having an experienced and knowledgeable Agent that understands the results of properly pricing and positioning your home in a volatile market. (Data gathered from MLS and public records)
When her clients find themselves caught up in a heated bidding war, Jamaica Plain real estate broker Ellen Grubert suggests they put pen to paper — not necessarily to up the offer, but to ingratiate themselves to the seller of the property.
Write a letter that flatters the seller’s taste and appeals to their emotional attachment to the house. If the grounds are nicely landscaped, mention how much you like to garden; if the house holds family memories, talk about raising your children there, too.
“You want to appeal to the seller, that you will take care of the house,’’ said Grubert, vice president of residential sales at Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Jamaica Plain. “Especially if the seller loves their home, it pulls on their heart strings.”
With bidding wars for choice homes in the Boston market as common as crocuses in spring, buyers and their agents are resorting to unusual tactics to stand out in the crowd. Fueled by a perfect storm of market forces — very low interest rates, an improving economy, and limited supply of homes — eager buyers are bidding up home values in metro Boston and leaving an increasingly larger pool of frustrated shoppers on the losing end.
In February the median price for a single-family home in the region jumped nearly 9 percent, to $429,900, from the same period last year, according to the Greater Boston Association of Realtors. Homes are selling more quickly, too. The average listing period fell to 109 days in February, down from 134 in February 2012, according to the association.
And in coveted areas of downtown Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville, the better properties can sell over a weekend, real estate agents say.
To help buyers survive this anxiety-drenched process, real estate agents are prepping clients to be ready to act quickly when they find a property they like, and to be prepared to offer incentives unseen since the housing heyday of 2004 and 2005.
Those include: waiving the home inspection, or being willing to pay a penalty if the deal falls through. Buyers are also being more flexible with sellers in terms of when a closing occurs or if a seller can rent back a home for some time, agents say.
“As home buyers compete they are going to try to put themselves in a position of strengthening the offer, price, and terms,’’ said Mike DelRose of RE/MAX Leading Edge in Watertown.
But agents also warn buyers not to offer more than they can afford or give up legal rights that they will later regret. Some potential home buyers have already lost their deposits or are finding the home they just bought unexpectedly needs expensive repairs, said Gary Dwyer, owner of Buyer Agents of Boston.
“Sometimes no property is better than a bad property or losing all your deposit,” he said. “There is a lot of buyers’ remorse that is starting to percolate out there.”
To avoid mistakes, Grubert cautions buyers not to provide information that could hurt — rather than help — their chances.
For example, Grubert said one of her sellers recently received a letter from a buyer saying they would use the house only part time. A competing buyer wrote about wanting to bring up a family in the home — and won.
“They discussed too much,’’ she said about the losing bid.
DelRose said sellers will sift through offers to consider strengths and weaknesses of potential buyers — the size of the down payment, their overall financial well-being. Sellers may even vet the lender a bidder has for preapproval, with stable local and national banks viewed more favorably, he said.
Despite the competition, DelRose said buyers should not get desperate — he believes more sellers will appear as the spring heats up. “They don’t have to be so pressured to make a move,” he said.
The current bidding wars are reminiscent of the last housing heyday in 2004 and 2005, said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors. The excitement — irrational exuberance to some — was aided by easy lending terms and led to an overheated market that burst in the second half of the last decade.
Yun says this new energy — visible in many areas around the country — is different because buyers are purchasing homes with cash or financing mortgages with lenders with much more rigid eligibility requirements. “Today’s market is fundamentally different,’’ he said. “Access to mortgage credit is exceptionally tight.”
As the market improves, sellers too are finding different ways of fielding offers. Chris Tuite, managing partner of Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty in Boston, said his office has started to set a deadline — usually a week — for offers on popular condominiums. That should be enough time buyers to adequately vet a property but also adds pressure to the process, he said. He said agents try to help sellers set the highest realistic price for a home, but emotional buyers can drive prices higher.
“Every seller wants to have a bidding war,” he said. “It is a good opportunity for the market to set itself.”
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Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Internet Screening for Tenants?
Q: With all the information you can get on the Internet these days, I always run a Google search on apartment applicants. I've heard that there's a legal risk in doing this -- that I may learn things that I'm not legally allowed to rely on when choosing applicants. But I sometimes find information that's contrary to what applicants report on their applications. How can I use the Internet safely? --Brian G.
A: You're not the only one who can't resist a quick Internet search on a person of interest -- be that a prospective tenant, employee, or even a date. And there's no disputing that often, you find information that's not only relevant, but crucial.
For example, imagine an applicant who tells you that he has lived and worked in the area for the past several years, but whose Facebook page says otherwise -- you'd be justified in suspecting that this person is hiding an unsavory rental past and may be supplying you with bogus prior landlords.
The problem with social media screening, however, is that you're apt to come upon information that is not only not true, but if true, should have no bearing on your decision as to whether to rent to this person. You'll likely discover information about race, age, religion, and the characteristics of the applicant's friends and family. Making rental decisions based on the race, religion, ethnicity and so on of the applicant (or the applicant's associates) would be a violation of the federal fair housing laws. Many states extend the list of "protected classes."
So, if you know that you can't consider these factors when screening an applicant, you can just ignore them, right? Well, yes, but suppose you're challenged by the applicant, who learns that you accessed social medial for this information? You'll be in the tricky situation of having to argue that you put the information out of your mind. But it's not so easy to "unring the bell," and more importantly, it's practically impossible to prove that you did so.
Does this mean that employers and landlords should never access social media for screening purposes? Not exactly. The critical thing is to separate the social media searcher from the person who makes the decisions, so that any irrelevant information discovered in the course of the search never gets to the person making the hiring or renting solution.
One way to do this is to hire a third party, a screening firm, who will pass on to you only the information that you can legally rely on when screening applicants. When you do that, the firm complies with the disclosure and reporting requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Another tack is to have someone on your staff do the screening and report to you, keeping back irrelevant information. It's essential that you train this person on the legalities of screening and fair housing laws. Keep in mind that many states protect more classes than the federal law; for example, extending protection to people on the basis of gender identity, matriculation status (students), and immigration status. If your front-line screener doesn't know what information is legally off-limits, you will have lost the protection that the screener was intended to provide.
Q: I rent a small one-bedroom and from time to time my grandson, who has had some trouble with the law, stays with me. A month ago, he was arrested on the property for dealing drugs, but the case was dismissed because there wasn't enough evidence. Even so, my landlord is evicting me. Can he do this? --Alice F.
A: I'm guessing that the case turned on the validity of the search performed by the police. Generally, police need probable cause, or a good reason, to search someone without a warrant -- facts that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that a crime is being committed, and that the person about to be searched has evidence of it. Observing someone dealing drugs will qualify, but short of that, mere suspicions that illegal activity is taking place won't pass muster.
The judge who heard the case probably concluded that the police did not have enough facts to justify the search (or should have obtained a warrant), and as a result, the judge excluded the fruits of the search -- the drugs. And without this evidence, the prosecutor may have decided that there was not enough evidence to go forward with the case.
Although the prosecutor is bound to follow the judge's exclusion of the evidence, your landlord is not. Many states allow landlords to terminate tenancies when tenants, or their guests, break the law on the premises, and some do not require that the tenant or guest be convicted in criminal court. Most simply don't give a rule. As a consequence, landlords in those states are able to use the standard they see fit, be it a conviction, an arrest, a "stop and frisk," or even their own belief that illegality is taking place, without law enforcement involvement.
Tenants whose guests are the law-breakers are sometimes caught in an unfortunate position. Residents who know that the guest is up to no good can fairly be expected to suffer the consequences; but sometimes, tenants have no idea what their guests are doing, and have no way of finding out. While it is harsh to evict an "innocent host," landlords will respond that it's worse to allow the situation to continue.
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Tuesday, March 19, 2013
RENT IT RIGHT
Q: The owners of the house we rent told us they'll be selling the property even though we have a year left on the lease. I have a medical problem and need quiet so that I can rest. But showing the house is going to be disruptive. Can we stop it? Actually, we want to get out now -- do we have grounds to break the lease? --Mary F.
A: Most states have laws governing when, for what reason, and with how much notice a landlord may enter a tenant's home. Entry to show the property to prospective buyers is always on the list of permitted reasons. As a general rule, as much as you might not like it, if your landlord is planning on following your state's access rules, there's not much you can do.
But wait. Your condition may qualify you as a person with a disability as that term is understood by the Fair Housing Amendments Act. Do you have a physical or mental condition that substantially limits one or more major life activities? If so, the owners are legally bound to adjust their business practices -- including showing a home to potential buyers -- so that you can live safely and comfortably in your rented home. This accommodation should mean at the minimum a willingness to work with you to minimize the disruptions caused by showing the property.
You may also be entitled to leave the rental without responsibility for future rent, i.e., to legally break the lease. That's because, if you're legally disabled, you can expect the landlord to accommodate a reasonable request that he vary his policy of holding you to the terms of the lease -- specifically, its end date. Ironically, allowing you to "safely and comfortably live in the rental" requires, in this instance, letting you leave. The variation, called an accommodation, would be to allow you to terminate your lease without financial liability.
Q: I rent out a small commercial space, and questions have arisen as to who has responsibility to replace fluorescent light tubes, maintain toilets in working order, and replace high-efficiency filters in the heating/air conditioning system. We have a standard written lease but it doesn't get down to that level of detail. Can you suggest who is responsible? --Bob D.
A: To be blunt, the person responsible for this problem is the one who chose the "standard written lease," which was undoubtedly you. This lease, which you probably purchased online for a few bucks, was woefully inadequate. Doubtless full of legalese, it skipped the part about everyday repairs and maintenance, and probably more issues, too.
Now you find yourself with no guidance, and it's unlikely you'll find it in the law. Were this a residential rental, you could look to your state's laws on upkeep and habitability, and would probably learn that landlords are responsible for upkeep that's necessary to keep the rental safe and habitable. Tenants normally perform minor upkeep (light bulbs, minor plumbing, and filters). But in a commercial rental, it's up for grabs. That's because legislators have decided that when the transaction is "B2B" (between businesses), the parties are likely to have equal bargaining strength and sophistication, and should be allowed to craft their own deal.
By contrast, residential renting often involves a substantial imbalance of power and sophistication, and concerns a basic and important human need (housing). So, legislators decide who does what; the law is less likely to set the ground rules when the fight is over the look of a shop or the cost to fix a company's sign.
You and your tenant will just have to work it out. Next time, look for a more robust lease, or consult either a good self-help legal resource or a lawyer. Heed the real estate lawyer's mantra: The best lease is one that leaves you with no surprises.
Janet Portman is an attorney and managing editor at Nolo. She specializes in landlord/tenant law and is co-author of "Every Landlord's Legal Guide" and "Every Tenant's Legal Guide." She can be reached at janet@inman.com.
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