New Homeowners in Boston still think home prices will
go up 10 percent per year

In an annual survey conducted by the economists Robert J. Shiller and Karl E. Case, hundreds of new owners in four communities — Alameda County near San Francisco, Boston, Orange County south of Los Angeles, and Milwaukee — once again said they believed prices would rise about 10 percent a year for the next decade.

With minor swings in sentiment, the latest results reflect what new buyers always seem to feel. At the boom’s peak in 2005, they said prices would go up. When the market was sliding in 2008, they still said prices would go up and as we know prices have been rising in the downtown neighborhoods of Boston Real Estate.

Housing will eventually recover from its “outside of Boston” great swoon. But many real estate experts now believe that home ownership will never again yield rewards like those enjoyed in the second half of the 20th century, when houses not only provided shelter but also a plump nest egg. Read the rest of the article

On another note, some entertainment:

I ran into this great video by Marsh Properties. I had ambitions of doing something like it for my Boston Real Estate Back Bay page, but as you will see it took a lot of work to put this together.
Marsh deserves a plug for financing its production, nicely done.

Bostons Neighborhoods – The Back Bay

Written By RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons

More articles by Jeff:

The Best Time to Buy Boston Real Estate in 2010
A Boston Buyers Agent Says Skip the Spring Market, Wait Until Autumn
How to Get the Lowest Prices on Real Estate by Buying in the Winter
The Psychology of Negotiating The Price of Your Boston Home
First Thing to Do When You Start Your Boston Real Estate Search, Get An Exclusive Accredited Buyers Agent

Contact Jeff

Today’s Mortgage Rates

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

Survey Says: Boston Real Estate Will Continue To Rise

Here comes David Lykken of Mortgage Banking Solutions predicting  that current economic conditions will likely lead to the lowering of the 30 year fixed mortgage rate to 3.5 percent by the 2nd quarter of 2011. Although we are already at a record low of 4.4 percent, what David Lykken is talking about is mortgage rates going even further into record territory.

If Video Does Not Play Click Here To Watch Video

Mr Lykken agrees with HUD Secretary Shawn Donovan that the government needs to drastically reduce its footprint on the housing industry. See “Boston Real Estate, Mortgage Access and Privatization“. Once Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are privatized our housing industry can finally reach a bottom and we can start to recover. Let the bottom fall out by getting the government out of the housing industry and let our free market balance itself without government clouding up the housing market.

Written By RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons   617-512-3443

More articles by Jeff:

Greenspan Calls for Repeal of All the Bush Tax Cuts
Boston Real Estate 2nd Most Improved U.S. Housing Market 2010
The Boston Real Estate Market Has NOT Experienced a Recession
Greenspan Talks The Economy And The Markets
Boston Homes Price Appreciation For 2000-2010

Contact Jeff

Today’s Mortgage Rates

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

What do you think? Your comments will be appreciated

Boston Real Estate Mortgage Rates To Go To 3.5 Percent

HUD’s Donovan Discusses Mortgage Finance, Housing Market

U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan talks about the mortgage-finance system and the outlook for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Mr Donovan speaking with Joe Kernan on CNBC, says that the stakes are “enormous” as housing is the single most important asset for American families. Joe caught Donovan as he was going into a conference with the best and brightest bankers and lenders from all over the country where HUD is encouraging a full and open discussion about privatization and getting more private lenders to take on risk.

Secretary Donovan goes on to touch on these points:

1. Clearly the scale of the government’s footprint needs to be smaller.

2. Underwriting has improved since conservatorship of the GSEs resulting in better loans.

3. “When we took office home prices had fallen for 30 months in a row” Donovan said. Another 5% was being predicted.

4. Since conservatorship, home prices have stabilized and homeowners have accumulated 1 trillion dollars worth of equity.

5. Because of improved underwriting standards like better loan to value and FICO scores, the quality of loans has improved greatly since conservatorship.

Written By RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons   617-512-3443

More articles by Jeff:

What is the Stock Market Telling Us About the Real Estate Market?
U.S. Housing Recovery Dependent on Jobs-Harvard Report
Boston Real Estate 2nd Most Improved U.S. Housing Market 2010
5 Clues That Your Boston Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise.
Buying Boston Real Estate Without a Buyers Agent is Like Going Into Court Without An Attorney

Contact Jeff

Today’s Mortgage Rates

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

Boston Real Estate, Mortgage Access and Privatization

Alan Greenspan is coming out like gangbusters regarding the Bush Tax Cuts.

“I’m in favor of tax cuts, but not with borrowed money,” Mr. Greenspan, 84, said Friday in a telephone interview. “Our choices right now are not between good and better; they’re between bad and worse. The problem we now face is the most extraordinary financial crisis that I have ever seen or read about.”

It was not enough, it seems, for Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman and a self-described lifelong Republican libertarian, to call for stringent government regulation of giant banks, as he did a few months ago.

Now Mr. Greenspan is wading into the most fierce economic policy debate in Washington — what to do with the tax cuts adopted, in large part because of his implicit backing, under President George W. Bush — with a position not only contrary to Republican orthodoxy, but decidedly to the left of President Obama.

Rather than keeping tax rates steady for all but the wealthiest Americans, as the White House wants, Mr. Greenspan is calling for the complete repeal of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, brushing aside the arguments of Republicans and even a few Democrats that doing so could threaten the already shaky economic recovery.

Mr. Greenspan, who led the Fed for 18 years until he retired in 2006, warns that without drastic action to increase federal revenue and reduce the long-term growth in health care costs, bond investors could make a run on Treasury securities, driving up the nation’s borrowing costs and leading to another global economic crisis. This is not the first time Mr. Greenspan has urged fiscal restraint; he warned in 2008 that the country could not afford the tax cuts proposed by Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate. But his sweeping call for rescinding the Bush tax cuts, which he has articulated in a recent appearance on “Meet the Press” and an interview with The Financial Times, among other settings, has rankled former colleagues.

While Mr. Greenspan did not endorse a specific approach, his broad support for the tax cuts nearly a decade ago was pivotal in securing one of the Bush administration’s top domestic policy goals and in providing political cover for members of Congress.

Now, in response to accusations of political expediency, Mr. Greenspan says his approach has been consistent: supporting tax cuts when surpluses loomed, and endorsing revenue increases now that deficits are the leading worry. He also says his earlier endorsement of tax cuts was made with important caveats that were later ignored by policy makers and the public.

To begin with, he says he believed the tax cuts in 2001 were primarily needed to avoid the economic distortions caused by “surpluses as far as the eye could see,” as many economists at the time projected.

The dot-com boom in the late ’90s led to a surge in tax revenue, less from capital-gains taxes than from the conversions of stock-option grants. While the temporary nature of those revenue increases was perceived, Mr. Greenspan says, the combination of soaring tax receipts and long-term productivity gains led economists at the Fed, at the Office of Management and Budget and at the Congressional Budget Office to believe that the surpluses were very real.

That, in turn, caused the central bank to worry that one of its primary levers for the conduct of monetary policy — the purchase and sale of Treasury securities — would no longer be available.

“I was against deficits, but I was also equally against surpluses,” Mr. Greenspan said.

Mr. Greenspan also emphasizes that the tax cuts should have adhered to so-called pay-go rules, which require that tax cuts or new spending should not add to the federal deficit. Pay-go rules were adopted as part of the 1990 budget deal between President George Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress, but were scrapped in 2002, when his son, George W. Bush, was president. “Unfortunately, the surplus disabled pay-go because pay-go implied the existence of a deficit,” Mr. Greenspan said. “When the deficit disappeared, the concept of pay-go became meaningless.”

While Mr. Greenspan is not perfect — given the Fed’s failures to pop the real estate bubble and to rein in sub-prime mortgage lending — his perspective, born of decades of data-crunching, has made him a figure revered by many in the markets. His opinion still carries considerable weight and his views on the tax cuts will reverberate in the debate next month in Congress. “Unlike in World War II, when we knew that military spending and deficits would fall sharply, our current understanding of the future is extremely limited,” Mr. Greenspan said.

“There’s an especially high level of uncertainty in forecasting Medicare.”

He said the country’s fiscal problems could not be solved by higher taxes alone. “We are going to have to confront a major surge in medical entitlement spending. Irrespective of what you say should be done on the tax side, you still have to cut some benefits on the expenditure side.”

Mr. Greenspan, who is known for his political skills and his connections in both parties, bemoaned the political gridlock in the capital. “We have known that the tax cuts were going to expire at the end of 2010 for nearly a decade but nobody did anything to address the issue,” he said.

Asked whether higher taxes in 2011 could choke off the nascent recovery, Mr. Greenspan replied: “It is risky, but the choice of not doing it is far riskier. It is the difference between bad and worse, but in neither case do I think the evidence suggests that it would be the tipping point for the economy.”

Mr. Greenspan added that the relationship between taxation and growth was still not well understood. “I don’t think anybody can know exactly what the impact of these taxes is on G.D.P.,” he said, referring to gross domestic product, the broadest measure of output. “We put them through econometric models that have a very poor record forecasting recession. Conclusions based on such models must be suspect.”

At the Group of 20 meeting in Toronto in June, leaders of the world’s biggest economies agreed to halve their governments’ deficits by 2013. But Mr. Greenspan noted that even after debt-stricken Greece enacted emergency austerity measures, the markets remained skeptical.

“I thought that meeting was quite good, and very effective and important,” he said. “But it’s one thing to have a fiscal projection and quite another to have the markets believe it.

Written By RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons

Source Sewell Chan of the New York Times

Related Posts From Jeff:

What is the Stock Market Telling Us About the Real Estate Market?
Greenspan Talks The Economy And The Markets
The Best Time to Buy Boston Real Estate in 2010
If You Wait For The All Clear Signal To Buy Your Boston Home You Missed the Bottom of the Boston Real Estate Market by About Six Months

Contact Jeff

Today’s Mortgage Rates

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

Greenspan Calls for Repeal of All the Bush Tax Cuts

Sanguine

Here comes my favorite money guy Alan Greenspan. For 18 years as Fed Chairman, Greenspan guided the economy in our country as well as guiding market participants to realize the emergence of the “World Economy”.  I was trading stocks for many of those years and I watched as he made the right moves with the prime rate, deftly balancing growth against inflation. His intuition about the GDP, growth and interest rates was so keen that he could keep us in that sweet spot of inflation free growth. He was so good at playing the market like a musical instrument he earned the nickname Maestro.

I like what he says in this interview, not just because he agrees with me but he has a track record that is impeccable. Alan Greenspan is one of my heroes. He is also very modest, unassuming, brilliant man as well as a great American. He discusses many of the subjects that I discuss in this blog like “What is the Stock Market Telling Us About the Real Estate Market?” as well as many other articles about Boston real estate.

On CNBC the reporters run out of synonyms for an optimistic outlook as you can imagine. So I get to use the word sanguine (cheerfully optimistic, hopeful, or confident: a sanguine disposition; sanguine expectations.) As in Alan Greenspan is definitely running his usual balance between being sanguine about the recovery and cautiously warning of excesses in the markets that could stall the recovery. Greenspan is humble enough to admit that he does not fully understand why we just went through the worst global financial crisis in history. The video is kind of long but if you listen carefully… well, lets just say I am more sanguine about the recovery myself after listening. Hey, I got to use sanguine thrice! I hope this doesn’t sound pretentious, I just love playing with words. And I self publish so I can say what I want. I love it!

Related Articles by RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons:

The Boston Real Estate Market Has NOT Experienced a Recession

How Boston Real Estate Will Be Helped by Rising Interest Rates

Recession Proof Boston Real Estate and the Megaphone Formation

5 Clues That Your Boston Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise.

It Doesn’t Surprise Me That Boston Real Estate Prices Are Holding firm

Contact Jeff

Today’s Mortgage Rates

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

Greenspan Talks The Economy And The Markets

I have taken the liberty of making some corrections to this oh so scholarly report
that is just plain wrong.

Job growth Economic growth will be the key factor in whether the U.S. real estate market can extend a recovery after the end of the federal homebuyer tax credit, according to a Harvard University study.

High unemployment Lack of growth in the economy is fueling the foreclosure crisis and discouraging the household formation that drives property demand, according to the State of the Nation’s Housing report issued today by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. The labor market weak economy resulted in people “doubling up,” or sharing residences, rather than buying their own home, the report said.

“What happens with jobs will matter How fast the economy rebounds will matter the most to the strength of the housing rebound,” said the executive director some guy from the center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “If employment growth economic growth surprises on the upside or downside, housing numbers could too.” Consumer confidence Growth in the economy now needs to improve for the market to sustain itself, he said in an interview.

This Harvard Study is Backwards Baloney

Here is a walk down memory lane. As you can see from this chart housing prices gained as recovery in the economy took place.

Please believe me when I say that stock traders don’t watch the unemplyment rate. Its common knowledge on the street that the number is useless. What they do watch are predictive numbers like CPI (Consumer Price Index) and PPI ( Producers Price Index) along with the GDP numbers of course.

And for those who think the we have experienced a recession in prices for Boston Real Estate, I offer this chart that shows a flatline in prices since 2004/2005. As real estate agents we are looking for an increase in the number of transactions as evidence of recovery, not prices. Prices have not gone anywhere.

Written By RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons – 617-512-3443

Jeff is a former stock trader and a student of the markets.

More articles by Jeff:

If The Unemployment Rate Goes Down, Does Boston Real Estate Go Up?

5 Smartest Protections For Buying Boston Area Homes

Buying Boston Real Estate, The Pre-Approval Letter Must Come First

A Boston Buyers Agent Says Skip the Spring Market, Wait Until Autumn

Boston Condo Buyers, Protect Yourself With Some Rigorous Math

Contact Jeff

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

U.S. Housing Recovery Dependent on Jobs-Harvard Report

From Bloomberg Business Week

No. 2: Boston MA

Q1 Home price index: 6 percent
Q1 Foreclosure rate (YOY change): 2.1 percent (up 32.8 percent)
Q1 90+ day delinquency rate (YOY change): 7.2 percent (up 43 percent)
April 2010 unemployment rate: 7.9 percent

In the first quarter, the Boston area had the second-largest home price increase (6 percent) among the 50 metros surveyed, according to CoreLogic data. A report by the Concord Group, a real estate consultancy, projects recovery (or sustainable home sales and price appreciation) in the metro Boston housing market in late 2011, ahead of other areas. Boston, supported by a strong education sector, was hit earlier and less severely by the housing crisis than other places, and the unemployment rate here has stayed below the national average.

Is the Upturn Sustainable?

Sam Khater, a senior economist at CoreLogic, says government subsidies and low interest rates have temporarily boosted demand. A good portion of the gains in home sales this year are due to the federal first-time buyer and repeat buyer tax credits, which expired on Apr. 30,

Optimism About Next Year

Despite the projected dips over the next months and years, an end is in sight. An April report on the Fiserv-Case Shiller home price indexes says a prolonged recovery will begin early next year, and some markets are poised for a relatively fast recovery, including those that did not see large price declines, like Boston.

Here Are The Rest Of The List Of Most Improved Cities:

Denver CO,  Boston MA,  St Louis MO,  Pittsburg PA,  San Jose CA,  San Francisco CA,  Washington DC, Cincinnati OH,  Minneapolis MN,  Milwaukee WI,  Cleveland OH,  Dallas TX,  Kansas City MO, Columbus OH,  San Diego CA,  Houston TX,  Santa Ana CA,  Indianapolis IA

The numbers have been saying this all along but it validates what I’ve been saying which its a good thing because  I was really carrying on and getting some push back from the brokerage community with articles like “Boston Real Estate, A Recession Proof Investment” and “Recession Proof Boston Real Estate and the Megaphone Formation” and Will The Boston Real Estate Market Come Back? Check With Me Next Year“. Sure am glad to be in Boston! We could be in Miami or Phoenix where things are a lot worse.

Written By RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons – 617-512-3443
More articles by Jeff:

If You Wait For The All Clear Signal To Buy Your Boston Home You Missed the Bottom of the Boston Real Estate Market by About Six Months

Buying Boston Real Estate Without a Buyers Agent is Like Going Into Court Without An Attorney

5 Clues That Your Boston Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise.

A 20 Year Resident of Bostons Back Bay Tells Why He Likes Brookline MA So Much

Dont Just Investigate Your Boston Condo, Investigate The Management Company Too

Contact Jeff

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

Boston Real Estate 2nd Most Improved U.S. Housing Market 2010

Downtown Boston and Boston Suburbs Are Just Beginning
To Move In Opposite Directions

It has been my contention that downtown Boston Real Estate is recession proof and will stabilize in price before heading higher while Boston Suburbs real estate will continue to languish.  Because there have been so many home buyers who wanted to get into downtown that as soon as prices showed some weakness a new group of buyers stepped in. Some of these buyers have been on the lookout for weakness in the downtown market.

Looking for a buying opportunity.

On the charts its obvious the two areas are going in opposite directions.The classic megaphone pattern is a dead give away showing the directions each will take.

The major difference between the desirability of downtown Boston as opposed to Boston Suburbs is also obvious. When you live in a downtown Boston neighborhood or Brookline you are close to the best schools and hospitals in the WORLD,  while if you are in Medfield or Franklin or Walpole, you have the advantage of  having access to what Boston has to offer, however the languishing market and foreclosures in the Boston Suburbs will continue. This weakness in Boston Suburbs real estate does not surprise me. Although there is every reason for them to be substantially more desireable and expensive than any other suburb in the country, I think they have further to go to the downside. I believe that more people want to jump from the suburbs to downtown than the other way around. One big reason is that people would love to drop the 5 to 15 hours of commuting time they spend every week. They have wanted to do this for a long time and have been waiting for downtown to get less expensive.

Unfortunately, I think that ship has sailed. Bargains will be gone from downtown. Check out my article “If You Wait For The All Clear Signal To Buy Your Boston Home You Missed the Bottom of the Boston Real Estate Market by About Six Months ”

________________________________________________________________

This from the Boston Herald this morning emphasizes my point

Boston condo sellers slow to adjust prices downward

Downtown Boston condo sellers must have missed the memo. Of the 497 condos listed for sale in the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and Midtown neighborhoods, only 200 (40%) have had price adjustments. Some of the properties still at full-price were first listed for sale as far back as April, 2008 and many were listed before the turn of this year. Not all owners are turning a tin ear to what the market is telling them; average current list price is at 90% of its original price and some as much as 30% off.

The downtown market is showing stable but uneven results. There were 153 condo sales during the past three months in these neighborhoods with a $755,000 median sales price compared to 113 sales in 2009 with a $637,500 median sales price but less than the 192 condo sales during 2008 with a $563,125 median sales price.
____________________________________________

Downtown Boston never looses its desirability. There is always a med student, professor, doctor, nurse, student, high tech worker, financial analyst or biomedical professional trying to get into the downtown neighborhoods where they work or go to school. Even with the new luxury Boston condo developments, inventory is very limited.

I do a daily inventory watch for Back Bay, Beacon Hill, South End and Fenway priced between 300K and 600K because thats where most people live socioeconomically speaking. This is the list I send to prospective buyers when I don’t yet know where they want to be or how much they can spend. The number varies from 113 in the winter to 290 this morning in the middle of the spring market.

This metric hasn’t changed in 8 years and counting.

The supply/demand balance will stay very different between Boston Condos and Boston Suburbs homes. Interest downtown is on the increase while interest is diminishing in the suburbs.

Do you agree? Your comments will be appreciated!

Written By RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons – 617-512-3443
Jeff was a stock trader for 5 years and is a technical analyst and student of the markets.
Contact Jeff   

Return To WeSellBoston.Net
 

Draft guidelines for the new Rose Kennedy Greenway have been released. Height and density recommendations show a number of winners and losers in the downtown Boston Real Estate market.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority has been working with its consultants, Utile, Greenberg Consultants, HR&A Advisers, and Nelson/Nygaard, over the last year and a half on the Greenway District Planning Study. There have been seven public meetings held as part of this process.

As you can see from the BRA draft rendering of the Boston Waterfront, if the guidelines are adopted, heights will vary widely on the Greenway.

As expected, the approved height for the parcel currently the site of the Boston Harbor Garage (next to the Aquarium) is limited to 200-feet, well below the height preferred by Boston developer Donald Chiofaro, who has released renderings showing two towers at that site, one that is well-over 500 feet tall.

The BRA seems to expect that buildings of density will someday soon be built on the parcel currently the site of the Congress Street Garage as it has drawn in several mid-rise and high-rise towers.

Meanwhile,  in the Chinatown section of downtown Boston, it looks as if a new tower on the site of the Dainty Dot building is a go as is the Hudson Street (Parcel 24) affordable housing project.

Of interest is that several new projects I’ve heard little about are shown. The first is a high-rise (150-200′) on the “Hardware/NSTAR” site near South Station and Dewey Square, a mid-rise (6-10 stories, 175′) tower on the site of what was Hook Lobster and a 200′ tower across Northern Avenue where the US Coast Guard building now stands.

The guidelines are focused solely on the land abutting the Greenway and not on-top of the Greenway. So, there’s no building shown above the ramps facing the North End, no sign of the proposed new YMCA.

The release of the draft kicks off a 30-day public review / comment process after which the BRA will present final guidelines to the BRA Board of Directors on June 22nd.

Once the Board adopts the guidelines, they will be used as part of the City of Boston’s Article 80 Development Review Process.

More information: Greenway District Planning Study - Boston Redevelopment Authority -  Source: Boston Herald

Written by RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons 617-512-3443
Contact Jeff

More articles by Jeff Persons:
The Boston Real Estate Market Has NOT Experienced a Recession
Will The Boston Real Estate Market Come Back? Check With Me Next Year
Forget The Boston Real Estate Market, Buy The Boston Home You Can Live With
A Boston Buyers Agent Says Skip the Spring Market, Wait Until Autumn
Dont Just Investigate Your Boston Condo, Investigate The Management Company Too

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

BRA Releases Rose Kennedy Greenway Draft Guidelines

The chart below from LINK really speaks to the invest-ability of Boston Real Estate. The ten year chart has 2 trendlines that I added showing an up-trending market to 2005 and a SIDEWAYS market ever since.

Now you tell me. If Boston Real Estate was not recession proof wouldn’t we see a big dip in 2008 and 2009? Its not there because it didn’t happen. Prices have not been reduced at all, never mind the 20 percent required to say the Boston Real Estate market is in recession.

The Boston Real Estate Market Has NOT experienced a recession

All the brokers are actually complaining about  fewer transactions, but the point is that prices have not dropped so it is NOT a recession at all. What the brokers are complaining about is actually a decrease in the number of homes sold which is their payday after all.

The definition of a recession is a 20 percent reduction in PRICES. If you don’t see it on the chart and I don’t see it on the chart, I guess that means there has been no recession in Boston Real Estate. As far as prices go we have been flat-lining since 2005.

Still Not Convinced?  -  Numbers Do Not Lie  -  Boston Condo Sales

For the following, because of the limits of the MLS system, I made my searches
using the following cross section of sold Boston Condos:

Property Type(s): CC Status: SLD
Timeframe: 1/1/05 – 12/31/05 to 1/1/09 to 12/31/09
Price: Between $450,000 and $600,000
Towns: Boston:Allston, MA; Boston:Back Bay, MA; Boston:Bay Village, MA; Boston:Beacon Hill, MA; Boston:Brighton, MA; Boston:Jamaica Plain, MA; Boston:Leather District, MA; Boston:Midtown, MA; Boston:Mission Hill, MA; Boston:North End, MA; Boston:South End, MA; Boston:The Fenway, MA; Boston:Theatre District, MA; Boston:Waterfront, MA; Boston:West End, MA

2005  -  Number of listings  -  369  -  Average List Price  -  525K  -  Average Sale Price  -  518K

2006  – Number of listings  -  414  -   Average List Price  -  526K  -  Average Sale Price  -  512K

2007  – Number of listings  -  470  -  Average List Price  -  531K  -  Average Sale Price  -  519K

2008  – Number of listings  -  423  -  Average List Price  -  536K  -  Average Sale Price  -  519K

2009  – Number of listings  -  357  -  Average List Price  -  535K  -  Average Sale Price  -  518K

Prices have not given an inch. What other asset class can you say that about? There have been fewer transactions which is feeding the broker’s river of tears, but prices are solid because demand is solid and unrelenting. There is so much competition for Boston Homes because of our Best-In-The-World schools, hospitals (also recession proof) as well as our technology and biotechnology.

Your comments will be appreciated!

Written by RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons ABR – 617-512-3443
Jeff has also been a stock trader and will be forever a student of the markets.

More articles by Jeff:
Boston Real Estate, A Recession Proof Investment
A Boston Buyers Agent Says Skip the Spring Market, Wait Until Autumn
Buying Boston Real Estate Without a Buyers Agent is Like Going Into Court Without An Attorney
Dont Just Investigate Your Boston Condo, Investigate The Management Company Too
5 Clues That Your Boston Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise.

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

The Boston Real Estate Market Has NOT Experienced a Recession

News Release From The Bureau of Economic Analysis

(an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce )

Gross Domestic Product: First Quarter 2010 (Advance Estimate)

Real gross domestic product – the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the first quarter of 2010, (that is, from the fourth quarter to the first quarter), according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

In the fourth quarter, real GDP increased 5.6 percent. That means there is real growth in the economy and soon the unemployment rate will start to decrease as new jobs are created.

Most folks don’t understand how rising interest rates
are really a sign of good things to come.

Firstly the fed will not raise the prime rate unless they see growth in the economy. That means reducing rates actually worked.  What a relief!  Market watchers were worried that just like in Japan in the 1990’s where they reduced rates all the way to zero and it didn’t work anymore! It no longer stimulated the Japanese economy. Japan was in recession for 15 years!

There may come a time where reducing borrowing costs in America will no longer stimulate the economy just like in Japan’s 15 year recession

Paying 7 percent mortgage interest in a thriving economy is much better than paying 4.75 in a deep recession.

For example, I bought a condo on Commonwealth Avenue in 1998 when the stock market was on the rise in a big way and unemployment was low. The economy was in great shape.  You never even heard the word “foreclosure”. Everyone who wanted to was working. What was the interest rate I paid? 7 percent.

7 percent is not a problem if the economy is rocking. You would probably not even notice as the price of the home would have to be less. It has to be or the unit won’t sell. I bought this unit for 310K and it just changed hands for 455K.

So lets do the math:
$310,000 X 7.00 percent = 21700
$445,000 X 4.75 percent = 21612 – Looks like the same payment?

I’d love to see 7 percent again.

Fear rising interest rates? Are you kidding me?

Boston Real Estate prices in general would have to be lower. Not 30 percent like the example above but lower than they are when the rate is 4.75 percent so in that sense home owners and investors would take a temporary hit. But the upside? The jobs would come back and we would be enjoying all the perks of an expanding economy.

Chances are that unit would not come back to 310K but my point is interest rates are just part of the picture. The most important metric we should be monitoring is the GDP because if its expanding then the lowering of rates worked. This should mean higher mortgage rates and I’m looking forward to that because it means most of us will start making more money no matter what business we are in. This would save the American economy because after using the device of lowering the prime rate, the fed has their back against the wall and they are out of bullets. What else could they do to stimulate the economy? Japan was out of bullets for 15 years.

Your comment will be appreciated!

Written By RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons ABR – 617-512-3443
Jeff was also a stock trader and a student of the markets for 5 years

More articles by Jeff:
What is the Stock Market Telling Us About the Real Estate Market?
Boston Real Estate, A Recession Proof Investment
Will The Boston Real Estate Market Come Back? Check With Me Next Year
If You Wait For The All Clear Signal To Buy Your Boston Home You Missed the Bottom of the Boston Real Estate Market by About Six Months

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

How Boston Real Estate Will Be Helped by Rising Interest Rates

Link Information network has released their first quarter 2011 report. What really struck me was this graph of appreciation over the last 10 years. Its a soothing comfort to me that Boston Real Estate has done a flat-line since 2004 while most of the rest of the country got really pasted.

Boston Real Estate 10 Year Appreciation Index

This chart makes a very strong case for investing in a Boston Home. After all, since 2004 the housing market blew up and we went into the worst recession since the Great Depression. And yet my Boston Home hasn’t lost value. I have written at length about why this is but to sum it up:

The reason Boston Real Estate prices don’t go down is because we have the best schools and hospitals in the WORLD! Add to that our thriving high technology and biomedical industries.

Here is another very telling graph:

Average and Median Selling Prices since 2004

So where is the big disaster?

If you bought a condo in Boston in 2004, you have actually seen some appreciation.

Boston is an expensive city and its very likely to stay that way, barring any terrible exogenous events. The demand never stops. When you want to sell your Boston Condo or your Brookline Condo there is a med student, or a college professor or someone working in finance downtown or someone involved in the burgeoning biotechnology industry across the river in Cambridge, All standing in line to take it off your hands

Asking prices are down only because the sellers stopped being greedy,
but the high valuations are still there.

Written By RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons  -  617-512-3443

More articles by Jeff:

A Buyers Agent List of 5 Mission Critical Items to Check Before Buying a Condo
5 Clues That Your Boston Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise.
Buying Boston Real Estate Without a Buyers Agent is Like Going Into Court Without An Attorney
Dont Just Investigate Your Boston Condo, Investigate The Management Company Too

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

Boston Real Estate, A Recession Proof Investment

By the time my buyers are ready to make an offer, we have seen all the appropriate properties in their price range and preferences. This has been the easy part mentally and the hard part physically.

Here I would like to reference one of my favorite articles:  “5 Worst Questions To Ask Your Buyers Agent” which outlines all the information we don’t need cluttering up the situation.

By the time we have gotten to the offer stage, if I haven’t done so already, I will do the quantitative analysis to establish what the property is really worth. I usually give the buyer a tight range of appropriate prices with a maximum amount. Once the maximum has been reached, there is no longer any chance of my buyer overpaying for the property.  I give a sigh of relief before I continue the negotiation in an attempt to get it even lower.

Here we don’t have a map to go by except the sold numbers of similar units. Determining fair market value entails a bit of math as well as some common sense. There is no formula that gives us a percentage below asking calculation. Ignore the asking. Its a wild guess compared to the numbers I get after I am  done with my investigation. See my article “Dont Just Investigate Your Boston Condo, Investigate The Management Company Too”.

Once we know what the home is worth, we have all the ammunition we need to stick to our guns. The seller may balk but Buyers Agency is an alignment with truth and if the truth is that the property is worth $xxx, that’s all we are going to pay, period. Unless my buyer is willing to overpay for his own reasons, it doesn’t get a thumbs up from me until we get to fair market value.

Try to get to this agreement with the least amount of back and forth, as there are only so many offers and counter offers before either the buyer or the seller imagines they are being slighted in some way. Actually there are a plethora of negative emotions that creep in on both sides if the negotiation is taking too many offer/counter offer go arounds.

Above all, lay out a strategy with your Buyers Agent and adopt an attitude of openness and generosity. When I say generous I don’t mean paying more than what the home is worth, I mean the little courtesies about the little defects in the property. Often you can get your price if you promise not to nickle/dime the sellers for $200 here and there that may come up during inspection. Put a limit on it for sure but the gesture goes a million miles toward making the price lower and the whole purchase more enjoyable. Being nice goes a long long way!

Written by RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons ABR – 617-512-3443

More articles by Jeff Persons ABR:
A Buyers Agent List of 5 Mission Critical Items to Check Before Buying a Condo
Boston Condo Buyers, Protect Yourself With Some Rigorous Math
How I Help “Out-Of-Towners” Find Their Spot Within Boston Real Estate and Boston Suburbs
Can I Get Away Without Paying For a Real Estate Attorney?

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

The Psychology of Negotiating The Price of Your Boston Home

Home inspections can be a real downer, especially if you really like the place. The home feels so good! Its in the right area, right price, right floor. The condo fee is right, the neighbors seem OK. And what a relief to be done looking!

So you put down a deposit and hire a home inspector The home inspector finds a laundry list of problems that are going to cost you money sometimes right away and sometimes over the next 5 years.

What to do? You reopen the negotiation with the seller. Explain to them that you would love to buy the place but can’t afford the mortgage AND the contractor to fix it up. Make a list of the problems that were surprises the inspector found that were not apparent before the offer was made. Once the negotiation starts again, politely give the seller a list of problems and how much they will cost to fix.

The gap between how much you think the seller should discount the damaged property and how much they are willing to bend can be a big problem or not a problem at all. It depends on lots of variables. The things the inspector found were probably known to the seller and this news from the inspector is no surprise. He may have been hoping they would be missed in the inspection.

Where we go from here depends on the agreement established between buyer and seller. If the seller is willing to take something off the agreed upon price this can go very smoothly. But what do you do if the seller says take it or leave it? Although the first reaction of many buyers is a quick We will leave it thanks, I suggest you sleep on it and go over the numbers again with your Buyers Agent. Does it still compare well with similar properties even with the problems? The problems may have already been baked in the cake when they priced it and you might be getting a good deal anyway.

Once I sold a 2 BR, 2BA on Commonwealth Avenue.Represented as totally renovated I had priced it based on that claim. When the inspection revealed that both bathrooms had rotted behind the walls and needed 5K each to fix as the wood had slowly rotted away and had to be taked apart and rebuilt, I knew we had to renegotiate the sales price

So the bathrooms needed 10K total and I felt we needed to double that for the aggravation so we proposed 600K instead of 620K. Seemed reasonable to my buyers and I but to my surprise the seller refused and we walked, but it could have easily have gone the other way.

When you know you can find a similar property that needs nothing, why on earth would you put yourself through the inconvenience of the renovations?

Most sellers are reasonable and compromise, but be sure you are polite about it. Sellers can take offense because it is their home after all and its not surprising that they are insulted if someone is picking it apart.

If the negotiation goes nowhere, my advice is to respectfully walk away. You can assuage your disappointment by reminding yourself that you won’t have to meet the contractor at the property dozens of times hoping upon hope they finish the job correctly.

Hope this post helps some. I promised to make this blog more of a classroom with something to learn in each post. I really feel that if someone were to read all 28 posts on this blog they would have a good basic course on becoming a better Boston Real Estate buyer.

Written by RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons, 617-512-3443.

Your comments will be appreciated!

More articles by Jeff:

A Buyers Agent List of 5 Mission Critical Items to Check Before Buying a Condo
5 Clues That Your Boston Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise.
Negotiating The Price of Your Boston Home – Stick To The Numbers
Buying Boston Real Estate Without a Buyers Agent is Like Going Into Court Without An Attorney
5 Worst Questions To Ask Your Buyers Agent

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

Found a Boston Home I Really Like But What About This Inspection Report?

For those who have not read this blog, let me just say that I was a stock trader from 1996 to 2002. I studied the markets during the boom and the bust. There are certain human behaviors that when put in graphic form make the same pattern time after time. This is called Technical Analysis.

This is my 8th spring in the real estate business as a Buyers Agent in Boston. Normally by April 1st I have a half dozen buyers coming to Boston and I’m busy trying to coordinate property showings. Everyone wants Saturday of course.

Unfortunately, not this year.

I think that a lot of buyers would like to buy but  many are unemployed. Others can’t sell the house they are upside down in. For a plethora of reasons, in this economy buying, selling and moving just don’t seem like such a good idea.

More on the W bottom;

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the W bottom that occurs in free market economies. – Forget The Boston Real Estate Market, Buy The Boston Home You Can Live With- There are a lot of reasons for this configuration. The W bottom is a graphic representation of human psychology. This happens in ALL markets because of the humans  involved in them. You can look at stock charts, hog futures, commodities, bonds, all markets do this and once it is done you have a legitimate technical bottom for that market for that time.

The first leg down is the housing market was in late 2008 as well as 2009. The middle part of the W is perhaps this spring we are living with all the good news and stimulus. The second leg down in the W occurs because of all the sellers who didn’t get out during the first leg down. They start selling into the firmed up prices we are seeing now which creates the second shallower leg down.

This one should not go as deep.

As the spring market in real estate ends in July,  I’m starting to think we have the next leg down coming, the second dip in the W. This should start on the fourth of July and go to spring 2011. In order for this formation to be good news, the second leg down doesn’t go as deep, (see chart). If it does we have another kind of problem. Also the second and final move up in spring 2011 should be on higher volume than the middle move up we are living right now. Not hard to imagine.

Once this formation is put in we usually have a market that moves higher because all the sellers were shaken out in the second leg of the W. Always with the caveat: baring any exogenous terrible events.

Here is the perfect W bottom (also called the cup and handle) for the stock market bottom in October 2002. Notice the spike in volume immediately following the completion of the W.

I was so hoping that we had put in the W bottom for real estate this spring of 2010 but as time goes by it looks like another slow year in real estate. Keep in mind that I’m speaking as a real estate agent looking for more transactions as the most watched metric. This does not mean you can’t get a good deal at any time in any year. Just make sure you go over the comparables with your Buyers Agent so you know you are not paying over the current market value for the property.

It is starting to look to me that we will not be coming out of the W (like stocks in April 2003) until next spring.

Kind of technical jibberjabber, but it works every time in every market. Knowledge is power and you can be sure I will be looking at real estate sales volume and price charts early next year. With a bit of luck and a recovering economy we should see a more active market in 2011.

One more example is the controversial S&P Case Shiller Index that monitors single family homes. This chart is a 20 city composite so it doesn’t specifically graph Boston or even condos but it is a good illustration of W bottoms.

S&P Case-Shiller Index up to April 2010 - 20 City Composite

Your comments will be appreciated!

Written by Jeff Persons RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent

More reading by Jeff Persons ABR
If You Wait For The All Clear Signal To Buy Your Boston Home You Missed the Bottom of the Boston Real Estate Market by About Six Months
Dont Just Investigate Your Boston Condo, Investigate The Management Company Too
This Secondhand Smoking Case in a Boston Condo is Another Good Reason to Have an Accredited Buyers Agent Represent You
5 Clues That Your Boston Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise.
5 Worst Questions To Ask Your Buyers Agent

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

Will The Boston Real Estate Market Come Back? Check With Me Next Year

Good morning! I woke today and sat to read the Boston Real Estate Blogs. This is probably the most boring thing a body can do. What a lot of blah blah blah! So many of the blogs were about the hopelessly ridiculous $8,000 tax credit that I pulled the blog I made in October where I wrote about the last deadline.

Same situation and I have the same to say about it so here goes:

This deadline for the tax credit puts the $8000 in the SELLERS pocket!

I think the $8000 tax credit is a joke when there is a deadline because the listing agents know this and hold their price. I just put a deal together in the Hyde Park section of Boston. I showed my buyer 12 properties and all of a sudden half went under agreement. Obviously buyers paying up before the deadline. I am a Buyers Agent with very firm quantitative concepts of the prices in Bostons neighborhoods as well as Boston Suburbs. The negotiation was fierce and stubborn from the sellers side because they knew about the deadline. I’m pretty stubborn also, especially when my buyers interests are at stake.  After much more than the usual back and forth I was OK with the price paid, but an easier Buyers Agent (or worse a Sellers Agent in disguise as a Buyers Agent) would have paid at least $8000 more for the property than it’s worth.

Maybe the government has successfully stimulated the housing market. That is great if it worked. We will find out in time, but do not kid yourself about where the tax credit actually goes.

Written by RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons 617-512-3443

More reading about Boston Real Estate

A Buyers Agent List of 5 Mission Critical Items to Check Before Buying a Condo
Forget The Boston Real Estate Market, Buy The Boston Home You Can Live With
5 Clues That Your Boston Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise.
Dont Just Investigate Your Boston Condo, Investigate The Management Company Too

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

This deadline for the tax credit puts the $8000 in the SELLERS pocket!

For property showings in the Boston downtown areas and Brookline, two agents, a Buyers Agent and a Sellers Agent usually must be present. In addition the tenant/owner has to leave their home while you look. So you are inconveniencing three people besides yourself every time you request a showing.

Often, I can tell my buyers have had the following conversation among themselves. It goes something like this:

“Hey its free, lets let Jeff who must have little to do anyway show us some properties so we will know what we can afford out there. And by the way what can we afford out there?”

Here are a few things I would like you to do before you call me.

Get a Pre-Qualified letter from a bank.

You may have all the confidence in the would that you will be able to get a mortgage but the economy has gotten tougher and you should have this letter in your pocket before you go looking. If you see a property that you like and you don’t have your letter, another buyer who does have his letter can beat you to the punch.

Without it you are not even a qualified buyer!

Go to some open houses.

Although you don’t want to deal with the listing agent at the open house, its a good idea to see some open houses to make some basic assessments as to size of the homes as well as the neighborhoods. Its very important that you don’t start dealing with the listing agent at the open house because if you work directly with her you will not have representation. She must represent the seller. Call your Buyers Agent from the open house and ask him to meet you at the property.

Narrow down your options.

You will know from a few open houses which neighborhoods you would be open to living in. Narrow this down and resist the temptation to look at inappropriate properties because they are cheap. Its interesting to realize that you could move to this apartment very inexpensively but if you would not like to live in this area of the city, you are wasting everyone’s time.

Save up some interesting MLS numbers.

You know that eight digit number that starts with a seven? As you go through the listings make a note of these numbers and send them to me in advance. I will go through them, eliminate the bogus listings and I will show you those properties. Keep in mind that we show property seven days a week from 10 AM to 5PM. Please be on time as the showings are appointments, just like your doctor, lawyer or other professional. If you are late we will be late for all the showings, listing agents waiting and owners walking their dogs until we are done. believe me when I tell you, that’s not much fun.

If you can do these things before you call you will see the most appropriate properties in the least amount of time. This is the most efficient way I have found to get the job of finding something you like quickly.

When you are ready, I can provide very helpful Buyers Agency/Buyers Advocacy. You will never hear any manipulative language from me and I’m never in a hurry. I have been  an Accredited Buyers Agent since 2002 and I represent buyers only.

Written by RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons 617-512-3443

More articles by Jeff:

5 Clues That Your Boston Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise.
Buying Boston Real Estate Without a Buyers Agent is Like Going Into Court Without An Attorney
A 20 Year Resident of Bostons Back Bay Tells Why He Likes Brookline MA So Much
5 Worst Questions To Ask Your Buyers Agent
Dont Just Investigate Your Boston Condo, Investigate The Mangement Company Too

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

Please Be Sure You Are Ready To Act Before You Call Your Buyers Agent

I was amazed how many similar blogs I read after I wrote my post “Boston Condo Sales Triple In The First 75 Days of 2010″ . They all said pretty much the same thing and they all must have gotten the idea at the same time but it would not have been “remarkable” if the numbers were not so convincing.  Such good news for the real estate market!  Get ready for a deluge of media attention to the recovering Boston real estate market.

Does that mean you should buy? Absolutely not.

Boston real estate agents focus on metrics and are constantly writing articles like the one I wrote. I usually avoid those kind of articles. They start to sound like a lot of blah blah blah. Sure its encouraging for the real estate agents who are of course starved for good news, but I promised you in my first blog that I will not produce fluff articles just to get better search engine rankings. This blog is for my reader’s education, not a “Buy a Boston Home” promotion.

Sure the numbers are looking better all around. That doesn’t mean you should buy a Boston Condo. Look at your own situation and decide if you want to participate. Don’t let the artificial urgency that is sure to be inspired by the tax credit and the sold unit numbers get you swept up.  Apparently if you didn’t buy in 2009, you missed the bottom, that might have been a mistake, don’t compound it by buying for the wrong reasons.

Here are some questions you should ask yourself before making the
buying instead of renting decision.

Make Sure You Are Ready

My advice is to look at your situation objectively, your income, job security, as well as how YOU feel about the market. Although renting is much more expensive than buying, it might be the best thing for you for a period of time. Buying is a ton of stress. I’ve seen people buy a house and not get a good nights sleep for years after the purchase because they were so fearful about the commitment.

Wait until the Autumn?

Its usually best to buy in the autumn and early winter because you get to play the annual cyclicality of Boston real estate prices. The lowest prices per sq. ft. are achieved every year in November and December.  2010 might be the perfect year for avoiding the buying panic in the spring and watching as the prices go back down later in the year. The market bottoms out every year at that time.  Unfortunately the inventory does also so the challenge can be finding the layout you can live with.

Think in terms of five years or more.

If you buy a condo or single family, think long term and decide you will be OK if the property value slides back down. Most market bottoms form a “W“. 2010 could be right in the middle of the W and the precurser to the second part of the W bottom. This second leg down is usually shallower than the first (hopefully) but might scare the heck out of you. Be OK with the property anyway, real estate is a long term investment.

Typical W Bottom

Find a Buyers Agent/Buyers Advocate to help you.
Buyers Advocacy is the essence of Buyers Agency

You might need to speak with a few Buyers Agents to find one you like. Find one who uses “Buyers Agency” and “Buyers Advocacy” in the same conversation. I use the term Buyers Advocacy because essentially that is what Buyers Agency really is. Detachment from the outcome (selling some real estate) is the key to impeccably representing a buyer. Make sure your Buyers Agent doesn’t just mimic the Sellers Agent’s non-stop monologue of positive features. Make sure also that he NEVER represents sellers and is an “Exclusive” Buyers Agent. See My article “5 Clues That Your Boston Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise” for more on how to spot duplicity.

Written by RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons 617-512-3443

More reading about buying Boston real estate:

5 Worst Questions To Ask Your Buyers Agent

A Buyers Agent List of 5 Mission Critical Items to Check Before Buying a Condo

First Thing to Do When You Start Your Boston Real Estate Search, Get An Exclusive Accredited Buyers Agent

Buying Boston Real Estate Without a Buyers Agent is Like Going Into Court Without An Attorney

Dont Just Investigate Your Boston Condo, Investigate The Mangement Company Too

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

Your Comments Will Be Appreciated!

Forget The Boston Real Estate Market, Buy The Boston Home You Can Live With

When its time to inspect a home and sign a P&S agreement, I’ve noticed my buyers trying to figure out if they can get away without a real estate attorney. The answer is unequivocally NO! Its just too risky especially with Boston condos which come with a 3 inch stack of condo rules and regulations for the association you are buying into as well as a Master deed which is often over 100 pages.

Your real estate attorney reads all that and with their training can
spot some red flags that will cost you money down the line.

Without a real estate attorney you are wide open for problems. As an example, she will urge you to get title insurance which costs about $1500 and protects you if there are any legal problems somewhere in the past. Remember that many of these condos and single family homes have changed ownership dozens of times since 1880 to 1900 when most Back Bay, Beacon Hill, South End and Brookline buildings were constructed. If there is a problem somewhere down the line this Title insurance protects you from any claims on the property.

Whew! It would be a life warping event if you were to loose your home on a legal technicality. For instance, maybe someone in the 60’s sold the unit on false pretenses. If someone didn’t even have the right to sell the property they could come after you. Your Title insurance will protect you, your property and your money. $1500 well invested. Most people are open to doing things themselves to save money. Please believe me when I tell you this is not the place to pinch pennies.

Title insurance is just one example of sound advice from a real estate attorney. If you don’t have a lawyer it increases your chances of getting short changed in some manner. She actually READS that 3 inch stack looking for potential problems.

How do you find a good real estate attorney?

Most Buyers Agents like me keep a current list of qualified lawyers. This list contains information about the best we have worked with. These real estate attorneys know how to handle condos in the city as well as suburban single family homes.

Here is my current list of the best real estate
attorneys I have worked with.

Marisa S. Gregg, Esquire
Clark, Hunt & Embry
55 Cambridge Parkway
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
Tel: (617) 494-1920
Fax: (617) 494-1921
mgregg@chelaw.com       http://www.chelaw.com/

Laura E. Days, Esq.
Israel, Van Kooy & Days, LLC
1318 Beacon Street, Suite 19
Brookline, MA 02446
Tel. (617) 277-3774
Fax. (617) 277-6520
ldays@socialaw.com
http://www.ivkdlaw.com/

Joseph Rubinstein
Marsh, Moriarty, Ontell & Darcey
18 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108
Tel.617- 742-1822
Fax 617- 720-2565

Mark A. McCue
McCue & Lee, LLP
535 Boylston Street
Boston, MA 02116-3720
Tel.617-236-0212
Fax 617-236-0797

Sandra C. Steele
Hoffman & Hoffman
44 School St, 6th Fl. (Suite 610)
Boston, MA 02108
Tel.617-523-0666
Fax 617-523-6502

For more information call me at 617-512-3443, Jeff Persons ABR

Buyers Be Represented, Not Sold!

More Reading about Boston Real Estate:

5 Clues That Your Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise.

A Buyers Agent List of 5 Mission Critical Items to Check Before Buying a Condo

5 Worst Questions To Ask Your Buyers Agent

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

Can I Get Away Without Paying For a Real Estate Attorney?

Boston Real Estate buyers come to Boston from all over the world. The rules change almost everywhere you go. For instance in many European and Middle Eastern countries they often don’t use brokers at all, buyers preferring to work directly with the seller. Commissions for agents are as low as 1 percent while in Boston its 5 percent.  They don’t seem to think much of their agents and I have to believe that the agents are sparsely educated.

Here in Boston our brokers are well educated and carefully licensed with continuing education and mandatory ethics classes. The dichotomy we have set up between Buyers Agents and Sellers Agents was set up to protect the consumer. Its a checks and balances kind of regulation that keeps both sides honest.

Here are some things to keep in mind when
working with a Buyers Agent:

First,  if you are Relocating To Boston from out of town and want to get a Boston Buyers Agent to help you please remember that the Buyers Agent could spend a full work week  helping you and not get paid a penny.  Agents here don’t get paid unless there is a transaction. There are no salaries for real estate agents. So if after 2 weeks of having your buyers agent set up showings you change your mind, the agent just lost 2 weeks of his time and made no money.

As a Buyers Agent I have established some rules that buyers
must adhere to or I won’t even leave the office.

1. My first question to a buyer who has contacted me is “Is this a discretionary purchase?” Are they just thinking that it would be nice to have a place in Boston, especially if they have children in school here and plan to visit often? Or maybe they live in a rural area and think it would be nice to have a second home to visit the city. If the answer is yes, I get off the phone as soon as possible and continue looking for buyers who NEED TO BUY. You see, I’ve been doing this since 2002 and believe me buyers just don’t buy an expensive condo in an expensive city that they don’t NEED. By the time they figure that out and despite their good intentions, the Buyers Agent has lost several days or weeks. Then the Buyers Agent hears “Never mind, we will just use hotels when we visit”

2. Once its established you are really looking for a home and I start showing properties, I expect my buyers to show loyalty to our “gentleman’s agreement”. This simply means that if you go into an open house or a FSBO (for sale by owner) without me for some reason you sign in with my name so the Listing Agent knows you are being represented by me and they will refrain from trying to sell you some real estate. I don’t use Buyers Agency written agreements. I’m looking to my buyer to practice the Golden Rule. If my buyer is going to lie to me the piece of paper isn’t going to help anyone and who is going to sue? Not me.

3. Plan ahead. All showings in the city involve 2 brokers, the Listing Agent has to be there also. So if you have a list of MLS numbers you would like to see, give the agents 48 hours to set them up for you. Arrangements have to be made with tenants. Just setting up the showings for 15 properties will kill a good part of a Buyers Agent day on the phone.

Written By RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons 617.512.3443

Buyers, Be Represented, Not Sold!

More articles by Jeff:

Relocating To Boston
5 Worst Questions To Ask Your Buyers Agent
A Buyers Agent List of 5 Mission Critical Items to Check Before Buying a Condo
5 Best Reasons To Have a Buyers Agent Represent You
5 Clues That Your Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise.
First Thing to Do When You Start Your Boston Real Estate Search, Get An Exclusive Accredited Buyers Agent
Buying Boston Real Estate Without a Buyers Agent is Like Going Into Court Without An Attorney

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

How to Treat Your Boston Real Estate Buyers Agent? Use The Golden Rule

1. He does not have his ABR (Accredited Buyers Representative) certification.

If he has bothered to get his certification it tells me he is serious about helping buyers.

2. She does not eagerly and enthusiastically show you EVERYTHING.

A good Buyers Agent will make sure you see all the viable properties in your price range and neighborhoods.

3. He starts to echo the Seller Agents justification for the price.

Hearing some acknowledgment of the negatives about the property is very reassuring. There are shortcomings for every property, if he glosses over those you know you have a Sellers Agent in a brilliant disguise.

4. She represents sellers.

An exclusive Buyers Agent may be hard to find in some locations but if you can find a Buyers Agent who NEVER represents sellers its a good indication that you have a real good money saving helper on your side.

5. He shows an unwillingness to walk away.

If he works the deal like a dog with a bone, asks you to pay more or makes “follow up” phone calls to you then you do not have a Buyers Agent, you have another person trying to sell you some real estate.

Here are some tips on finding a really helpful Buyers Agent and what you should expect from them.

1. Do Not Be Lazy!

I’m having fun here but the point is that I think many buyers do not seek out the services of a Buyers Agent because it looks like more work up front as well as an invasion of privacy.

2. Use Your Intuition.

Ask lots of questions and read their blog if they have one. Look into their philosophy because If you can find a Buyers Agent you trust it can save you 10s of thousands. This must be worth doing the same rigorous interview you would have with anyone handling responsibility like your new lawyer? Have the same reservations you might have when buying a used car.

3. Tell Him You Want To See ALL the sold units.

Dishonest Buyers Agents will hand pick sold statistics to reinforce the sellers ideas about the value of the property. Don’t settle for just the sold units that agree with the asking price.

Buyers Agency When Done Correctly is an Alignment With Truth.

A Buyers Agent who is REALLY practicing Buyers Agency will keep you from getting burned. He or she will pull several sets of sold property statistics. The first is done in preparation of the offer. After the offer is submitted another set coming from a different direction with the numbers can reinforce the offer, warn the buyer not to go higher or in some cases point out that the property is actually underpriced. (It happens but its always a mistake made by the people pulling the statistics.) Then when the counter offer comes in another set of metrics is pulled from yet another set of numbers. By this point a Buyers Agent worth his salt can nail down the fair market value of the property to within 3 percent. And more importantly YOU will know the value of the property. Hopefully you saw the inventory so you learned a lot about value there. Now in addition, thanks to your Buyers Agent, you have looked at 3 sets of averages statistically nailing down fair market value for you.

A good Buyers Agent comes back to the statistics again and again. The whole idea of practicing impeccable Buyers Agency is to take out personal opinion and conjecture. Numbers don’t lie and if the numbers are wrong the property is overpriced, period. You will find out if you have a real Buyers Agent if she starts to reconcile the sellers numbers to bring the deal together (read, when you pay more). Thus this kind of brilliantly disguised Listing Agent is along for the ride and the commission. She won’t pull another set of numbers to counter all the anecdotal hype that just streams out of the Listing Agents mouth. She is content to let the Listing Agent sell some real estate to her buyer client. Bad form, absolutely dishonest.

These commission rebates are another joke on the consumers. Mention cash rebates to consumers and its cash for clunkers all over again. People are suckers for a cash kickback especially in the middle of a deep recession. I would not be surprised if Massachusetts and other states eventually outlaw this practice because it plays on the buyers greed. Its so transparently manipulative and a little sad. There are all these buyers tripping over themselves to get a cash rebate while attention is taken away from the actual price being paid for the house (kind of like the $8000 tax break). In other words they are looking at the short term while a good Buyers Agent can get the price reduced. If I can get you the home for 500K instead of 530K, you just saved $180 per month for the next 30 years. That comes to $64,000 over the life of the loan. So the $64,000 question is :

How does that cash rebate look now?

I’m also not surprised to see this happening during a recession. Funny how desperation can get buyers to fall for that. Now people, work with me and think about it, not only are you are not going to use a real ABR Buyers Agent, you want to be rebated his commission and yet you expect to get a good deal from the seller? Are we living on the same planet? You may get the rebate but you will get taken to the cleaners for the property. Penny wise, and dollar totally foolish. What kind of magnanimous seller is going to give you a good deal when you are not even bothering to be represented?

In conclusion I would like to say that if there is a downside to having a Buyers Agent represent you, I can’t imagine what that might be. Here is a list of advantages once you have found a Buyers Agent. Just Google “Boston Buyers Agent” or “Boston Area Buyers Agent”

1. He will arrange and facilitate the actual property showings.

2. He will make the process of seeing the inventory easier for you.

With less running around to look at properties. See my article entitled ” Tips For Your Boston Home Search, Save Time and Frustration by Closely Reading MLS Listing Sheets” . If you have a list of 20 properties you would like to see, your Buyers Agent can help you cut that list in half without leaving the office. So right away your viewings are cut in half.

3. There is no charge for a Buyers Agents services.

He is paid entirely by the seller. So you get all that help seeing the properties, help with establishing fair market value as well as preparing the offer and negotiating price and terms. On top of all this saving time and money, this whole process can and should be a lot of fun!

Looking for the best Buyers Agent in the Boston and Boston Suburb areas?
Call me today and we can discuss your search.

Written by RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons 617-512-3443

More articles by Jeff:

Buying Boston Real Estate Without a Buyers Agent is Like Going Into Court Without An Attorney

5 Best Reasons To Have A Buyers Agent Represent You

5 Worst Questions to Ask Your Buyers Agent

The Boston Real Estate Market Has NOT Experienced a Recession

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

5 Clues That Your Boston Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise.

Submitting your offer for the property for the first time.

Some work should be done before you start the price negotiation. First of all, ignore the asking, that’s probably a wild-ass guess anyway compared to what you and your trusted Buyers Agent can tell you. Ask your Buyers Agent to pull up ALL the sold units in the area whether they compare or not. From this list you can start to take some averages to establish the fair market value of the property.

Don’t believe anyone, go back to the numbers.

After your initial offer, maybe you get a yes but if you don’t maybe you get a counter offer. In either case its time to go back to the numbers. Keep in mind that after that first offer and counter, everyone has an “opinion” as well as an agenda. The listing agent thinks one price, the seller another. If I add our side, that’s 4 opinions. Throw them all out and come back to the sold units.

Come Back To The Numbers

This is where you find objectivity and no one has to be wrong.

During a negotiation egos start to get involved and no one wants to be “wrong” and by simply scrutinizing numbers we shouldn’t make anyone wrong. Mission critical here is not that you get the property but that you get it without overpaying.

If you take more averages you and your Buyers Agent can come at the valuation in a few different ways. Every time you do this during a negotiation you and the seller get a clearer idea of what the property is worth.

Numbers Dont Lie

Personal opinion and conjecture disappear in the face of quantitative analysis.

After you have all the solds in the neighborhood, you and your Buyers Agent can find at least 3 different ways to take meaningful averages from these. Each time you do you are automatically reassured because you have seen enough price points to intuitively know what the property is really worth.

You may or may not get agreement on price and terms but you will be assured that you will not overpay for the property. As hard as it is to see that “perfect” property go, at least you won’t spend the next 5 years trying to figure out how to get your money back out of the property.

Written By RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons 617.512.3443

Your comments will be appreciated!

More reading by Jeff Persons ABR:

How to Get the Lowest Prices on Real Estate by Buying in the Winter
What is the Stock Market Telling Us About the Real Estate Market?
Free Real Estate Commissions! Sound Too Good To Be True? It Is.
Buying Boston Real Estate Without a Buyers Agent is Like Going Into Court Without An Attorney

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

Negotiating The Price of Your Boston Home – Stick To The Numbers

I get a lot of buyers from all over the USA as well as all over the world. This is because I’m exclusively a Boston Buyers Agent. I don’t take listings, just buyers. This brings me buyers from out of town, which relieves me from having to establish and maintain  a local posturing in order to beg people for their listings. All my buyers since 2004 have come to me through the internet. I specialize in Relocating to Boston.

When buyers come to town they are incredulous at the lack of “give up” on our prices here in Boston. When you do a bit of research you can start to see why prices will continued to stay firm while the out-of-towners shake their collective heads. When you start to understand why buyers want to be here, its no wonder.

Boston has the best schools and hospitals in the world!

There it is in a nutshell, when you are done with your condo there is a line of students, teachers, doctors and nurses lined up to buy it from you. When I list the reasons, it goes something like this:

BU, BC, Northeastern, Harvard, MIT, BU Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel hospital, Boston Childrens Hospital, Mass General,  Brigham and Womens, Tufts Medical School etc. etc. I could go on but I’m sure you get the point. We have the best schools and hospitals in the world and as long as that is the case there will be a steady supply of buyers,which of course will support property prices.

In addition to these employers (Beth Israel hospital alone employs 15,000 people),  Boston is a great city for so many reasons. Its easy to navigate, incredibly diverse in a socio-economic sense as well as ethnic diversity. During 8 years of practicing Real Estate in Boston, I’ve seen very few areas I wouldn’t want my children to live in. Boston is a visually beautiful city and a good city, with a community spirit that surprises many. Boston is generous to their homeless, takes care of its residents and I should mention also they are vigilant with replacing  dead trees immediately, a key to beauty for the city.

I need to have a conversation with my buyers!

Even if they have been memorizing the listings I’ve been sending them they must think we are kidding  because when they get here they just can’t believe that they shouldn’t offer 500K for a condo with an asking of 650K. This happens EVERY time. So I have a chat with them to make sure they know there are no bargains here and its not likely there will be. Prices are a bit better than say 2005 but they are at their nadir (personal opinion and conjecture, I apologize) and actually rising from some of the recent data I have seen lately. During the conversation I mention that I won’t submit offers that are more than 10% below the asking. I tell them that if they need to go more than 10% below asking they are looking at the wrong property!

So my phone conversations need to be longer unless I want to show a billion properties to out-of-towners who in the end will say everything is too expensive.

Boston is expensive and will likely stay that way. Maybe you can go to most other cities and lowball the sellers but the sellers in Boston MA are not signing up for giving their property away.

Written By RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons 617.512.3443

Your comments will be appreciated!

More reading:

How to Get the Lowest Prices on Real Estate by Buying in the Winter
What is the Stock Market Telling Us About the Real Estate Market?
5 Clues That Your Boston Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise.
If You Wait For The All Clear Signal To Buy Your Boston Home You Missed the Bottom of the Boston Real Estate Market by About Six Months

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

It Doesn’t Surprise Me That Boston Real Estate Prices Are Holding firm

Boston Real Estate is in a slump.

To survive brokers are discounting commissions or taking the commission the seller pays and giving it to the buyer.

If you don’t use a Buyers Agent it’s like walking into court without an attorney. These discount brokers like Redfin or others who give back part of the real estate commission can’t be doing what I do for my buyers. Talk about penny wise and pound foolish. If buyers think they are going to get a better deal this way or by not using a buyers agent at all they are kidding themselves. A seller will get MORE out of you if you are not represented. I think that the fact that so many buyers don’t take advantage of having a buyers agent who represents them and is paid for by the seller has more to do with their desire for privacy than actually conspiring to get a better deal from the listing agent or the seller.

They really need help to keep from overpaying, and an Accredited Buyers Agent who will use the true labor of thought to quantify the solds correctly and submit to the buyer a number she can hang her hat on. This is the number they could sell it for tomorrow if they had an unexpected change in their life situation. They won’t get a phony rebate but they won’t overpay for the property either.

What good is it to get a rebate on the commission if you have paid 10s of thousands too much for the property?

Here’s another cliché “You get what you pay for”.

Written By RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons 617.512.3443

Here are some good blog posts on the subject:

Misleading home buyers: Conflict of Interest? What conflict of interest?
Home Value Estimates Questioned
Why You Should Utilize A Buyer’s Agent

Your comments will be appreciated!

Return To WeSellBoston.Net

Free Real Estate Commissions! Sound Too Good To Be True? It Is.

I have been reading the Boston real estate blogs this morning and I was struck by the wishful thinking demonstrated by real estate agents. This reminds me of when I was a stock trader and the NasDaq was at 2800 in 2001 and everyone was so busy explaining why that was the bottom while it proceeded to go to 1100 over the next year.

A lesson learned the hard way you can be sure. I wanted 2800 to be the bottom so I invested. Oops!

Market bottoms are indeed hard to call. In the stock market it seems that we put a bottom in when everyone has sold and given up. Once everyone has sold there are only buyers available anyway. Bottoms seem to come when everyone gives up on finding the bottom.

The truth is most real estate people are going to predict what they want to happen or what they wish would happen so they grab some data that may support a guess about the market direction.

I’ve had enough of that hubris, or call it posturing.

It would seem that the first wave of Boston real estate buyers coming in the spring will be very busy and maybe even set off a bit of panic buying, but the activity is being faked by the tax break incentive. I think this will be sold into by sellers who have been wanting to sell. This is why I have been saying that the 8K goes to the sellers in the end as they just jack up the price inside the flurry of demand when the deadline looms.

After the deadline has passed, we will see if we are running low on sellers. Once that happens, the demand is satisfied, the market has a chance to stabilize and move higher. This can take longer than anyone predicts and there is a possibility of the market languishing after the tax credit has expired and we could move lower in prices as well as transactions. This could go on for years but I’ve got to believe that the real estate market (barring any exogenous events like terrorism) will start to strengthen in 2010.

It is a market though so who knows?

I for one have resolved to stop guessing as its all posturing and ego-tripping. In a market anything can happen and usually what actually happens is the thing that makes the largest number of market participants wrong.

Written By RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons 617.512.3443

Check out what they are saying on these blogs:
http://blog.redfin.com/
http://www.urbancartography.com/
http://bostonrealestatemaven.wordpress.com/
http://bostonrealestateblog.bushari.com/

More Reading by Jeff Persons:
What is the Stock Market Telling Us About the Real Estate Market?
5 Clues That Your Boston Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise.
It Doesn’t Surprise Me That Boston Real Estate Prices Are Holding firm
Buying Boston Real Estate Without a Buyers Agent is Like Going Into Court Without An Attorney

Your comments will be appreciated!

Return to WeSellBoston.Net 

You Wont Catch Me Calling a Bottom to the Boston Real Estate Market

I was a stock trader for 5 years, it was great business training and very exciting (and nerve racking). The real estate market is very much like the stock market. When the stats say the stock is overpriced more people sell and fewer buy until the price truly reflects the underlying revenue streams, assets etc. We called this “agreement”. The agreement for GE can be $15 today and $16 tomorrow.

The real estate market deals in a different commodity and is much slower to respond to the supply/demand equation like the one that governs the stock market. The agreement is getting more difficult to reach, a long slow road. That is evidenced by the stubbornness on both sides. Eventually (and this may take years in RE) the buyers and sellers will get closer to agreement of fair market value which will increase transactions. For now we have sellers who insist they not loose the appreciation they though they had in the bag and buyers who are terrified of paying too much.

The following is just part of a list of attractions the Boston area would have to loose for prices to drift much lower than they have up to this point:

BU, BC, Northeastern, Harvard, MIT, BU Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel hospital, Boston Childrens Hospital, Mass General,  Brigham and Womens, Tufts Medical School etc. etc. I could go on but I’m sure you get the point. We have the best schools and hospitals in the world and as long as that is the case there will be a steady supply of buyers,which of course will support property prices.

My feeling is that property prices in the Boston Area (not in Kansas) will firm up and move higher in the spring of 2010. Please don’t take this as a market prediction, the stock market cured me of that hubris. I’m counting on a recovery in the economy by the 2nd quarter of 2010. This is being signaled by the recent traction in the stock market which usually means that growth in the economy is only 6 months away.

Boston Real Estate is a market…you just don’t know.

Written By RE/MAX Destiny Accredited Buyers Agent Jeff Persons 617.512.3443

Your comments will be appreciated!

Further Reading:What is the Stock Market Telling Us About the Real Estate Market?
Forget The Boston Real Estate Market, Buy The Boston Home You Can Live With
5 Clues That Your Boston Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise.
Dont Just Investigate Your Boston Condo, Investigate The Management Company Too

 

Return to WeSellBoston.Net

A Former Stock Trader Talks About Boston Real Estate