I wanted to give my clients a brief understanding of how quickly things change in the current market.  So I did some research on the condominium listings that sold in the month of June that had been on the market for 45 days or less.   The stats as I found from MLS for June:   List price $484,000   vs  Sale price $473,600 So this means that as real estate agents, if we price the property right - homes will surely sell close to our listing price.  Estimated at about 97% of list. Two properties sold within 2 days on the market - Yahoo! to those agents Ten properties sold within 7 days on the market -  Great to see I didn't dig deeper to see if there were hot selling areas over others.  Cambridge is overall an active city for most of the year.   Additional statistics from the City of Cambr... 07/08/2008

This year the spring market started late (it's usually good weather that jump-starts the market in January or early February) and from all indications will continue into the usual summer downtime between June 15 and Labor Day.   The market in Cambridge and pockets of Boston and surrounding towns is good this year despite the national news.  Low inventory in certain price bands is driving many sales. An interesting turn of events has occurred in the 5% first-time home buyer category.  Usually, the home of choice in this location for the single, first-time home buyer is a one-bedroom/one-bath condominium in desirable locations like Harvard Sq., Davis Sq. in Somerville, and the Back Bay, South End, North End, Beacon Hill and Waterfront in Boston.  If a buyer secures a home in those locatio... 06/04/2008

Many of my clients have been asking me "THE QUESTION"."THE QUESTION" is one that every active agent and broker has heard dozens upon dozens of times in the last year; it comes from family, friends, clients, past clients, new aquaintances, and, well...pretty much everyone I meet. It usually is preceeded by a pregnant pause. Sometimes, depending on whether or not the person asking needs to buy or sell a home, the pause is joined by a nervous twitching.THE QUESTION, of course is: "So, uh...how is the market doing these days?"Now, the great part about the THE QUESTION is that depending on who you ask, you may get one of many answers.  Real estate agents are fantastic pessimists and are usually unable to distinguish their personal businesses from the larger market.    For example:  Bob Usedt... 10/19/2007

REALTOR® Magazine Online reported April 3, 2007 that Greenwich, CT was the richest zip code in the nation, and Cambridge, MA placed fifth. No other Massachusetts or New England zip codes made the top 10."During the five-year boom in housing prices, from the third quarter through the third quarter of 2006, the prices in the nation’s richest zip codes rose dramatically." "For the United States as a whole, the five-year increase in the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index was 63.7 percent, while the increase was 79.5 percent for those zip codes with a median sales price of $750,000 or more, according to Fiserv Lending Solutions, which supplies data and software to lenders."View The Top 10 Richest Zip Codes 04/29/2007

So we had the inspection yesterday, and the contractor came through, and I had 2.5 good learning experiences. Learning experience #1, listing agents read blogs too. HA! Good eye Danny!  ( errr...I meant to write that I'm NOT pumped about this project unless the seller concedes eleventy billion dollars)Lesson #2  needs to be prefaced...So the home inspector and the Contractor are scheduled to come around the same time, home inspector gets there first.  And we're going through the house (that is a fixer upper to begin with) we start in the basement. The systems are on the older side, no big whoop we need to replace those any way, an "antique" brass water main (chlorine + brass = corrosion apparently), whatever..  The contractor shows up while we're still in the basement, so we start walki... 08/18/2006