Top ten Greater Boston sales of 2012
So how nuts are home prices around here?
Well check out the top ten sales of 2012, which range from $12.5 million for a 15,000-square-foot Back Bay townhouse overlooking the Public Garden down to a $6.2 million Weston mansion compound.
The list, drawn from MLS listings, was sent over by Coldwell Banker, which has bragging rights on six of the top ten deals.
Check out these soaring rents!
So who is greedier right now, home sellers or landlords?
Well if you picked landlords, you hit the jackpot, though I am sorry to say I have run out of prizes this morning. Try back tomorrow.
Seriously though, asking prices in the Boston area rose 4 percent in December compared to the same month a year before. In fact, it is quite a turnaround from Dec. 2011, when asking prices actually fell 3.7 percent, according to Trulia's latest report.
Yet asking rents have risen even faster, posting a 6.4 percent, year-over-year increase in December.
So what is the average or median rent right now? Trulia did not offer up any numbers, saying the samples were too small to list for individual markets.
Anyway, feeling unsatisfied, I turned to Pittsburgh-based Rent Jungle for help and found this nifty list covering Boston and the inner suburbs. It's basically everything within ten miles of the city, so that includes such rental hotspots like Cambridge and Somerville.
How inaccurate are online listings? Very!
You can't believe everything you read, especially if it's an online property description.
That's what I found when I looked at the description of my Natick fixer-upper on several online real estate sites.
If you haven't done it yourself, you should google your home, because it is an eye opening experience.
I have come to learn that I live in a relatively large (2,100 square foot-plus) home with three bathrooms. It's amazing all that you can learn online these days - I could have sworn there are only two bathrooms here, but that's neither here nor there. I have also not been able to find that additional 300 to 400 square feet I am supposedly living in right now - that apparently has gone missing as well.
Well, what are a few inconvenient details when the big picture looks so promising. After all, if I should choose to sell now, well my honey and I could certainly make a bundle.
As it stands now, Realtor.com estimates my Natick fixer-upper is Back Bay worthy, with an estimated value of $418 per square foot!
No wonder there are so many deluded sellers out there.
Moving up in 2013?
With home sales and prices on the rise, what are your plans for the coming year?
Are you going to buy, sell or simply stay put?
Redfin predicts 2013 will be the "year of the move-up buyer."
Why? The number of buyers who are selling homes doubled over the course of 2012, from a measly 8 percent to 16 percent, Redfin recently reported in its fourth-quarter market survey.
Goodbye to mortgage deduction in 2013?
Leave my tax breaks alone!
Really, given the amount of waste, fraud and just outright foolish spending that goes on at the federal and state level, it's amazing that Washington can't come up with anything better than to whack middle-class homeowners.
It's not clear how President Obama and Congress intend to wriggle out of the financial straitjacket known as the fiscal cliff.
But given the mess we are dealing with, 2013 may be an unfortunately memorable one for homeowners, who stand to lose part or maybe all of the cherished mortgage interest deduction.
Potentially the most devastating to individual homeowners - and to the housing market as well - would be a decision to simply cancel this popular tax break for a multi-year period in order to bring in more cash. (Here's Zillow's breakdown of this and other potential cuts to this popular tax break.)
Hard times for mansion sellers?
The economy and the real estate market may be picking up. But the very high end - mansions worth $2.85 million and up - still stinks.
The Real Estate Café's Bill Wendel has pulled together some great stats that reveal major price reductions over the last few months by mansion owners across Massachusetts.
One of the latest mansions to sell for a big discount can be found in Weston, where 15 Claridge, a modern, 20 room mega estate built in the 1990s, just sold for $6.2 million.
That's after it first hit the market for more than $10 million back in May 2010 and then steadily dropped in price, to $8.9 million at the start of the year, and more recently, to $6.8 million.
The assessed value is $7.8 million.
Sounds like a steal! OK, just kidding, but check out the write-up.
Will crazy home prices return in 2013?
Home sales are on track in Massachusetts for their best year since 2006, the year the real estate bubble began to burst, The Warren Group reports.
Sales of single-family homes were up 22 percent through the end of November compared to the same period in 2011, according to the publisher of Banker & Tradesman.
In fact, the number of homes sold in November was the highest since November 2005.
Yet ominously, the number of homes on the market has dropped yet again, down nearly 26 percent in November, to 5.7 months of supply, compared to 9.2 months last year, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors reports.
And given strong restrictions against new construction across Greater Boston, you can be guaranteed there will be no fresh supply of new homes to fill demand. The NIMBY-types that so often dominate development debates in towns and suburbs across the Boston area will see to that.
This growing mismatch between supply and demand is a potentially toxic combination, one that could very well lead to a return of a home-price bubble sooner than anyone had anticipated, maybe even next year, 2013.
With $1 million-plus sale, Sherborn's Peace Abbey goes out in style
So it turns out the Peace Abbey in Sherborn fetched quite a bit more than first reported. Quite a bit more.
The initial story on the sale pegged the price at a bizarrely low $300,000, which I opined against, arguing the owner should have held out for more. Well it looks like he did! Maybe I should have held my tongue.
Anyway, the Globe this morning reports the Abbey, which features a 1917 colonial and a collection of buildings and statues spread across 2.5 acres, including a sculpture of Gandhi, fetched $1 million.
Did Peace Abbey sell for too little?
The long-running real estate saga of Sherborn's Peace Abbey is finally over, but questions remain.
The center's long-time owner, activist Lewis Randa, struggled nobly for years to keep his nonprofit afloat, seeking donations to keep the bank at bay.
Randa last week wrapped up a sale of the old 1917 colonial and its mini campus, which sits on a prominent perch near the center of Sherborn, for a relatively modest $300,000.
For anyone even half-acquainted with the sky-high real estate values of Boston's western suburbs, that number should be a shocker.
In fact, it won't even be enough to clear out the debts accumulated over the years, which amounted to $337,000, at least according to this report.
Value of your home headed up?
Lump of coal. That is what homeowners found in their stockings last year, having seen the value of their castles fall yet again during 2011.
But this holiday season should be a happier one for homeowners, including here in the Boston area, thanks to a significant rise in home values during 2012, Zillow reports.
The housing market nationally gained $1.35 trillion in value over 2012, a 6 percent gain. That's compared to a $792 billion drop last year.
In fact, it was the first overall gain in overall value of the U.S. housing market since 2006, according to Zillow.
The overall value of Boston area real estate rose by a nice $15.7 billion in 2012, to $511.6 billion, or a roughly 3 percent gain, the survey finds.
Stressed by rising home prices?
Buyers are now more concerned about rising prices than the state of the economy, according to
Redfin’s fourth quarter market survey.
Roughly a third of the 1,000 buyers polled by Redfin, or 33 percent, say rising home prices is a major concern, compared to 22 percent who cited the economy.
That’s quite a role reversal. Just a few months back in the third quarter, 27 percent cited the sluggish economy as a prime concern, compared to 23 percent who cited rising prices. FULL ENTRY
Looking for a holiday home bargain? Try the northern suburbs
Yes, head north, but please stop at the New Hampshire border. We like you here, and besides, the Live Free or Die state is overrated, but that's a topic for another day.
Essex County is listed at a surprising No. 8 on Trulia's list of the "healthiest" real estate markets in the country.
We are talking about a nice mix of suburbs and small towns and cities, ranging from coastal Salem, Gloucester and Newburyport inland to Andover, Haverhill, Boxford and Topsfield.
For a nice change, the survey is not based on price fluctuations but rather other factors that make for a more balanced and potentially rewarding market.
Governor Price Cut? Patrick slashes price – again - on Milton manse
Extra! Extra! Governor's mansion for sale - at a 20 percent discount!
OK, seriously, Gov. Deval Patrick is hoping the third time will prove to be the charm as he tries once again to unload his 6,800-square-foot, 1920s, Gatsby-style mansion in Milton.
He's also clearly hoping that a new price will do the trick as well, offering up the six-bed, five-bath home for $1.5 million.
That's a good 20 percent-plus off from the $1.9 million Patrick first put the house on the market in 2009. It's also a significant cut from his last foray into the market, when he listed it at $1.7 million before pulling it off the market.
Fiscal cliff changing your real estate plans?
If so, you are not alone. Sizable numbers of potential home buyers and sellers right now across Massachusetts are anxiously watching the high-stakes fiscal negotiations in Washington, according to a new survey.
In fact, a few are even planning to pull their homes off the market or stop looking come Jan. 1 if there is no deal to avert the draconian budget cuts and tax hikes economists warn could trigger a new recession, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors reports.
Nearly half of all Realtors surveyed said their seller clients are worried the fiscal cliff could impact their ability to sell their homes, while 37 said they are working with buyers who are anxious about the looming fiscal catastrophe.
Of sellers who are concerned, 44 percent have not decided yet what to do, while 5 percent will be pulling their home off the market by Dec. 31 if it does not sell before then, according to the agents who work with them.
Is lowballing for you?
The holiday season is here and homes that didn't sell during the spring, summer or fall are languishing on the market.
If there ever was a time to try your hand at lowballing, this is it.
OK, here's the cliff notes version: It's a numbers game yet timing is also crucial as well!
Also, you need to keep your emotions in check - once you start wanting a particular house too much, you are already in danger of seeing your lowballing strategy unravel.
Towns where buyers have the edge
Are you a buyer looking for bargains in pricey Greater Boston? Well there are a whole bunch of towns where nearly half the homes on the market have reduced their listing price at least once.
Zillow ranked local towns and suburbs using a combo of the percentage of homes on the market that have dropped in price, as well as average days on market.
Hanover on the South Shore ranks at the top town for buyers in the Boston area, according to Zillow, with 48 percent of the homes on the market sporting discounts and an average of 124 days on the market.
Priced out? Ordinary buyers squeezed by cash investors
"Jane" as we will call her here has a big problem, one she never expected to have in our still recovering real estate market. Both professionals, she and her husband have the income to buy a house - and even spend more than half a million - but are finding themselves getting outbid by cash investors.
Jane and her husband are looking for a place in the Somerville/Medford area, clearly a hot market, but have found the $400,000 to $450,000 range blanketed by cash toting real estate speculators. The couple is now looking at more expensive homes in the half million range and up in hopes of seeing less competition from investors, but so far that hasn't worked every well either.
After reading my post on how Somerville and Cambridge have become sellers' markets, Jane had this to say.
"If you can tell, I am a little sore about losing the house this past weekend," Jane writes. "Seems ridiculous that two working professionals with the ability to buy a 1/2 a million dollar home can't because people are paying cash for a 1/2 a million dollar home. We can't compete."
Do sellers rule in Cambridge, Somerville?
So says Zillow in a new analysis of the Greater Boston market broken down by the best places for sellers and buyers.
Cambridge and Somerville, no doubt powered by Davis Square, top the Zillow's list as the hottest markets right now for sellers.
Sellers can expect to get 99.5 percent of their list price in Cambridge and a none-too-shabby 99 percent in Somerville.
No downside to lowballing?
The holiday bargain season in full swing. And intrepid buyers, hoping to get a deal, are scouting listings and hitting the open house circuit.
But why wait for the seller to make the first move and offer up a juicy discount? If you like a house but don't want to pay the listing price, why not offer what you think the property is worth?
Lance, a regular on the comment boards, makes a pitch, so to speak, for the good, old low-ball offer.
Too often, he argues, agents simply don't want to make the extra effort and just want the sale to go through. Plus, there's an element of pride here as well - other agents might look askance.
But for the buyer, the extra effort of drawing up the offer and getting it over the seller is minimal.
Cape bargains?
If you are looking for a second home, there may be bargains to be had right now on the Cape.
Sales are up big time across the sandy spit, even as median prices fall in the Mid-Cape towns of Chatham, Harwich, Orleans, according to data from The Warren Group.
Chatham saw the biggest price decline, falling more than 14 percent, year-to-date, at the end of October to $550,000, while Orleans fell 3.7 percent, to $505,000, and Harwich slid 1.1 percent to $335,500.
Heading farther out towards Provincetown, Wellfleet prices dropped 5.7 percent to $511,250.
