When I was a child, we’d say “Good night, don’t let the bedbugs bite!” as if it was a joke. The Rolling Stones published “Shattered” in 1978; they say that in Manhattan there are rats on the West side and bedbugs uptown. But bedbug infestation is not a joke. I have a client who had, what he calls, “the world’s smallest bedbug infestation.” The exterminator found three of them. The house was treated. My client still wakes up stressed every time he feels a little itchy.

The problem is getting worse over the past few years. On June 15, you have the opportunity to learn all you need to know about bedbugs, and more. The event is sponsored by the Community Action Agency of Somerville (CAAS) in collaboration with Cambridge Health Alliance.

A bedbug infestation will force you to throw away every piece of cloth furniture in your house. Bedbugs have been tested and found to carry drug-resistant Staph infections, possibly MRSA. So, they could be a more serious public health problem than originally thought.

Life can be pretty good in the Back Bay if you have the kind of money to buy Tom and Giselle's $10.5 million Back Bay crash pad.

If that's too rich for your wallet, breaking a million just might get you something half decent, but no guarantees.

But is it worth it trying to squeeze into a closet-sized condo in the Back Bay - or for that matter the South End or Beacon Hill - if you can't go above $500,000, let alone $1 million?

That's the world shaking question Trulia explores in an in-depth blog post on the Boston market.

This entry is for all the agents that are reading. I got his email from an agent I will call “Isabella.” She needs some advice from agents who have worked with difficult clients. She has a seller who is displeased with what would-be buyers expected to pay for their house. They cannot accept that their house is worth less than they thought it was worth.

I think the problem is one of expectations. These sellers did not believe that their agent had an accurate idea of the price. It turns out that the agent had the price too high. This double-blow has soured the relationship.

Agents, how would you turn this around? Would you quit the listing, or hang in with these owners of an over-developed house. How do you explain that neighborhood matters?

Here's the short story: Young couple moved into the home (in my neighborhood) in 2002. In 2009 they decided to remodel the home taking it from a modest 1500 sf to 2400 sf; they did this by adding a second story on the existing ranch. THEN they did everything, and I mean everything right: new hardwoods through-out, central air, Anderson windows, and gorgeous doors, beautiful accessories (light fixtures, etc), gorgeous solid wood cabinets, top-shelf stainless appliances.... Well I could go on and on, but I think you are getting the pictures.

The one thing they did not consider: our neighborhood is a very pleasant cul de sac of 1/2 acre lots with pretty capes and well-kept ranches. This remodel is a center-entrance colonial and hands down the BEST house in the neighborhood. We worked really hard on the price and I had many members of my office go through the house and give me their opinion of value. Reviewed neighborhood sales and used colonials in other neighborhoods for comparison. We came to an agreement on the price (although they wanted $15,000 more) and listed the home. It has been a month and we have been fairly popular and received one "almost" offer and then last week a firm offer.

Looking for a bargain? Head west to 495.

I compared home prices along Greater Boston's two great technology and commercial beltways, 128 and 495 for a column I do for the Globe West, Forever 128.

Along 128, Burlington, with a median price of nearly $400,000, is closing on its 2005 price peak, while Weston, at $1.4 million, has surpassed its previous high-water mark of $1.3 million set that same year.

Other 128 towns such as Newton, Needham and Lexington all saw median prices drop this past year, yet all are within 10 percent of the highs reached during the height of the housing bubble in 2005-2006.

But along 495, it's a much different story.

Attorney Richard D. Vetstein discusses a case concluded yesterday about another kind of underwater homeowner.

In one of the more important homeowner’s insurance cases decided in recent memory, the SJC considered what is covered under a standard Massachusetts homeowner’s insurance policy when rain, snow melt and runoff from the outside create damage to the inside of a home. The case is Boazova v. Safety Insurance Co., SJC-10908 (May 29, 2012).

The Court ruled that even though significant hidden water seepage through foundation cracks caused a kitchen floor to turn into a “spongy and mushy” mess, there was no coverage for the claim because the water which originally caused the damage originated from outside the home in the form of rain and snow melt, rather than inside the home, like a burst pipe. This ruling unfortunately puts to rest what most homeowners who have suffered a water damage claim know already: if the internal water damage is caused from the outside of the house, like rain, snow or even ice dams, it’s likely not covered.

Severe wood rot discovered
While undertaking a kitchen renovation project, the homeowner discovered severe deterioration of the wooden sill plate that rested on top of the concrete foundation at the base of the home’s rear wall, as well as of the adjoining floor joists and wall studs. The kitchen floor and sub-floor was moist, spongy and falling apart. The homeowner’s expert engineer opined that because the concrete patio was poured directly against the house, water and moisture migrated down from the sill plate, below grade to the foundation, causing the water damage. There was no dispute that the origin of the water infiltration and seepage was from outside elements such as rain, sleet and snow melt. The insurance company denied coverage based on the policy’s exclusion for damage caused by “surface water,” and this lawsuit resulted.

Is is time to bequeath our society's greatest honor - that of aggrieved victim - to homeowners who bought during the housing bubble?

Apparently some on the comment board of this blog think so now.

It can tend to be a pretty conservative bunch, so I was a bit surprised by this sally.

Here's what thirtysomething had to say:

The underwater homeowners are exactly what I'm talking about! They were VICTIMIZED by high housing prices. You seem to think this is a good thing -- so good, in fact, that we need more of the same to "rescue" them? Not saying that is impossible, but that's simply passing the hot potato (and high costs) to a new victim.

High real estate prices are bad for society. Good for banks, bad for everybody else (aside from those seeking to profit at the expense of others).

Bill Kuhlman, CRS, who is the broker/owner of Kuhlman Residential returns today with some pointers on your rate lock. If you are buying or refinancing, this one’s for you.

Last time, I shared a typical timeline for the various steps involved with buying a home in the Greater Boston area. This week, I want to talk about locking in your mortgage rate, and how the closing date can affect the “rate lock.” (When you tell the loan officer with whom you’re working to lock in the current rate available, that’s called the rate lock.)

There’s a cliché in real estate that says, “Everything is negotiable.” That’s pretty much true; a buyer and a seller can work out just about any agreement, as long as the terms are within the law. So, while most transactions close between six and eight weeks from the date of the offer, buyers and sellers can agree to close sooner or much later.

One factor to keep in mind if you do propose to close well into the future is how your financing could be affected. When you lock in your mortgage rate, most lenders will guarantee that rate for 45 or 60 days at no additional charge. As long as you close within the term of the rate lock, you’re guaranteed to receive that rate.

If you want to extend the lock beyond 60 days, it will probably cost you money; as a general rule, the further out into the future you close, the more it will cost you to extend. It could conceivably cost you many thousands of dollars for a lender to guarantee the rate you locked in for 90 days or longer.

Half of all apartment dwellers nationwide are now "rent burdened."

That means they are coughing up 30 percent or more of their income for rent, finds a new report by the University of New Hampshire's Carsey Institute.

By comparison, the number of homeowners shelling out 30 percent or more of their paychecks on mortgage payments stands at a much lower 37.4 percent.

In fact, the number of homeowners struggling under heavier mortgage payments is about the same as it was before the recession, according to the study, which analyzed housing data from 2007-2010.

Recently, a married couple that I am working with disagreed about whether a peach tree on the property was a good thing or a bad thing. Why would a peach tree be a bad thing? You may ask; I did. I found out that my client (she) had a phobia about worms. If a peach tree is not tended carefully, it will attract worms. He liked peaches and promised to tend it. Since the tree could be cut down if the problem occurred, the presence of the tree was not a deterrent to them making an offer. Are you grossed out by worms enough to cut down a fruit tree?

Little ants, indoors, are looking for your food or looking for water. It is common to find ants in a bathroom or laundry room as well as in the kitchen. A single ant may be seen scouting for her nest, but ants live in colonies, so if the scout likes your kitchen, her whole family is invited to join her. Some people are phobic about little ants. Infestation from little ants can be solved by using either baits or gels. If you use both, use the gel where they are coming in and the baits near where they are going. Get rid of damp areas they are attracted to, if you can. Seal up where they are coming in, if you can find it.

In my real estate experience, it is the bigger ants that frequently freak people out. Big ants can be carpenter ants. They come inside during the late winter and spring. Outside, you may see sawdust that a human didn’t create; that could be from the carpenter ants digging a nest in the wood of your house or other damp wood. They eat your food, but they nest in your wood. Therefore, take them seriously. You may need the help of an exterminator to treat your house.

Stuck in an underwater condo in East Boston he is weary of, Beantown-dan is groping desperately for an escape hatch.

He figures he can now finally afford a modest home in the suburbs, but can't easily get out from under the mortgage on his Eastie condo, which is $20,000 to $30,000 above the current market value of his unit.

Beantown-dan is thinking of renting out his condo and then trying to buy - which might get him out of his current jam but would put him on the hook for even more real estate debt.

Paul Morse,owner of Morse Constructions Inc, a Boston-area design/build firm gives this advice to sellers of housing with good bones that need updating:

Are you trying to sell a house that needs cosmetic improvements? If a house has good bones, encourage potential buyers to look below the surface. As long as the bones are good, a new owner could remodel, add on, or make cosmetic improvements to correct any perceived shortcomings.

Houses with good bones feature:
Quality construction – Strong bones are solid. “Walk” the house with potential buyers, pointing out its solid feel , that it doesn’t bounce or list, have many cracks above doorways or in stairways, have sagging floor joists, walls that bow or a roof that sags.

Solid infrastructure – It’s relatively simple to replace aging roofing shingles or update plumbing fixtures, but it is far more complicated if the basic infrastructure of the home is lacking. Show them that the foundation, roof, heating, plumbing and electrical systems are in good shape. Then renovations become much easier.

Good floor plan –Look at how traffic travels through the house as a whole. You can easily renovate to make particular rooms more livable. If you are trying to sell a home with a floor plan that feels awkward, help your buyer envision the space with walls moved or taken down entirely. You may be able to get them excited by helping them see the house’s potential with a few, relatively straightforward changes.

If you owe more on your mortgage than your house is worth, you are hardly alone, even here in perpetually price-inflated Greater Boston.

Just over one in five Boston area homeowners - 22 percent - were underwater on their mortgages as of the end of the first quarter in March, Zillow.com reports.

Moreover, about half were underwater by 20 percent or less, with the rest buried under even heavier loads of debt, that, at the very extreme, is double what their homes are worth.

The suburbs just to the west and southwest of Boston - that broad arc from Burlington down through Foxboro - have the least number of underwater homeowners, according to Zillow.

Part I: Building the home music studio that won’t drive your neighbors crazy

My entry from Monday about my clients with pianos and drums brought me this email from M.R., a long-time reader:

Hi Rona,
I'm a landlord in Somerville (I have two 2-family houses), I'm a long-time reader of the Globe RE blog, and finally, I'm a basement drummer. I've spent a few weekends' worth of time sound-proofing the basement drum room in order to keep the sound from travelling to the 2nd & 3rd FL unit (we live on 1st-FL unit). I feel that windows are easily treated (which you mention in yr piece), but doors & walls are harder to treat, but are the larger problem. Especially if uninsulated, drywall or plaster walls w/ studs in between resonate like a snare drum itself & pass the sound very readily. Studio solutions to this are to double the drywall on a given wall (w/ butt-joints offset from on another), and to use "resilient channel" to hang the drywall (imagine a spring-clip to hold the drywall, rather than screwing it to the studs/joists). For doors, solid-core doors w/ weather-stripping compressable-foam around the jam is a good solution. Dense-packed cellulouse (as subsidized by Mass Save!) is a decent solution to deaden hollow cavities between drywall/plaster, where cheaper & easier-to-install fiberglass-batts can't be used (like in an attic or existing wall).

I spent small money (~$150) to drywall & insulate my basement room. There's much more that could be done for another $150 & a weekend's worth of work which would make drums on the 1st floor lightly audible, and completely inaudible on the 2nd/3rd FL. If a contractor was involved, I'd estimate a $2000 bill for double-drywalled-&-spackled 10x10 room w/ solid core door & fiberglass insulation. Attic? Due to difficult-to-drywall surfaces & spaces which take lots of blown cellulose... $8000.

Is there any other studio-building advice that you’d like to share?

What's your choice: Sticks or city living?

I'll let Twirlygirl get the debate going this morning. She and her husband have one child and love living in the city. Even as bargain prices beckon from the 495 belt and beyond, she's determined to wait until they find the right place in Boston or Cambridge.

For Twirlygirl, it's a matter of sanity and even of being able to be "good mom."

The suburbs, with few exceptions, fill me with ennui. I would be rather miserable and wouldn't be a good mom if I was living too far out, far from the ability to get into the city, far from what feels like being alive. My husband mostly feels the same way.

No mincing words there.

We are primed for a home price turnaround in Greater Boston and across Massachusetts.

And we are not talking about 2013 or some other distant year in the future, but the next several months.

That's the verdict from Tim Warren, chief executive of The Warren Group, after the release this morning of home sales and price numbers for April by his Boston-based real estate data firm and publisher.

Warren points to the combo of falling unemployment and rock bottom interest rates as the key factor behind the budding rebound.

Even in a single family house, a drummer can become unwelcome in a neighborhood – especially a neighborhood where the houses are close together. It is even worse when the drummer lives in a condo or two-family house.

One of the bidding war properties that my clients saw (and made an unsuccessful Offer on) had a music studio in the top floor. It was a great place for them, since their younger daughter plays drums. The attic was wired for music equipment and a sound board. It had double pane windows with an additional Plexiglas layer on all of them. The agent told me that the neighbors told her it still wasn’t really sound-proof.

I saw another studio last year that had baffles that fit in front of the windows. They were made of the egg-carton shaped foam of a studio and were mounted on movable boards. They were rolled in front of the window and rolled away when not in use. I liked that better, as a concept, because it didn’t block the air flow when not in use. I don’t know which worked better.

For people who love their morning or evening shower, a wimpy spray can ruin their day. Are you someone who loves a strong shower? I, too, hate a wimpy shower. I owned a good shower head, even when I was renting. This entry is dedicated to Bruce, Sandra, and all my shower-loving clients.

When house-hunters turn on showers to check the pressure, they often do not get the information that they need. Poor water pressure can be caused by the fixture, the plumbing leading to the fixture, the volume of the water coming into the house, or more than one of these. Turning on the shower will not give you the complete answer. It is just a waste of water.

When a house hunter turns on the shower, he or she could get false evidence of wimpiness because the shower head is clogged, while the pressure is fine. If he or she buys the house, cleaning the existing head or buying a new one will fix the problem at minimal expense a bother.

He or she may also get false evidence of a wonderful shower because the head is good, but the volume or pressure in the whole house is insufficient. The shower could flow great until someone else turns on a faucet, runs a dishwasher, or flushes a toilet. Water pressure problems show up when there is more than one draw on the system.

Turning on the shower alone does not diagnose those problems.
Service Magic explains it this way:

Low water pressure usually results when you've been forced to turn on two different plumbing fixtures at the same time, whether they are the outside garden hose, the kitchen/bathroom sink, the toilet, or even the shower. Although your water pressure may be sufficient when only one fixture is operational, you'll definitely notice a drop in water flow when the second fixture comes into use.

The number of modest capes, split levels and even colonials getting bulldozed is on the rise in Greater Boston's more affluent suburbs.

Here's a pretty interesting take from a West Newton architect in the heart of teardown country, which recently appeared as a letter to the editor in the Globe.

The architect, Anatol Zuckerman would like to see teardowns replaced with multifamily housing, though to be fair, he doesn't exactly call for a teardown ban. (In fact, he makes some great observations on why it is so difficult to get towns to face up to this issue.)

Still, it's an issue that is of far greater importance than simply to the buyers with the bucks for the $1 million-plus homes that are replacing all these more modest 1950s and 60s homes.

After all, the Boston area has long suffered from a shortage of decent, reasonably priced middle-class housing and it is a trend that is only getting worse.

Things are changing fast for residents near the city of Boston. It seems like parking has gotten harder and parking tickets are getting more numerous. More and more of my clients are going car-free or reducing to a single car per household. When I have a client moving to a more suburban setting the need for a car or for a second car is a major deterrent to the move.

Are you in Boston, Somerville, Cambridge or Brookline? If you are, do you still have a car? If you do, why?

Boston is the third most walkable major city in America. Here’s the whole list. I know the walk score remains pretty high in the surrounding small cities, too.

Boston also boasts of being the fourth most bikeable city according to Boston Magazine's on line BostonDaily.

Do you agree that Boston, and nearby, are both walkable and bikeable? What are your objections to these high national rankings? Does it make you feel sorry for the car-bound elsewhere?

How things have changed. Real estate brokers who spent years trying to drum up scarce buyers are now having to sweet talk reluctant sellers into listing their homes.

The buyers are definitely out there again this spring, both here in Greater Boston and in other major metro markets across the country.

But buyers are looking for a bargain. They sense the price declines won't go on forever, yet they also want something decent for their money. And with many potential sellers still skittish and unwilling to take the plunge, there has been a growing mismatch between demand and supply.

Check out this BloombergBusinessweek article - it looks at the seller shortage across the country and how it is driving bidding wars for ready-to-move-into homes that are reasonably priced.

Locally, bidding wars out now the norm in Cambridge, Newton and Lexington, notes Redfin in this blog post that went up yesterday.