Mimi sightings on Lucia and Treat: please keep a look out!
There has been another possible sighting yesterday on Lucia Road (not far from the Treat sighting on Sunday). I’m off to post this new flyer, which will be in the Reporter on Thursday. Please call 781.631.1223 with any possible sighting! Thank you.
My daughter’s cat is missing: please help us find her
The last 3 days have been consumed with trying to find Mimi, my daughter’s indoor cat, who disappeared Tuesday night/Wednesday morning from Crown Way, Marblehead. This is she: (more…)
Would you like to see this sign at your house?
How a house is presented to the market has a major influence on how quickly it sells and at what price. 90% of buyers use the internet in their home searches.
For this house I had a website, www.36Crestwood.com with interactive floor plans.
I used Facebook marketing which resulted in more than 400 clicks on the website in one weekend.
If you are considering buying or selling a home and have questions about the market and/or current home prices, feel free to contact me on 781.631.1223 or andrew@HarborsideRealty.com
Why Fannie Mae, the most profitable company in the world, should bail out Detroit
Ok that headline may take a minute or two to digest, so I am going to split this post into sections. (more…)
Million dollar homes in Massachusetts
A Million Dollars still conjures up an image of luxury, and I suspect many of us are attracted to headlines which include the magic number. This article will look at Million Dollar homes for the counties of Massachusetts, with a breakdown by town for Essex County.
Note that all numbers are from the MLS, which does not include Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard, and may exclude some sales in other parts of the State which have their own reporting system. With that caveat, let’s get started.
First, sales for the Last 12 Months (LTM).
Here’s a pie chart:
Source: MLS, Oliver Reports
(more…)
What was the price of a Single Family Home in Marblehead in July?
It’s August, known in some quarters as the silly season, when hard news is short. So here’s my silly season contribution.
Quiz: the price of a Single Family Home in Marblehead in July 2013 was:
(a) $590,000
(b) $635,250
(c) $697,837
(d) $712,815
(e) all of the above
The answer is (more…)
Is Detroit real estate a bargain?
Buying real estate in Detroit may not be an obvious investment idea, but Realtor.com included it in its Top Ten Turnaround Towns in a study of residential real estate markets in the second quarter.
“Most noteworthy is Detroit’s ranking at No. 7. Though the city recently filed bankruptcy, the market nonetheless posted strong improvement in the second quarter. Its median list prices on realtor.com® were 37.8 percent higher for the quarter than they were a year ago, while inventories were down 26.5 percent. The market’s median age of inventory is just 45 days, the second lowest in the nation.” (more…)
North Shore housing inventory by price: still famine or feast
While the low level of overall supply suggests we are still in a sellers’ market, the position varies dramatically by price.
Look at this table for SFHs:
Source: MLS, Oliver Reports
I think this demonstrates the buying frenzy that has occurred in recent months at the lower end. Naturally, there are fewer buyers as prices increase, but the low level of sales at the top end continues to baffle me. (more…)
North Shore housing inventory by town: supply remains tight overall
After increasing from 3 months of supply in April to 4 months in July, the inventory of Single Family Homes (SFHs) tightened very slightly to 3.9 months at the beginning of August.
Meanwhile, the supply of condos continued to decrease. After going from 3.8 months in April to 4.7 months in June, as the summer selling season got into its stride, supply has dropped for two months in a row down to the current 3.9 months.
With 6 months of supply generally regarded as representing a market in equilibrium between buyers and sellers, it is clear that overall the North Shore remains a sellers’ market. But there are wide differences from town to town and, as we shall see in my next post, by price level. (more…)
MASS home prices reach highest level since 2007
This week the Massachusetts Association of Realtors released its June report Massachusetts median prices back to 2007 levels.
That sounds good and is certainly good news for homeowners, but let’s dig a little deeper into the numbers. This chart shows median prices for Single Family Homes (SFH) in MASS on a quarterly basis since 2004. As always, my numbers exclude foreclosures and short sales. (more…)
What do Government housing statistics and Zillow estimates have in common?
This week the Department of Commerce released its figures for new construction residential sales in June. Correction, make that its estimate of sales of new construction in June.
The headline news was that sales were up 8.3% to an annual rate (seasonally adjusted) of 497,000. Pretty good.
There is, however, a caveat: the 8.3% number is plus or minus 20.5%. In case we don’t know what that means there is a footnote to explain that, because these numbers are obtained from samples which may have errors, the range is actually from down 12.2% to up 28.8% above the May 2013 number. And the 38.1% increase above the June 2012 number was plus or minus 22.0%, meaning a range from up 16.1% to up 60.1%. (more…)
Non-distressed home sales jump while prices continue to rise
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) released its June report Sales slip but prices continue to roll on existing home sales this week.
Highlights are:
NAR reported that total existing home sales in June dipped 1% from May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.1 million, up 15% over the June 2012 number. Distressed sales – foreclosures and short sales – dropped from 18% of the total in May to 15% in June, and were sharply down from 26% a year ago.
As the following table shows, non-distressed sales, therefore, actually jumped by almost a third year over year:
Source: NAR, Oliver Reports
Oceanfront: price reduction, open house and new 10ft window
11 Crown Way, Marblehead (click here for details) has an open House Sunday 12:00 – 2:00.
New price and spectacular new 10 ft window in butler’s pantry.
![IMG_1364[1]](https://oliverreportsma.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/IMG_13641-e1374335388312.jpg)
Are higher mortgage rates slowing the housing recovery?
July often sees a change in market tone. Those who have already sold their home know they need to find somewhere quickly, increasing their urgency. New buyers, however, are now quite likely to decide to wait until the Fall as the chances of being able to move in by Labor Day are diminishing. And sellers have to decide if they want to be on the market in the “dog days” of August, or wait until after Labor Day.
And then this year, of course, there has been the added factor of the jump in mortgage rates. To some extent it would appear that the Federal Reserve was surprised by the big jump in rates after what they thought was a simple statement of their intent to reduce their purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities as the economy improves. (more…)
Boston 77, Marblehead 1
I came across this very good, short video from Properties in the Hub (www.PropertiesintheHub.com) describing the Boston condo market this year: Boston Condo Sales
In the first half of 2013 there were 55 condo sales in Boston at $2 million and above. There were also 22 SFH sales at that level, making 77 total sales of SFHs and Condos $2 million and above in H1 2013.
In Marblehead, there was just 1 sale above $2 million during that time frame.
I have commented before about how puzzling it is to me that the higher end in Marblehead and indeed the North Shore generally has not seen the increased activity enjoyed elsewhere.
This video has encouraged me to look at what has been happening throughout Massachusetts in the higher end, with particular emphasis on the Counties surrounding Boston: Middlesex, Norfolk and Essex. I have detected a clear anomaly in the last year or so but want to go back and check the date before I publish the results. Stay tuned.
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