This week’s new listings
This week’s new listings continued to be at a slow summer pace : (more…)
Summer ice in Boston and Maine
I played golf yesterday in York, Maine, and noticed that the greens were not as immaculately smooth as they usually are. I was told that the indentations were the result of Monday’s hailstorm.
And then I saw these photos in the Boston Globe with the title Summer ice in Boston. And understood the dents. (more…)
Million Dollar Sales – now vs the peak
Million dollar sales in Essex County continue to pick up and are approaching the levels of 2005/06, but there are some marked variations from town to town, while sales at the highest level continue to lag.
First the overall picture by price range for the whole of Essex County: (more…)
Marblehead Gardens open this Saturday
As part of The Garden Conservancy’s Open Day Program these Marblehead Gardens will be open to the public this coming Saturday, August 8 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (more…)
Marblehead home prices exploding…..
It is almost three months since I last poked fun at Trulia and I really didn’t intend to do so again but I could not resist posting this after seeing it in my inbox:
Source: Trulia
How to keep your home cool without A/C
Most towns in New England contain houses built in the 18th and 19th Centuries. While these houses have great character and charm, they were built long before the days of air-conditioning.
Here are some tips for keeping cool in such houses during the summer. The simplest are: keeping blinds down and windows mostly closed during the day to keep the hot air out, and opening windows at night to let the cool air in. (more…)
What can you buy for $725 million?
A lot of baby-boomers today are thinking of down-sizing.
But what if you want to up-size? What are the options? (more…)
New Listings as languid as the weather
The number of new listings continues to decline: (more…)
Mortgage rates dip below 4% again – where next?
National mortgage rates for the 30 year FRM (Fixed Rate Mortgage) dipped below 4% again this week after seven weeks above 4%.
Source: Freddie Mac
And the 30 year FRM is still lower than it was a year ago:
Source: Freddie Mac
Forecasting that mortgage rates will rise has been a favourite occupation of soothsayers ( or economists as they like to call themselves) for a couple of years now. My last article on the subject in June was Mortgage rates “forecast to reach 4.5% by year end”, quoting the Mortgage Bankers Association.
When will the Federal Reserve raise rates? (more…)
Home Prices are rising, but so are Rents
Quite often I read articles about home ownership “affordability” suggesting that rising home prices are making home ownership more difficult for many people. Yet these articles rarely if ever point out that the alternative to home ownership – renting – is also seeing rising prices.
This Bloomberg article Your rent’s about to get even higher points out that
Source: US Census Bureau, Bloomberg
Rising rent = more of your money being paid to the person who owns the home in which you live, while that person benefits from any increase in the home’s value
Rising home prices = an increase for you in the value of your home if you own it.
So who do you want to help make money – you or your landlord? (more…)
Elvis HAS left this building
No, sadly, not an Elvis sighting.
But Elvis’s Honeymoon Hideaway is for sale.
Surely there must at least be some Elvis memorabilia. I thought so. (more…)
Open Houses tailing off
Here are today’s Open Houses together with a chart showing that the number today, in Marblehead, Salem, Beverly and Swampscott, is a little over half the number just two weeks ago: (more…)
New listings dwindling
As the beach beckons so the number of new listings is dropping off. (more…)
Essex County town by town home prices compared with the peak
In a week when the National Association of Realtors reported that nationally home price have surpassed their 2006 peak I have looked at median SFH prices town by town in Essex County for the first half of 2015 compared with the first half of 2006.These numbers show that median prices in both Essex County and Massachusetts are back to 2006 levels, but with wide variations from town to town.
Here’s the table: (more…)
Essex County Median Home Prices Town by Town
This report shows Single Family Home (SFH) median prices for each city and town in Essex County for 2015 compared with 2014. Several towns have a very small number of sales, especially in the first quarter, so I have used the half-year prices to calculate the change from 2014.
The second table shows the towns with the largest increase and decrease year over year. Overall, the message is that prices in both Essex County and Massachusetts have edged up 1% in 2015. As always, there are variations from town to town. (more…)
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