Read: House-Hunting Tips to Help You Make the Right Choice For Your New Home

Every purchaser wants to be able to get the best deal. They want a great price and the lowest mortgage interest rate possible because those two items together will determine the monthly cost their family will pay. Let’s look at each one:

Are home prices rising?

Just last week, the Case Shiller Pricing Index was released. The index revealed that U.S. home prices increased by 10.2% over the last twelve months. Last month, the Home Price Expectation Survey was released predicting that home values would increase by at least an additional 3.5% for each of the next five years.

If you were waiting for the absolute bottom of the home price declines, you already missed it.

Are interest rates rising?

According to Freddie Mac’s Weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey, the 30 year mortgage rate shot up to 3.81% last week – the highest level in over a year. This is an increase of a half of a percentage point in the last six months. And the Mortgage Bankers Association, Fannie Mae and the National Association of Realtors all predict that rates will continue rise over the next eighteen months.

Conclusion

If the right thing for you and your family is to purchase a home this year, buying sooner rather than later could lead to substantial savings.

Unique in the Boston market, Boston Distinctive Properties offers an individualized, client-focused, consultative approach to all aspects of Boston Real Estate. Email me,  Robb Cohen, or call me at 617.962.0142, for information on buying or selling homes and condos in the Boston area.

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Original post: kcmblog

Unique in the Boston Real Estate market, Boston Distinctive Properties offers an individualized, client-focused, consultative approach to all aspects of Boston Real Estate. Email me,  Robb Cohen, or call me at 617.962.0142, for information on buying or selling homes and condos in the Boston area.

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Saturday’s musical line-up includes Fun., winner of this year’s “Best New Artist” Grammy, The Shins, Marina and the Diamonds, Matt and Kim, Portugal.The Man, Cults, Ms Mr, St. Lucia and Bad Rabbits. Sunday features The National, Of Monsters and Men, Young the Giant, Andrew Bird, Dirty Projectors, Ra Ra Riot, The Walkmen, Youth Lagoon and Caspian.

Gates open at noon and the music rocks on until 10:30 p.m.  Come and enjoy what Boston has to offer!

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In the hunt for the perfect house, it’s easy to get swept away by a home’s most charming details (a gracious front porch) and play down the important stuff you’ll be kicking yourself for later (the price is over budget). And if you are touring multiple open houses each weekend, keeping everything straight can get complicated.

1. Set your priorities. Before taking a look at any houses, sit down and write out everything you want in a home, with input from all members of the household. Then choose your top five, or even top three, must-haves.

2. Make a comparison chart. After you have seen a dozen or more houses, it becomes very difficult to keep track of the features in each one. Make things a little easier by creating your own comparison chart or checklist to bring along to each home, and make notes on it during or immediately after each tour.

3. Walk through once and let yourself soak it all in. When you tour a home for the first time, the excitement can make it difficult to focus on … well, anything at all. So, just go with it. Have fun, wander around and mentally note your first impressions of the space.

4. Then go back to the beginning and start again. Walk back to the front of the house and literally begin your tour again. This time, pull out your clipboard and pen, take your time.

Read: Deciding To Buy Or Rent In Boston?

5. Bring furniture measurements. Jumping the gun? Maybe. A deal breaker? Probably not. But if every room in the house presents problems with your current furniture situation, you could effectively be adding thousands of dollars to the price if you have to purchase new furniture — something that is probably better to know sooner rather than later.

6. Sketch a floor plan. You do not need to have any real drawing skills to make a superbasic floor plan on paper, and having it to refer to later is priceless.

7. Ask to take photos (or even a video). It’s amazing how quickly memory fades. Make sure you have backup by creating a floor plan and taking photos or a short video tour if possible — it will really give you a full picture of what the house looks like.

8. Open the closets and cupboards. Proper storage is a really important factor in how a home looks and feels when you are living in it. Note the number and size of cupboards and closets throughout the house

Read: Bring Rob Cohen’s Expertise To Your Home Buying Experience

9. Lift up the rugs. While this is not something you necessarily want to do during a busy open house, if you are back for a second look and are really considering making an offer, it is important to know what you are getting into. Rugs (and even furniture) can be used to conceal damaged flooring, so you have a right to see what’s going on under there.

10. Look high and look low. It is important to get a good look at the house that could be your new home, so make a point of focusing on things outside your usual line of vision.

11. Check out the property at different times of day. If you do come back for a second showing, make it during a different time of day from the open house or first tour. In the evening, notice not only the changes in light, but the atmosphere in the neighborhood.

12. Take a moment to envision how you would use the space. Just because the current owner (or staging company) has the second bedroom set up for guests doesn’t mean you can’t use it as an office, a home gym or a nursery.

Read the complete boston.houzz.com article here

Unique in the Boston market, Boston Distinctive Properties offers an individualized, client-focused, consultative approach to all aspects of Boston Real Estate. Email me,  Robb Cohen, or call me at 617.962.0142, for information on buying or selling homes and condos in the Boston area.

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Attic bedroom – In space cramped Greater Boston, adding an attic bedroom, including a small bathroom and shower, can turn out to be a renovation winner when it comes to selling your house. You’ll recoup more than 78 percent of estimated $58,093 cost.

Kitchen – Better to go small and cosmetic rather than blowing the budget on a master chef’s kitchen you will never use. At $21,700 a minor remodel will cost you about a third of a major kitchen overhaul, while paying back 88.5 percent of the cost.

Deck – Another big renovation winner is adding a wood deck. Priced at $11,287, a wood deck is near the top of the list of the most saleable renovations, with a payback of more than 88 percent.

Read: Tips To Help Generate Multiple Offers When Selling Your Home

Master Suite – A questionable indulgence, you can expect to wave goodbye to 40 percent of your investment in this project.

Bathroom – Unless you are in an older house with just one toilet, adding a third, fourth, or fifth bathroom won’t impress future buyers, cost tops $38,000, but you will only get 47% of that back.

Basement – The basement is another place you shouldn’t go wild fixing up. With an average cost of more than $33,000, you will only get 53 percent of your investment back.

Read: Why List Your Home With Rob Cohen –  He’s #4 out of the Top 20 Real Estate Brokers in Boston

Sunroom – Tacking a 200-square-foot sunroom onto the side or back of your house is another major money loser. You can expect to get back just 43 percent of your original investment

Home Office – Topping the list of sinkhole renovation projects is the home office. Your payback for creating your own 12-by-12 home office is a pathetic 39 percent of a remodel cost of $28,000.

Unique in the Boston market, Boston Distinctive Properties offers an individualized, client-focused, consultative approach to all aspects of Boston Real Estate. Email me,  Robb Cohen, or call me at 617.962.0142, for information on buying or selling homes and condos in the Boston area.

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Your asking price. Find out what other homes are selling for in your area, and consider setting your price a little lower. Just as lower list prices attract buyers to auctions, lower prices attract potential home buyers. This leads to more showings and more offers.

How easy it is for potential buyers to see the house? If they can make one phone call and see the house that day, that gives your house an advantage over other houses which require multiple phone calls, 24-48 hour notice, or which have inconvenient hours of availability.

Read: Deciding To Buy Or Rent In Boston?

Have a timeline for market exposure. When your home is listed, be sure to allow for ample market exposure. This may include a schedule for open houses and determining a set length of time long enough to allow all qualified and interested buyers the chance to see your home before offers will be accepted. Work closely with your real estate agent and make sure your agent has a strong record of home sales.

Read: The 10 Hottest Residential Real Estate Markets in Massachusetts

Is your home in excellent condition? Putting bandages on the home’s problems will not help sell it. Make sure that your home is in good working order and is so attractive, inside and out, that buyers will fall in love with it.

Read CNNMoney’s full article: The Bidding Wars Are Back

Unique in the Boston market, Boston Distinctive Properties offers an individualized, client-focused, consultative approach to all aspects of Boston Real Estate. Email me,  Robb Cohen, or call me at 617.962.0142, for information on buying or selling homes and condos in the Boston area.

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> The winner of the first Boston Marathon, in 1897, was John McDermott, an Irish-born New Yorker, who finished in 2:55:10 — nearly seven minutes faster than the runner-up.

> Boston is the oldest existing marathon, but the first was nine months before, from Stamford, Connecticut, to Manhattan.

> Harvard College bought the land that is now Hopkinton from its native inhabitants using a 1657 bequest from Edward Hopkins, governor of the Connecticut Colony in the mid-1600s.

> Marathon organizers once considered a course that would roughly follow Paul Revere’s famous ride (OK, William Dawes’s), but abandoned the idea in part because of traffic issues in Cambridge and Arlington.

> The original starting line was in Ashland. As the distance changed and the starting line shifted, the finish has moved from Exeter Street near the Lenox Hotel to Boylston Street.

> Until around 1960, race organizers required all participants to undergo a physical exam on the morning of the marathon.

> Runners come from all 50 states and more than 60 countries.

> Only nine Boston Marathon champions have returned to successfully defend their titles, and only one — Clarence DeMar — has done it more than once, in 1922, 1923, and 1924 and again in 1927 and 1928. DeMar ran the race 32 times in all and was given the nickname “Clarence DeMarathon.”

> Only once has the marathon changed its format: in 1918, during World War I, it was replaced by a 10-man military relay race.

> It takes 397 school buses to shuttle runners to the starting line.

> Now arguably the world’s most popular marathon, the Boston race never attracted more than 285 entrants until 1963 and didn’t break 1,000 until 1968. At the 100th running, in 1996, there were 38,708, and 26,655 in 2012.

> The first international winner was Ronald MacDonald, a Canadian student at Boston College, in 1898.

> Famous for its hills, the Boston Marathon is actually mostly a descent, from 475 feet above sea level to 16 feet above.

> Women were not allowed to race officially until 1972, but in 1966 Roberta Gibb became the first woman to win Boston unofficially.

> The city or town with the longest stretch of the marathon route is Newton: 5.74 miles.

> The other famous local icon that starts in Hopkinton and ends in Boston? The Charles River, though it takes 80 miles to get there.

> Marathon entry fees, sponsorships, and royalties fund 100 percent of the BAA’s $11 million annual budget.

> The man who ran the marathon most often was John Kelley, who started 61 times, finished 58 times, and won twice — in 1935 and 1945.

> With an estimated 500,000 spectators, the Marathon is by far New England’s best attended single-day sporting event.

> After the 1956 winner beat the world record by three minutes, officials discovered that the course had shrunk by 1,183 yards because of road straightening. It was restored to its full length the next year.

> The marathon did not award prize money until 1986. First prize was $60,000 and a Mercedes-Benz.

> Officials promised in 1975 to give wheelchair competitor Bob Hall a finisher certificate if he could complete the race in less than three hours. His time: 2:58:00. The BAA officially started a wheelchair division in 1977.

CHEATERS THROUGHOUT HISTORY

> 1909 Howard Pearce got a ride in a car after dropping out at the 8-mile mark, then was let out to run the last mile. Police pulled him off the course before he finished.

> 1916 A.F. Merchant tried something similar to Pearce, even finishing fifth, but was reported by a Boy Scout and a fellow runner.

> 1980 Rosie Ruiz, who appeared to win the women’s division in record time, was stripped of her medal when witnesses reported having seen her watching the race and no evidence could be found that she had actually run it.

Unique in the Boston market, Boston Distinctive Properties offers an individualized, client-focused, consultative approach to all aspects of Boston Real Estate. Email me,  Robb Cohen, or call me at 617.962.0142, for information on buying or selling homes and condos in the Boston area.

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According to CNNMoney, here in Boston, the better choice is to buy. With area rents among the highest in the country, the initial transaction costs of purchasing a home – the broker’s commission, title insurance, legal fees and other closing costs – are offset by benefits, like tax write-offs and price appreciation and will become cheaper than the total costs of renting. After just a three-year stay, home buyers save an average of 10% over renters, and after seven years, that savings advantage soars to 40%.

Read: The 10 Hottest Residential Real Estate Markets in Massachusetts

If you’ve been thinking about making the move from renter to Boston home owner, now may be time.

Unique in the Boston market, Boston Distinctive Properties offers an individualized, client-focused, consultative approach to all aspects of Boston Real Estate. Email me,  Robb Cohen, or call me at 617.962.0142, for information on buying or selling homes and condos in the Boston area.

o ya
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Located in a 100-year-old fire station in Boston’s historic Leather District where guests can watch the chefs preparing the dishes. Features an Omakase, or Chef’s tasting menu, and an extensive a la carte menu of creative nigiri, sashimi, vegetable, wagyu beef, kurobuta pork and poulet rouge chicken dishes.

Bon Appétit!

Read: The 10 Hottest Residential Real Estate Markets in Massachusetts

Unique in the Boston market, Boston Distinctive Properties offers an individualized, client-focused, consultative approach to all aspects of Boston Real Estate. Email Robb Cohen, or call me at 617.962.0142, for information on buying or selling homes and condos in the Boston area.

I sympathize for all, whether you are a home buyer or home seller, as this is not a pleasant phenomena for anyone involved. Having put on  10+/-  listings over the past few months, I have experienced the same thing with all of them, with at least half of them receiving multiple offers at or above asking price.  I have witnessed the same representing my buyer clients as well.

The Buyers, with all of the best intentions, feel pressured, disappointed, and frightened that they must, after viewing the property in an auction mentality, make a no contingencies offer with little or no due diligence just to be considered. Never mind trying to discern what price to come in at as they will not often have an opportunity for a second bite of the apple.

Sellers experience mixed emotions because they have to choose between many similar offers including a few with heartfelt memos attached as to how they, as the potential buyer, wish to bring their family up in this home, they have been looking for a long time, and this home is perfect. The Sellers can’t “split the proverbial baby in half” and what should be a great moment is wrought with second guessing. They worry that the offer that was made may perhaps result in being re-traded later to a lower price, or just be the result of the mentality to win it at all costs with the Buyer waking up in the AM or before P&S with a severe case of Buyers Remorse or WTHDID – ( What The Heck Did I Do).

Buyer Agents get beat up as Buyers occasionally take their frustrations out on the agent responding to market behavior  and for suggesting that they just do whatever it takes to obtain the property. Seller Agents must assist the Seller in trying to discern which offer will stay together and be most likely to get to closing, and if there is a mortgage contingency, will it pass the appraisal process when most often times the prices have been bid up substantially over asking.

This will not last, and although it seems like a good thing short term, it is really just the opposite for every one of us involved, as well as on a macro level. Please do not get me wrong as I am happy to cause such success for my Seller Clients and work our Buyer Magic at times for my Buyer Clients. My Sellers are taking advantage of it, as am I, and although we are grateful, we should still be concerned.

When it is not a balanced market expectations can, and will, get skewed to what is seen as the new normal. Sellers, once the word gets through to them, and it is everywhere now, will be coming on market with expectations of hitting a lottery prize with their property. They will push their Agent/Broker to list at unrealistically high prices. Buyers will be eventually turned off by this Sunday-march-to-open-house ritual and the inventory will build once again.

As dedicated agents with our fiduciary responsibility to our Seller & Buyer Clients we need to be able to manage those expectations so when the pendulum swings the other way, and it surely will, we are able, hopefully, to somewhat influence and control the extreme and regain a balance that will serve all of us and the greater economy well.

Congrats to all us Real Estate Soldiers and may we enjoy the skirmishes while they last.
“Just My Story & I’m Sticking To It”

Unique in the Boston market, Boston Distinctive Properties offers an individualized, client-focused, consultative approach to all aspects of Boston Real Estate. Email Robb Cohen, or call me at 617.962.0142, for information on buying or selling homes and condos in the Boston area.