One really big mistake the house hunters are being talked into is waiving your home inspection. Why you need an inspection If you have a buyer’s agent from our company, you have the backing of people who, collectively, have seen thousands of houses and been to hundreds of home inspections. We spot problems for you,
If you are lucky enough to have insulation in the floor bays of your attic, what is it made of? If you are really lucky, you could have cellulose – stuff made of old newspapers. Cellulose insulation looks like dirty cottony paper-pulp. You are also lucky if you have fiberglass (that pink cotton-candy-looking stuff.) These, fortunately, are
"America is in a recession, so why are home buyers so optimistic and house prices rising?" I answer questions on Quora sometimes. I choose ones that either interest me personally or professionally. This one is a question that I have been hearing professionally, so it was one I considered answering. When I read the first
There’s a new flood map in town and it is a good one. This one uses modeling to look at future risk to people and properties. Among the towns and cities where we work, there are flood areas along rivers and wetlands. We work near the Atlantic coast, but generally not close enough to matter.
The big factors that parents consider when they house hunt is the schools. 2020 update: How can parents help their children integrate into a new school system in the fall of 2020? What would normally happen is that your child would go to school, meet children, and figure out who they want to be friends
Creating a Pod During this pandemic, extended families of blood or affinity are forming. The term “pod” is being used to describe small groups of households who are sharing tasks like shopping and childcare. Modern pods are usually neighbors or parents of school-chums. Being in a pod involves a good deal of trust that the
Parents and their children are in limbo this summer. Some schools may still reopen, in some form, come September. But how can parents make good decisions about what is best for their child? Working parents (especially mothers) are bearing the brunt of the burden created by closing schools and day care centers in 2020. What
House hunting idea: two households band together and buy a two-family house together. Massachusetts allows owners of two-family and three-family houses to convert them into two or more condos. This is not typical in other parts of the country. There are lots of advantages to buying a two-family house, especially in our high-price condo market.
Trending: Buyers seeking more space My colleagues on The Cape are getting inundated with buyers who are giving up on city living. They are buying their vacation homes first (or buying their second homes now). The logic? If work-from-home becomes acceptable to employers, why not live in a beautiful place and telecommute to Boston? City
Summers in the real estate business used to be unpleasant, sometimes because houses were dirty. Houses also collect and hold odor in the heat of the summer (and in the dead of the winter). Most summers, in the cities and college towns, rental property was shown while the tenants were still there, in hopes of