National Association of Realtors® Apologizes for Complicity in Discrimination Throughout the 20th Century, Realtors® opposed Fair Housing regulation and participated in discriminatory practices. Since the adoption of the Fair Housing Act (1968), the Association accepted that Fair Housing was the law of the land, required members to follow the law, provided classes to prepare members
George Carlin famously joked that a house is the place where you kept your stuff. And it is. What he didn’t get into was what that stuff means to you. He did not foresee all the attention to how you’d feel, later, about what’s stuck in the cabinet over the refrigerator! When we at 4
Locks: what kind of lock adds to your security? I took this picture in a condo building. It was the kind of building that had one hall, with a front and back stairwell that led outside. There was an elevator in the middle of the row of units. My client was a single woman. As
Derek Thompson, in The Atlantic, summarized what is happening in the American real estate economy. Here’s a summary, some notes on how it is affecting eastern Massachusetts in particular, and how 4 Buyers Real Estate is responding to it. The scarcity of housing for sale. Falling rents. Thompson: “… in America’s big metros, home prices
Clocks change this week. You know, that “spring ahead, fall back” thing. Make this your reminder to check your smoke detectors and carbon monoxide (CO) detectors. It could save your life. If the battery has failed on your smoke or CO detector, it will not work if you have a fire or there is CO
A house hunter asked me, ….I wanted to ask your opinion... about something I saw recently. So if you saw a building with a basement ceiling like this, what would you think? So, I answered: Basements used to all have to have plaster ceilings, for fire prevention. That regulation was abandoned as different fire safety
After our (virtual) client appreciation party this year, I heard from one of our happy homeowners about their vacation home search. She wrote: We are working with the agent who previously helped us with a rental. He is absolutely not at the caliber of working with you and your team, but I think for second
In every market, I run into buyers who do not look at Fair Market Value (FMV) when they decide what a property is worth. That's a mistake. To negotiate the lowest possible price for a property, a buyer needs a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) to determine the Fair Market Value (FMV). Properties sell for what
Here is an idea that should cross the pond. February is the time to think about creating nesting places for local birds. In England, the British Trust for Ornithology has been running a National Nest Box Week since 1997. The organization encourages people to create nesting places for local birds. Their habitats are being threatened by
What stays and what goes -- by law and custom -- in real estate in Massachusetts? Personalty or chattel is everything in the house that was not built into it or built specifically for it. Chattel includes washers, dryers, refrigerators, furniture, chairs, bookshelves, rugs, curtains, and such. Realty is everything that is attached to the house, wired