Q: Last week, the stock market turned downward by twenty percent. If we are headed into a recession, how does that affect real estate? A: Let's look at some recent trends, and then talk about it from a buyer's perspective. June 2020- April 2022: The real estate business has been feeling like it couldn’t get
In August 2021, WBUR published this story about home-buying. The story encouraged buyers to do five things (in bold). A summary of my critiques is in italics after the “advice”: Prepare To Waive Contingencies. No, no. no, no, never. Check The Basement! Seller says you have 15 minutes, good luck! Since you are waiving home
The first week of February is too early for the annual “scare the buyers” article from The Boston Globe. I guess it was a slow news cycle in the real estate division. This annual tradition of throwing together statistics without context usually occurs a bit later in the year. In 2017, it was at the
Many of our clients read The Boston Globe for real estate news. In an October 4, 2021 article, entitled “(Some) good news for buyers in Boston’s (slightly) cooling housing market,” Zoe Greenberg gave some hope that the post-lockdown housing boom is showing signs of going back to the seller-favoring conditions we have had since the
Where are all the sellers? The big issue in Boston area real estate is inventory. There are not enough houses for sale. We have a stalemate about inventory here. These are the factors: Empty-nesters are staying longer in their houses. This is a demographic and cultural shift. They are holding on to their houses, partly
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
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
2020 was the year of pandemic engagements. 2020 was a year of rising divorce rates. 2020 was the year to organize and declutter at home. 2020 was the year to move. What do we expect in 2021? These affect when things go back to normal: How well infection
"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
Annually, I expect poor reporting of the spring (busy) real estate market. If you read The Boston Globe, expect to see an annual "scare the buyers" article. Even when the facts just don't add up to scaring buyers, but they try, anyway. The most egregious case was in April 23, 2020. The Boston Globe had