It is folly to pretend to be able to predict any real estate market. A year ago, I got this email from Kiplinger [italics mine] June 10, 2013: "Home prices soaring by 20% or more over the past 12 months. Bidding wars. Houses sold just days after the for-sale sign goes up. Is another housing
I'll even tell you where to put 'em. Ron Rothenberg 4 Buyers Real Estate Open Houses, how I hate them, for so many reasons. Rona has detailed so many reasons why Open Houses don’t benefit sellers. I think they’re the worst possible way for a buyer to look at house. They’re geared towards
By Dave Twombly Earlier this week I had clients make an offer on a condo in West Somerville. It was a lovely place that was move in ready yet on a well traveled street. Knowing the market is hot our initial offer was about $30,000 over the asking price. As these are strong buyers, able
Those who don't understand the meaning of the numbers can be easily manipulated. Not only can economists and journalists confuse people with numbers, so can crooked mortgage originators, real estate agents, and companies who give credit to young (and not so young) adults. Economic "news" is frequently poorly written for those who do not read
The national survey numbers are here on their chart. Notice the bubble lines on the three levels of composite indexes that FNC creates. They are pretty pronounced. All lines are headed upward. Yet, we are nowhere near the top of that bubble, on average. The blue shaded area also shows a steady, year-over-year increase to
There is a lot of real estate data coming out now. Now that the spring house-hunting season is passed us, the data on those closed sales are available. The first set of data is courtesy of the National Association of Realtors. Notice that, across the board, their data shows whopping double-digit increases this year. This