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What's In This Site...
Welcome! This site is focused entirely on you, the Home Buyer, and what you'll need to know in order to make an informed decision at each turning along the path to your perfect home. It will help you become an educated consumer. There are no winkies or blinkies here, just solid information in a clear format, assembled by a buyer's agent of many years' experience. The resources offered by this site are described below. For technical help, consult the Guide to Site.
MLS Searches and Alerts: The MLS search towns are limited to the 40 listed below; email us if you need others. The entire column to the right is devoted to these popular and critical resources.
Market Blog: The Market Blog reports on the Boston-area house and condo markets. The latest post(s) appear on this page, with links to the full blog.
Links Library: A few of the resources in the library deserve special mention:
MA Commonwealth Communities offers
a wide range of data on all the cities and towns in the state. Each town page lists the official town site at the top, and unofficial sites listing local attractions
at the bottom.
(The official town sites can also be reached by clicking on any of the 40 towns below.)
MA Dept. of Education provides full information on local school districts, including MCAS scores.
Mortgage calculators can be very useful. NYTimes Mortgage Calculators offers the best one-stop source.
Karl's Mortgage Calculator allows you to see graphically and interactively what happens to your purchasing power when interest rates rise, for example, or shows the interest you can save by making prepayments. Wait for the Java script to load, read the sidebar instructions, and click on the graph when you want to re-calculate. It's worth the effort!
Market Data & Buyer Agency: These all-important resources need more space than available here, so they're continued on "inside" pages.
MARKET DATA
The Best Values -- Are Where?
Click on the chart for more detailed information.
Price charts for 40 Boston-area cities and towns are offered, along with comments on how to interpret them. The charts are updated weekly. |
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These are public searches, and yield only basic listing information, per MLS rules. When you sign up as a Member, you'll get all the data, as well as the many user features described below.
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You're cordially invited to sign up as a Member of this site. As a Member, you can search thousands of MLS listings in forty Boston-area communities,* view addresses, photos, agent remarks and other listing data, and get daily and instant MLS updates.
You can also designate Hot Properties, and get an instant alert when a price or status changes--even on your cell phone!
If needed, you can run advanced searches with up to 23 different search criteria.
Finally, you can quickly analyze selected properties for a variety of market criteria.
Our MLS listings are updated every few minutes; none are fresher, more accurate or more complete!
Your privacy is protected. Click the box, above, to sign up! It takes only a minute.
Privacy Policy
All personal information disclosed to this site is kept in the strictest confidence. We shall never sell, rent, share, nor give away your personal information. Nor shall we ever engage in high-pressure or intrusive sales tactics.
BUYER AGENCY
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MARKET BLOG
SUNDAY, JULY 20, 2008
Strong 'Pending Sales' in Boston Area Defies National Trend
Low prices, low interest rates and strong pent-up demand continued to buoy the Boston-area real estate market.
That is the import of pending sales totals for the 2nd Quarter 2008. For single-family homes, they remained virtually unchanged from the same period last year, and were up about 6% for condos.
This good news comes in the face of strong headwinds from the national housing market and the economy generally.
A pending sale occurs when a purchase and sale agreement is signed. It is the "magic moment," the point in time when the buyer and seller make an economic decision based on market conditions. The resulting sale usually takes place from 30 to 90 days later. For that reason, pending sales are regarded as a "leading" or forward-looking indicator.
The pending sales figures were drawn from the Boston-area MLS, for the seven-county area that defines the Boston Metro Statistical Area (MSA) as used by Federal agencies and major private housing indices.
Posted by Ron Cohen at 7:09 PM.
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Graceful windows of the Cooper-Frost-Austin
House, circa 1681, Cambridge MA
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TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 2008
Home Prices Up Slightly in Boston Metro Area
The closely watched S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index today reported that home prices continued to decline nationwide in April.
A few bright spots were noted, however, including a small increase in home prices for the Boston metro area. Prices in April were up 0.1% over March, the first such increase in nine months. For the year, however, Boston prices fell 6.4%.
This good news should come as no surprise for those who've watched pending home sales increase here over the last several months.
The Boston metro area surveyed by S&P/Case-Shiller (and by other major indices) covers five counties in eastern Massachusetts and two in southern New Hampshire. The S&P/Case-Shiller Index includes only single-family homes.
The context for today's report is examined in The New York Times.
Posted by Ron Cohen at 5:01 PM.
Go to full Blog...
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