I feel that Massachusetts does a pretty good job, either thru grassroots organizations or towns saving money, in providing recycling opportunities to the local residents.

Ashland Recycling Program Info

Framingham Recycling Program Info

Holliston Recycling Program Info

Hopkinton Recycling Program Info

Medway Recycling Program Info 

Milford Recycling Program Info

Millis Recycling Program Info

Natick Recycling Program Info

Sherborn Recycling Program Info

Check out the previous posts regarding related sites:

Hazardous Waste Dates

Asbestos Removal Article from 2008

I hope you find these links as a useful source of information whenever you are searching out information on your town’s recycling program.

1. Are there a bunch of foreclosures driving down home values in our area?
2. How much of a discount can I get if I buy one of these foreclosure properties?
3. Is the market getting worse or better out there?

Foreclosures in Massachusetts

RealtyTrac reports that Massachusetts is one of the top 5 states in % of foreclosure sales for the 1st quarter of 2010. (June 30th – Not really sure why it took so long to issue these stats??)  As alarming as this sounds, let’s look a bit closer…

Number of foreclosure sales were 2,111 in quarter 1, which is 42% of all sales!  Sounds bad, right? 

How does this compare to other states they reported on?  It works out to .9% of Total foreclosures in the United States.

Still digging a bit deeper, I checked MLS data for number of sales in MA for the 1st quarter.  MLS reports 6628 total single family home sales, which works out to 32% of all single family home sales are foreclosure sales.  Since they report 2,111 were ALL sales, let’s add condos and multifamilies to that number… now it is over 11,000 sales, or about 19% of all sales. 

Remember, this MLS data does not include any For Sale By Owner homes either.

OK, I know what your thinking… It is still a high number, Ed!  I agree.  So, because I am not feeling this strain on the marketplace as a Full Time Realtor in Metrowest Boston, I want to dig even deeper!

In the Metrowest towns of Ashland, Framingham, Holliston, Hopkinton, Natick, and Southborough I pulled data from MLS regarding bank owned property.  Here are the findings using only single family properties since the start of 2010:

17 out of 552 Active homes are labeled Bank Owned (3%)

13 out of 158 Under Agreement homes are Bank Owned (8%)

34 out of 597 Sold homes are Bank Owned (5%)

I don’t know about you, but there are two results from this investigation. 

     Number 1 is that I feel better now than I do after reading RealtyTrac’s data.

     Number 2, where the heck are they getting those numbers from?  

Some explanations is that they classify homes in “pre-foreclosure” or “scheduled for auctions” and MLS is only as good as the agent that enters in the data as “lender owned” or “Short Sale”. 

In my test of RealtyTrac’s data, the 1st property I checked was in Ashland.  It was listed as a fairly new addition to the property site.  Come to find out it was sold months ago on MLS.  So for some reason their data is not updated as it should be.

Discounts when Buying a Foreclosure Property

Realtytrac reported that there is quite a discount that a buyer of a foreclosed property can receive.  Again, take this with a grain of salt since the way they create these numbers is, in my opinion, flawed. 

Massachusetts’ average Foreclosure sales price is reported as $161,089.   This is about a 35% discount to non-foreclosure sales in the marketplace for the 1st quarter.

They seem to compare Average Sales Prices of all Foreclosure Sales to Average Sales Prices of Normal Sales.  Since the majority of Foreclosure properties are on the lower end and are trashed by the past owners or lack of upkeep, OF COURSE they are going to be a discount.  Classify this stat as

“worthless data for people who think for a moment!”

From my experience, if you are handy and have some cash… there are lots of great deals out there to go after.   These are both foreclosures and non-foreclosures!

Local Market Conditions are Improving

The best evaluation of the local marketplace, in my opinion, contains the following:

A Local group of towns

Use a Specific category of housing, such as Single Family Homes

Look at past several years data to compare it to

Use 6 mos. or a year worth of history

When I do this for Metrowest Boston towns (specifics I am happy to share if you wish), I find the marketplace is showing strength even though Home Owners have taken a hit on property values over the past several years.  So, better for Buyers than it is for Sellers.

Here are two tidbits:

     Average Days on Market is 96.  Over the past 5 years this has ranged from 85 days to 119 days, so very reasonable.

     Ratio of Selling Price to Listing Price is 97%.  Over the past 5 years this has ranged from 96-98%, so again, very reasonable number.

I put together a graph of the Selling Prices over the course of the past 5 years for these Metrowest towns.  There is a 17% decrease in Median Home Values over this time frame.   This is data from July to July in each one of these years.

Here is a graph of the Total Number of Sales for these local towns.  Look at that promising increase of sales over the past year!  The area is running 10% fewer sales than we had 5 years ago.

Everyone under the sun is forecasting that the economy is faltering again, and it is very rare to hear that any uptick in this marketplace has legs to it.  Therefore, my report is that the local marketplace numbers right now have strength.  We will have to evaluate in this way, often, to see if this continues.  I will keep you posted on these numbers over the second half of the year.

Below are results from each Metrowest MA town and the vote counts for either Scott Brown (R) or Martha Coakley (D):

Town    -    Winner   -   Vote count

Ashland            Brown     3467 vs 2897

Bellingham    Brown     4090 vs 2179

Framingham     Coakley     10329 vs 9149

Franklin            Brown     8828 vs 4470

Holliston          Brown     3725 vs 2921

Hopkinton       Brown     4123 vs 2600

Marlborough     Brown     6817 vs 5037

Medway            Brown     3641 vs 2044

Milford             Brown     5432 vs 3561

Millis              Brown     2430 vs 1383

Natick          Coakley     7208 vs 6954

Northborough     Brown     3816 vs 2486

Shrewsbury      Brown     7867 vs 5242

Southborough     Brown     2689 vs 1845

Upton              Brown     2125 vs 1138

Westborough     Brown     3822 vs 2996

Results for other towns not posted here can be found by

 clicking this link.

Good luck to Scott Brown as he heads to Washington to help all citizens of Massachusetts.  The people have spoken with their votes and now it is his job to take care of us!

Ed Daniels of Re/Max Executive Realty is a local Realtor and home owner in Metrowest Boston.  

He can be contacted at 508-341-7880 for help in learning about the Metrowest area and buying/selling a home.

 The housing market is reflecting overall declines of 12% in median prices, but Ashland is holding up very well. 

The median prices in single family homes for the town is $419750, for the 12 months ending 3/1/09.  The median price for the 12 months prior to this was $423750. 

This is an overall decline in median price of 1%!

The inventory of available homes in Ashland is quite low.  There are only 47 single family homes on market.  This is a decline of 23% from a year ago.

The single family homes on market have been available for an average of 176 days, or almost 6 months.

The real estate industry uses a term called “consumption rate” to describe whether we are in a Buyer’s Market or a Seller’s Market.  This math is made up of how long it would take to soak up all the current homes on market assuming that we continue at the current pace of sales. 

Here is the computation:

135 homes sold or pending over the past 12 months = 11.25 homes sold per month (on average)

47 Active single family homes.

47 divided by 11.25 equals 4.18 Consumption Rate

The real estate industry considers:

 a Neutral Market as falling between a rate of 5-6.

A Sellers Market is 4 or less,

and a Buyers Market is greater than 7. 

If you are a Seller in Ashland, smile, the numbers are not as bad as you have been hearing out there.  Give our team a call if we can shed more light on the local market and upgrade you into a terrific new home.

When is the “Low”?

You won’t know it until you see it in the rear view mirror.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am a real estate agent in a very down market.  I am working harder and dealing with more emotions then I have in my 10 years.  If I can manage scraping up a little cash, I will be putting it into equities and real estate NOW.

I worked an open house a few weeks ago, and at least 3/4 of the visitors were interested, but waiting for a bit longer for the market to fall further.  This was a very real display of pent-up demand.

Another contridictory real world example is a client looking for a $800K home in Holliston but not having more than a handful of options in the past 3 months.  Do I really need to direct mail a neighborhood to let them know I have a Buyer for them?  That is not the real estate market that the Boston Globe is reporting about!

In scanning over the region’s 3rd Quarter real estate stats, the median prices are reporting grim news to homeowners:

Holliston down 13.6%

Hopkinton down 8.7%

Framingham down 7.2%

Ashland down 7%

Natick down 5.4%

In regards to the number of sales, the region has 12.8% fewer sales!

OK, where you are ready to jump out a window, I am now salivating!  Yes, I do own a home, but I am not ready to move yet.  Therefore, no sweat.

Take a deep breath Massachusetts, the sky has not fallen and it is time to start figuring out how to take advantage of this market, not how to escape it!

Ok, so it’s not a very prestigious award, but you made the list!

When it comes to nightlife, Ashland offers little more than cricket symphonies. What it does provide in abundance are small houses and fully loaded townhouses, priced in the $300,000s, that you can swing on a single income. There’s also the promise of future gains: Metrowest has been home to a sales-appreciation gravy train in the past decade, and this town sits at the next stop.

The article also provided some stats.

I have posted them from the article:

Median Single Family Sales Price 2007         $368,950
Median Single Family Sales Price 2006         $400,000
1 Year Change     -7.8%
5 Year Change    10.5%
Average Days on Market 2007            118

Next I pulled the Year to Date information off of the Multiple Listing Service:

Median Single Family Sales Price (YTD)     $427,500
Average Days of Market 2008 (YTD)       100

The median selling prices from this year contain 78 transactions, which is down from 88 in 2007 year to date. So the Number of Sales are down.

The news headlines might read:

Ashland Sales Down 12%

but I think most residents like the sound of:

Ashland Homes Valued at 16% More than Last Year

Ed Daniels, with Remax Executive Realty, can be reached at 508-341-7880 with any real estate questions. Your comments on the local market are welcome.

 

This is not only a falsehood, but when buyers learn of the process, they usually run for the hills.

Let me explain how foreclosures work…

Home owners who do not pay their mortgage over time will have the bank try to take it over or sell it. The process is known as foreclosure, and the first attempt to sell the property is known as the auction.

The auction is advertised in a legal section of your local newspaper. To participate, you would bring a deposit check to the event. The bidder than stands on the curb and raises their hand if they are willing to pay x dollars for the home.

Notice how I did not say anything about looking inside the property, inspection conditions, or financing contingencies… this is because they don’t exist! You buy sight unseen, perhaps someone will still be living there when you end up buying it, and if you don’t show up in 30 days with payment in full, the deposit is retained by the auction house.

Not a great course of events for a rookie home buyer.

A bank representative is usually at the auction also. They are there to “bid” if the bank wants to buy it back rather than allow anyone else to “steal” the property. They will then prepare the home for listing with a local realtor. This is also known as a REO property, referring to the Real Estate Owned department of the bank.

A buyer can now preview the home, conduct an inspection, and negotiate on price, but at this point the bank usually spends a bit of money on the process and still is not going to allow the home to sell for an outrageous price.

There is certainly a lot more REO property in Massachusetts recently, but these properties are not for buyers who do not have financial resources or lack nerves of steel. They usually need at least cosmetic work, but most have quite a few inspection issues. There are companies out there that are in this business full time and they are also going to compete with your bids.

My official recommendation in 2008, stick with the listed properties and do your due diligence on a property you plan on buying. Currently it is a slim margin of benefit that you will receive from buying a foreclosure and not worth it. It may be in the future, just not right now in Metrowest Boston.

Contact me if you have questions or concerns about REO properties or click here to view listings on the MLS.

As a full time Realtor in the Metrowest area for the past 10 years, I have seen mostly “good times”.

But were they?

My buyer clients were buying with multiple offers in the first few days a home was listed. Interest rates were good, but prices were climbing at double digit rates.

Ok, they were good times for Sellers.

Many of my home buying clients paid over asking price and had to convince the appraiser that the place was worth it. Many appraisers used appreciation factors in their assessments and the banks signed off on them.

So now is the “Good Times” for the Buyers! Here is why:

1. Interest Rates: They are falling again and today I was just told by my mortgage brokers that they have dipped to 6%. You can’t find 100% deals easily or have terrible credit, but others should take advantage

Call the MAhome Team if we can connect you to a professional, ethical and competitive local mortgage broker for a free pre-approval.

2. Motivated Sellers: There are the foreclosure and short sales, but overall most of the people selling in this market are doing it because they need to. Job change, growing families, or financial struggles are some of the reasons that they are moving.

You need to have a professional Realtor in your corner to deal with the “distressed” situations, but having a strong negotiator on your side will result in even benefits. Negotiate in your mortgage points or closing costs, have condo fees paid for the year, or have inspection issues corrected are some of these benefits.

3. Choices: Buyers of homes around Metrowest have lots of options. A few years ago buyers would be looking every day at the new to market listings. Today we could take your dream home criteria and have several days of homes worth to tour.

Make sure to visit the MAhome Team MLS search to see a map search. Slide bars to fit your criteria and watch the push-pins pop up all over the Metrowest area that are for sale!

http://www.metrowesthome.com/mls/

4. The Move Up Premium: It is not an easy environment to Sell a home, but WHEN you are successful, you will get a discounted price on the purchase.

For example, you are selling your home to get a “better” one. It will cost more and have lots more room and be located in the primo neighborhood. You sell your home for 10% less than you could have 2 years ago, it takes 6 months, but you did it! It listed for $390000, but only sold it for $351000.

Now, the move up home is in the $600K price range. You negotiate hard and get a good deal on the perfect place. You estimate it is 10% less than you could have bought it for 2 years ago! Therefore, you get the $660000 home for only $600000.

There it is… “losing” $41K off the sale and “discounting” the purchase by $60K. A buyer who is upgrading their home is doing better than they would 2 years ago!

Take advantage of a professional Realtor who will keep your best interests as the priority, the MAhome Team is that Realtor. If you know of someone thinking of buying or selling a home, who would appreciate the kind of service I offer, we would appreciate your referrals.

They compared local housing prices with other factors, including household income, population density, and interest rates. 

Generally, when home prices and incomes grow in tandem in a particular metro area, that market is probably fairly valued; when home prices rise much faster, the market becomes overvalued and a real estate slump is a real danger.

Link to Smartmoney Stats:  http://www.smartmoney.com/mag/download/december2007housing.xls

Link to SmartMoney Magazine Article:

http://www.smartmoney.com/mag/index.cfm?story=december2007-housing

Here are the stats that the article reports:

Worcester MA   Median Price of $244,300;  

10% overvalued;  -3% home price chg 06-07

Springfield MA  Median Price of $214,100;   

10% overvalued;   1% home price chg 06-07

Essex County MA Median Price of $333,800;

6% overvalued;   -3% home price chg 06-07

Boston-Quincy  Median Price of $345,100;

2% undervalued; -3% home price chg 06-07

Cambridge-Framingham MP of $$379,500;

5% undervalued; -2% home price chg 06-07

All of these areas fall within the study’s classification of “fairly valued”.  For all you people who are wondering where NOT to go buy a home because it is “extremely overvalued”, stay away from Miami, California, and Honolulu.  They recommend the “undervalued” markets of Dallas, Rochester NY, and Tulsa.