January has come and gone, now it’s time to look back and see what happened in Back Bay and Beacon Hill sales. It’s looking pretty positive for the most part, but certainly looking better for Back Bay owners than Beacon Hill owners if you need to get your home sold.
Back Bay 2010
23 Condos Sold
Avg. Sale Price: $1,196,326
Avg. Price/ft: $960
Back Bay 2009
10 Condos Sold
Avg. Sale Price: $1,245,050
Avg. Price/ft: $871
Beacon Hill 2010
4 Condos Sold
Avg. Sale Price: $1,358,125
Avg. Price/ft: $1035
Beacon Hill 2009
6 Condos Sold
Avg. Sale Price: $280,500
Avg. Price/ft: $654
As part our sponsorship of Home Ownership, we’re going to be giving a weekly home improvement tip here on our blog. Seeing as it’s week one, we thought we’d start with something simple: Garbage Disposal Maintenance.
Now some of you may already know the tricks listed below, but for those that don’t, try these over the next year to keep your disposal smelling fresh and running clean.
Tip number 1: Throw some ice cubes down the disposal every once in a while! (Note: you must be running cold water when you do this.) The common misconception is that doing this will sharpen the blades, but that is not the case. What the ice cubes do, is clean off any gunk or food that maybe collecting on the edges of the blades. This allows the blades to slice food better in the future. For those that want bonus points, make the ice cubes from lemon juice.
Tip number 2: Have you ever wondered why your dishwasher sometimes smells? The answer is your garbage disposal vents into your dishwasher. So if you’ve ever opened your dishwasher after doing a load of dishes and wondered why despite looking clean, they didn’t smell so hot, you now have your answer. The cure for this problem is to put some citrus into the disposal. Take either a lemon or an orange and cut it into quarters or slightly smaller pieces and then start sticking the pieces down 1-2 at a time and run the disposal. The citrus will get rid of the odor and hang around for a little bit so when you just turn on the water you’ll get that sweet smell as it goes down the drain.
Well that’s all for week 1! We hope we have helped some of you and encourage everyone to test out our tips this weekend!
Today the FHA is set to announce that it’s raising its standards for the loans it’s willing to guarantee. The new guidelines have a few big changes, but the one that will impact everyone, is the rise in initial insurance premium paid. In the new guidelines, the amount of MIP (Mortgage Insurance Premium) paid will rise from 1.75% to 2.25% of the value of the loan. Additional restrictions now include: the seller’s ability to help pay closing costs and minimum credit score for down payments. The new loan guidelines say the maximum amount of closing costs that can be paid by the seller is now 3% reduced from 6%. There will also be a credit score requirement in order to get the attractive 3.5% down payment. Borrowers will need a credit score of at least 580 if they want to put only 3.5% down. So what does this all ad up to?
If you’re thinking about buying in the next year it would be best to do it sooner rather than later. The tougher standards for FHA loans won’t impact most people’s ability to get an FHA loan, but it will cost you more to get one. It’s best to try and get any potential purchase done before these new regulations kick in rather than waiting till later. The other reason to buy now rather than later, is rising interest rates. Below, I’ve included a graph of interest rates in Massachusetts for the past month. In this graph, you’ll notice that mortgage rates are on the rise. As of today the average for a 30-year fixed is higher than it was a month ago and if you think back to November rates were right around 5% or for some, below 5% you can see we’ve had quite an increase.
Don’t get caught paying more later than you would if you bought today!
Since it’s now 2010 or Twenty Ten, I thought it would be a good idea to see what happened in Boston condo market in the first 10 days of the new decade.
Back Bay Condos:
6 New Listings with (4/6 under $550k)
5 Under Agreement (3/5 over $1 Million)
6 Sold (3/6 under $400k 2/6 over 1.3 Million)
Beacon Hill Condos:
0 New Listings
3 Under Agreement (List Prices from $339k-$1.25 Million)
1 Sold ($827,500)
South End Condos:
2 New Listings ($335k and $699k)
3 Under Agreement (List Prices from $300k to $750k)
1 Sold ($300k)
My Take: Back Bay continues to be where the action is. It’s where the highest number of new homes on the market are located and where the highest priced sales are happening. There are higher priced homes on Beacon Hill than in Back Bay but more of them seem to be selling in Back Bay.
2009 was a rough year for lots of people, many lost their jobs and many more struggled to find their first job. Plenty of people tried online marketing and anything else they could think of, just to make ends meet. In 2010 we’re going to try and help put an end to these economic woes and help those that are willing to help us. Today as part of our Home Ownership Sponsoring, we’re introducing Back Bay Realty Group Affiliates.
Here’s how it works:
We’re going to pay you for every person you recommend that buys a home with us in the next year. Tell your friends, relatives and coworkers about us and when they buy their new home using us as a buyer’s agent, we’ll give you cash. The better the referral the more you earn!
• Up to $500k= $100 gift card
• $500-$800k = $250 gift card
• $800k-$1 million= $500 gift card
• $1 million or greater= $1000 gift card
• Frequent referrers, refer 5 people that close within a year and get a $2000 gift card
The details:
Fill out the form on the contact page with your information, in the comment section put all the correct contact information for your referral and you’re set. We’ll take care keeping track who you send and pay you accordingly. If your referral purchases a property with us in the next year, after the closing we’ll send you the money. Your referral must purchase a property with us as the buyer’s agent, before December 31st 2010 for you to be paid.
We are proud to announce: Back Bay Realty Group is The Official Sponsor of Home Ownership for 2010. Our goal is to help as many people as possible get into the home of their dreams in 2010 and we’ve setup some great partnerships to make that happen. As part of our sponsorship we’ll be introducing new programs and information related to home buying and home ownership for all of our readers. In an effort to make the home buying process easier, we’ll be upgrading parts of our site, and introducing new features so that you can be more informed about the process.
Throughout the year we’ll be posting information on what’s going on in the market so future buyers are better educated on market conditions, and we’ll be doing a weekly home improvement tip. This will give you do it yourself types (myself included) a chance to make improvements to your current homes to make them more attractive in the market. Most importantly, we’ll also be posting information on how to sign up for Habitat for Humanity projects in your area, so that even if this is not the year for you to move into a new home, you can help someone else do it.
We can’t wait to see what this new year brings and we hope all of you do too!
As I mentioned in my last post there are a lot of new development condos on the market right now and some developers are getting desperate. The people behind the development at 100 Beacon, are now offering a free mini cooper with with every unit. The cheapest unit in this building has an asking price of a cool $2.1 million. I might be underestimating how the economy is going, but if you can spend $2.1 is a Mini Cooper really going to make a difference?
This is not the first time this has been tried in Boston. In 2007 the Macallen tried this same tactic, they gave away a Toyota Camry Hybrid with each condo sold. (They went with a hybrid car because it’s a green building.) I’m sure this won’t be the last attempt by a developer to do this, but let me give some advice to those who are thinking about it. Pair the car and the building! The hybrid car with the green building makes sense, a Mini Cooper says your striving to be cool with a car that’s lost some of that cachet. If I were trying to be cool I’d toss in a smart car, it’s cheaper, more rare and will turn a lot more heads especially when you park it sideways.
Scarcity! That’s the buzzword luxury retailers across the country are trying to teach to consumers this year. Last year was a very different story, retailers had more merchandise than they knew what do with. This year that certainly won’t be the case. Retailers are learning that if you simply don’t offer more, customers are will to pay full price to get what’s out there. The New York Times even did a whole article on this idea.
Luxury retailers weren’t the only ones who forgot scarcity, luxury condo developers got stuck on this same train of thought. They forgot that part of what makes a luxury condo so expensive and attractive is the scarcity of them. They decided instead, to follow the philosophy of selling luxury to the masses. The only problem with this school of thought: a luxury good is no longer considered a luxury, when everyone can have one!
The condo market in downtown Boston is now flooded with “luxury” condos: 45 Province, W Residences, The Clarendon and the Bryant Back Bay just to name a few. As a result it’s looking more and more like, “The luxury condo has become the sad knockoff Chanel purse peddled along Canal Street.” *
To continue our fashion metaphor for a moment, this overstocking by developers means that just like the retailers, they too will be forced to have massive sales. Think of the recent auctions as the Black Friday Sales. (People know ahead of time that they are coming and they set the price for the remainder of the season.) The main difference between Black Friday Sales and recent auctions, this year the retailers aren’t restocking. The condo developers aren’t as lucky. Even if they sell half the units to get sales moving, they still have hundreds of condos left to sell.
So my take on all this, it’s going to be a long time before we sell out all these luxury buildings and this year it’s best to go shopping on Black Friday!
*Before I get all sorts of angry emails, I agree that some of the units in these buildings are truly stunning and incredible places. However, one must admit not all are on the same level. A condo with a stunning view of the brick wall less than 30 ft away should not be labeled a “luxury condo” just because it’s in the same building as the incredible penthouse.
That’s the question this article from the New York times asked over the weekend. In New York the Bachelor Pad maybe dead but in Boston I’d say it’s just down with the flu. (Not everyone everyone has it, but some people do and it’s not that bad.) I certainly have quite a few clients who updated their bachelor pads this year and some that just stayed put. A couple quit the lifestyle and moved in with their girlfriend, but even then they didn’t sacrifice like those in New York. The Clarendon, one of the most expensive rental buildings in Back Bay is currently out of 1 bed units and my guess is quite a few of those have been rented by single men. Still, I’ll put question out there, Bachelors of Boston are you downsizing this year?
The First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit was officially extended today. President Obama signed the bill into law, creating an extension and expansion of the credit for new home owners. The extension covers first time buyers who purchase by April 30th 2010 and must close by June. This gives those of who you have been sitting on the sidelines for the past few weeks plenty of reason to get back into the game again. You will still get the same $8,000 that you would have if you had bought earlier.
As for the expansion part, the credit is now being expanded to anyone who has owned their own home for the past 5 years and wants to buy something new. For these people the credit will only go up to $6500 but it’s still a great incentive. There are of course income limitations with both of these credits but they have been raised above what they previously were at. For more information on the tax credit or if you’re interested in purchasing a new home, please don’t hesitate to call us at 617-449-3642 or search our website.
Boston Real Estate Market | chris | 
February 1, 2010 1:54 pm | 
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