Boston Real Estate Podcast

Ford Realty will be coducting their first real estate podcast on Wednesday, March 1, 2006. To listen to the Boston real estate podcast download www.podcastalley.com and on the search bar type in Boston Real Estate.

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Boston Real Estate Inventory

Boston real estate inventory from 2/18/06 through 2/25/06:

Number of new Boston real estate listings: 224

Number of property price changes: 107

Number of properties back on the market: 28

Number of properties off-the-market: 67

Number of properties under agreement: 76

Number of properties sold: 89
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Total Inventory: 2,745

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Boston Real Estate - High Prices

Both the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald had articles today on the high prices of Boston real estate.

The Boston Globe reported a story that a mystery buyer paid $25.175 million for an Edgartown house. It is reported as the most expensive single family home paid for in the state of Massachusetts.

The Boston Herald article was about the high price for parking spaces in Boston. The article noted that: There are only 19 spaces currently listed for sale-including two Beacon Street spots priced at $150,000 each. The article goes on to say: But even $150,00.00 isn't the highest priced ever paid for a space. The highest paid was $185,500 in Beacon Hill.

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New Real Estate Website

A new website that launched Feb 13, 2006 called www.zillo.com allows users to zoom in on any city, neighborhood, and home and discover all it's juicy details-real estate details, that is.

www.zillow.com provides home buyers, sellers, owners - and those ubiquitous minds - maps and U.S. home market value estimates it dubs "zestimates" along with recent sales price statistics, and data as to how a home compares to others in the same neighborhood or zip code.

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Luxury Apartments

The Boston Herald reported today that two major rental towers are poised to open this year. One is in Chinatown and the other is in the Fenway. The Trilogy located in the Fenway will have average rents from $2,500.00 to $2,700.00 a month. On the high end, renters will pay $4,500.00 for a thee bedroom.

The Boston Herald also reported about the lack of affordable housing. Thomas Meagher from Northeast Apartment Advisor was mentioned in the article commenting on the lack of affordable apartments: His solution: Instead of mandating affordable units, City Hall should streamline its review process. Get out of the way, and get more than just a pair of apartment towers into construction. Market forces will take over. The rents will come down, says Meagher.

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Most Expensive Apartment Rentals

The following is a list of cities with the most expensive apartment rentals:

1. New York City - $2,400.00

2. San Fran - $1,573.00

3. LA - $1,421.00

4. Orange County - $1,384.00

5. San Jose - $1, 330.00

6. Boston - $1, 216.00

I was suprised to see Boston at number six, every other report I have read has Boston in the top three most expensive rental markets.

Source: MSN

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Developers throw in cash incentives

Kimberly Blanton of the Boston Globe wrote a story today entitled "Developers throw in extras to seal condo deals"

In her article she wrote: With a wave of new condominiums units available in Greater Boston, real estate developers are offering incentives to boost sales and move hard-to-market units.

Developers are often willing to pay closing costs, forgive monthly maintenance fees for a year, or thow in amenities such as free hardwood floors.

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Weekly Activity - Boston Condo Market

The following information is the weekly activity report from LINK.

2/11/2006 through 2/18/2006

Number of New Listings: 167

Number of Price Changes: 124

Properties Back-on-the-Market: 13

Properties Off-the-Market: 60

Properties Under Agreement: 92

Number of Properties Sold: 74
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Total Inventory: 2,626

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Boston Top Selling Prices In January

The following information is from LINK and Boston Homes indicating the top selling prices in January.

Back Bay - 297 Commonwealth Avenue Unit #3 - $2,596,000

Beacon Hill - 100 Mt. Vernon Street - $3,900,000

Charlestown - Flagship Wharf Unit 730 - $850,000

Downtown - 5-7-9 Hudson St Unit 6N- $515,000

East Boston - 63 B Maverick Square Unit 5 - $380,000

Fenway - 120 Mountfort Place, Unit 202 - $704,000

Jamaica Plain - 19 Robinwood Ave - $857,000

South Boston - 98 Pembroke St - $3,612,000

Waterfront - 20 Rowes Wharf, Unit 604 - $630,000

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Mortgage Interest Deductions

The Boston Globe reported today that President Bush rejected the idea of any changes in the US tax code that would eleminate the mortgage interest deduction.

For the full story : www.boston.com

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Million dollar properties for sale in Boston

The following data is the number of million dollar (and up) properties for sale in Boston.

1. Condos - Total number- 265 - Days on the market - 180 days

2. Single Family - Total number - 43 - Days on the market - 179

3. Three Families - Total number - 5- Days on the market - 97 days

4. Buildings - Total number - 26 - Days on the market - 83 days.

Source: LINK

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Price Per Square Foot

The following information is the asking price per sq ft. in some of the most popular Boston neighborhoods for 2006.

Back Bay - $816.00
Beacon Hill - $809.00
Fenway - $563.00
Midtown - $852.00
South Boston - $425.00
South End - $592.00
Waterfront - $790.00

The following are a few Boston neighborhood sales price per sq ft today compared to 2005.

Back Bay 2005 selling price: $698.00 per sq ft.
Back Bay 2006 selling price: $664.00 per sq ft. ( - )

Beacon Hill 2005 selling price: $686.00 per sq ft.
Beacon Hill 2006 selling price: $758.00 per sq ft. ( + )

Fenway 2005 selling price: $500.00 per sq ft.
Fenway 2006 selling price: $565.00 per sq ft. ( + )

Midtown 2005 selling price: $677.00 per sq ft.
Midtown 2006 selling price: $658.00 per sq ft. ( - )

South Boston 2005 selling price: $406.00 per sq ft.
South Boston 2006 selling price: $387.00 per sq ft. ( - )

South End 2005 selling price: $582.00 per sq ft.
South End 2006 selling price: $568.00 per sq ft. ( - )

Source: LINK

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Boston Real Estate - Under Agreement Stats

Link provided me with some recent Boston real estate data that compares the number of properties under agreement for the first 6 weeks of 2006 with the first 6 weeks of 2005.

2006 - first 6 weeks 498 properties under agreement.

2005 - first 6 weeks 469 properties under agreement.

6.18% increase.

Properties Under Agreement from January 1, 2006 through February 10, 2006

1/6/06 - 53
1/13/06 - 56
1/20/06 - 87
1/27/06 - 94
2/3/06 - 95
2/10/06 - 113

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Cape Cod Home Sales Drop

Kimberly Blanton wrote an article in todays Boston Globe entitled "Cape Cod home sales fall in '05" subtitle "Buyers waiting for lower prices spur 14.5% drop"

The article states: Cape Cod's housing market was hit harder by declining prices than any other Massachusetts region, as buyers held back in hopes that prices for vacation homes would drop.

Sales of single-family homes on the Cape fell 14.5 percent, to 3,986 in 2005 from 4,633 in 2004, according to final, year-end figures released yesterday by the Association of Massahusetts Realtors, which include the first regional sales breakdown.

Source: Boston Globe

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Boston Real Estate Comeback?

Scott Van Voorhis and Jerry Kronenberg wrote a story entitled "Realtors welcome Hub downtown condo sales uptick" Some of the highlights are as follows:

"overall, 311 condos have been put under agreement so far this year in downtown Boston, according to Otis and Ahearn, which tracks sales in pricey neighborhoods, like Back Bay and South End. That's up from 295 the same time last year."

The article also mentioned new stats that came out from the Massachusetts Association of Realtors which reported that the number of houses changing hands fell 9.4 percent in Greater Boston.

Source: Boston Herald

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Stats on Search Engines

emarketer has released the latest statistics on the growth of the search engine as well as the change in the market share.

The article notes that there has been a 55% increase in the total number of searches on the web, going from 3.28 billion in December 2004 to 5.07 billion in December 2005.

All three of the major search engines Gooogle, Yahoo and MSN experienced a growth in the total number of searches. However, MSN did drop in the market share but the search engine still processed 20% more queries in 2005 then in 2004.

As of December 2005 Google had 48.8% market share, Yahoo had 21.4% and MSN had 10.9% of the market share.

For the full story click on the link below:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1003822


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Boston Proper - Day's on the Market

The following stats are "day's on the market"(DOM) for condominum sales in eight Boston downtown neighborhoods.

Back Bay - 126 DOM
Beacon Hill - 125 DOM
Fenway - 114 DOM
Leather District - 129 DOM
Midtown/Financial - 164 DOM
North End - 100 DOM
South Boston - 147 DOM
Waterfront - 172 DOM

Source: LINK

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A Tale of Two Cities

Ford Realty Inc., was mentioned in this week's Fortune Magazine entitled "A Tale of Two Cities" written by Ellen Florian Katz in which she compares Orange County, California with Boston, Massachusetts. Click on the link below for the full story

http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/13/real_estate/twomarkets_fortune/index.htm

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Boston Housing Inventory On the Rise

The number of new listings for the week of February 4, 2006 through February 11, 2006 according to LINK was 228. That is the highest amount of new listings coming on the market in a single week since 9/17/05.

Number of New Listings: 228
Number of Price Changes: 140
Number Back on the Market: 25
Number of the Market: 87
Number Under Agreement: 113
Number of Properties Sold: 31
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Total Inventory: 2602


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Is the Boston Waterfront Condo Market Sinking?

These are not good times for those trying to sell their luxury Boston waterfront condominium. Based on data obtained from LINK the average day's on the market (DOM) for a Boston luxury waterfront condo is 194 days over 6 months. Below are some of the most prestigious waterfront buildings which brokers/owners are having trouble selling their condos. The stats are obtained from LINK, based on the average length of time to sell a condo in a particular luxury building.

Lincoln Wharf - 119 day's on the market
Harbor Towers Two - 124 day's on the market
Burrough Wharf - 137 day's on the market
Lewis Wharf - 143 day's on the market
Harbor Towers One - 180 day's on the market
Constellation Wharf - 181 day's on the market
Folio - 212 day's on the market
500 Atlantic Avenue - 237 day's on the market
Battery Wharf - 358 day's on the market

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Craigslist Accused of Violating Fair Housing Law

Craigslist.org has been accused of running discriminatory rental notices in a lawsuit by a Chicago fair housing group, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune.

The suit contends that the popular San Francisco web site ran more then 100 ads that violated the Fedaral Fair Housing Act.

According to the newspaper, ads cited in the lawsuit included "Requirements: Clean Godly Christian Male" and "African Americans and Arabians tend to clash with me so that won't work out."

We will keep you posted if we here more about this lawsuit.

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Real Estate Cash Out

According to Inman news: A full 80% of Freddie Mac owned loans that were refinanced in the fourth quarter resulted in mortgages with loan amounts that were at least 5% higher then the original mortgage balances. This percentage is up from the third quarter of 2005, when the loan share of refinanced loans took cash out was 73%, and is the highest since the third quarter of 2000.

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Just How Big is Housing?

The following information is from the Association of Home Builders.

The U.S. housing market consists of 107 million occupied units, including 74 million owner-occupied homes and 33 million rental units.

The total value of the nation's housing stock exceeds $17 trillion. And, equity-the value of a home minus any debt-now exceeds $10 trillion in the U.S.

More then 69% of all U.S. households own their own home-the highest homeownership rate in history.

In 2005, more then 7 million single-family homes were sold.

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More MLS housing stats

The following information was obtained form MLS:

Boston condo market statistics

January 2005

Average List Price: $445,767.00
Average Sales Price: $430,408.00
Days on the market: 53
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January 2006

Average List Price: $417,936.00
Average Sales Price: $403,512.00
Days on the market: 65

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