It’s that time of the year again!!! The Needham Town fireworks are just around the corner and here are all of the details .

One of the biggest factors to consider for a buyers looking to purchase in Wellesley, or Metro West, is what their commute into Boston will be like.

I have had many clients make the transition from city living to buying in the suburbs west of Boston. For those that want to drive into the city, I can tell you that during the Labor Day-Memorial Day months, you need to get through the Weston Tolls (inbound) by 6:45 to avoid tapping the brakes most of the way into the city. If you are on the pike after 7:15, you are most likely going to have a bumper to bumper – slow ride in (approximately 30 minutes to get to the Brighton tolls (where a big back up will await you for getting into Cambridge). Driving the Back Bay will offer much less resistance.

Wellesley and Metro West Train Schedule

As of today, 11 properties in Brookline, Newton, Needham, Wellesley and Weston sold within a week of coming on the market according to MLS. 7 were single families, and 4 were condos.
When priced properly, buyers will pull the trigger. Plus, with the severe winter delaying the spring market it appears that the market will remain active into July.

If you are currently living in a condo or renting, you are likely wondering if this is a good time to buy a bigger home. Maybe the timing isn’t quite right at this time? Or perhaps you are “looking, and if you find a deal,” you could be motivated to make a move.
My recommendation to my clients is to take on this perspective when considering a purchase ~ IT IS THE COST TO LIVE IN A PROPERTY, NOT THE PRICE YOU PAY… that is most important. This doesn’t mean that I expect, nor encourage anyone to overpay for a property. And I make sure that my clients are certainly price conscious.
Consider this:
To maintain a $4,000 monthly mortgage payment – at a rate of 4.5%, a 10% downpayment to purchase will afford you $630,000 house
- at a higher rate of 6%, a 10% downpayment to purchase will afford you $550,000 house
The message ~ Waiting for prices to come down could end up costing you significantly, if rates happen to rise even if prices happen to drop slightly. If both prices and rates should climb, a buyer who is on the fence right now will surely get less house for the money.
Buying now, with rates low (today a client of mine was just quoted a no closing cost loan at 4 3/4%), might make more sense than you realize.

Click here to view all of the houses sold in Newton, to date. Email Brad@BradHartz.com for specific details about your town of interest, or to receive a complimentary pricing analysis for your Massachusetts house or condo.

TO SEARCH FOR HOMES IN MASSACHUSETTS CLICK HERE

Single-Family House Sales: Greater Boston

The closings that occur in January and February of each year generally reflect under agreements from the fourth quarter of the previous year. 2011 seems to have come out of the gate strong in terms of single-family home sales over $1 million, but the impact of the severe weather in January and February is not yet reflected in the data. Last month 45 single-family homes conveyed in Eastern Massachusetts (excluding the Cape and Islands and towns west of Worcester County) priced over $1 million and this was 3 fewer than the same month last year — a 6% decline. The market for million dollar homes is still in recovery, but we remains unclear if we will achieve the peak levels of a few years ago.

On a year-to-date basis for the year 2011, 16 more single-family homes have sold over $1 million than the same two months of 2010, for an increase of 14.2%. Last year, the market absorbed 113 million dollar homes between January and February; the comparable number in 2011 is 129 (and only 77 in 2009).

As sellers contemplate putting their luxury homes on the market this spring, they need to be aware of the imbalance between supply and demand (much more supply than demand) and the skittishness of potential buyers at the high end of the market.

The $2,000,000 to $2,999,999 price segment is also recovering, but it is a much more thinly-traded market than many sellers realize. Sales in this price band account for only 19 of 129 million dollar plus properties conveyed. This is under 15% of the entire million dollar market!

On a year-to-date basis, 6 more single-family homes have sold between $2,000,000 and $2,999,999 than the same two months of 2010, for an increase of almost 36%.

Single-Family House Sales: Statewide

While 46 towns are represented in the 142 closed sales over $1 million statewide for the first two months of 2011, the data are skewed towards the more popular communities. The top 5 towns (Newton, Wellesley, Boston, Brookline, and Barnstable) account for 42% of the closed million dollar sales. As was true last year — with the exception of Barnstable on the Cape — there is a heavy concentration of sales in this price range in the towns with the closest proximity to the City of Boston.

Some other statistics for this market segment:

– The average price for a single-family sold over $1 million so far in 2011 is $1,700,139

– The average house in this price range had 10 rooms and approximately 5 bedrooms

– On average, these houses sold at 91.68% of their original listing price — underscoring yet again the importance of accurate pricing in today’s market. Listings priced too far over market value are not selling.

For the state as a whole, million dollar single-family sales in the first two months of 2011 exceeded the same period of last year by 17.4%. Interestingly, the top 10 towns for million dollar sales were up 42% during the same period. With the exception of Cambridge and Cohasset, 8 of the top 10 towns were either flat or up.

Condominium Sales: Statewide

8 cities and towns are represented in the 51 condo sales for the first two months of 2011, but Boston alone accounts for 76.4% of the closed million dollar condo sales.

Some other statistics for this market segment:

– The average price for a condo sold over $1 million in calendar 2010 was $1,821,652. (Interestingly, this is higher than the average sales price for a single-family home in the same time period: $1,700,139.)

– The average condo in this price range had 6 rooms and approximately 3 bedrooms

– On average, these condos sold at 95.58% of their original listing price — underscoring yet again the importance of accurate pricing in today’s market. Condos priced over the market simply aren’t selling.

Comparative data for the first 2 months of 2011 versus 2010 are somewhat deceptive because of sales at 400 Stuart Street (The Clarendon), Boston. In the first 2 months of 2010, in the first wave of occupancy, 11 units closed at the building versus 2 in the same period of 2011.

I’ve heard it over and over again for the past couple of years from friends, family, business colleagues, and even my local bartenders and baristas.

The refrain is eerily similar each time, and it sounds something like this: “What are you waiting for? Now is the time to buy that house.” I ignored them for a long time, as I knew the metrics of large supply overhang, increasing foreclosures, slow GDP growth and anemic employment figures were liable to keep home prices down for some time.

But now, however, I’m thinking those bartenders and baristas just might be right — especially after Wednesday’s news that new-home sales have hit an eight-month high. Read more on new-home-sales data.

If we look at the recent news in the housing segment, we see some very interesting trends developing. According to a report from the National Association of Realtors, sales of existing U.S. homes jumped 12.3% in December. However, the upbeat month for home sales comes after the worst one-year performance on that metric since 1997. Based on the NAR’s preliminary data, which will be finalized next month, annual sales of existing U.S. homes totaled 4.91 million in 2010. That figure represents a drop of 4.8% over sales in 2009.

State of Union, c. 2011 — and 1996
Former Bill Clinton speech writer Ted Widmer says President Obama’s speech featured some similarities to Clinton’s State of the Union after the Oklahoma City bombing.

What this means is that the turnaround in sales in December could be a harbinger of more good news for home sales in the months ahead. According to NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun, “December was a good finish to 2010, when sales fluctuate more than normal. The pattern over the past six months is clearly showing a recovery. The December pace is near the volume we’re expecting for 2011, so the market is getting much closer to an adequate, sustainable level.”

January’s numbers released this week seem to bear this out.

The NAR report shows that, although there is still a lot of inventory out there in the property market, those inventories have been gradually moving down. Inventories in December of 3.56 million homes represented 8.1 months of supply, compared with 9.5 months in November. On the pricing front, we see that the median price of existing homes in December decreased 1% to $168,800. Yet for the full year prices managed to climb 0.3% to $173,000. While this median-price figure remains well below both 2007 and 2008 levels of $219,000, and $198,100, respectively, what we are once again seeing could be a bottom forming, this time in the price metric.

If we liken this to investing in stocks, it would be as if a company’s share price had recently bounced off a 52-week low in heavy trading volume (i.e., those December sales numbers). Investing in securities when it is believed the market has reached bottom following a major decline is known in investing terminology as bottom fishing, and it’s a strategy that is all too familiar with stock hounds. It’s also a strategy that’s made many an investor wealthy. See list of ‘screaming buys’ at InvestorPlace.com.

And, for real-estate buyers, what we could be looking at is a bottom in the making.

A better deal than stocks?

One reason your best investment right now could be a home has to do with the relative upside of getting in on an asset class while it’s at the bottom versus buying into other asset classes that could be near a top. Consider for a moment the tremendous upside we’ve seen in stocks, precious metals and agricultural commodities over the past 12 months. See full story on grocers and corn costs and read about Amazon as a neo-Webvan at InvestorPlace.com.

SPX 1,297, +5.45, +0.42%

Stocks on a roll
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S&P 500 daily closes.
Stock prices over the past 12 months, as measured by the S&P 500 (SPX 1,297, +5.45, +0.42%) , are up nearly 17%. Precious-metals prices also are up big, with gold jumping 20% over the last year while silver prices have surged more than 50%. Agricultural-commodity prices, as represented by the Deutsche Bank Liquid Commodity Index, have spiked nearly 28% over the past 12 months. Read more about these investment instruments’ peak levels at InvestorPlace.com.

If you’re a long-term investor looking to put money to work, now is not really the best time to get into any of these three asset classes. However, with home sales starting to improve, and with prices now possibly forming a bottom, real estate could well be the asset class that represents the best low-risk buying opportunity out there today.

Besides, if that investment is your primary residence for two years or more, you won’t pay a dime of capital gains on your profit. That’s a significant savings, adding to the appeal. Read about three high-yield dividend ETF strategies on InvestorPlace.com.

Why rent when you can buy cheaper?

The value argument in favor of buying real estate isn’t the only favorable factor when it comes to the pro-home-purchasing argument. In fact, there’s one very telling argument in favor of buying now versus the alternative of renting, and that argument is one of pure cost.

According to real-estate-data firm Trulia’s Rent vs. Buy Index, buying a property — including mortgage principal, interest, taxes and insurance — was actually cheaper than renting in 72% of cities around the country. The firm compared a year’s rent for a two-bedroom apartment or townhouse with the cost of buying a similar property in 50 big cities around the country. Some of the most affordable areas to buy right now, according to Trulia, are Las Vegas, Miami and Phoenix. Of course, if you’re looking to buy in Los Angeles, San Francisco or New York City, your buying cost will be considerably greater than renting.

Another cost-related argument in favor of investing in a home right now is interest rates. The bottoming out of the housing market, combined with an improving economy, could send more buyers, like me, rushing into the market to lock in current mortgage rates before they get any higher. We saw mortgage interest rates rise steadily during the last few weeks of 2010, with the average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage finishing at 4.71% in December. That number represents a 4.3% advance from November.

Yes, mortgage rates still are near historical lows, but if we see these rates rise, then the cost of a new home could climb significantly. So, now could really be the best time to pull the trigger on that home purchase — and it could also be your best investment right now.

Click here to view the new houses for sale in Wellesley, Weston, Newton & Needham

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE TOP MASSACHUSETTS TOWNS FOR SALES OVER $1 MILLION

CLICK HERE TO VIEW NEW SINGLE FAMILY LISTINGS IN WELLESLEY, WESTON, NEWTON & NEEDHAM
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