Mike Batty

Actually the answer is both.

If you follow the news then the gloom and doom is everywhere. See http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/05/27/home_prices_sales_plunge_in_bay_state/?page=full to find out how bad things may be. The flip side is if you are trying to buy a nice house, in a nice neighborhood, in a nice town with good schools you may get a surprise and find yourself with a lot of competition!!

Locally in Burlington, Bedford, Woburn, Stoneham, Melrose and Reading to name a few, homes that are in top shape and somewhere between $350,000 and $450,000 are attracting a lot of attention. Homes featuring a new granite kitchen with tiled bathrooms and shiny hardwood floors are finding themselves with multiple offers and in some cases are only on the market for a matter of days before going under agreement.

How do you rationalize this conflicting information? I do it in a couple of ways. First and foremost real estate is a very local event. So what the averages are for 20,000 home sales across the state in March has no direct bearing on what is happening to your house, or the one you want to buy in Burlington in May. If you look on my website I put together up to date information on specific towns. If you look at Burlington (http://www.greatlexingtonhomes.com/burlington_mon_SFmkt.html ) the spring activity has jumped dramatically and sellers of homes in good condition have reason to be optimistic. Secondly, young, dual income couples have been waiting for a couple of years now to buy a home and start families and they have been given a push by the government to do something now. So with lower prices, very low mortgage rates, and a tax incentive they are out in force and looking to buy. But not just anything, they want a nice house, in a nice neighborhood, in a nice town with good schools. So guess what, there is a lot of competition for those prime properties.

So if you want a bargain, you can certainly find them if you are willing to compromise and do some repairs and such. If you want the dream home, it will be a bit cheaper than 2005/6, but you may still have to fight your way past 4 other couples to be the new owner.

To help figure out where you fit in this market and for local help on, in my local markets please send me an e-mail or give me a call.

I've been a bit delinquent about updates here. I spent a month or more upgrading my website and getting some meaningful information posted to help anyone looking to buy or sell in the greater Lexington area. Please go and take a look over at www.GreatLexingtonHomes.com.

I just finished updating the area market reports on the site. Looking at Lexington, Bedford, Arlington, Burlington, Waltham and Woburn I can safely say that the sky is not falling. It seems that a lot of people are sitting tight and the market volumes are down from historical levels. The good news in this is that for the most part single family home prices have remained relatively stable. Off from their 2005 highs, but no catastrophic price drops.

There are detailed reports for all of the towns on my site if you are interested. Also for condos in Arlington, Waltham, and Woburn. The Woburn Condo market is the only area market showing significant distress.

I hope that we will see some constructive action from our new President and his reinforced congressional support. That way when everyone comes out of hibernation in the spring, buyers will have an easier time getting mortgages and the sellers will be more willing to offer their property up for sale.

In the meantime, if you have to sell most of the area markets are in need of homes priced to sell. So give me a call and I'll help. If you are looking to buy, now is a good time to negotiate a great buy so again, give me a call.

Woburn's single family home sales market showed some early seasonal volume strength but has weakened in the past two months. With August sales numbers in, volume is low, but prices remained level in August. The graph below shows a line for the median price and bars for the numbers of homes sold.

In the Single Family market, there were 81 properties listed September 1. This represents a 22% decrease in inventory from the same time last year. Sales volume in August was again lower than last year with only 14 homes sold. Median sales prices weakened somewhat. It remains to be seen if the market can maintain strength as we move into fall. In August the average time on market dropped to 81 days. Currently we have less than a 6 month supply of property which indicates that the Woburn market remains in favor of those selling property. It should be noted that approximately 10% of the homes on the market are distressed properties so prices will experience some drag.

Waltham's single family home sales market showed some seasonal volume strength but has weakened in the past month. With August sales numbers in, volume is slightly low, and prices remained level in August. The graph below shows a line for the median price and bars for the numbers of homes sold.

In the Single Family market, there were 86 properties listed September 1. This represents a 9% decrease in inventory from the same time last year. The median sales price remained flat at $425,000. In August the time on market held at only 52 days, a positive indicator. The number of sales was 28. This is down slightly from July but 10% higher volume than last August. Currently we have only a 3 month supply of homes for sale which indicates that the Waltham market remains in favor of those selling property. With such a tight supply we should see price improvements in the Waltham market. It should be noted that approximately 8% of the homes on the market are distressed properties so prices will experience some drag.

Today the Boston Globe reported a summary of the Warren Group's report on Massachusetts foreclosure activities. ( http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2008/09/mass_foreclosur_13.html?s_campaign=8299 )

They report that "Foreclosure activity has doubled so far this year" and that there have been 7,804 filings. They also report that filings experienced a sharp drop-off in May after a new law took effect requiring lenders to allow an additional 90 days for borrowers to repay loan defaults.

What the article doesn't comment on is what will be happening now that the extra 90 day period is expiring from all of the filings that have been waiting since May. June, July, August ... here comes the September rush? We'll have to see if there is a renewed surge in filings.

Locally we have been spared some of the worst of this. The Warren group report indicates that Worcester had 68 filings in July alone. In the 6 towns that I cover locally there have only been a total of 65 so far this year. Woburn has been the worst hit with 23 filings, Waltham and Burlington next with 15 each, then Arlington with 5, Lexington with 4 and Bedford with only 3. I say this, not to minimize the individual suffering involved in a foreclosure, simply to point out the relative strength of our local markets.

For anyone finding themselves in a foreclosure situation the market strength in this area should allow then to execute a short sale and walk away from the foreclosure without too much long term damage to their credit. I note on my website that short sales are roughly 10 % of the listings in Woburn and 8% of the listings in Waltham so it is clear that this route is helping many avoid foreclosure.

Given that the May 90 day extension is expiring it is clear that more people will find themselves in difficulty before this wave has exhausted itself. If you find yourself in such a difficult position please do not hesitate to contact me and I will provide you with professional service and support.