While the area surrounding the shopping district of Newbury Drive may be a nice place to visit, you may find it may it is even nicer to live there. With many Boston realtors ready to serve you, Boston relocation may be possible. Whether you are looking to buy a south end condo or are looking at downtown Boston apartments the in the Newbury Street district are a great selling point. After all, when you’ve spent an afternoon browsing at Martin Lawrence Galleries, shopping at Alex & Ani, and getting pampered at Emerge Spa and Salon wouldn’t it be great to head home to your luxury Boston condo or apartment?

360 Newbury Street, is one place that will keep you in the middle of all the shopping on Newbury Street, during the holidays and beyond. Here you can choose from gorgeous Boston loft style rentals or condos depending on your needs. There are also several other luxury Boston condos in nearby places such as battery wharf or even Cambridge apartments right across the bay.

Whether you are a student in one of Boston’s prestigious universities looking to make your time in the city memorable, or are laying down long term roots living somewhere luxurious like Brookline apartments will definitely have a marked effect on your stay, and allow you plenty of opportunity for shopping on Newbury street.

With the wide variety of Boston luxury apartments available in downtown Boston, South end, Cambridge, and more contacting a Boston realtor at Warren Residential Group can help work with your budget to find a Boston Condominium or apartment that is affordable but still gives you the Newbury Street style pampering you deserve.

Whether you are traveling in Boston, already live in the area, or just know you’re going to want to spend a lot of time doing exciting and relaxing things like holiday shopping on Newbury street, checking out the real estate in the area is definitely worth your time. With great floor plans, top notch amenities, and access to breathtaking views of the harbor and Boston Skyline you’ll see that living a little above Newbury Street can make a real impact on your lifestyle.

If you do decide to take that leap and live in style in a luxurious Back Bay loft or other premiere residence you’ll be comforted to know that being able to furnish and decorate your new surroundings with all the great purchases you can make on Newbury Street is practically right around the corner. You can pamper your living space while you pamper your life and make an impression your friends and business associates will remember just like you remember holiday shopping on Newbury Street.

What are you waiting for? Make the call to start seeing Back Bay luxury apartments and condos, and take the first step to living the high end life you’ve always wanted.

If you plan on listing Boston real estate or Brookline real estate, consider giving your home a little winter face-lift. There is a lot of competition in the marketplace; your listing needs to be in tip-top shape.

Remove Snow and Ice.

If  a buyer can’t easily park and access your property, it’s not going to sell. Shovel, salt, and tidy your walkway and driveway at least every other day, and especially when you know buyers are going to be touring your home, whether you’re listing a Cambridge condo or a South Boston apartment.

Create a Warm Atmosphere

If you know a buyer is coming through, turn up the thermostat! While it may be tempting to save a few bucks by skimping on heat, buyers who aren’t comfortable won’t stay for very long. For those who are fortunate enough to have a fireplace, utilize it during open houses for additional ambiance.

Light Up

Use timers and technology to your advantage to make your home feel lived in. Install motion sensors that light up a driveway or walkway and set indoor lamps to automatically turn on in the evening. Another trick to creating a better mood for potential home buyers is by tuning your radio to a classical station; the soft music is welcoming and soothing.

Showcase Seasonal Listing Photos

Since the winter months are often cold, gray, and dreary, show potential buyers an album of photographs taken during the warmer months, even if you don’t have a ton of landscaping or outside amenities included with the property. Pictures that display warm light streaming through the windows or flowers and trees in full bloom present a brighter and happier home than the bare branches of winter.

Don’t be discouraged! Winter is a popular time for relocation; Boston is the 8^th largest city for relocating professionals with many corporate moves occurring during the winter. If you would like to invest in Boston Real Estate or find the perfect Brookline apartment, contact an agent at Warren Residential Group today. One of our knowledgeable agents would be happy to assist you!

Since their acquisition, the firms refurbished the lobby and created an underground parking garage for top executive, spending over $40 million on improvements. In addition to the upgrades, they were able to offer lower rents than previous owners; even luring Bain Capital away from a Boston Properties owned building for a seven-floor lease in the Tower.

Under the deal conditions, Boston Properties paid $289.5 million in cash and assumed $640.5 million in debt, in the form of a securitized senior mortgage loan with a fixed, 5.68 percent interest due in January 2017.

Since its assembly in 1975, the Boston landmark has been known as a barometer for the real estate boom and bust. The 62-story glass skyscraper in Boston’s prestigious Back Bay neighborhood boasts over 2 million square feet of space, with roughly 1.7 million feet being available for rent, and an eight level parking garage with over 2,000 available parking spaces.

If you would like to live in the Back Bay neighborhood, or any of the other great Boston neighborhoods, please contact an agent at Warren Residential Group today to schedule an appointment. We would love to help you find your new Boston condo or luxury residence!

Other statistics reflect this currently successful real estate market: there is a 2.6$% increase in the median home price range from last month, now $290,000 from $282,520 from May of 2009. Additionally, condo sales have also increased 24% to 1,950, as compared to 1,570 in May of 2009.

If you are thinking of purchasing a home, now’s the perfect time to browse our listings and contact us for a showing! Pictured below is one of our units available in the Back Bay – click here to read more about this listing.

Source article:  Boston Business Journal

Instead, it could be as little as two years. In a bulletin to lenders April 14, mortgage giant Fannie Mae said it is relaxing its previous rules that prevented loan applicants who have participated in short sales or deeds in lieu of foreclosure from obtaining a new mortgage for extended periods of time. The new rules are scheduled to take effect July 1.

Homeowners who’ve done short sales – such as under the Obama administration’s new Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program – will also be able to qualify for a mortgage in as little as two years. Though Fannie Mae officials declined to discuss the reasoning behind the changes, the bulletin to lenders said the company hopes to encourage troubled borrowers to work out solutions that avoid the heavy costs of foreclosure.

If  borrowers can demonstrate that their mortgage problems were directly attributable to “extenuating circumstances” – such as loss of employment, medical expenses or divorce – they may be able to qualify for new loans with minimum 10 percent down payments in just two years. Housing and consumer counseling advocates welcomed Fannie’s relaxation of rules that had penalized borrowers who lost their houses following layoffs, illness and other unforeseen catastrophic financial events.

“This is a positive move,” said Marietta Rodriguez, director of homeownership and lending for NeighborWorks America, a national nonprofit network created by Congress to assist with homeowner financial counseling and community development.

“We all know that there are many people who through no fault of their own have to sell” – but were blocked from repurchasing a house for four years or longer, even though they’d rebuilt their credit, had qualifying incomes, and were fully capable of handling a mortgage responsibly.

(Source:  HARNEY, KENNETH R.: The Nation’s Housing. April 25, 2010)

Median sale prices for single-family homes increased 8.4 percent in February, marking the third consecutive month of higher prices compared with the same three months last year, according to data released March 31st, 2010.
Sales volume also rose 13.5 percent compared with February 2009, the eighth straight month of improvement compared with the same stretch last year, according to Warren Group, a Boston company that tracks local real estate. Condominium sales and prices also were up last month.

And there was more upbeat real estate news in another housing report released earlier this week — Boston area home values swelled by 0.3 percent in January in seasonally adjusted data, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Prices Indices.

“It’s too early to get the balloons and pop the champagne,’’ cautions Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. “At best, we are about to embark on a sluggish recovery.’’

On the upside, February’s decline was the smallest percentage drop since inventory began to fall 23 months ago, said Kevin Sears, broker for Sears Real Estate in Springfield and president of the real estate association. “Momentum continues to build toward more normal market levels across the state,’’ Sears said.

But like many others who know the business, he still won’t call it a recovery.
“I feel pretty confident that transactions are going to move forward,’’ said Rogers. “I’m cautiously optimistic.’’
(Read the full article here.)

Finally, some good news!  Massachusetts reported that companies in the Bay State added 4,900 new jobs in May, the first increase in a year.  The sectors which saw growth were health, education, professional, scientific, and leisure while construction and manufacturing are still having a hard time.

This is good news for the overall Massachusetts economy and the Boston real estate market.  Many economists say that these indicators are consistent with an economy near the bottom of a recession. Massachusetts has remained much more stable compared to other markets in the United States with remaining over 1% lower than the national average.  Many attribute this to a majority of our jobs being in the health care and education sections which, although not totally recession proof, provide much more consistent employment.

My Thoughts:  I think that we are getting close to a bottom.  While there are still a lot of uncertainties out there, this is the type of positive news that we need.  If you are a buyer on the fence thinking of waiting longer, I’m not sure if that is the right move.  Timing the bottom is nearly impossible and with signs pointing towards the economy picking back up combined with stable prices in blue chip neighborhoods it really is a great time to buy.  Rates are still low realitive to historic averages and you can even get a 7/1 ARM still in the high 4% range.

Source: Picture and facts from the Boston Herald

Here are some quick highlights of the 2009 first quarter report (percentage is versus same time period 2008)

Citywide number of total sales = 339 (-33.40%)

Citywide average sales price = $593,668 (-14.63%)

Citywide Median Sales Price = $410,000 (-13.68%)

Citywide Average Price Per Square Foot = $522.44 (-9.74%)

Citywide Median Price Per Square Foot = $484.62 (-12.03%)

Citywide Average Days on Market = 123 (110)

Here is some positive news for you:

Back Bay Average Selling Price = $1,280,257 (+14.06 %)

North End Average Selling Price = $495,615 (+26.59 %)

Seaport Total Sales = 19 (+35.71 %)

Those numbers were through the end of March.  Since then I we have actually become extremely busy and have seen very high traffic at open houses throughout the city.  I put three properties under agreement on Monday alone.  I think we have seen the bottom for the stock market and have started to see a significant rebound of over 20% from the lows.  Historically this has signaled the end of a recession/depression.  We will probably continue to see some bad unemployment numbers but that is not unusual for 4-12 months after the bottom of the market.

With rates still historically low, the new first time home buyer tax credit, and prices having come down or stayed level, I think even more buyers will continue to step up to the plate and begin purchasing property.

If you’d like the full 87 page Boston Real Estate Market Report, please contact me at nwarren@warrenre.com and I will send you the PDF.

Now, I can’t speak for every Boston Real Estate agent when I say this, but my promise to all of the clients of the Warren Residential Group is complete honesty about the Boston Real Estate market.  With all of the blaming going back and forth about what caused the downturn and all of the finger pointing going on, I can honestly say I have no bias towards which way the market heads.  If the Boston market goes up and we sell real estate, we make money.  If the Boston market goes down and we sell real estate, we make money.  It doesn’t matter which way the market moves for us.  Our focus and overall job is to be your guide.

Whatever questions you have for us, please bring them forward.  Let us prove our knowledge and ability and help you handle your real estate transactions.  A lot of crazy things are happening in Boston Real Estate and whether it be good, bad, or ugly; the Warren Residential Group will be there for you.  That’s our promise.