Nick talks about some of his favorite holiday activities around the Boston area with tips for the entire family. He also takes a look at how the Boston real estate market has performed this year and makes predictions on what he thinks you can expect as we head into 2019.

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With the holiday season here, what are some activities not to be missed around Boston?

One of the coolest experiences in Boston during the holidays is found at the Envoy Hotel’s Lookout Rooftop bar. Boston’s outdoor bar season isn’t very long and tends to slow down significantly when the chilly fall weather shows up and comes to a dead stop when old man winter finally makes his appearance. Lookout has come up with a solution to this problem by installing pop-up igloos which you and 9 of your friends can share no matter what temperature it is outside!

One of the more traditional holiday experiences in Boston which is not to be missed is the “Blink” holiday light experience at Faneuil Hall Marketplace. Think of it like the Rockefeller Tree mixed with a Trans Siberian Orchestra performance. The seven-minute performance begins its daily looping at 4:30pm and runs through January 1st.

As 2018 winds down, what changes have you seen around Boston in regards to real estate?

2018 was another busy year in Boston real estate. Most properties sold quick and prices continued to rise throughout the first half of the year. However, this is the first time in many years that we’ve felt a change start to happen as we headed towards the end of the year. There were less and less multiple offer scenarios and properties have begun to sit on the market a bit longer. While the average month’s supply still puts us in a seller's market (less than 3 months supply) those numbers have been ticking up and I expect we will enter a neutral market (3-6 months supply) in 2019. This is healthy and normal so I think it is a good thing for real estate and will relieve buyer frustration and lead to even more transactions happening in 2019 vs. 2018.

Looking at 2019, what expectations do you have for the Boston real estate market?

I’m excited for 2019. We started to sense a shift happening in the market during the fall and I expect it to continue into 2019. I think there will be a transition period where seller’s expectations lag behind the market. Once the memories of multiple offers over asking price begin to fade from sellers minds we should see more transactions begin to happen. Buyers will have more opportunities than they have had over the past 4-5 years which will reduce their frustration and motivate some of them to get off the fence and start looking again. Overall, this is going to be a much needed correction from the 10-20% annual appreciation we have seen over the past 4-5 years which was unsustainable in the long run.