Being able to click with people — all kinds of people — can mean success for a homebuilder. From childhood, Christin Cupp has known all kinds. Her mother, she says, was a "bar floozy." Her father, a Jehovah’s Witness.
“During the week, I grew up in a bar,” she said. “On the weekends, I would go door-to-door with my father.”
Q. Please let us know how one can identify a well-managed condominium association when considering purchasing a unit. Please share your top three or four questions to ask as well as tips to look for in the answers.— J.G.
A. I would first sit down and compose a list of thing you want in your new residence. As an example you could list you want to be near the water (lake or gulf, etc.); want a home that allows pets; want tennis courts and certain recreational facilities, maybe social activities and so on. Your list should contain about 20 to 30 items. Rate them as to the most important and those that would be nice to have. This will be of help to make the final selection and give you an idea of what questions you need answered. As for the things you need to know about the condominium: Look at the facilities and common areas. The first test is the way the condominium association looks. Does the landscape have a positive curb appeal? Does the building need painting or other repairs?
via Richard White: Tips on how to identify a well-managed condo association » Naples Daily News.
When Michael and Monica Tesoriero started looking at houses last year, they were set on a single-family in Medford – until they saw how little they could get for their money. “After seven months of looking,” says Monica, who works in finance at Harvard University, “we came to the realization that most houses in our price range in Medford needed too much work.” On top of that, Michael, now a chef at Boston College, had not long ago endured a frightening 14-month period of unemployment. If one of them got laid off again, they figured, it couldn’t hurt to have a little extra money coming in every month. “Nowadays we have to consider the possibility that one of us might lose our job,” Monica says. “What would happen then? Do we lose our house, too?”
In this wobbly economy, the first instinct for home buyers in the Tesorieros’ situation might be to downsize their dreams from a single-family to a condo. But that’s not what the couple did. Instead, they bought a 2,700-square-foot two-family in Revere and became landlords. “We decided it would be a better investment for us,” Monica says, “and would give us the possibility of having rental income.”
Home prices and mortgage rates have fallen so far that the monthly cost of owning a home is more affordable than at any point in the past 15 years and is less expensive than renting in a growing number of cities.
The Wall Street Journal’s third-quarter survey of housing-market conditions in 28 of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas found that home values declined in all but five markets compared with the second quarter, according to data from Zillow Inc. Meanwhile, rent levels have risen briskly across the country and mortgage rates, hovering around 4%, are the lowest in six decades.
As a result, monthly mortgage payments on the median priced home—including taxes and insurance—are lower than the average rent levels in 12 metro areas, according to data compiled for The Wall Street Journal by Marcus & Millichap, a real-estate brokerage that tracked 27 metro areas. It remains less expensive to rent than to buy in 15 cities. But affordability hasn’t done much to lift the sagging housing sector because many would-be buyers are unwilling to purchase a home or unable to qualify for a mortgage.
via Own vs. Rent: A Growing Reason to Buy.
Highly ranked school districts may have been spared the worst of the foreclosure crisis, according to a new analysis, showing that the housing crash was akin to a tornado that tore through wide swaths, but hit with particular force in certain areas.
The analysis, conducted for Developments by Location Inc., a Worcester, Mass.-based company that mines local data for businesses and consumers, looked at six months of 2011 sales data collected by RealtyTrac Inc. It showed that the percentage of foreclosure (or “real-estate-owned”) sales went down as the school ranking went up in five metro areas – Jacksonville, Fla; Atlanta; Toledo, Ohio; Stockton, Calif.; and Seattle. Higher-rated school districts also maintained higher home-sale prices, and higher home prices per square foot.
New Yorkers, Washingtonians and Atlantans are logging more and more internet searches for South Florida real estate, a sign that the region’s troubled housing market could receive even more outside investment in the future.
In the wake of a severe housing bust, Florida has become one of the most popular locales for Americans seeking low-priced real estate, according to a report released Wednesday by real estate website Trulia.com.
“Despite the big price declines, and probably because of the big price declines, we’re seeing so much inbound search activity from people within Florida and especially from outside Florida,” said Jed Kolko, chief economist for Trulia.
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