Author: Jon Goode

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Boston Condo Inventory Down 32%

The supply and demand dynamic is firmly in place in downtown neighborhoods with not enough property for sale relative to buyer demand. Taking all Boston neighborhoods together, condominium inventory is down 32% from the same time last year – from 2,010 properties for sale last year to 1,360 today. In the South End there are 129 condos for sale versus 205 on the market last year at this time,  a 37% decrease.

Linda Ciborowski, a top South End agent with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, sees two very interesting developments as a result of these depressed inventory levels.  Linda says, “Anything that shows well, is in good condition and in a desirable location sells with amazing speed. I’ve noticed two interesting things that make it even more important to be working with a good broker.”

“Brokers who don’t know the market are pricing properties too low based on old comps or too high based on false expectations. Initial pricing just seems more important than ever.”

 “Appraisals have become very difficult since the properties that have closed in the past 6 months don’t reflect the prices that new listings are going under agreement for due to prices being driven up by low inventory.”

In the Back Bay today there are 171 condos on the market compared with 240 last year. That’s a 29% decrease. In South Boston 145 condos are listed for sale compared with 232 last year, a 37% decrease. Reports are that there are not a lot of listings in the pipeline. Hopefully, we will see a surge in listing activity through the end of April and into May.

This low level of inventory poses a few issues for the strengthening real estate market downtown. The first being that inventory is needed to sustain the strong beginning to the spring market. The second is that high demand and low inventory creates what some may consider “irrational exuberance.” I don’t believe it is irrational. These conditions “on the street” have created this excitement… and the excitement is real!  Just ask any buyer who has missed out on a property or talk to any agent who has dealt with 40 people at each of their Sunday open house. It is exciting… and we will keep our eye on the market as we move into May.

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analytics general info

The Goode and Farmer Report – Boston Q1 Update

Excellent news for Boston is that condominium sales rose in the first quarter when compared with last year. All Boston neighborhoods combined saw an 8% increase in sales from 572 last year to 616 this year. Increased sales meant increased dollar volume in most neighborhoods. South Boston leads the way  in percentage increase with a 32% increase from last year to $33M in sales volume. . All Boston neighborhoods combined saw a 5% increase in sales volume from $321M to $338M.

The average sales price for a condo in Back Bay decreased 4% to $1,263K but the number of units sold increased 6% to 72.

On Beacon Hill the average sales price for a condo decreased 10% to $860K but the number of condos sold increased wildly by 30% to 30. Interestingly total days on market decreased by 37% to 114 days versus 180 days last year.

In the South End the number of units sold increased by 21% to 78 condo properties, also a very strong but not surprising increase, given the demand we are seeing in the neighborhood.

As mentioned South Boston saw a 32% increase in sales volume representing 19% increase in sale units. The average sales price increased 8% to $410K from $379K last year. If this were a competition, South Boston takes first place with these numbers… and average days on market decreased by 30% which is yet another indication of the demand for South Boston properties.

In general with sales up everywhere, and inventory still very low, the supply and demand dynamic is firmly in place. We are in the key Spring selling season and inventory is needed to maintain the strong sales pace we have seen so far.

 

 

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analytics general info

The Goode and Farmer Report – Provincetown 1Q2012

The Provincetown market has been relatively stable year over year especially in the context of regional and national volatility being experienced in most markets.

First quarter figures for the Provincetown market are in and are great!  As in Boston the mild winter weather has kept buyers and sellers in the market and sales activity has been very strong. Keep in mind that the first quarter numbers in most markets in the northeast don’t show huge numbers so sampling is relatively small, but when compared with the first quarter last year  condo sales have increased by 40% to 28 properties and single family sales increased 71% from 7 to 12 properties in the first quarter. Not huge numbers but a positive indicator of interest and activity in Provincetown real estate

The average selling price of those condos sold was $405K, up 29% from last years average of $314K. On average it took 262 days to sell these properties, exactly what it took last year. The lowest selling price was $141K and the highest was $829K which was a beautiful 1754 square foot 2 bedroom, 2 bath penthouse in the East End on Commercial Street. (pic to left)

 

 

 

The average selling price of single family homes increased 6% to $807K from $762K     in 2011. Single family  home sales almost doubled from 7 to 12 sales in the first quarter. The lowest selling price was $212,500 for a sweet little  fixer upper home at 217 Bradford Street, and the highest selling price was $1.8M for a fabulous 4 bedroom waterfront home in the far East End on Winston Ave. (pic to left) There were no multi family properties sold in the first quarter.

 

 

There are currently 129 condominiums for sale with an average asking price of $447K. There are 55 single family homes for sale with an average asking price of $1,472K and 14 multi family homes for sale with an average asking price of $1,356K. These figures represent a terrific range of buying opportunities. Inventory is at a fairly balanced level and not necessarily weighted toward a buyers market or sellers market.

As the Outer Cape and Provincetown readies itself for the spring onslaught, meant in a very positive way… we will keep you posted week to week as to real estate activity of interest in Provincetown and on the Outer Cape.

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I Can See The Beach From My New Office

YIKES!!!  I really can see the water from my new office.  Yesterday I officially  started working at Beachfront Realty in Provincetown… marketing and selling real estate. It is great to be starting my new venture while teaming up with Bill Farmer again and joining broker/owner Bob O’Malley. There will be more news to come!

 

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analytics general info trends

The Goode and Farmer Report March 2012

I will be posting regular market reports for Provincetown and Boston on my blog. Here is the first Goode and Farmer Report for year end 2011 with an update for March 2012.

 

 

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general info style

Interior Designer Michael Ferzoco’s North End Makeover.

Michael Ferzoco is the principle of Eleven interiors, the Interior design  firm he founded in 2005. Michael’s post below starts a work in progress in the North End. Enjoy.  Michael @ElevenInteriors.com.

We recently began working with a client in Boston’s North End neighborhood.  Over the past 18 months he’s had a number of issues with water leaks and this past summer he began noticing mold on the walls and baseboards.  Our client realized that he needed to bite the bullet and completely renovate the space to guarantee that it was sealed from the elements.  The space is quasi-free standing in that it only shares a fire wall with a mirror image space.  These two units each have their own private entrance from the street.  They are part of a condo association that includes a multi-unit building with 8 condos. It is the mirror image of my client’s space.  The unobstructed views of Boston Harbor from my client’s home are magical.  The space has the potential to be a sweet, little oasis in one of the most ethnically European neighborhoods in the city.

The space feels small at 750 square feet because it’s a duplex.  Yes, that’s right, just about 350 square feet of livable space on each floor in order to accommodate the stair case and entry area.  The space is also awkwardly shaped with two fairly long exterior walls that actually follow the curve of the sidewalk/street. The client has lived in the space for more than 10 years without making any changes. It was originally developed in the late 1990’s.  The space is so poorly laid out that whoever did it originally should have their license revoked. WOW!  Talk about bad flow, bad energy, a poor use of limited space and mediocre, at best, materials. This place had everything wrong with it. See for yourself…

                         

The big question is, how do you take a space like this and create something that’s actually wonderful to live in? Check back here from time to time to follow the transformation.

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analytics general info

Real Estate This Week. Buyers Jump In!

The first full week of March. Continued low inventory and strong demand has created a dynamic where inventory is selling very quickly, many with multiple offers. Pending home sales increased  last month by 44% from last February as per the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. We usually start seeing an increase of market activity in early March culminating in May but this early activity is similar to what we see in a very busy mid spring market. Crazy for the first week in March.

Open houses on the last two Sundays were literally mobbed with 25 – 40 visitors at every open house. Very rarely have we seen 20 parties waiting to get into an open house on Sunday yet this scene was repeated in almost every neighborhood this past weekend.

While new proprieties are coming on the market they are selling just as quickly . The South End has 21% less condominiums available for sale than at the same time last year. Back Bay has 12% less.  Beacon Hill has 41% less. South Boston has 31% less condos for sale then at this time last year.

 

Our office put 11 properties under agreement in the last 10 days with a volume of $11M, and listed just 10. This is happening all over the city and does not allow for any appreciable and normal build up of inventory heading into the key spring Market. Those properties that went under agreement this weekend were 524 Massachusetts Ave #3, 94 Waltham St # 6 and 343 Commonwealth Ave.

 

There will be several new properties listed this week that were mentioned “around the table” in my sales meeting yesterday. This activity looks promising and hopefully will begin to build some listing momentum. All are very attractive, well priced properties with prices from $499K and up. Will they stick around long? I will let you know next week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Miami Market Buoyed by Foreign Money

An article by Roben Farzad in this weeks Bloomberg Businessweek illustrates a very different Miami and general South Florida real estate market than what we are used to reading about. We hear the good news of decreasing inventory as investors buy up swaths of distressed real estate to turn into rentals, but not a healthy building boom, with full occupancy predicted in a years time.

Roben writes that at least two dozen condo projects have been announced in the past 10 months. The 27-floor Bellini on Williams Island is taking orders for its 70 condos, each with elevators that open directly into the unit. The 65-floor, 1,000-unit Resorts World Miami, featuring a lagoon, casino, shopping mall, and six towers, is expected to be ready for occupancy in 2014. The Mansions at Acqualina, by local developer Jules Trump, will have 79 villas with ocean views and a 16,000-square-foot, $50 million Palazzo di Oro penthouse. Trump says the project registered $200 million in sales in its first month.

Latin Americans, Europeans, and Asians, are said to represent as much as 80 percent of new buyers in the area.  At Trump Hollywood, another superluxury complex (by the Donald, and the Related Group), buyers are South Americans, Canadians, and Russians. Apogee Beach, a new Related Group condo 20 miles north of the city, presold 87 percent of its units to Argentines, Venezuelans, and Mexicans—and only 5 percent to Americans, the developer says. “When we saw that foreigners were again buying condos here, we rapidly adapted,” says Jorge Pérez, Related’s chief executive officer.

Developers predict that Miami’s downtown condo market will reach full occupancy early next year, compared with 8 percent vacancy now—even as 4,500 new condos become available across South Florida. Peter Zalewski, a principal at Condo Vultures, says, “The speculator seeking riches has always been the common thread in South Florida’s boom-bust cycles,”  “The only change today is the extent of foreign investors with strong currencies flooding in.”

 

It certainly seems like the downtown Miami and South Beach are hot again as international buyers rush to acquire pied-a-terres in what has long been considered the gateway to Latin America. Home sales jumped 46% last year, the Miami Association of Realtors reports. Median monthly rents are up 30%from 2009, according to Condo Vultures, a Miami real state consulting firm.

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analytics general info

Boston Up 1.4% From Low

The Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Index released this week shows that Boston real estate prices are up 1.4% from  our low in September 2005. Most parts of the country seemed to bottom out in the summer of 2009 and from there began a slow recovery. Many markets have now fallen below that 2009 “bottom” too, but not Boston.  The Case Shiller composite of cities index shows prices decreasing 1.8% since that composite “bottom” in 2009. Hmm…so that really wasn’t the bottom in many markets.

As we fortunate folks in Boston know, we fared much better than most. Atlanta has declined another 17.2% from its low in July 2007. Las Vegas has declined another 19.3% from its ow in August 2006. On the other end of the spectrum San Francisco has increased 8.7% since its low in in May 2006.

Here is some interesting context as we try to make sense of all this analysis and what it means  to us in our  specific neighborhoods. At 2005 year end, which was near Boston’s historic low, the average sales price for a condo in the South End was $527K. At year end 2011 the average sales price of a condo was $656K, an increase of 14.6%. At 2005 year end the average price of a Back Bay condo was $1,038K.  At year end in 2011 it was $1,045K, a .07% increase.

As you can imagine the 1.4% increase in prices from the low in Boston in 2005 represents an average of all neighborhoods.  This composite average price increase is a result of the incredible variety of prices, inventory type, location, condition, and of course supply dynamics in Boston, and drives home the huge variety of buying and selling opportunities that exists today.

 

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general info style trends

Design Budgets. On The Table.

Michael Ferzoco is the principle of Eleven Interiors, the interior design firm he founded in 2005. Michael is a regular contributor to my blog adding a fabulous design component to the conversation.  You can reach Michael at [email protected].

Given the “new economy” in recent years, most prospective clients considering a design project have had to tighten their belts.  I’ve had my share of clients approach me with financial trepidation about starting a new project.   They may have the finances, but they may want to implement the project in phases.  And many, I have found, are also a bit leery of beginning a project without some kind of certainty that they’re budget will be honored.  As professionals we owe it to our savvy clientele to “put it on the table”… to let them know exactly where they are financially at all times during the life of their project.

Budgets are a tricky conversation to have with a client. They often feel like they’re taking a leap of faith by telling a designer that they have a given dollar amount to put toward their project. I always insist on defining the budget.  There can be that cat and mouse game where the prospective client explains what they want to do and then asks “how much do you think that will cost?”  Well, it could cost a little or a lot, depending on how much they have available to spend!  Yes, a kitchen can be renovated with Ikea cabinetry and basic granite countertops or it can be done in custom cabinetry with all the bells and whistles and Caesarstone countertops, or perhaps it’ll fall somewhere in between.

Every client’s project is important regardless of the budget.  There are $20k clients and there are $500k clients….but to each of those respective clients, that’s a lot of green.

In an effort to “keep it all on the table”, I’ve always prepared a detailed budget and presented it to my clients at the beginning of a project. Inevitably, over time, that budget will change (the built-ins cost X instead of Y because they decided on a more, or less expensive, wood or finish; or they absolutely had to have those vintage chairs), but the client receives an update every week with the respective line item highlighted for their review and approval. That way, both of us can be assured that there won’t be any financial surprises at the end of the project. Good faith, all around. They share information with me and I share it with them. It makes the entire process so pleasant.

A client’s budget is the most important piece of information they can share with me.  Of course, chances are highly likely that I’m going to spend it because that’s what they told me they had available to spend!  But more than that, knowing the budget allows me to present clients with product that will work within that budget.