News

“Coming Soon” …another class action lawsuit against the real estate industry? An award-winning real estate law attorney recently offered a definition of “Agency” in the Word of the Day series he writes for real estate agents: http://bit.ly/AgencyRETalk   (share via social media) Given his audience, no surprise his description asserted that there are times the homebuyer […]

Seven Questions for Contractors Seven Questions for Contractors By Pete Youngs How long have you been in business in this area? This is important because you want them to be established. In many cases, you may run into a company that is new and you will have trouble getting older references and such. If they

Did Someone Get Killed in that Property You’re About to Buy? When you’re researching a property, have you ever wondered, “did someone ever die or get killed here???”  An eerie online site called DiedInHouse.com will, for a small fee, generate a report using millions of records to determine if a death occurred at any valid

Four Seasons of Homeownership – Fall Fall is firmly upon us and with that in mind, today’s infographic from Today’s Homeowner (from their 4 Seasons of Homeownership) goes over some simple things you can do to prepare your home for winter.  Happy Friday!!! Hat tip to TodaysHomeowner.com.   The post Four Seasons of Homeownership –

Demand for Vacation Homes Sees Increase We have had several posts about owning vacation homes – whether to rent them out, use them as a 2nd home or both.  With that in mind, a new report from the National Association of Realtors says that increased financial wealth and low mortgage rates have boosted the demand

FLASHBACK: Bidding wars plunge in Boston, #BiddingWarBacklash next? Despite 24 years of experience, the first eight months of 2019 have been the worst ever for the Real Estate Cafe, the first online / offline, cybercafe for real estate when we opened in 1995. Now, two headlines this week make us glad that we’ve encouraged buyers

Top 10 Markets for Flipping The good folks over at Realtor.com said that it seems like everyone is getting into real estate game or at least dreaming about it.  In fact, they remind everyone that it’s just not as easy as it looks on HGTV and that something called reality sets in.  That’s why their

Housing Starts & Building Permits Down in September The U.S. government is reporting that privately‐owned housing starts in September were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,256,000.  This figure is 9.4% below August’s revised estimate but is 1.6% higher than September, 2018.  Single‐family housing starts in September were at a rate of 918k, which

From The Assessor’s Office | Massachusetts Real Estate Tax Assessments and Abatement Basics “From the Assessor’s Office” — A New Regular Column by Jonathan Steinberg, MAA, MACR, Chief Assessor, Town of Westborough Along with the celebration of the holidays comes the moment of truth when communities with quarterly tax billing send out the new Fiscal Year’s tax

WSJ exposes privacy issues in real estate, need for Consumer Bill of Rights The @WSJ reported today that popular phone apps like #HRMonitor, #Flo and #Realtor sent private data to @Facebook without users’ knowledge. No wonder advertisers are addicted to FB audience targeting tools, but what of #dataprivacy? Read the WSJ report: https://t.co/7YDv3YhT1w. pic.twitter.com/9CDREE5Can —