One trend that we (agents/brokers) have been seeing since late 2011, is the strength of the multi-family segment of the property markets in the Boston metro and suburbs. I have thought for at least 5 years that the multi-family segment of the property market made a lot of fiscal sense for owner occupants to consider. Investors have always been interested in procuring 2 and 3-family properties for their “cash flow” potential (income from rents). It made sense and still does make sense for the investor.
 
However, investors are now seeing much more competition from …

One day, not too long ago (1994 or so), real estate listings were published in a “book” that was published on a weekly basis. If you, the prospective buyer, wanted to search the MLS (multiple listing service) for properties for sale, they could only be found in the MLS book and the central location where you could search through this MLS book was at a real estate brokerage office. You would most likely sit down with a real estate agent whose office represented Sellers and not Buyers.
 
By 2001, in Massachusetts, Buyer Agency was still …

You’ve heard the term “special assessment” from someone and it may have sounded ominous and vague .. unless you have searched for and perhaps purchased a condominium in the past.
 
What are special assessments and how or why do they occur within condo associations? That is the question that needs to be answered, but first, let’s assume that you are not familiar with how a condominium association is run, managed, and budgets its operations.
 
Your condo association has a condo fee that is collected each month. The fee collection is the association’s …

When you see a property listing sheet and you are looking for the “condo fee”, it may be in a section of the listing sheet titled “HOA fee”. Don’t be confused by the use of the term “HOA” fee as it means Home Owner’s Association fee. For short, condo fee. Willard Realty Group happily provides the condo fee data with each property description of condominiums for sale in Massachusetts.
 
That’s great, but what does this wonderful fee include and what should you look for when searching for condos? This is more …