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Category Archives: real estate
Tuesday on the Shifting Sands of Thought
If I was a child, this would be the spot in the summer where I would start to dread the coming fall and hoard the moments of vacation. This is full summer and already the nights are growing longer. Have we done all we’d dreamed of doing when there were feet of snow on the ground?
I’m looking at apartments after work. I enjoy this process- seeing the possibilities and how different people live. I’ll bring the camera and post some photos.
Our Lot: How Real Estate Came to Own Us by Alyssa Katz
Ms. Katz goes into gruesome detail with classic readable muckraking style- you get to know a lot of characters as she explains what can only be described as a nationwide conspiracy on every level to inflate home prices and commit mortgage fraud. She says “titling a show Flip this House or Flip That House is like titling a show Theft is Easy” So many neighborhoods and lives were destroyed by the deliberate stripping of equity from cities, and lying cheating to sell mortgages to people who don’t need them and shouldn’t have them. Depressing!
I’m not buying a house. I’m not ready to “marry a building” as Scott phrased it. Or to deal with sewage in my basement, or the thousands of other little fun projects that the homeowners I know enjoy. I did like scraping up carpet glue in my old apartment for months with a one inch scraper, but that was performance art.
Posted in book review, real estate
Tagged alyssa katz, book review, first time home buyers, our lot
Freeland Farm
The house I grew up in as illustrated by my mother for the menu for her Gourmet Club, September 1984.
Posted in arts and crafts, cooking, real estate
Closed House, Salem
Alli dreamt that I had a shingled house, and it does seem fitting- one block from the water and the pioneer village.
I’m having a difficult time getting real estate news and information about this region. This is, I believe, because of the slow ugly death of local newspapers.
For Brooklyn there is brownstoner a site that aggregates news articles, new store and restaurant reviews, other blogs’ postings, statistics, renovation stories and real estate spin into one easy to navigate site. It is from a prodevelopment, progentrification point of view and is a for-profit venture, but it made it relatively easy to stay on top of the news for the borough. I have been able to find nothing like it for the Metro Boston Region. The Globe’s coverage is just sad and confusing. The real estate site Redfin has a lot of statistics, but they are trying to sell and they won’t service houses that cost less than $175K, so who can trust their market news?
Massachusetts does have a comprehensive registry of deeds site- everything is online! I just determined my landlords paid $480K in 2005 for my building. New Yorkers, yes that is a six unit apartment building two blocks from the train, zoned commercial.
So- I can find out and extrapolate. This little shingled house changed hands in 2002 for $275K and they are now asking $200K and not getting it. I am not a financial journalist- but this is not something that will easily right itself, yes? As a selfish young person, I see opportunity for me- maybe it will be possible to own a home on my librarian’s salary- but what repercussions are there, socially, ethically etc.? Will the artisan bakery stay open???
Posted in real estate
Tagged ethics, first time homebuyers, real estate, registry of deeds, salem, shingles
