Expert Advice from Amy & Kyle Bergquist at Keller Williams Legacy Partners
It’s been a big day for real estate in the national news. The Wall Street Journal had three articles that caught my eye. And then Case-Shiller data was also announced this morning. First was the front page piece titled Price Cuts Spur Home Sales. December existing home sales data was released on Monday. The market had expected another month-over-month decrease after November’s 9.4% drop in the number of transactions. However, the December report showed a
Property taxes are a sensitive subject in Greater Hartford. Just about every year there is a budget referendum in at least one local town as angry residents fight yet another property tax increase. The debate in some towns is more heated than in others (but we won’t mention any names). You may be happy to know that rising property taxes are a hot topic in other cities and states as well. An editorial in this
There is an interesting article in the New York Times today about a buyer in California that is suing her buyer’s agent. Marty Ummel believes that her real estate agent hid information that similar homes in a neighborhood were selling for less, in order to keep a deal together and retain his commission. There are a lot of things at play here; the real estate agent was also the mortgage broker (which to me seems
New England’s “Rising Star” has several initiatives underway to promote economic growth and increase home ownership. I’ll be writing about some of these projects and programs in future posts. In the meantime, I came across an interesting article on the Wall Street Journal Online that talks about a very different strategy, purposely planning to shrink a city. According to the article, Youngstown, Ohio has seen its population decline by 60% over the last fifty years.
I’ve written about the lack of affordable of housing in CT before. Add to this a few of my other pet peeves, suburban sprawl (yes, I know it is counter-intuitive for a REALTOR to dislike sprawl) and youth drain, and we’ve got the potential for long term economic hardship not only in CT, but all of New England. Clearly, on a town by town basis, we can start business development and real estate development projects