A formal living room with shiny hardwood floors welcomes you. The remodeled kitchen has a breakfast bar and opens to the dining room. There is also a large bedroom and an updated full bathroom on the first floor.

Upstairs you’ll find three bedrooms and another remodeled full bathroom. The bedrooms have good closet space and new carpeting.

Outside a large, level yard invites you to relax and offers storage space with an oversized shed.

The home also has new windows and vinyl siding, a gas furnace and hot water heater, a partially finished basement and central air.

267 Sandra Drive is offered at $179,999. If you’d like to see this home, please have your agent arrange a showing or call me at 860-655-2125 to schedule a visit. More details and a photo tour are available.

But not everyone loves dogs. In fact, some people don’t like dogs at all. Who can blame them really? Sometimes dogs are smelly. They drool. They shed. And sometimes they bark. In fact, they may bark a lot.

Which is exactly what this dog did when I went to show a house today. It barked at me as I pulled up. It barked at me and my clients as we exited our cars. It barked at us while I retrieved the house key from the lock box. It barked at us while I fiddled with the lock and opened the front door.

It barked and barked and barked. The dog’s owner, who was the next door neighbor, came outside to try and quiet the dog. But it kept barking. And wagging its tail. The dog was clearly friendly. Just excited. And So. Darn. Loud.

These buyers aren’t really dog people and the barking understandably bothered them. Thankfully they ended up not liking the interior of the house because it would have been a very hard sell otherwise, given the dog.

I wonder if the seller knows that the neighbor’s dog barks at buyers when they visit the house. I wonder if they know the tone it’s setting before a person even enters their house.

I wonder if this dog knows I’m gossiping about it on the Interwebs…

We’ve already commented on much of what we’re seeing in the market right now. Some towns are very active, and multiple offer situations are common. Inventory is on the low side, so buyers feel they need to follow the market very closely in order to have a chance at the “good” homes. And buyers are much more inclined to pay extra for a move-in ready home than take on a renovation or two.

Just this week we learned that mortgage rates are once again at historic lows. Attractive rates for purchases, combined with the challenge buyers experience in borrowing money for renovations, goes a long ways towards explaining why move-in ready homes are in such high demand. Why not spend a little more to get a home that’s already been updated? For most buyers it’s an easy decision since they don’t want to deal with renovations and don’t have the cash available even if they were open to a property that needed a little work.

We learned one other interesting tidbit the other day. Apparently about 20% of contracts have been blowing up recently. This is not a stat that we are able to research and calculate, but it was reported to us from a reputable source – our broker got it from the people who run the local MLS. We’re not surprised by the number, as we regularly see homes return to the market in the MLS, and have had a few of our own deals fall through.

Happy spring … and feel free to write or call with all of your real estate questions.

The formal living room has a wood burning fireplace and built-in bookshelves. A formal dining room leads to the kitchen which has eat-in space and granite counters.

Upstairs there are two nicely sized bedrooms and a full bath.

A covered back porch leads to the level yard and paver patio.

This home has refinished hardwood floors, new windows, central air and a 1-car garage.

It’s a great condo alternative.

193 Milton Street is offered at $229,000. If you’d like to see this home, please have your agent arrange a showing or call me at 860-655-2125 to schedule a visit. More details and a photo tour are available.

The open floor plan makes the unit light and bright, and great for entertaining. The kitchen has a good amount of work space and plenty of room for a large table. Down the hall from the kitchen is a full bath and laundry. The master bedroom is also on this floor and is oversized with ample closet space.

Up a half flight of stairs you’ll find the living room overlooks the kitchen. It has a wood burning fireplace and access to a private deck.

Another half flight up is the loft space which is the second bedroom. This floor also has a full bath, a walk-in closet and unfinished storage space.

This unit has central air and a 1-car carport.

239 Farmington Avenue is offered at $130,000. If you’d like to see this home, please have your agent arrange a showing or call me at 860-655-2125 to schedule a visit. More details and a photo tour are available.

First, appraisers were implicated as a contributing factor to the real estate bubble in the mid 2000s. The line of thinking was that they were focused less on the accuracy of their results than on their next deal.

Next, the government responded by clamping down on the appraisal process to prevent lenders and real estate agents (who were both also implicated in the bubble) from exerting undue influence. Lenders have to hire appraisers indirectly through an appraisal management company. And although real estate agents have to let the appraisers into a home, we aren’t supposed to talk to them.

Then the real estate market headed south, with a dramatic decline in market activity (number of transactions), and a more gradual decline in prices. Appraisal risk became an important consideration when selling real estate in this new environment.

Would the home successfully appraise to the contract price? If no comparable properties sold within the past 6 months, then the appraiser was in a difficult position. Even if they were able to identify a value by making adjustments to not-really-comparable homes, there was still the risk that the bank’s underwriters would reject the appraisal. We saw this happen to our clients.

Sellers often had to reduce their price if a home didn’t appraise. Buyers were few and far between for a while, and sellers often felt they had to do whatever it took to keep a deal together. Since mortgage companies would require buyers to contribute more cash to the deal (in order to preserve the lender’s loan-to-value), and buyers were very reluctant to “overpay,” the easiest answer was to reduce the purchase price to the appraisal value.

With buyer activity heating up in some towns, appraisal risk is evolving. Multiple offer situations are becoming more common and buyers seem willing to pay a premium for thoroughly updated, rarely available homes. It’s classic economics – supply is low and demand is high, so prices go up.

The new wrinkle is that even if a listing agent has three bids at essentially the same price for a home, the appraisal may come in much lower because the historical data isn’t there to support a new, higher, price. In a regional real estate environment with flat or falling prices, how will the appraisers account for pockets of rising prices?

One development we’re seeing is buyers taking on the appraisal risk in order to get the home under contract. They’re willing and able to bring additional cash to the deal in order to keep the lender happy just in case the appraisal doesn’t work out in their favor. Not all buyers have the cash, but those that do can sweeten their bid a little bit by dropping the appraisal clause from the offer.

It’s an interesting development, and something we’ll continue to monitor to see how appraisals continue to evolve.

Natural woodwork and a grand staircase, along with details like pocket doors and canvas and beamed ceilings welcome you home. The living room features a large fireplace, anchoring the perfectly proportioned space. A spacious dining room opens immediately off the living room, and a first floor family room and office make the home incredibly functional. The kitchen is fully remodeled with new cabinetry, granite counters, and stainless steel appliances. It has an eat-in area, large island, and butler’s pantry.

Architectural details continue upstairs to an open landing with built-in hutch and the bedrooms. You’ll find a master bedroom with fully renovated bath. Three additional bedrooms, and another full bath that has both a soaking tub and a marble shower, complete the second floor.

The third floor contains two additional bedrooms, a full bath, and walk-in storage space.

The home has air conditioning throughout, newer furnace and roof, a 2-car garage, a screened deck off the family room, and a paver patio.

218 North Beacon Street is offered at $575,000. If you’d like to see this home, please have your agent arrange a showing, call me at 860-655-2125 to schedule a visit, or stop by the open house on April 22nd between 1:00pm-3:00pm. More details and a photo tour are available.

Part of the model we built to analyze MLS contract data allows us to look at trends in individual towns. Here is the number of West Hartford contracts each month this year compared to 2011.

Each of the first three months of 2012 was stronger than the corresponding month in 2011 in the West Hartford single-family market. January and February showed meaningfully higher activity levels, while March dramatically outpaced last year. What does this suggest for April and May? Just how deep is the West Hartford buyer pool?

Looking at the year-to-date West Hartford single-family contracts by price band, we can see that activity has increased the most for homes priced between $200k and $499k. Homes with asking prices between $500k and $699k have been up slightly, while activity in the $700k through $999k band is actually down compared to last year.

West Hartford homes in very good condition are selling immediately, often with multiple offers, and sometimes above the asking price. We have been seeing this consistently at a broad range of asking prices. Buyers need to follow the market very closely in order to even have a chance to bid on these homes.

Sellers should go the extra mile to prepare their property for sale. Clean up, do a little staging, and hire an agent who will market it properly. For an updated home it could be the difference between just one offer and a bidding war. For a more average property it could enable you enough to reel in that first offer.

The number of active listings in each of the price bands up to $499k is approximately equal to the number of year-to-date contracts. This tells us that there is about 3 months of inventory in those price bands, which suggests that West Hartford is a seller’s market.

The $700k to $999k price band is more complicated. Inventory is much higher than the sub-$500k price bands, yet we still see strong interest in new listings. Taking a look at the actual properties available, many of the homes have been on the market for an extended period of time. Buyers have likely evaluated them and concluded that they didn’t meet their needs for one reason or another.

Real estate markets evolve gradually over time. The strong activity and interest in the sub-$500k price bands of West Hartford may be an early sign that the regional markets are improving. We are hopeful that the trends we see here will begin to spread to other price bands, and other towns, over the coming months and years.

As always, buyers and sellers need to have a solid understanding of their local conditions to make the best decisions possible. We have this data for all 29 towns in Hartford County and would be happy to share.

Mature gardens frame the home and welcome you. Inside, the foyer opens to a formal living room with built-in bookshelves and a wood burning fireplace. A large dining room leads into the remodeled kitchen. With an attached family room, this space is really the heart of the home. The kitchen has maple cabinets, granite counters, stainless steel appliances, a breakfast bar and additional eat-in space. It opens to a family room with built-in shelving.

Upstairs you’ll find four bedrooms, each with ample closet space. The master bedroom has its own bathroom and there is an additional full bath in the hallway.

The partially finished basement offers a fireplace and more recreation space.

Lush gardens, a level yard and large deck encourage you to spend time outside.

You’ll also enjoy the central air, newer roof, 2-car garage and convenient, cul de sac location.

24 Stockade Circle is offered at $400,000. If you’d like to see this home, please have your agent arrange a showing or call me at 860-655-2125 to schedule a visit. More details and a photo tour are available.

Last June the state legislature passed a law that defines how the City of Hartford’s split property tax system will work for the coming five years. A new provision was added that ties the residential assessment ratio directly to the changes in the inflation-adjusted tax levy. (Here is more information for those interested in background on the property taxes in Hartford)

My understanding is that the provision is trying to say that if City spending outpaces inflation, then more of the tax burden will shift to the residential taxpayers. Nobody knows how this provision will play out since it is brand new. We do know that it will not be triggered for the coming tax year – grand list 2011, which runs from July 2012 through June 2013.

With the City facing a $56m budget gap, it seems unlikely that it will be triggered next year either. The budget being put together right now will need to be less than last year’s budget in order to balance. Inflation is almost certainly going to be positive, so City spending will not outpace inflation. However, it is much less clear what will happen for the year after that.

Suppose City leaders aggressively cut the budget for the coming year, which allows tax revenue to also be meaningfully cut. If these cuts are not sustainable, and the City needs to increase revenue next year through higher taxes, then it’s possible that the new provision in the property tax legislation would be triggered, shifting tax burden to residential property owners.

Although we have been following the budget discussion through the media, and attended one of the Council Committee of the Whole budget workshops, we do not have much visibility into expenses in future years. We know that pension contributions are increasing to make up for the meaningful losses that the pension fund experienced during the downturn in the financial markets from 2007 – 2009. Perhaps there are other expected expenses on the horizon that City leaders can plan for.

The most recent Courant article about the budget talks notes that City Council is reluctant to increase the mill rate to offset the decrease in property values identified in revaluation 2011. Presumably, part of their reluctance is to protect homeowners in addition to the perception issues specifically mentioned.

We encourage leaders to keep homeowners in mind as they work through the City’s financial issues. Certainly a smaller budget, and lower accompanying taxes, is a worthy goal that many homeowners would appreciate. However, it may turn out to be more advantageous to gradually reduce the budget and tax levy over the course of multiple years than to make a single dramatic cut.

Dropping the property tax levy too much this year could set the stage for an accelerated shift of the tax burden to homeowners that could have strongly negative consequences in the long run. Especially since the shift would be on top of the scheduled 3.5% increase in residential taxes that is also built into the law.

So are we actually asking for more taxes? Yes and no.

Taxes would (ideally) be flat or down for most homeowners in dollar terms – how much they actually owe for the year beginning in July 2012 – so no, we’re not asking for more taxes. But the mill rate would increase, and we would be taxed at a higher percentage of our property’s value, which means there would be a perception of a tax increase and the accompanying gnashing of teeth.

Hartford’s property tax system is very complicated, with aggressive negotiation between the business community and the residents setting the rules. For the coming five years the rules of the game suggest that a gradual decrease in the City budget is most beneficial for residents. The 3.5% more that residential property owners will pay each year is enough. We don’t need to be piling more tax burden on homeowners due to improperly managed budget gyrations.

Perhaps the City should take a page from big business’s playbook and smooth revenues over the coming years. It would be a win-win since the tax burden would decrease for commercial property owners without shifting the burden to homeowners too quickly.