Home Sales for the Love of Rescued Animals

A Weston real estate pair fell in love with a badly injured pit bull mix, and they're selling homes to support the organization that saved her.

Three years ago, Weston real estate agent Leslie Mann read a story on the Internet that horrified her. What she read was the story of Turtle, a female pit bull-type dog who had been abandoned in a wooded area of Hyde Park in the middle of winter. She was badly injured and barely clinging to life—showing all the signs of a bait dog, one used to test the fighting instinct of a potential fight dog. The Animal Rescue League of Boston stepped in to help Turtle—she was found near Turtle Pond Parkway—nursing her back to health through six months of treatment at Tufts Veterinary Hospital in Walpole. "I was just horrified by [the story] and said, 'We have to do something for her,'" Mann said. At the time, she held a Spin class fundraiser and sold T…

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Home Sales Drop in Worcester County

Worcester County saw a 7.74 percent decrease in home sales in February compared to a year ago, as a low housing inventory across the commonwealth has created bidding wars.

Worcester County home sales dropped in February—mirroring the commonwealth—which saw a drop in sales for the first time since December 2011, according to a recent report by The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman. Worcester County saw 298 home sales in February, which was a drop from 323 home sales in February 2012, a nearly 8 percent decrease. However, because of a strong January, home sales are down by only 1.03 percent overall in Worcester  County this year compared to a year ago, according to The Warren Group. Median sale price in Worcester County was up nearly 15 percent in February 2013 compared to February 2012, while the overall 2013 median sale price was up by 10 percent. Over the entire state, home sales dropped 5 …

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Confidence in Real Estate Market Up, Says MA Association of Realtors

The year started out "very confident."

The Massachusetts Association of REALTORS reported recently that realtors started out 2013 very confident in the real estate market as the REALTOR Market Confidence Index (RMCI) and REALTOR Price Confidence Index (RPCI) both hit all-time highs in January. Members generally believed "more buyers would enter the market if interest rates were to go up at least one percentage point over the next six months," stated the press release.   “REALTOR-members’ confidence in the market is miles away from when we started tracking this data in 2008,” said 2013 MAR President Kimberly Allard-Moccia, broker-owner of Century21 Professionals in Braintree. “REALTOR®-members are positive about the market because their clients are. To hit all-time highs in both…

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Average Home in Northborough Just Over Half Million

Coldwell Banker recently released its survey of average homes in markets across the country.

Only Hawaii is more expensive to live in than Massachusetts. And in Massachusetts, Northborough is a lot more affordable than Weston, but much more pricey than Springfield. That's according to the results of a survey recently released by Coldwell Banker that analyzed the most expensive and the most affordable  markets across the country. The survey "provides a snapshot of the average listing price of four-bedroom, two-bathroom homes across the country. This year’s report analyzes more than 72,000 home listings in more than 2,500 U.S. markets, comparing the listing prices of similar homes in markets across the country from January 2012 to June 2012." In a price comparison of average home costs, Northborough sits somewhere in the middle at $…

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Housing Prices Up in August

Sales prices of existing single-family homes continue to rise, according to new data.

Good news for homeowners, especially those thinking about selling: Home prices across the country and here in the Bay State area rose more than expected in July, according to data released Tuesday from the S&P/Case-Shiller Housing Index. In the Boston-metro area, the seasonally adjusted price index (which measures the average sale price for single-homes) for July this year was 153.38, up from 152.07 in July 2011 and down from 155.30 in July 2010.  The numbers are calculated based on the repeat sale of existing single-family homes, where the baseline of 100 is the average price as of January 2000. The bottoming out of the index in this area was in April 2009.  According to data from Trulia.com, a real estate site, the average listing price …

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By the Numbers

Northborough Surpasses Home Sale State Average

For six months, pending home sales have gone up, and Northborough's numbers are even better than the state average, according to a local realtor.

Based on numbers from the Massachusetts Association of Realtors (MAR), the Worcester Business Journal reported that the number of single-family homes and condominiums that were placed under a sales agreement rose in May. That's the 13th month that sales activity has gone up in state real estate. The MAR states that pending sales are a leading indicator of "actual housing sales, and that the number of homes placed under agreement surpassed the 5,000 mark for the first time since the organization began tracking the data in January 2009," according to the WBJ. In Northborough, the statistics surpass the state average, according to local realtor Judy Boyle, who works for ReMax. Out of the 124 single family homes currently for sale in …

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