March 29, 2008
Recent Listings in Beverly and Salem; Boing, Boing, Boing….
I’m drowning in schoolwork lately, and not nearly as obsessive about real estate as I should be; I’ll give you some more to chew on this week, I promise.
As the weather warms up, we’ll certainly see more listings; in fact, no matter how much the market recovers this Spring, it will remain a buyer’s paradise out there.
Lots of the “New Listings” you’ll see soon are places that were taken off the market for a week or two so that they could re-emerge as new listings; newly listed properties get more attention than those that sit around, and sometimes sellers pull a minor fast one to get us to pay attention.
63 Palmer Street #63-4 in Salem is eye candy at $209,900 and $193/sq.ft. But listen to this:
“Rent for up to one year for $1,300. per month & seller will apply half of rent you’ve paid to your down payment on this unit.”
Imagine being able to lock into an agreement that lets you buy a condo a year from now with a guaranteed $7,800 bonus on your down? I don’t expect this to last.
19 Cloverdale Avenue in Salem looks Brady-Bunch blah in the picture, but the photographer gives us a glimpse of the view beyond. It takes architectural cues from Frank Loyd Wright’s school of aesthetics in that it has no curb appeal (stupid Frank Lloyd Wright and his stupid minions — don’t get me started. He’s the inspiration for the cul-de-sac, the guy who preached the death of the urban center, and who made it okay for buildings to be ugly from the outside. And Falling Water is falling
apart.), but it’s basic boxy nothingness could be a blank slate for some wicked good renovation.
6 Story Avenue in Beverly is a beautiful 1920s 3-bedroom for $307k. It has a nice big lot and it’s right near the train. The honey pine floors are completely sexy.
Eric said:
wow! 19 Cloverdale is about the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. 6 story avenue is the complete opposite. very nice. maybe I’ll move up that way after all.
thanks for the listings.
-Eric
March 31, 2008 7:53 AM
mike.martin said:
19 Cloverdale has potential, don’t get me wrong. But, yeah — my girlfriend just fell in love with Story Ave, too. It will be interesting to track which sells faster — I mean, Cloverdale has WAY more square footage and water views, but Story is more convenient to the commuter rail, and it’s a real gem.
If I bought Cloverdale, however, I’d cut some more windows on the street side, see about some HUGE picture windows on the water-view side, and then see if maybe some dormers or an observation tower were possible to make it a little less soulless-California-suburb (my friend John has this idea to use a wooden grain silo kit to make a garret — crazy, but I’d love to have a garret!). Or, maybe it’s the MLS photographer, or the listing agent is using some crappy 1 megapixel camera from 1996 to take really bad pictures. As more and more real estate sales shift to online marketing (in one way or another) something really has to be done about these crappy, grainy, poorly-composed pictures.
March 31, 2008 8:19 AM