Buying a Home Archives | House and Hammer

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house for sale in boston - home buying 101

I wrote a book! It’s called ‘Home Buying 101’

Listen, I’m as shocked as you are, but there you have it: I’ve got an honest-to-goodness book coming out on February 15, called Home Buying 101. It’s published by Adams Media, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. It’s a soup-to-nuts guide to buying your first home, with practical tips on saving for a down payment,…

aerial view of beacon hill and back bay in boston

How much is a year of your life worth? How about four?

What would you pay for an extra year of your life? A lot, right? People complain about the cost of housing in Massachusetts, and with good reason — it’s outrageously expensive to buy a home in the Boston area. The median price of an existing single-family home in the Boston area was $563,000 in 2020, according…

home for sale with realtor sign in chelsea mass - how much to offer on a house

How much should you offer for a house? Here’s the best advice I’ve heard

How do you decide how much to offer on a home? The best advice I’ve heard came from Realtor Al Norton. “You want to bid a number where you’re happy if you get it at that price, and you’re happy if you don’t,” he told me. “That’s the trick.”

marlborough st brownstones in bostons back bay

If you’ve always dreamed of living in the Back Bay, this might be your chance

Over the past decade or so, there’s been an accelerating “back to the city” movement, as young people and downsizing boomers alike seemed to prize walkable, vibrant, diverse neighborhoods. As prices in the urban core spiraled higher, many Millennials sacrificed size for prime location while retirees in desirable suburbs like Wellesley or Needham cashed in…

home in reading, mass. - the best places to live around Boston, Massachusetts

★The best places to live in and around Boston

Updated on April 26, 2022 On Sunday, the Boston Globe Magazine published its annual “Top Spots to Live in Greater Boston” feature, which I’ve been fortunate enough to write for the past five years. For want of a better metric, the list is based on the spots with the biggest jumps in median home prices…

Three reasons right now might be your best chance to buy a home in Boston

The past few years have seen home prices — all over the country and state, but particularly in and around Boston — race upward. To say it’s been a seller’s market would be a vast understatement. With too few homes on the market, fierce competition has forced buyers into costly bidding wars, waiving important contingencies, and rushing what should be…

house for sale - the real monthly costs of owning a home

The real monthly costs of owning a home (and how they add up)

You’ll find all kinds of articles online about the real or hidden monthly costs of owning a home. I’ve even written some of them. The gist of all these pieces is this: Owning a home is generally more expensive than you think. As a renter, there are a lot of hidden expenses bundled up in your monthly rent…

5 affordable homes for sale in good school districts

Home buyers often fall back on the notion of “good schools.” It’s understandable – you want to give your kids the best opportunities you can, and homes in good school districts do tend to hold or increase their value better than those in other neighborhoods. However, I think this concept is waaaaay overblown, at least in…

house swallowed by rising sea levels - flood insurance climate change global warming real estate

Climate change, flood insurance, and why you should buy on high ground

I always wanted to live by the ocean. That’s why we settled in Quincy almost a decade ago, a few blocks from Wollaston Beach, where we can sometimes smell the sea from the subway platform. During our house hunt, we researched all kinds of data — pricing, walkability, property taxes, schools, commute times — but…

house for sale in norwood - best places to live in boston

It’s official: You’d be crazy to buy in Boston right now

Last fall, I wondered whether you’d have to be nuts to buy a house in the Boston area, given how overheated the market was. In the ensuing months, it’s only gotten hotter – and the terrain more treacherous for first-time home buyers. In Sunday’s Globe, realtor Marjorie Youngren shares what it takes to make an attractive…

Reader mail: Overwhelmed by house hunting in Boston

I recently received a reader email in response to one of my Globe articles, and I thought I’d write a post about it since other people out there might be thinking the same thing: Enjoyed your article about zombie homes. I’m actually relatively new to Boston, living in an apartment with my wife and two-year-old son. We have…

Would you be nuts to buy a home in Boston right now?

The housing market in Boston started heating up in 2013, with home prices shooting up 9.7%, according to the Case-Shiller Index. Then it caught fire in 2014. The fire kept burning last year. By now, prices in a lot of popular cities and towns, including Cambridge, Arlington, and Boston itself, have shot up 50% or more in just…