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Need opinions for buying in Needham

 
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househunter16
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 20, 2014 4:11 am GMT    Post subject: Need opinions for buying in Needham Reply with quote

Hi everyone,
My husband and I are relocating from New Jersey to Boston and are looking to buy. We have 3 kids all at school age. So good school district and easy commute to the city will be the key. And newer house will be a plus since we already got our hands full and do not want to do too much work. Our realtor recommends Needham. So we took a house hunting trip and toured several houses.
Our first choice would be this house
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/29-Hawthorn-Ave-Needham-MA-02492/57474078_zpid/
Unfortunately it was taken quickly. So we moved to our second choice.
http://www.trulia.com/property/3166515251-4-Holland-Ter-Needham-MA-02492
It has been on the market for only 14 days and they already had a price cut for 25k. We had our agent contact the listing agent. Seems like the builder is very motivated to sell, saying the price is still negotiable. We really like the location (close to towns and schools) and the fact that it’s still time to customize the house to our taste.
Our question is:
1. Is Needham a family and kids friendly town?
2. Is this location considered a desirable part of the town?
3. Is the commute to the city be within 45 mins?
4. If we are able to negotiate the price down, say for another 50k, hopefully, will that be a good deal? Or at least we are not paying too much over fair value.
Of course we already counseled our realtor and he says yes to all the above questions. We just want some 2nd opinion from the locals. So please help. Any input will be greatly appreciated.
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admin
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Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Posts: 1826
Location: Greater Boston

PostPosted: Sat Sep 20, 2014 4:06 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's quite the difference in price between the two.

A 45 minute commute time may be a tall order. It depends a lot on exactly where you would be commuting to. Traffic near Boston can be abysmal during rush hour. Just as one example, for 4 Holland Terrace, Google estimates a 29 minute drive to MGH right now or 26 minutes without traffic. During rush hour, I doubt it would be 45 minutes or under, and that would be the case from most places, not just Needham. I'd suggest searching for directions in Google to exactly where you would be going at the exact time of day you would be going (on a weekday), to get some better estimates.

4 Holland Terrace does look to be walking distance to the commuter rail, so that could be an option. Depending on where you are going, it may actually be faster than driving. Even if it isn't faster, it has the advantage that you wouldn't have to pay attention to the road and could read, work, or do something else with that time.

- admin
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mpr



Joined: 06 Jun 2009
Posts: 344

PostPosted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 3:02 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

admin: for the first house you're probably looking at the 2013 sale. The OT is referring to the listing of the newly built house. Both house are around $1.4M.

OP: What is the sq ft of the house you're asking about not including basement ? Based on the total sq ft in the listing I'd assume about 3K. The average price per sq ft in Needham is $440, so it looks like you're not being taken to the cleaners.

A couple of words of warning. I would never buy a house if I didn't know and have a feel for prices in the area. Touring a few houses on one trip out isn't enough for this. If your timing/lifestyle allows it consider taking a few more such trips, as well as looking at more listings online. You could also put off buying until you've moved to the Boston area in which case you'd have much more information.

Second the house you're considering doesn't look like its finished. If you buy an unfinished house from a builder you will very likely have issues getting them to finish on time and/or complete all the finishing touches. I have yet to hear of new construction where this wasn't an issue. (The problem is that they usually have other projects, and it just isn't profitable for them to spend time finishing the last few details). Maybe you can negotiate a very aggressive hold back agreement where you keep $100K until every last detail is done.
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Richthofen



Joined: 02 Apr 2014
Posts: 69

PostPosted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 4:40 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

Totally confused here... Are you saying your first choice was a $700K house, and your second choice was a 1.3 million dollar house? That's a HUGE range. $50K less makes that a 'deal'? I am assuming that you are financially well off and that the price is one you can easily afford?

Let's back up. Right now housing prices are high. You're going to see a lot of action on lower prices and higher priced items are going to take a long time to sell. Average Days on Market for houses in needham that are selling for 1 million -> 1.5 million is 100 days. This one has been on the market for only 14 days. Chances are it will take further price cuts as there are 40 houses in that price range for sale right now in Needham. If its a spec home, being built or torn down just for renovating, then the builder is on short term financing. A price cut after 14 days is not shocking. They will cut the price until its sold. There's not a ton of people who can afford $1 million or more for a house.

So I mean, if your realtor says 'Yes its a good deal at $50k less', then you should say, what about
397 Dedham Ave List Price: $1,099,000
That's a house that's 200K less, and is 5200 sqft, almost 1k more in sqft than the one you showed. It's been on the market 102 days. You could probably offer $1 million even and get an accepted offer. Why the $200K difference? At these price levels most builders are pricing what they'd like to get out of it, not what comps have sold for.

Now, this may seem rude, so I apologize in advance. But if you can afford this expensive of a house, you can afford to spend a week or two driving around neighborhoods, knocking on doors, asking neighbors, etc. If this is your first time moving to MA you would benefit from maybe 'vacationing' here and spending time figuring out where you want to live in MA down to the neighborhood. A million dollars is a ton of money.
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balor123



Joined: 08 Mar 2008
Posts: 1204

PostPosted: Tue Sep 23, 2014 3:58 am GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

You need to live here at least 6mo before deciding where you want to live. Once all is said and done, you'll pay about 8% of the value of a house to sell it so if you don't like it then you'll be looking at something like $100k to get rid of this thing, not to mention the impact of moving your spouse and kids to a new area. Take it from someone who's made a $100k mistake recently, it is not a pleasant feeling.

The other thing to keep in mind is that MA has virtually no construction business. You haven't seen the home yet but once you do you'll notice that buying just what's new and expensive here may not be up to your quality standards coming from another part of the country. Builders here are CHEAP because the market will put up with it!

At that price point, there's no reason you couldn't buy a home, tear it down, and build one you like yourself, exactly the way you like it and without cheap finishings. If you're in a rush, then you can go prefab to speed things up, bringing the window down to about 6mo. With a $1.3mil budget, you can spend up to about $800k on the lot.

To answer your questions:
1. Yes, Needham is family friendly. So are lots of other towns.
2. Don't know Needham well but there's expensive houses around and near Wellesley so probably. You need a trustworth Realtor here. If it helps, Bill Wendel is a good guy and pokes around here sometimes. I have no affiliation to him other than interactions with him online over a few years.
3. On a good day should be about 30min. On a bad day, could be over an hour.
4. There is no reason to pay over fair value for a house at your price point. As I said, build one if you must.

What made you pick Needham? Are you trying to get as close to 45min as possible? Do you want a very rural character? FWIW, if you're going to be in Boston then you may as well take advantage of one unique area that you won't find in many cities: Brookline. It's urban but also very family friendly and has arguably the best schools in the state. At this price you can almost get SF there or a large gutted condo. A cousin of mine lives there with 3 kids and the walkability and character are just amazing, not to mention the easy commutes. Big Jewish community there too if that suits you and easy access to excellent healthcare.

If you really need a more suburban lifestyle, then I'd suggest Newton next, as you can still walk to the T and get that SF tear down you want. After that, I'd suggest Belmont, Lexington, or Wellesley, depending on the part of town you need to commute to. Wellesley is WASPish, Lexington is very colonial, and Belmont is sleepy.
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Former Arlingtonian



Joined: 23 Oct 2013
Posts: 141

PostPosted: Tue Sep 23, 2014 6:22 pm GMT    Post subject: Needham - Contractor -overly indebt - 4 Holland -Needham Reply with quote

Folks need to do more research on the overbuilding that is happening in Needham because of cheap money.

4 Holland Terrace - is owned by a builder/contractor named Thomas M. Piersiak & Sons, Inc. - Mortgage builder has on 4 Holland is $973,000

Check out all the outstanding debt Thomas Piersiak Inc is taking on to play in the construction/redevelopment bubble:

http://www.norfolkresearch.org/ALIS/WW400R.HTM?WSIQTP=LR01L&WSKYCD=N&W9SNM=THOMAS%20M%20PIERSIAK%20%26%20SONS%20INC.&W9GNM=&W9IXTP=&W9FDTA=01012013&W9TOWN=NDHM&W9ABR=MTG&W9INQ=PT#schTerms

One day this craziness will end - I just hope I'm able to take advantage when the end comes.....if it ever does.
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balor123



Joined: 08 Mar 2008
Posts: 1204

PostPosted: Wed Sep 24, 2014 4:05 am GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah you really need to know your builder before committing to his finished product. If he gets the flashing wrong, then you can be on the book for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Inspector cannot verify it after the house is finished. A small builder like this doesn't care about reputation. Sure he's liable but he'll declare bankruptcy in a heartbeat and start a new LLC. A friend of mine built a house in Wellesley and his builder did exactly that, as soon as the house was complete. Fortunately, in his case problems were limited to sprinklers and AC but he got to oversee the entire process.

Another problem is that the builder could go under before the house finishes. I saw a lot of that happening in 2007 - 2009. Any earnest money you provide is gone if that happens.
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mpr



Joined: 06 Jun 2009
Posts: 344

PostPosted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 3:09 pm GMT    Post subject: Re: Needham - Contractor -overly indebt - 4 Holland -Needham Reply with quote

Former Arlingtonian wrote:


One day this craziness will end - I just hope I'm able to take advantage when the end comes.....if it ever does.


My guess is that you won't take advantage. Because RE is a risky leveraged investment,
and so if you're very risk averse you can always postulate a reasonable scenario where
prices decline. And therefore you never buy.

That's why, when the 'end' did come in 2009-2011, a lot of people on this board were always looking for the 'next step down'.

Not that i think you'll get another chance like that either.
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Former Arlingtonian



Joined: 23 Oct 2013
Posts: 141

PostPosted: Mon Sep 29, 2014 1:39 pm GMT    Post subject: Risky leverage investment - Reply with quote

MPR,

Buying real estate is an intensely personal choice and a very levered investment. There was a time when real estate was just a place to live and people weren't fascinated by the astronomical increase in the value of their home. Home price values weren't the primary topic of conversation at dinner party's.

In fact, the value of real estate over long periods of time would only increase by 1% per year on average.

What happened?

Since the early 1980s our Federal Reserve has been responding to each economic crisis by lowering interest rates?

In 2009 Ben Bernanke Fed needed even lower interest rates to stimulate a very sick economy. The theory the Federal Reserve came up with was called Quantitative Easing or Asset Purchase program that would allow the Fed to buy securities from Banks (these are Bonds that Banks could find no buyers for and the Banks disparately needed cash to stay in business. This sort of massive buying of debt assets to liquify banks as never in the history of Banking been ever attempted.

The Fed asset buying program is what drove interest rates to 40 year low, resulting in people being able to borrow more money than ever to buy a home, allowing stock market players to buy stock with borrowed money, and allowing people to borrow money at historical interest rate lows to buy cars.

Results: GM is booming, Ford booming, Tesla Motors stock selling at a value of 30-40% of GM market cap even though Tesla will sell 30,000 -35,000 autos world wide this year (GM sells 2 million cars per quarter), house prices in most metro areas are above previous peaks.

Meanwhile: U-6 unemployment is stuck at 12% (u-6 BLS fell in the build up of the previous house bubble).

We bought a home in the 1999 run up and know that buying when the real estate fever is alive is a sure way to over pay.

Real estate fever will subside as in did in the late 1980s, it subsided again in the early 2000s, it subsided in 2008, and keep in mind mortgage rates fell from the late 1980s through to a year ago.

regards
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 4:10 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

As a Needham resident, here's my 2 cents:
Location wise, both houses are in Tower hill, which is one of the premier communities in Needham. Both sit on quite side streets. They are both in the Mitchell school district, which is the best elementary school in Needham. I like the location of 4 Holland better since it's very close to both Mitchell and Needham High. And you can walk to town center, commuter station, grocery stores and etc. I think the reason that 29 Hawthorn got sold quickly is because it's completely finished. The buyers would like to see the finished product before they commit to buy.
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