Mom's Passing

We buried mom yesterday. Made me cry or at least fill with tears. I gave the eulogy which was somewhat humorous but also sad. The priest conclude correctly that she must have been feisty. I will truly miss her. I have been taking care of her for the past 4-5 years taking her to doctors appointments, paying her bills, trying to make her comfortable at our house, making arrangements for her move into assisted living, taking away her car keys. Was not easy to work today.

Lease To Own

Just received a lease purchase offer from a company called Rent2OwnConnect. Have not seen one of these in many years. Never got one to work. Has anyone had a good experience with lease to own?

The offer which was $10,000 below the list price included a $1200 monthly rent, a $2,000 non-refundable deposit and a 30 percent refund of the monthly rent($4320) if the deal does not close

A Medicare Rule

I do not know all of the Medicare rules and regulations. I work in real estate not health care. But this one rule which I just learned about yesterday seems odd. Medicare will cover and pay for skilled nursing care including room and board. Medicare will also pay for Hospice(end of life) care but it excludes paying for room and board. I can only guess that this is the government's way of saving money.

Tewksbury Home Sales

During the past 12 months, there were 202 single family home sales in Tewksbury, Massachusetts vs 153 sales for the previous 12 month period. While sales were up by almost 25%, the average sale price only went up slightly (about 1%) from $327,279 to $329,471. To me, this shows some weakness in the market. If sales are up by 25%, prices should rise more than 1%. But we all know about the high unemployment rate and the weak consumer confidence level. Nevertheless, I conclude that we are moving in the right direction.

At present, there are 83 single family homes on the market with an average list price of $364,652. Based upon the average of 108 days on the market, it will take 5 months to sell the average home at the average list price.

Realty Trac predicts that there will be 4.5 foreclosure filings in 2010. There were 2.8 million in 2009. This will place downward pressure on real estate prices - not good news for sellers. But my guess is that lenders will be so swamped, they will not be able to place the foreclosed homes on the market. They will have to spread them out into 2011.
But whatever happens, it is really a great time to buy - lower prices, very low interest rates (around 5%) and the new federal tax credit.

My First Blog

Creating this blog was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Now I have to connect this to my web site which should not be too difficult - just need to contact my web guy Darrin Pinette. But my worry after that is what to write and how often. I should probably schedule some time each week - maybe 3 times per week a half hour each. Seems like a plan. Here's to beginnings!