<p>Oldfort,
Oldfort, a messenger just picked up his application package and the real estate company has a specific person or work on board apps. She will review it next week. Meanwhile our whole family is leaving for Europe today. My son will be gone for a week and hopefully nothing big needs to be changed or amended or more letters of verifications needed.
He made the mistake of a rate lock for 60 days last week and he is trying to get in then. Good thing we have a good attorney who will try his best to get it all through.
Good luck on your interview.</p>
<p>For those wondering how to spend $400K on a kitchen…start with the cabinets: [Christopher</a> Peacock](<a href=“http://www.peacockhome.com/gallery.html]Christopher”>Christopher Peacock - High Quality, Handcrafted Cabinetry)</p>
<p>And no, I would never, but others in town have!</p>
<p>Had to laugh at the comment about paying for dog poo clean-up. We have two companies offering that service here in town. I couldn’t believe it when the first one started fourteen years ago but it is still going strong.</p>
<p>I can see paying for dog poo pick up. I have two dogs and a big yard. Someone has to pick it up from time to time, and if I were very rich it would be an easy thing to outsource.</p>
<p>Has anyone ever done this – had a videotape made of their home before they move out? I’m thinking the kids might appreciate having a record of where they grew up. We moved here when D was 3, S was 3 months. And once we get it all spiffed up and cleared out, it will look as good as it’s ever looked.</p>
<p>Kind of like taking your head shot before you get all wrinkly and bald…</p>
<p>The professional pictures that we had made of our house, after it had been staged, were gorgeous. I sent them to D, who replied “Our house never looked like that!” Yeah, but that’s how I always wanted it to look! 
Btw, sold the house in 2 days for $3000 over asking price, closed last week. Bittersweet, but moving forward!</p>
<p>By all means you can easily put in 400k for a kitchen renovation. In a tv show, they had a one million dollar renovation of a master bed room. But to prep an ordinary home for sale priced around one million, you just don’t do a 400k renovation period.</p>
<p>CT, beautiful cabinets. My sister had picked cabinets imported from Italy, very modern in style. I can’t recall the name, but they were in one of the kitchens on HGTV’s 10 Best Kitchens show several years ago. </p>
<p>There is only one pooper scooper guy in my town. Business is probably 8 years old by now so I suppose he is making money. I have 3 dogs (well two now as of last Tuesday 
) and there is no way I’d pay anyone to pick up yard. That is what I have a husband for! </p>
<p>Art, of course no one is going to do a 400K kitchen reno to put house on market. She was going to do that reno 12 years ago (before divorce) and then again about 5 years ago after remarriage. But the new H hates her house and they have been going back and forth since about selling. They had it on the market a few years ago and it sold for their asking price, but they backed out when she couldn’t find anything she wanted that wasn’t going to cost them more and live up to her standards. At the time her H was commuting into NYC so Connecticut wasn’t an option. Now he has his own company, works from home, and he doesn’t need to commute at all.</p>
<p>^^ That is what I think in the first place. You just can’t replace that house around New York without spend more. If so, why CT? Oshkosh will cost less. Danbury and Stamford is no relieve, you got to go near New Haven or Hartford to be cheaper.</p>
<p>And I think she won’t be happy with condo living. Stay put would be the best choice.</p>
<p>Art, there are plenty of town home communities in Connecticut. She will go as far east as New Haven (our hometown.) It will be considerably less expensive. </p>
<p>She doesn’t need a four bedroom house anymore. Their children are all out of college and on their own and 3 of them live in the metro area so there isn’t even a need for a lot of bedrooms when they come to visit, as they do not to stay over. </p>
<p>They also want to buy a second home in Florida to spend time in during the winter. </p>
<p>It is not unusual for people, once their children are grown, to want to downsize.</p>
<p>Perhaps she should find her new residence first, move out and sell the old residence. The selling part should be easy, its matter of pricing.</p>
<p>This is the kind of stuff I am seeing on a daily basis in the Cambridge MA condo market:
(in case you can’t read this from the formatting, it is: List price = $349,000 but changed to $359,000, and the unit sold for $386,000.</p>
<p>It is 1 bedroom / 1 bath 608 sq ft condominium. </p>
<p>Aug 16, 2013<br>
Sold (MLS) (Sold)
$386,000 — MLS PIN #71532032
Jun 13, 2013<br>
Price Changed
$359,000 — MLS PIN #71532032
Jun 13, 2013<br>
Relisted (Price Changed)
— — MLS PIN #71532032
May 28, 2013<br>
Listed (New)
$349,000 — MLS PIN #71532032</p>
<p>I was driving home from church yesterday when it suddenly hit me that all the “for sale” signs have “under contract” added to them. I only saw one house still for sale. I just check one of the realty websites, and there was not a single foreclosure in the whole town. Things must be turning around pretty fast.</p>
<p>According to RealtyTrac it still depends on what market you are in. My market is #3 on the list. </p>
<p>[RealtyTrac</a> Housing Market Recovery Index Identifies Markets Leading and Lagging the Housing Recovery - Investors.com](<a href=“http://news.investors.com/newsfeed-marketwired/081913-141498989-realtytrac-housing-market-recovery-index-identifies-markets-leading-and-lagging-the-housing-recovery.aspx]RealtyTrac”>http://news.investors.com/newsfeed-marketwired/081913-141498989-realtytrac-housing-market-recovery-index-identifies-markets-leading-and-lagging-the-housing-recovery.aspx)</p>
<p>ebee,</p>
<p>do you mean the top 3 or the bottom 3?</p>
<p>Actually, each of the 7 counties of Bay Area has its own pace of recovery. Some much faster than the other. It all depends on the neighborhood as well. There are few dangerous areas in the Bay Area(parts of Oakland, Richmond, East Palo Alto etc) and they do not get the same recovery rate.</p>
<p>Art, top 3.</p>
<p>NJres, my son and DIL bought a house in the Brighton section of Boston this past January. I hope they are getting that kind of appreciation on their investment! They hope to be able to sell and move to a larger house in either Brookline or Newton in the next 3-5 years (for the schools).</p>
<p>Amazing rise and fall of prices in this turbulence period 2005~2013</p>
<p>Here is statistics on home prices in one of not the most desirable location(still good) in the SF East Bay neighborhoods. Each column represents one city. Just look at the prices over time!</p>
<p><a href=“http://creforum.info/re/img228.pdf[/url]”>http://creforum.info/re/img228.pdf</a></p>
<p>Names of the towns have been cut off to comply CC rules.</p>
<p>My son closed Aug 8, we flew up to Boston Aug 30 and rented a van; His tenant moved out on schedule Aug 31 leaving the place very clean, and my son moved in that night and the next day Sep 1 into his apartment in Cambridge!!! Great location between Harvard and Inman square, quiet area, the place is small but very nice. He has a little storage area in the basement and there is a bike room in the basement. Neighbors seem nice. We are all very pleased. I am still seeing condos in Cambridge routinely selling at well above the list price.</p>
<p>mazal tov to your son, NJres!</p>
<p>Do you know anything about what is happening with prices in the Brighton, Brookline or Newton neighborhoods?</p>