Whether or not you asked for it, here’s my brief retrospective on 2011 and a peek at 2012. It’s been an amazingly challenging and educational year for me as a Realtor®. I can’t wait to see what happens next!
Major world events such as the Arab Spring, the Greek financial meltdown, the Occupy movement and now the Euro-Zone crisis have had their individual and combined effects on the U.S. economy. Fortunately for my colleagues and myself, the Boston real estate market remains relatively insulated from national and international factors because of the many hospitals, universities and financial institutions that make Boston a consistently desirable destination for home seekers from around the country and around the world.
According to Wikipedia: Encompassing $363 billion, the Greater Boston metropolitan area has the sixth-largest economy in the country and 12th-largest in the world.
Boston’s colleges and universities have a significant effect on the regional economy, with students contributing an estimated $4.8 billion annually to the city’s economy. Boston’s schools are major employers and attract industries to the city and surrounding region. Boston is home to a number of technology companies and is a hub for biotechnology, with the Milken Institute rating Boston as the top life sciences cluster in the country. Boston also receives the highest absolute amount of annual funding from the National Institutes of Health of all cities in the United States.
As a result, home sellers with whom I work are ultimately satisfied with the selling prices we have attained, which remain relatively high compared to the rest of the country, and even to other parts of Massachusetts. Yes, prices in metro-Boston are, overall, down 18% from the peak of 2005, but this is just an average. In the downtown and other Boston Zip codes, many hard-working brokers (including this one!) are steadily busy. One truth that’s become more and more apparent to me this year is that this is not a market for laissez-faire agents who wait for the phone to ring and who rely on 20th century marketing philosophies.
I’m happy to say I’ve been working smarter this year, and I’ve increased not only the amount of business I’ve had but my — and I hope my clients’ — level of fun and satisfaction as well. With my marketing team freeing me up to spend more face time with my clients, I’ve been able to decrease time “behind the scenes” and devote more energy to preparing properties for market, showing them, and meeting with sellers and buyers. It’s been an active season so far in the Boston real estate market and I predict things are going to heat up this spring with sustained low interest rates inspiring folks to jump into or trade up in the market.
Stay tuned to see how clear my crystal ball really is!
Linda Burnett
Jamaica Plain/Roslindale Real Estate Maven
Keller-Williams Boston-Metro Real Estate
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