Sharon MA Real Estate Market Update January 2013 The average sales price for single family homes sold in Sharon MA in January 2013 was $533,136. Compared to December 2012 this appears to be an 8.3% increase. However, you have to know what the numbers reflect to get a clear picture of what's really happening in the market. One of the homes that sold in January 2013 was 31 Livingston Road, a 4 bedroom, 5 1/2 bathroom home in 3,930 square feet with approximately 300 feet of frontage on Lake Massapoag. The house sold for $1,700,000. Taking this into consideration, we can evaluate the higher average sales price for January 2013 more accurately. If this $1.7M property was not included in the list of homes sold in January, the averages sales price would have shown a 4.8% decrease from December... 02/03/2013

Engaged in Social Media Doesn't Mean We Have to Get Married! In case you do not know me yet, I'm a Realtor® in Sharon MA. I'm not just any real estate agent. I'm a Realtor® who cares passionately about doing a great job for my clients. I'm also a businesswoman who works full-time. I don't see any conflict there. I'm guessing most of my readers work, too, and understand that. I'm always learning, reading and making sure I know what's happening in the Sharon MA real estate market and the broader economy. Part of my job is to guide and advise my clients so they have the best information and can make the best decisions. To do that, it's not enough to gather "time on the job". I have to stay current and informed myself. I read news online and in the paper. I follow information from the Natio... 01/31/2013

It's February! The real estate market is gearing up for Spring even if the weather isn't sure what to do! Buyers are looking for homes for sale in Sharon MA and inventory is low. If you're a homeowner and want to sell your home in Sharon MA, you should know that it's a seller's market. Call me at 781-883-3764 for a Free Market Analysis and let me help you get your home sold! 01/31/2013

Did You Know the Making Home Affordable (MHA) Program Has Been Extended? I was talking with some people who told me they had a high interest rate and are facing some financial challenges. I suggested they call their lender, explain their situation and ask about programs which might help reduce their interest rate. The lender pretty quickly agreed to reduce the interest rate by more than 2.5%. Unfortunately, the lender is so backed up that they said it would take 3 months to process the change! Given the collapse of our housing market 4+ years ago, and the impact on our entire economy, it's very frustrating to hear that this is the best a lender can do. Did you know the Making Home Affordable Program has been extended? The Making Home Affordable Program is a part of the Obama Administrat... 01/30/2013

Top 5 Reasons to Downsize Your Sharon MA Home   Are you thinking of selling your home in Sharon MA and buying a smaller home? There are many reasons people downsize their homes. Here are the top 5 reasons to downsize:   1. You're real estate tax bill will decrease! Sharon real estate taxes are the highest in Massachusetts. For Fiscal year 2013 the tax rate is $20.45 per thousand dollars of assessed value. That means if your home is assessed for $375,000 your taxes are $7,668.75.   2. You'll pay less for your heating and electricity bills. If your home has become too large for you, you probably are not using all of the rooms. Are there bedrooms or a formal living room that you rarely use? Unless you have rooms or areas of your home on different heating zones, you are probably paying to h... 01/29/2013

10 Things About Location That Affect Home Value in Sharon MA One of the key factors that determine your home's value and whether it will appeal to potential buyers is its location. Location may be described by neighborhood or even street. However, there are other location factors that affect the value of your home in Sharon MA. There isn't anything you can do about the location of your home. When you hire me to list your home for sale, you are hiring a Realtor® who knows how to market your home to attract buyers despite the potential impact of location. I will also advise you on how to price your home to reflect its market value. Here are some location issues that may affect a buyer's decision to make an offer on your home in Sharon MA: 1. Located under or next to power lines.  Some buy... 01/27/2013

Condominium Real Estate Market Report for Sharon MA Sharon MA has a fairly small condominium market focused primarily on the 160, one- and two-bedroom condominiums at Sharon Green and the 114, larger, two-bedroom Townhouse condominiums at MacIntosh Farm. There are also 18, Townhouse condominium units at Larason Farm Road and a handful of properties with two- or three-units spread throughout Sharon MA. In 2012, there were 17 condominiums sold in Sharon MA with an average sales price of $253,047. They ranged in sale price from $91,500 for a one bedroom, one bathroom unit of 733 square feet on Bayberry Drive to $414,900 for a two-bedroom, 2 ½  bathroom Townhouse of 1,828 square feet in MacIntosh Farms. Information by Complex 8 Sharon Green condominiums sold in 2012: The average sale price ... 01/23/2013

Cocktails, appetizers and chocolate! A perfect pre-Valentine's Evening! Taza Chocolate Factory (my favorite place!) is hosting a romantic evening filled with perfect pairings. Enjoy four delicious Latin-influenced "small plates" from Somerville's Casa B, crafted to complement four creative, petite cocktails featuring the locally distilled spirits of South Boston's Grand Ten Distilling.   Wednesday, February 13, 7-9pm Taza Factory Store Enjoy the live acoustic music performed by Gian Carol Buscaglia, whose original songs evoke the musicality and poetry of Latin America. Top off the evening with a demonstration of the traditional techniques for making rich, frothy Mexican-style hot chocolate. Enjoy your beverage flavored with Grand Ten's Amandine, a barreled almond liquer. As a Valentine ... 01/22/2013

5 Things to do on Martin Luther King Jr Day Near Sharon MA  In recognition of Martin Luther King Jr Day, many people are off from work tomorrow. It's a great opportunity to do something special with your family. Here are 5 suggestions for things to do on Martin Luther King Jr Day near Sharon MA: 1. The Children's Museum in Easton, tel: 508-230-3789is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with special activities from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Join in on the interactive art project "Build a Better World". Design and build a super-sized town using Legos and other materials. Be a city planner and decide what buildings are need; be an architect and decide what the buildings will look like. Work with other participants to build a great community! 2. The Village Toy Shop in Canton, tel: 781-821-9374, has a free ... 01/20/2013

5 Things To Do in January to Get Your Home Ready for Sale in Sharon MA  If you know you want to sell your Sharon MA home in the Spring, now is the time to start planning. I'll be writing several posts to help you identify the steps to get your home ready. In this post, I want to focus on things you should do at the very start.  1. Call me at 781-883-3764 so we can meet and I can give you a market analysis of your Sharon MA home. This is the starting point for understanding the market value of your home. When you list your home with me, you will be hiring an experienced and knowledgeable Realtor who knows how to market your home to sell. I'll be with you through every step of the transaction and you'll know what's happening at all times.  2. Do you know where you will move when you sell ... 01/16/2013

Here's an update on the Sharon MA real estate market for the first half of January 2013. There are 45 single family houses listed as "Active" and available for sale in Sharon MA, two of which are foreclosures. Of those 45 properties, 11 have an accepted offer and are waiting for a variety of contingencies to be met. The sellers have asked their agents to list them as Active with an "alert" to notify other agents and potential buyers that the property can be shown on "back up" but that it does have an accepted offer. "Back up" means that someone else could view the property and make an offer. If the first offer did not result in a sale, the second offer would then be presented to the seller for consideration. This means that there are only 34 single family properties actively for sale in... 01/14/2013

I don't bite.You may not know me personally. Although I grew up in Sharon and know a broad network of people here, we may not have met yet. I understand that when you are choosing someone to get your home sold in Sharon MA you want to have confidence that your Realtor® can get the job done...and done well. I believe you also want to have a sense of trust in that person and a comfort level that allows that trust.My blog is one way that you can get to know me a little. You can learn about me from my writing style and from the topics I write about. Maybe you can even get a sense of me from my photo. I write the blog to give you information and so that we can engage in a dialogue about real estate.I also created the Sharon Community facebook page so that people could share information, reco... 01/11/2013

Sharon MA Real Estate Market January 2013 - Week One Update It's only been 7 days but the Sharon MA real estate market has already had two homes sold in the first week of January 2013. These two homes had very different price points but both were listed for sale in May 2012. 63 Brook Road, a 4 bedroom, 1 1/2 bathroom home of about 1,584 square feet sold for $332,000 after 198 Days on Market (DOM) in Sharon MA. The Colonial style home was built in 1930. Although this is a 4 bedroom home, it sold for less than its slightly larger 3-bedroom neighbors which also sold in the past 14 months. 61 Brook Road, at 1,863 square feet, sold in 26 days for $388,000, while 57 Brook Road, with 1,760 square feet, sold in 8 days for $375,000. The average Days on Market (DOM) for homes sold in Sharon MA in... 01/07/2013

The number one goal for your listing agent in Sharon MA. What is the number one goal for your listing agent in Sharon MA? It's making sure your property is marketed to the broadest number of potential buyers possible. To get your property sold, it has to be seen by buyers who are looking to buy a home in Sharon MA.  According to The National Association of Realtors® (NAR), more than 90% of buyers begin their home search on the internet. When they find a home that interests them, they call a real estate agent and ask to see the home. That agent is called a buyer's agent.   The buyer's agent represents the buyer. The buyer's agent is responsible for showing his/her clients the houses they want to see and helping them negotiate the purchase of the home that they want to buy.  The listing a... 01/01/2013

Sharon MA 2012 Real Estate Market in Review Here's a look back at the 2012 real estate market with monthly sales data for single family homes sold in Sharon MA. There were 209 single family homes sold in Sharon in 2012; the largest real estate sales market in Sharon MA since 2005. This represents a 27% increase in the number of homes sold in Sharon MA compared to 2011. The average sales price was $449,166 for single family homes sold in Sharon MA. This represents a 3% decrease in the average sales price from 2011. From Buyers' Market to Sellers' Market: The 2012 Sharon MA real estate market began as a buyers' market with available inventory exceeding demand for houses. However, after June, the steady decrease in both the number of homes on the market and the number of homes sold resulte... 01/01/2013

The Taza Chocolate factory tour is a great vacation week activity to do from Sharon MA. It's fun and interesting for adults and kids. Even if you are not a chocoholic...(is there such a thing?)...you will enjoy learning about Taza Chocolate's chocolate making process. Taza Chocolate is a really exciting place! Their core values, company culture and emphasis on customer service are clearly communicated by their employees and through their process of making delicious, high quality, stone-ground chocolate.  The tour guides are knowledgeable and speak clearly about the entire process from bean to bar. All of it is made in Somerville, Massachusetts not far from M.I.T. By the time my husband and I finished the tour, I wanted to work there! And, that had nothing to do with the chocolate sample... 12/26/2012

Another Nina Rogoff house sold in Sharon MA at 7 Ridge Road. Congratulations to the new owners of 7 Ridge Road in Sharon MA! These buyers closed on this beautiful, 3-story Victorian home with a 2-story carriage house. This picturesque, 5 bedroom home retains its charm inside and out with many period details.  This family had relocated from out-of-state and had been looking for a larger home in a particular location. I met them over a year ago when they first moved into a rental apartment in the area while they searched for a property. It was a challenge to find the right property as there were not too many listings that met their criteria. I wish the new homeowners all the best in their new home! If you want to get your home sold in Sharon MA call Nina Rogoff. Nina is your Sharon hometo... 12/26/2012

Congratulations to my buyers who closed last week on their purchase of 18 Manomet Road, Sharon, MA.   These first time homebuyers came to me over a year ago.  They were looking for an exclusive buyer agent to represent them and were just starting the process.  They needed a preapproval so I sent them to a great mortgage advisor and set up an MLS account to help them start the process. It took them a while to decide to start looking but that's okay....they browsed online, got their preapproval lined up and I told them I would be here whenever they were ready.  Early this fall they contacted me again to start looking.  Originally they were looking to buy a house in Milton MA, however that early browsing helped shape their decision to instead look for a house to buy in Sharon MA.    They p... 12/23/2012

The weekend news has been filled with the tragedy that happened at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. As I rushed through my day on Friday, I hadn’t heard about the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. Saturday morning when I opened The Wall Street Journal, I saw the headline. It said, “School Gunman Kills 27” under a large photo of police officers leading a single file line of children away from the school. My first thought was to make sure my daughter didn’t see the headline. Protecting our children from any kind of harm is a parental instinct that starts even before they are born. My heart went out to the families of those children and adults who were killed on Friday at Sandy Hook, even while the magnitude of the tragedy made it incomprehensible. I th... 12/16/2012

Another Satisfied Homebuyer: Congratulations to the New Owners of 11 Lee Road, Sharon, MA   Congratulations to my buyers who closed last week on their purchase of 11 Lee Road, Sharon, MA.   This family came to me knowing exactly what they wanted and well-prepared - my favorite kind of buyers.  They had decided on a home in Sharon MA due to the highly rated school system in Sharon.  They were in the process of selling another home in a different community but came to me as they wanted to work with a buyers agent who would be looking out for their best interests and who knew the community.   They had planned ahead, and were preapproved to purchase a new home without having the first home sell first.  It's a risky proposition but they knew the risks and wanted to move forward. We found thi... 12/09/2012