Following up on What you Need to Know Before Hiring a Long Distance Moving Company, an article we published in the latter half of 2010, USA Today recently ran an article that pulled together some quick tips on how to avoid Boston moving scams.

1. Don’t book a moving company solely online. Meet your movers before moving day.
2. Look at a variety of companies and make comparisons among at least three written in home estimates.
3. Get references from other customers.
4. Check for a ProMover logo, which indicates that the company has passed an annual check for felony convictions, improper advertising and good Better Business Bureau ratings.
5. Check Protectyourmove.gov to see a company’s complaint history, its safety record and how it compares to companies nationally.

Perhaps the most important is tip number 1. When planning a move, expenses tend to mount, and it’s tempting to go with a quote that you got entirely online – it seems simple and hassle free, yet it will probably be anything but that. If you’re doing a significant move, you owe it to yourself to have several moving companies come out and actually visit you in your home, do a proper inventory, and verify the surroundings – for instance, if you live on a 4th floor walk up, can all of your furniture fit down the staircase, do you need to coordinate with a Boston crane company, or are you going to incur extra charges because of the number of flights of stairs? More than likely, an online company is going to miss some or all of these things, among others.

Given the predominance of hardwood floors throughout Boston condominiums, a recent article from the World Floor Covering Association on how to care for and maintain hardwood floors gives you the advice, as well as do’s and don’ts, on how to keep your hardwood floors looking as pristine as possible for as long as possible.

Some of the advice includes:

• Use welcome maps at the entrances of your home
• Invest in a vacuum without a beater bar to get in between the planks of your floor
• Leverage a high quality mop with a rotating head to get into “hard to reach” corners
• Cover furniture legs with felt or flannel protectors

Buyers moving into a unit with hardwood floors should consider re-sanding and re-finishing the floors before they move in. If you’re considering making any investments into your home, and the hardwoods are somewhere on the list and you think that you’ll eventually get around to it after you move in, think again. You’ll save yourself a tremendous amount of headaches and inconvenience if you quickly knock that job out immediately following the closing of your home when there is no furniture in the unit – plan ahead and line up your hardwood flooring contractor well before closing so that they can start immediately upon you taking possession of the home – the seller should accommodate reasonable requests to gain access to the unit prior to closing should your contractor need to see the unit in person.

As the Boston winter begins to crack and Spring weather and warmer temperatures become more the norm, one of the first things on the minds of Bostonians is getting outside. And while roof decks across downtown Boston neighborhoods are not ubiquitous, there appears to be a growing number of buyers who will only consider purchasing a condo if it has a private outdoor living area.

“I won’t look at a condo unless it has outdoor space,” says one South End condo buyer.

The merits of a private roof deck run deep, anywhere from taking in great city views, to increasing the size of livable space and square footage of a condo. Case in point is Unit 4 at 167 Warren Avenue in the South End, a 614 square foot one-bedroom penthouse condo, where owners added a 160 square foot private roof deck in 2009, in effect, increasing the square footage of the unit by almost a third. The Warren Avenue condo was recently listed for sale with an asking price of $439,000.

“The roof deck at this South End penthouse condo is gorgeous, with stunning views. The use of the composite redwood decking material for low maintenance, and the incorporation of extra storage via an innovative bench, was very thoughtful,” says John Keith, listing agent for the Warren Avenue condo.

In addition to the views and practical uses of a roof deck, some of the added value that a private roof deck brings to a unit is the result of the effort expended by a unit owner to construct a deck that is fully permitted, up to code, and approved by the city of Boston. This process can be arduous, and includes numerous application and approval processes from various city of Boston governing entities, rounds of plans and engineering documents from licensed architects and/or structural engineers, at least two inspections by Boston’s Inspectional Service Department, and a sizeable investment of time to shepherd the process through.. As a buyer, the ideal situation is that you walk into a unit not with deck rights or plans to build a deck, which both imply hope and a dream of a deck but a long runway ahead, but rather, an actual constructed and city approved deck that can be enjoyed immediately upon purchase.

Amid speculation of whether the upper class is being impacted as much as other socioeconomic classes during the world’s economic downturn, luxury million dollar real estate in downtown Boston points to a slowdown.  From 2008 to 2009, sales activity in the $1 million + downtown Boston condo market fell approximately 22%.

While the rich may be buying again in certain product areas (see Rich Buying Again, But Middle Class Still Hurting), luxury housing in Boston is not yet one of them.  Year-to-date in 2009, 198 condos priced at or above $1 million have sold in downtown Boston, down from 255 during the same time period in 2008 according to MLSpin.  The amount of time, or days on market, that those units are sitting on the market for sale has decreased from 164 during 2008 to 139 during 2009, a sign that what is being listed for sale is selling at a faster pace.  However, the sale price to original listing price ratio, a measure of how well units are being priced in the eyes of the market, has fallen, from 105% in 2008 to 90% in 2009.

The $4 million to $10 million market has been hit hardest, with sales down approximately 71% from 2008 to 2009.

Trying to “time the market”? Why not buy or sell now – and move on with your life instead? Don’t perpetually wait until tomorrow. If you do, you’re likely to end up with a pile of unfulfilled yesterdays!

Sellers: If you currently own a home, you are fortunate to be in the market and “treading water” with every other home owner. In other words, even though the value of your home has taken a hit in the past few years, so have the prices of other homes you may wish to consider buying – whether you plan to “buy up” to a more expensive property, or downsize to simplify your life. Conversely, if you wait until the value of your home increases again (and it will, according to historic real state trends, albeit slowly over the next 10 years according to many economists), the price of a home you may wish to purchase will likely have increased commensurately. Everything is relative. So, confidently sell and buy again in today’s market – since you’re lucky enough to be “in the game”.

Buyers: Home affordability is substantially greater than it has been in many years. This has been reflected in the uptick of sales throughout the summer. Sales of existing homes rose 7.2% nationally between June and July 2009, and 5% compared to July 2008 – the largest monthly increase in sales since 1999.

Locally, home prices are hitting or have hit bottom in some Boston neighborhoods, and have already started to rebound in others. Let’s take a close look at two of the most popular “upscale” neighborhoods where my practice is largely concentrated: the Back Bay and the South End.

Back Bay prices never really dropped substantially, and the average sales price is – remarkably – higher than it has ever been. A comparison between the second quarter of 2008 and the second quarter of 2009 reveals that the average sale price rose nearly 2%. A similar comparison in the South End shows that the average sales price remained virtually flat. In other words, the South End has “bottomed out”. My hunch is that the Q3 2009 results will be even more stellar.

If you are a prospective first-time home buyer, jump in now! If you’ve been sitting on the fence regarding a home purchase, now is the time. Smart buyers have bought during the spring and summer, and more are buying now. These folks are not waiting until they are completely satisfied that it’s “safe” to buy because “everyone else” is buying – because by then prices will have likely increased in the South End and other desirable sought-after neighborhoods. The problem with timing the market is that changes have often already occurred by the time one is satisfied that they have, and one can end up being left behind. Don’t follow the pack, be a leader instead. Unless you believe your job security is in jeopardy, you’ll be glad you did.

Current 30-year fixed rates are hovering in the 5 percent range – an excellent value. Can you predict what interest rates will look like six months to a year from now? If you can, clue us all in! That said, the current challenge lies in getting a mortgage in the first place. I advise my buyers to first check their credit reports from all three services: Experian, Equifax and Transunion, because it is not uncommon to find that each has different data. Checking all three ensures that inaccuracies are addressed in full, and should be done prior to applying for a mortgage. A credit score in the mid to upper 600’s is no longer acceptable to obtain a mortgage, or a mortgage at an attractive interest rate.

My next piece of advice is to avoid doing business in the near future with national banks and other national lenders if at all possible. There is nothing wrong with these fine institutions per se. The problem is that, in its infinite wisdom, the Federal Government went a bit overboard in trying to protect us from the predatory lending practices of the past that lead to the current housing foreclosure crisis (rarely found in the Back Bay or South End, by the way). The “new rules” now require national lenders to have homes appraised by folks who are not local, and therefore simply do not know or understand property values in our unique downtown Boston market.

Unfortunately, I’ve recently seen potential buyers (over whom I have no control if they are working with another Buyer’s Agent) have their closings outrageously delayed because several appraisals were necessary until one was finally accurate. In the worst case scenario, some properties do not appraise at fair market value at all due to this complete lack of local market knowledge. Until this situation changes, I believe buyers are better off working with local banks or local non-bank direct lenders that are allowed to use local appraisers, and have more control over the mortgages they issue because they have their own funds to lend to qualified buyers, as well as their own in-house underwriters. These lenders are less apt to sell their mortgages to Fanny Mae or Freddie Mac, which is the most frequent trigger for the required use of out-of-area appraisers for national lenders.