John Morrison - Boston area real estate - Everything you need to know about buying in Massachusetts

What is the team approach? All I need is a decent agent and I'll find a good home and be all set, right? Only in rare cases. When thinking about buying a home, consumers are often unaware of the complexities involved. Here are the players that should be on your team: 1. An exclusive buyer agent (...

House Hunters has a fairly simple premise — a salesperson shows a buyer three homes, they make a decision to put in an offer, and we check in with them a few months later. As part of HGTV's first-time home buyers' week, we meet recent graduate Lindsay who is looking for a condo closer to her job,...

The two companies that insure or own almost half of all American mortgages (estimates range from $4.5-6 trillion worth) have been in the news a heckuva lot lately, and usually for lousy reasons. The government has bailed out these companies, in part because many feel they are “too big to fail”, a...

  President Bush signed into law today the oft-debated housing bill that recently passed through the House of Representatives on July 23 (vote was 272-152) and the Senate on July 26 (vote was 72-13). Many were pessimistic about the possibility this bill would make it through both sides of Congres...

David Herszenhorn wrote about the House of Representatives’ recent passing vote on the housing bill that has been in the news quite a bit. This bill was primarily authored by Barney Frank of my home state of Massachusetts. You can read about the bill and its potential pros and cons at The New Yor...

The folks at Harvard have just released their latest housing study: SON (State of the Nation's Housing) 2008. If you would rather check out a quick overview, check out their fact sheet. In case you were wondering, yes, we have problems all across the country. Since this is a "current assessment" ...

I've been thinking lately. Maybe not always a good sign, but I've come up with some harebrained incredible ideas for solving or at least mitigating the foreclosure crisis in this country. 1. Have lenders agree to work with buyers who are behind on payments but are trying to still live in the home...

You are serious about leaving where you are currently living. You have found a great agent to help you find your ideal home (clearly you will choose an Exclusive Buyer’s Agent to ensure that your best interests are represented!), and now you have to take the important step of applying for and obt...

Are you in trouble with your mortgage payments? You are not alone. I found an informative article over at Yahoo! Finance that provides more discouraging detail about the foreclosure crisis that is facing this country and has not abated yet. Of note - 1 in every 483 homeowners across the country h...

I read with great disappointment a recent article by Binyamin Applebaum that appeared in the Boston Globe’s Sunday Magazine. The first issue I would like to take up is that Mr. Applebaum states, “The National Association of Realtors? “This is the best market in years in terms of choice,” said a r...