15 Responses to “Boston RE Broker & The Extortion Case” »»

1. Alexander
   Comment by Alexander | 02/09/10 at 10:00 am

   Carucci!

2. Paul C
   Comment by Paul C | 02/09/10 at 10:36 am

   Perhaps its Back Bay Bradley -aka- “Boston Broker”

3. megan
   Comment by megan | 02/09/10 at 10:48 am

   “Perhaps its Back Bay Bradley -aka- “Boston Broker”

   haha, so that’s how he plans on maintaining values in the Back Bay

4. Bradley
   Comment by Bradley | 02/09/10 at 1:19 pm

   LOL too funny guys.

   I don’t need any help maintaining values. They’re doing juuuuuust fine.

   Hey loook! More new listings on the MLS today!

   71029644 : 23 Follen, $819/sqft
   71028055 : 168 Marlborough, $1042/sqft
   71029435 : 31 Hanson, $711/sqft
   71028163 : 16 Upton, $788/sqft
   71027465 : 16 Union Park, $814/sqft

   My word… prices sure are being decimated by this awful recession that’s hitting Boston *so* hard!!

   LOL!

5. Mike
   Comment by Mike | 02/10/10 at 4:20 am

   Hey Bradley, those are “asking” prices – let’s see what happens when they sell. Should take about 9 months. Hope those sellers can hang on a while.

   Mike

6. Bradley
   Comment by Bradley | 02/10/10 at 5:20 am

   Oh I know they’re just asking prices. But they’re all in great condition or recently renovated, in A-1 super-prime locations. I predict they’ll be gone before the Spring market hits at close to if not above asking price.

7. megan
   Comment by megan | 02/10/10 at 6:41 am

   Look at the sale history behind three of the units (I couldn’t find records on the other two) Bradley posted. All of them appreciated less than 3% a year, which is the rate of inflation. This shows that the “buy now or you’ll be priced out” crowd doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

8. Funny
   Comment by Funny | 02/10/10 at 7:03 am

   Wasn’t Bradley’s old line that BB/SE should be getting $1000/sqft or higher?

   Why Am I seeing 800’s?

9. Bradley
   Comment by Bradley | 02/10/10 at 7:46 am

   Exactly.. those units have *appreciated*. Which confirms exactly what I said a while ago, something everyone here rolled their eyes at btw, which is that when the big financial crisis hit, the smartest thing an investor could have done was to sell everything and sink it into a South End condo. You’d be sitting mighty pretty right now if you had.

   You might sit here and think $1000/sqft is crazy, but you’ll be the one looking crazy in 5 years when the same units are going for $2000/sqft and you didn’t buy when you could.

   I’m sure John Ford must remember when downtown Boston saw its first $1,000,000 sale. It took, what, 3 centuries for that to happen? I predict that it will take less than another 20 before Boston sees its first BILLION dollar single family home sale.

   Crazy, you say? You’re insane Bradley, you say? Just you wait…. The runup in prices we’ve seen over the last 20 years is going to absolutely pale in comparison to what’s coming. If you wanna be a part of it stop sitting on a blog complaining about high prices and get on the escalator NOW. The best time to buy a place is YESTERDAY.

   Mark my words, people.

10. confused
    Comment by confused | 02/10/10 at 8:19 am

    How many you bought Bradley? Did you use our host to do your purchasing?

11. Bradley
    Comment by Bradley | 02/10/10 at 8:47 am

    Unfortunately Mike I’m just a poor slob who stretched himself as far as he could to stake my claim here a while ago. I’m in no position to extend myself any further!

    But fo-shizzle, if I ever do buy anything else, John Ford’s the one who I’ll have help me!

12. John Ford
    Comment by John Ford | 02/10/10 at 8:51 am

    Thank you Bradley!

13. JohnF
    Comment by JohnF | 02/10/10 at 11:26 am

    Ouch! Kevin, I guess this saying is also true: “Boston real estate is a cut-throat business” Sorry, no pun intended.

14. Mary
    Comment by Mary | 02/10/10 at 12:04 pm

    Really Braddy, is that the best you can do? 168 Marlborough was purchased in 2002 (before the worst of the bubble) for 1,995k, The owner is looking at big loss , just to keep up with inflation it would have to sell for close to 2.4 million . Imagine the losses for folks in the Back Bay who bought DURING the bubble…oh my

15. Mike
    Comment by Mike | 02/11/10 at 4:50 am

    “the smartest thing an investor could have done was to sell everything and sink it into a South End condo.”

    Bradley, if you’re an ordinary homeowner and not a professional developer, real estate IS NOT AN INVESTMENT. It’s a place to live. That idea that your home is an “investment” is a myth and is what got us into the current predicament.

    Buyers, do yourself a favor – when you’re looking at the rent versus buy decision, use the long term average home appreciation as your expectation – about 6%, or 3-4% after inflation. If the only way to make the sale price work is to assume 10% or greater price appreciation, you’re looking for trouble. Those days are gone for at least a couple years.

    It’s worth noting that, even though the S&P went down a whopping 37% in 2008, it also went up 27% in 2009, for a net of about negative 20%. As bad as that sounds, it pales in comparison to someone who bought a condo with 10% down in 2006 or 2007 and lost over 100%. If you look at the period after the major declines of Oct/Nov 2008, stock investments have had huge returns.

    Smartest thing you could do with your money was to buy a SE condo? Doesn’t look that way to me. But maybe I’m using my calculator wrong.

    Mike

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