The Race is ON in Somerville

Can you believe it?...2 weeks left and we are DONE with the first quarter of 2011. How time flies -- seems like only last year I was sniffing mimeograph paper and discovering the joys of watching Valerie Werner smooth out her "Bobbie Brooks" (but that is another story).

At any rate, at the risk of jumping the gun, I feel it is time to begin the look see at how Real Estate is holding up in my corner of the world, and today we will start off with Somerville and its agents as they race to the 1st quarter finish line.

So far this year, according to MLS, 64 properties have had the "T's" crossed and the "i's" dotted on the bottom line (6 singles, 35 condos, 23 multi-fams) -- SO FAR, we say. In the first quarter of last year (the full quarter) 107 properties did the ol' fliperino. Doesn't look good does it? But wait...

Digging a little deeper finds us a few nuggets of hope; we see (through the fog) 33 properties are Under Agreement and are scheduled to close by 3/31/11. According to these projections, the first quarter of 2011 in Somerville will close out with 98 transactions, about an 8% drop. That is nothing to toot our horns about, but it is, likewise, no reason for Chicken Little to be running about saying the sky is falling. The "goodest news" (as my grandmother used to day when she worked at the First National [remember the FN?...remember the JUMBO for that matter?]) -- the goodest news is in Condo sales, where days on market have fallen from 2010's 123 days to 108 (so far) days in 2011.

No real bad news here. The "baddest" we can find is that agents may well have to ride the Lexus about for another season before trading up to the Beemer.