For Sale, But Not For Long

Karen Daly headed out Sunday to tour a renovated Natick house, confident she would be one of the few home hunters on a cold afternoon during which people were prepping for Super Bowl parties.

But when Daly arrived at the three-bedroom, $449,000 Cape, she found herself among a half-dozen other disappointed prospective buyers who learned that the seller had already accepted an offer. It wasn’t Daly’s first real estate letdown. Last month, she bid more than $20,000 above the asking price for a house in Framingham -- and lost out.

“If you are a buyer, you have to be very decisive, you can’t hesitate,’’ said Daly, 55, who sold her house in two days last summer and has been renting in Newton. “You are looking at very low inventory and very steep competition.’’

See the entire article at Boston.com: http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/02/13/for_sale_but_not_for_long/

Homeownership: Still the American Dream

There seems to be a long held American belief currently under attack. For over two hundred years, homeownership in this country was a desire of almost every American family. Recently however, more and more people have been pontificating on the fact that owning your own home should never have been held in such high regard.

I don’t want to overstate my concern as I know that the majority of Americans still hold homeownership sacred. Trulia just did a survey showing seventy seven percent of those questioned still believe that owning a home is a part of the American dream. Yet, it does concern me that, while people are being forced from their home due to economic difficulties, some are claiming that homeownership never should have been the goal anyway.

See the whole article here: Homeownership: Still the American Dream