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Welcome to Centers and Squares
As a Cambridge real estate agent, the city squares of Cambridge, Somerville and Medford and the town centers of Arlington, Watertown and Belmont, Massachusetts are my home turf. And as a lifelong New Englander who’s lived within twenty miles of Boston most of my life, I can introduce you to other nearby towns as we search for your new home. If you’re planning to sell your home in Cambridge, MA or nearby you’ll find plenty of info about the home selling process here too. Questions? Send me an email or call me at 617-504-1737.
Somerville Snow Emergency Tickets
Somerville Traffic and Parking Office - Apply for your snow emergency ticket waiver here
Somerville Snow Emergency Tickets Cambridge real estate agents from Coldwell Banker tour our offices’ new listings every Wednesday. Today, despite the dire forecasts, we had a dozen or more new listings to see in Cambridge and Somerville.
Well, as it turned out, there wasn’t a storm. In fact as we finished our tour it was 36 degrees and sprinkling.
Despite the clear streets the meter maids parking enforcement crews were out in force. While viewing a beautiful condo at the Park Street Lofts in Somerville several agents received tickets.
Despite the lack of snow, despite the fact that there was no mention of snow emergency restrictions on the parking signs, and despite the fact that the cars were parked for less than ten minutes – perhaps less than five – several agents returned to find $100 tickets on their windshields. That’s right – $100!!
Somerville Waives Snow Emergency Tickets
Somerville’s made the news before for excessively aggressive tagging and towing in advance of storms that never materialized. I imagine they got complaints today – or perhaps the writing was on the wall and they decided to do the right thing.
Mayor Curtatone has announced an abatement program for snow emergency tickets issued today, Feb. 10, 2010, for the storm that wasn’t. The snow emergency was lifted at 6 pm.
To receive an abatement for your snow emergency Somerville ticket you’ll need to pay a visit to the Traffic and Parking office at 133 Holland Street or to City Hall on Highland Ave. If your car was towed only the portion of the tow charge that goes to the City will be refunded.
Medford MA Real Estate Sales – January 2010
Welcome to the Medford MA Real Estate Sales Report
Here’s a look back at Medford MA real estate sales in January 2010.
Medford Homes On the Market
On January 31, 2010 122 Medford homes were on the market priced between $169,900 to $894,000. Homes had been on the market an average of 122 days.
Medford MA Homes Sold - January 2010
25 properties sold in Medford during January 2010, an increase of more than 30% over January 2009 sales when 19 properties sold in Medford. The median sales price was $355,000. Homes had been on the market an average of 115 days and sold for an average of 96% of the asking price.
7 single family homes sold in January for prices between $300,000 and $440,000. The median sales price for a single family home was $361,827. Houses were on the market an average of 92 days and sold for an average of 96% of list price.
12 condos sold in Medford in January priced between $184,000 and $525,000. The median condo sales price was $275,250. Condominiums sold for an average of 96% of the asking price and were on the market an average of 77 days.
6 multi-family houses sold during January in Medford MA priced between $230,000 and $476,000. Multi-families sold for an average of 96% of asking price and on average were on the market for 220 days. That number is wildly skewed by one property - a short sale that had been on the market for 1,203 days. Other multi-families were sold after 10 to 36 days on the market.
Total value of Medford MA homes sold in January was $8,333,627.
Also see:
Medford MA Real Estate Sales in 2009 and 2008
SEARCH FOR PROPERTIES FOR SALE IN MEDFORD MASS
Information about Medford MA real estate sales in January 2010 from MLSpin
Octagon Houses
Octagon houses have always intrigued me. Over the years I often drove past a brick octagon house in Townsend and another up the road in West Townsend with clapboard siding (more about these later) and another in Gardner. Here in Somerville we have a round house that’s a local favorite.
Orson S. Fowler and the Octagon House
Stoneham MA Octagon House on Pine St
While Orson Squire Fowler did not create the octagon house style he is most closely associated with it. Octagon houses were built before Fowler’s time – Thomas Jefferson’s summer home, Poplar Forest, was an octagon completed in 1819 for example.
But it was Fowler’s 1848 book, A Home For All, or a New, Cheap, Convenient and Superior Mode of Building in which he promoted the octagon as an economical and healthful house style, that set off the craze for octagon houses in the United States. Fowler pushed for the octagon style as a way to get more interior square footage with the same amount of exterior linear feet as a traditionally styled house.
Octagon house floor plans typically show a layout with four square rooms and four small triangular spaces on each floor.
It is estimated that as many as several thousand octagon houses were built in the United States, most from 1848 to 1860. Fowler was from New York and attended Amherst College in Massachusetts. Octagons were particularly popular in New York, Massachusetts, and in the Midwest in areas where Easterners settled – Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
Octagon House in Stoneham on Spring Street
Another edition of Fowler’s book was published in 1854 and retitled A Home For All or The Gravel Wall and Octagon Mode of Building. Fowler believed that the best way to build the octagon was with “gravel wall construction – i.e. poured concrete – but most were built with wood or brick siding.
Fowler also advised that a cupola should be built on an octagon house to provide light and ventilation and many octagon houses were in fact built with a cupola atop.
O.S. Fowler was a man of many interests – he was a publisher, writer, lecturer and reformer.
Even more than architecture, his passion was phrenology – the belief that the shape of a person’s head reveals one’s talents, personality and character. Fowler’s phrenological practice, with his brother as partner, attracted many well known patients including Clara Barton, Horace Greeley, President Garfield, Brigham Young, Walt Whitman, Richard Henry Dana and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Stoneham Octagon Houses
Want to see some octagon houses? The best place to get your fix near Cambridge is Stoneham, Mass which has three octagon houses, all privately owned.
Stoneham Octagon House on Summer Street
Stoneham’s eight-sided houses are pictured in the photographs here.
The red octagon house with cupola at 2 Spring Street was built for William and Lucinda Bryant in 1850 and is on the National Register.
The octagon house with the two-story enclosed porch at 77 Summer Street was built by Captain James Hill Gould between 1848 and 1850. It originally sat on 16 acres.
Enoch Fuller’s house at 72 Pine Street is beautifully sited atop a rise. It is also on the National Register of Historic Places.
Given Stoneham’s selection of octagon houses I guess the six-sided Dairy Dome on Main Street is just what you’d expect to find here. The distinctive building that houses the ice cream stand was once a Colonial Beacon gas station and is also on the National Register.
So come summer – make a day of it – go for a cone and a drive to see some very cool houses.
More Massachusetts Octagon Houses
The best source for info about octagon houses – and round houses and other many-sided houses – is Robert Kline and Ellen Puerzer’s Inventory of Octagon Houses.
Their site has pictures and details of these unusual houses – those that are still standing as well as those long gone.
Turns out there’s an octagon house on Route 16 in Newton that I’ve never noticed. And those “octagons” in Townsend and West Townsend? Lo and behold they’re both hexadecagon houses. I had to look that up - it’s a sixteen-sided house.
The inventory shows 82 houses in Massachusetts – though that number may include houses that are no longer with us. Either way there are a lot of amazing houses to go see.
Some people have lists of mountains to climb. Me? I’m going hunting for octagon houses.
Other Local Architectural Styles
Arlington Real Estate Sales – January 2010
Welcome to the Arlington Real Estate Sales Report
We’re off to a busy start to the spring market in Arlington with reports of multiple bids and properties in many cases selling very quickly. Here’s a look at Arlington real estate sales in January.
Since Massachusetts real estate transactions typically take 45 to 60 days on average from accepted offer to closing, the sales in January reflect properties that went under agreement in November and December – the holiday period that is typically slow for real estate sales.
Arlington Homes On The Market
91 homes were listed for sale in Arlington MA on January 31, 2010 priced from $139,000 to $1,399,000. Homes had been on the market an average of 118 days.
Arlington MA Home Sales – January 2010
22 homes sold in Arlington in January. The median price paid was $397,500. Homes sold on average for 98% of the list price.
6 single families sold in January for prices between $375,000 and $1,002,000. The median sales price was $461,000. Houses were on the market an average of 44 days and sold on average for 100% of asking price.
12 condos sold in Arlington MA last month for prices from $215,000 to $595,000. The median sales price was $352,000. Condominiums sold for an average of 99% of the asking price. Average days on market was 63.
4 multi-family houses sold last month priced between $338,000 and $599,000. Average days on market was 46 and multi-families sold for an average of 94% of asking price.
Total value of January Arlington real estate sales was $9,757,675.
SEARCH FOR ARLINGTON MASS REAL ESTATE
ARLINGTON MA REAL ESTATE SALES IN 2009 and 2008
Information about Arlington Real Estate Sales in January 2010 from MLSpin
Gore Place – Jane Austen – The Art of Romance
Jane Austen's house in Chawton
Looking for something different to do for Valentine’s Day?
Gore Place, a Federal Period historic house museum in Waltham, is offering Jane Austen Tours – The Art of Romance in the Austen Era – next Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 13 and 14, 2010.
A guide in period costume will use Jane Austen’s words from her letters and novels to describe life in a country house of the period.
The tour costs $12 for adults and $8 for children ages 5 to 12. Attendance is limited and reservations are suggested.
For tickets call 781-894-2798.
The Jane Austen tours will be held Saturday, February 13, 2010 and Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm at Gore Place in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Gore Place is at 52 Gore Street, Waltham, MA 02453.
Cambridge Real Estate Sales in January 2010
Welcome to the Cambridge Real Estate Sales Report
Before too many days go by let’s take a look at Cambridge real estate sales last month in January 2010.
On the Market In Cambridge - January 31, 2010
On January 31, 2010 there were 211 homes in Cambridge Mass. on the market. Asking prices ranged from $189,900 to $4,900,000. The median asking price was $499,900. Average days on market for these properties was 145.
One year ago there were considerably more homes listed for sale in Cambridge – 289. That’s a drop of 37%. Thinking about selling your home in Cambridge? It’s a good time to sell – less competition and lots of real estate buyers hoping to find a place before the homebuyer credit expires at the end of April.
Cambridge Real Estate Sales in Jan. 2010
40 home sales closed in Cambridge during January for sale prices between $195,000 and $2,250,000. Homes were on the market an average of 129 days.
9 single family homes sold in January 2010 for prices ranging from $275,000 to $2,250,000. These houses had been on the market for an average of 84 days and sold on average for 97% of asking price. The median sales price was $801,000.
27 condos sold in Cambridge during January for prices from $195,000 to $2,050,000. The median condo sales price was $463,500. Condominiums sold for an average of 96% of the list price. Average days on market was 138.
4 multi-families sold last month for prices between $200,000 and $744,000. These properties sold for an average of 91% of asking price and were on the market an average of 166 days.
$200,000 for a Cambridge two-family?! That caught my eye. Turns out it was a gutted, attached two-family with no heat, no working electricity, no walls – and a short sale to boot. Not your typical multi-family sale in Cambridge and not your typical sales price for a Cambridge multi-family.
The total value of residential real estate sold in Cambridge during January 2010 was $27,759,950.
Information from MLSpin.
Last month’s numbers:
Cambridge Real Estate Sales in 2009 and 2008
SEARCH FOR CONDOS FOR SALE IN CAMBRIDGE
SEARCH FOR SINGLE FAMILY HOMES FOR SALE IN CAMBRIDGE
931 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge Condos
931 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge MA 02139 - Doorman Building Near Harvard Square
931 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge is a 13-story luxury condo building built in 1988.
There are 53 condos in this elevator building. Located on Mass Ave between Harvard and Central Square, there’s a Red Line subway stop in either direction. With a 24 hour concierge this is one of the few doorman buildings near Harvard Square.
931 Massachusetts Ave Features
- Elevator building
- One bedrooms with 1.5 baths
- Two-bedroom, two-bath condos
- In-unit washer and dryer
- Marble baths
- Central air conditioning
- Garage or outdoor parking
- Storage
- Common garden and patio
- Heat and hot water included in condo fee
931 Mass Ave Cambridge – Recent Real Estate Sales
- A 5th floor one bedroom with 1.5 baths sold in 2008 for $353,782 in 2008
- An 11th floor two bedroom, two bath condo on the 5th floor sold for $539,000 in 2007
- The most expensive sale in the building to date was a 1950 sq.ft. penthouse condo that sold for $1,365,000 in 2005
If condos are available in the building they’ll show below. Click on the small photo for more information and additional photographs.
More Cambridge condos:
Want to see even more condominums in Cambridge? Click on the Cambridge Condos tag link below or click on the MLS Search button at the top of the page to see all Cambridge real estate for sale.
Info about sales at 931 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge MA 02139 from MLSpin
Watertown MA Real Estate Sales – January 2010
Welcome to the Watertown Real Estate Report for January 2010
The month flew by! Here’s a look back at Watertown real esteate sales in January 2010.
Watertown Homes on the Market
90 Watertown homes were listed for sale in the MLS on January 31, 2010 priced between $182,000 and $1,395,000. These properties had been on the market an average of 160 days.
Watertown Real Estate Sales – Jan. 2010
Total value of Watertown real estate sales in January 2010 was $$7,627,125
See Also:
WATERTOWN REAL ESTATE SALES IN 2009
Info about Watertown MA real estate sold in January 2010 from MLSpin
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