The most common 21st century residential real estate buyer question(s): What (where) is the best real estate investment? Will X property appreciate over the next 5 years?

Seems the old-time reasons for home ownership have seen there final days. Your home - whether 300 square feet or 5000 - is no longer (just) the place you go for shelter, to grow in over time and/or raise your family, dogs, cats and chickens, until your hair turns grey. Today, people are more interested in appreciation and returns than the warm and fuzzy feeling home ownership often brings.

Insert the problem: Predicting real estate trends is near to impossible especially because real estate is so local - each towns market statistics are vastly different than the next … For example if I - or anyone - could have predicted the recent mortgage crisis and what it would do to the real estate market (in each individual town) I would not be sitting here writing this blog (picture huge yacht, margaritas and sunsets). Not to say I won’t keep trying

I had an inquiring mind ask about the Concord condo market in terms of good vs bad short term investment and ability of appreciation over the next 5/10 years. Sticking to the “share the wealth [of knowledge]” cliche, here was my response:

First and for most you should buy based on your needs, so if the condo/townhouse style is the answer than that should be your focus.

That said, single families in concord will likely appreciate more than condo’s and I say this because Concord has such great school systems the town will always attract families looking for single family homes. While condos and single families likely appreciate in tandem, single families offer more options to increase their value (landscaping, parking and there is no condo association dictating other changes/upgrades or lack there of). This means, if you choose to buy a condo in a single family driven area you should concentrate on getting the best and lowest price.

Since real estate trends are pretty unpredictable - i.e. the market crisis we experienced over the last 2 years was unforeseen by most - it is hard to say what the resale market for condo/townhouses will look like in the next 5/10 years (by the way a 10 year resale period is not really considered “short term”). However we can get close to understanding if there is opportunity by looking at recent condo statistics compared to single family statistics.

Over the last year 42 condos have sold in concord with an average days on market of 145. The largest number of sales happened in the $300,000-$350,000 - making it the most active price point - and since your price range ($500,000) isn’t at the top either it leaves you in a good position for resale. Buying the highest-end property puts you in more risk for little appreciation. In your specific price range the average days on market is 128 with a sale price to listing price discount of 4% putting it equal to the total condo market discount. The current absorption rate for condos is 3.5, which means over the last year that many condos sold per month. Using this number I was able to find there are currently 8 months of inventory on the market which means the condo market in concord right now is middle of the road: not quite a sellers market and not quite a buyers market (although it is right on the edge). Inventory is half what it was compared to the market in the prior year. Also the days on market has doubled and the median price has dropped. This means the condo market in concord has softened a bit (deal to be had?),

Compare this to the Single family numbers: 169 SF’s have sold over the last year with an average days on market of 145, and a market average discount of 5%. The hottest price points are the $500,000-599,000 range and the $1mill-$1.5mill range. The first number being the most relevant to you … Since your price point falls in one of the most competitive single family price points your concentration when buying a condo should be on getting the lowest price as this will give you an edge against SFs at resale.

Again, real estate is very difficult to predict but remember it is also very cyclical. We are in a down turn now but it will definitely come around soon. So, to reiterate, my suggestion is for you to focus on getting the lowest price possible as well as a good quality townhouse, and hopefully this will guarantee an appreciation.

I spent the weekend looking at real estate in Concord which is one of Massachusetts’ most beautiful towns. Personally I like history and Concord simply has a ton of it.

• The initial conflict in the American Revolutionary War, The Battle of Lexington and Concord, was fought here - April 19th, 1775.
• Harvard College was temporarily moved to Concord during the War and and the College’s prominent scientist John Winthrop lived in The Wayside house, located on Lexington Road
• The 1800’s brought a group of Transcendentalists to Concord. Among them were authors Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and native Concordian, Henry David Thoreau.
• Ephraim Bull developed the now-ubiquitous Concord Grape at his Concord home on Lexington Road, where the original vine still grows. Welch’s, the first company to sell grape juice, still maintains a small headquarters in Concord

If you are like me you are probably sitting in your office daydreaming about the simpler life in Concord where great men did great things. Here’s a little visual fodder for your daydreams. Four Concord homes overlooking the water. Perfect places to fly your American flag, observe a transit of Venus, read a great book (or poem), and sit back and sip a glass of Welch’s original.

Are you familiar with Walter Gropius and his Bauhaus style? Do you know about The Architects Collaborative? Have you ever heard of Chip Harkness?

Walter Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School. Along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, he is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of “modern” architecture.

The Bauhaus School was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts. It became one of the most influential currents in Modernist architecture and modern design.

In 1937, Gropius moved to the United States and with the financial help of Mrs. Storrow (yes that Storrow) he built a house for himself in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Shortly thereafter Gropius began teaching at the Harvard School of Design and in then 1945 founded The Architects’ Collaborative (TAC) with a group of younger architects.

Mr. John “Chip” Harkness was one of original partners of TAC. Harkness helped TAC become one of the most well-known and respected architectural firms in the world and he stayed on for 50 years until the firm declared bankruptcy in 1995.

Beyond being interesting to all you architecture buffs, why should you care? There is a house in Concord that just hit the market. It belonged to Dr. George Valley Jr. a MIT physicist who is famous for developing the H2X radar bombsight which permitted the all-weather bombing of Nazi Germany. The house was built in 1953 in the Bauhaus style and was designed by The Architects Collaborative with Chip Harkness’ involvement. Allegedly Walther Gropius took an active interest in the plans.

607 Main Street is in need of significant updating but appears to be structurally sound. If you like modern design the house is of historic significance and at $629,000 it could be a money making project for the right buyer.