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Buyer’s market? Boston realtor offers seven benefits from higher interest rates

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Buyer’s market? Boston realtor offers seven benefits from higher interest rates


BOSTON — As rates of interest climb and the variety of mortgage purposes plunge, one Boston-based realtor says issues are trying so much higher for potential dwelling consumers.

“We’re seeing lots of stock come available on the market. There’s undoubtedly much less closing and extra properties that aren’t going below settlement,” realtor Mike City stated.

The long-term U.S. mortgage price dipped again below 7 % this month, sooner or later after the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark borrowing price to its highest stage in 15 years. Mortgage consumers Freddie Mac reported November third that the typical price for a 30-year mortgage was 6.95 %. The speed was 3.09 % final 12 months at the moment.

“I don’t suppose all of Massachusetts shall be a purchaser’s market however sure areas definitely have gotten that method,” City stated.

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City defined some great benefits of shopping for a house in a excessive rate of interest market in his video, “Are We Lastly in a Consumers Market?”

SELLER-PAID CLOSING COSTS

City says it’d sound like a international idea, however sellers are starting to pay for closing prices once more.

“It may be anyplace from three % all the way in which as much as six %,” City stated. “That is one thing we haven’t seen within the final two-plus years. I at the moment have contracts proper now the place the vendor paid closing prices.”

SELLER-PAID RATE BUY DOWN

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In keeping with City, it is a newer idea the place the vendor of a house credit a portion of their proceeds to the house consumers, also referred to as a vendor concession. Vendor concessions will also be used to pay mortgage factors and purchase down the rate of interest.

“You may get a decrease price for as much as two years. Some lenders could have totally different packages,” City stated. “As an alternative of getting your closing prices paid for, you should utilize it to purchase down your price.”

CONTINGENCIES AND SELLER-PAID REPAIRS

Whether or not it’s for an inspection, appraisal or mortgage, City says purchaser contingencies are coming again in a giant method.

“Individuals are beginning to do inspections once more,” City stated. “Lots of people aren’t waiving inspections as a result of they don’t must.”

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City stated he’s additionally beginning to see extra sellers making repairs or giving a credit score again for these repairs.

“That’s one thing I’ve not seen in in all probability over two years,” City stated. “The rationale they’re doing that isn’t essentially as a result of they determined, however they see what’s going on with the market.”

MULTIPLE LOAN TYPES

City stated throughout the pandemic, it made a distinction what sort of mortgage you had. Standard loans and money reigned supreme, however City stated he’s beginning to see extra VA dwelling loans and FHA dwelling loans get accepted.

“The rationale these mortgage varieties are returning is as a result of locations are sitting available on the market. The longer they’re available on the market, the extra issues speak in confidence to you as a purchaser. A type of issues is clearly the mortgage sort.”

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City recommends speaking to your lender if you wish to apply for a VA or FHA mortgage.

LESS MONEY DOWN

For a very long time, how a lot money you place down was as necessary because the mortgage itself, however City stated not anymore.

“There’s a giant false impression on the market that individuals want a 20 % down fee. They used to wish that to get accepted,” City stated. “Now we’re seeing consumers put 3.5 or 5 % down. They’re utilizing the remainder of that cash to purchase furnishings, to do renovations, to do no matter. That’s one other advantage of the market we’re heading into for consumers.”

NEGOTIATING SALE PRICE

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City says should you all have of the attributes of a 2021 purchaser—a 20 % down fee, typical mortgage, waived inspections—you can probably save some huge cash on the precise gross sales worth of the property.

“Now you’ll be able to actually negotiate the sale worth down,” City stated. “The cleaner your supply is, the extra negotiable the vendor goes to be.”

TIME TO THINK

Searching for a home throughout the pandemic could possibly be scary, demanding and irritating. With extra stock available on the market, City says consumers can afford to decelerate and take into consideration what they’re doing.

“The upper rates of interest have relieved lots of the stress,” he stated. “You don’t must make rash choices. You will pay more cash to your dwelling than should you had paid two years in the past, however concentrate on what you’re gaining by having that greater price.”

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Boston, MA

Constantine Manos, photographer for landmark ‘Where’s Boston?’ exhibit, dies at 90 – The Boston Globe

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Constantine Manos, photographer for landmark ‘Where’s Boston?’ exhibit, dies at 90 – The Boston Globe


Constantine Manos, “Los Angeles, California,” 2001. (Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos)Courtesy Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives, Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos

Among Mr. Manos’s books were “A Greek Portfolio” (1972; updated 1999), “Bostonians” (1975), “American Color” 1995) and ”American Color 2″ (2010). Mr. Manos’s work with color was notably expressive and influential.

“Color was a four-letter word in art photography,” the photographer Lou Jones, who worked with Mr. Manos on “Where’s Boston?,” said in a telephone interview. “But he was making wonderful, complex photographs with color, and that meant so much.”

Yet for all his formal skill, Mr. Manos always emphasized the human element in his work. “I am a people photographer and have always been interested in people,” he once said.

That interest extended beyond the photographs he took. He was a celebrated teacher. Among the students he taught in his photo workshops was Stella Johnson.

“He’d go through a hundred of my photographs,” she said in a telephone interview, “and maybe he’d like two. ‘No, no, no, no, yes, no.’ Costa really taught me how to see. I remember him looking at one picture and saying, “You were standing in the wrong spot.’ Something like that was invaluable to me as a young photographer.

“He was a very, very kind man, very generous. But he was very strict. ‘How could you do that?’ He was adored by his students and by his friends, absolutely. We were all lucky to have been in his orbit.”

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Cellist Samuel Mayes and conductor Charles Munch during a Boston Symphony Orchestra rehearsal at Tanglewood, July 25, 1959. (Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos)Courtesy Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives, Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos

Mr. Manos, who moved to Provincetown in 2008, lived in the South End for four decades. The South Carolina native’s association with the Boston area began when the Boston Symphony Orchestra hired him as a photographer at Tanglewood. He was 19. This led to Mr. Manos’s first book, “Portrait of a Symphony” (1961; updated 2000).

Constantine Manos was born in Columbia, S.C., on Oct. 12, 1934. His parents, Dimitri and Aphrodite (Vaporiotou) Manos, were Greek immigrants. They ran a café in the city’s Black section. That experience gave Mr. Manos a sympathy for marginalized people that would stay with him throughout his life. As a student at the University of South Carolina, he wrote editorials in the school paper opposing segregation. Later, he would do extensive work chronicling the LGBTQ+ community with his camera.

Mr. Manos became interested in photography at 13, joining the school camera club and building a darkroom in his parents’ basement. After graduating from college, Mr. Manos did two years of Army service in Germany, working as a photographer for Stars and Stripes. He joined Magnum in 1963. This had special meaning for him. Mr. Manos’s chief inspiration as a young photographer had been Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of Magnum’s founders. He was such an admirer he made a point of using the same equipment that Cartier-Bresson did.

That same year, Mr. Manos entered a seafood restaurant in Rome that was around the corner from the Pantheon. Prodanou, his future husband, was dining with friends. Noticing Mr. Manos, he gestured to him. “Would you join us for coffee?” The couple spent the next 61 years together, marrying in 2011.

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“Lining Up for the Shriner’s Parade, South End, Boston,” 1974. (Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos)Courtesy Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives, Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos

Mr. Manos lived in Greece for three years, which led to “A Greek Portfolio.” He undertook a very different project in the Athens of America. Part of the city’s Bicentennial tribute, “Where’s Boston?” was a slice-of-many-lives view of contemporary Boston.

Located in a red-white-and-blue striped pavilion at the Prudential Center, it became a local sensation. The installation involved 42 computerized projectors and 3,097 color slides (most of them taken by Mr. Manos), shown on eight 10 feet by 10 feet screens. Outside the pavilion was a set of murals, consisting of 152 black-and-white photographs of Boston scenes, all shot by Mr. Manos.

“The most important thing I had to do was to keep my picture ideas simple,” he said in a 1975 Globe interview. “Viewers are treated to a veritable avalanche of color slides in exactly one hour’s time.”

In that same interview, he made an observation about his work generally. “I prefer to stay in close to my subjects. I let them see me and my camera and when they become bored they forget about me and then I get my best pictures.”

Among institutions that own Mr. Manos’s photographs are the Museum of Fine Arts; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Library of Congress; and the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

In addition to his husband, Mr. Manos leaves a sister, Irene Constantinides, of Atlanta, and a brother, Theofanis Manos, of Greenville, S.C.

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A memorial service will be held later this year.


Mark Feeney can be reached at mark.feeney@globe.com.





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Boston, MA

Below freezing temperatures again today

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Below freezing temperatures again today


The winds are still going Wednesday, but the air temperatures remain at respectable levels. Highs will manage to weasel up to 30 in most spots. It’s too bad we’re not going to feel them at face value. Instead, we’re dressing for temps in the teens all day today.

Thursday and Friday are the picks of the week.

There will be a lot less wind, reasonable winter temperatures in the 30s and a decent amount of sun. We’ll be quiet into the weekend, as our next weather system approaches.

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With mild air expected to come north on southerly winds, highs will bounce back to the low and mid-40s both days of the weekend.

Showers will be delayed until late day/evening on Saturday and into the night. There may be a few early on Sunday too, but the focus on that day will be to bring in the cold.

Highs will briefly sneak into the 40s, then fall late day.

We’ll also watch a batch of snow late Sunday night as it moves up the Eastern Seaboard.

Right now, there is a potential for some accumulation as it moves overhead Sunday night and early Monday morning.

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It appears to be a weak, speedy system, so we’re not expecting it to pull any punches.

Enjoy the quieter spell of weather!



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Boston, MA

Boston City Councilor will introduce

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Boston City Councilor will introduce


BOSTON – It could cost you more to get a soda soon. The Boston City Council is proposing a tax on sugary drinks, saying the money on unhealthy beverages can be put to good use.

A benefit for public health?

“I’ve heard from a lot of residents in my district who are supportive of a tax on sugary beverages, but they want to make sure that these funds are used for public health,” said City Councilor Sharon Durkan, who is introducing the “Sugar Tax,” modeled on Philadelphia and Seattle. She said it’s a great way to introduce and fund health initiatives and slowly improve public health.

A study from Boston University found that cities that implemented a tax on sugary drinks saw a 33% decrease in sales.

“What it does is it creates an environment where we are discouraging the use of something that we know, over time, causes cancer, causes diet-related diseases, causes obesity and other diet-related illnesses,” she said.

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Soda drinkers say no to “Sugar Tax”

Soda drinkers don’t see the benefit.

Delaney Doidge stopped by the store to get a mid-day pick-me-up on Tuesday.

“I wasn’t planning on getting anything, but we needed toilet paper, and I wanted a Diet Coke, so I got a Diet Coke,” she said, adding that a tax on sugary drinks is an overreach, forcing her to ask: What’s next?

“Then we’d have to tax everything else that brings people enjoyment,” Doidge said. “If somebody wants a sweet treat, they deserve it, no tax.”

Store owners said they’re worried about how an additional tax would impact their businesses.

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Durkan plans to bring the tax idea before the City Council on Wednesday to start the conversation about what rates would look like.

Massachusetts considered a similar tax in 2017.

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