Kevin Palamara

Thanks Michael - yeah I feel like at this point I will have to build up a bit of a "cushion" to prepare for any potential loss on property, which will unfortunately take away from the down payment on the house (meaning I'm going to have to put down more like 10% than 20% and deal with PMI again). I've seen a lot of the places that are up, mine will most certainly show much better than those given the upgrades - downside - it's not an end unit - (it's one of the 3 story units). - Wed May 21 2008, 07:42

I certainly realize my advantage as a buyer on these properties and will certainly look outside my upper range and given that I check out the MLS listings, I am aware of how long some of these properties have been listed and what type of leverage I will probably have to negotiate. I just need to ultimately figure out what kind of hit I'm willing to take on my property. Hopefully the agent representing any potential buyer for my property will be smart enough to point out the fact that paying $10,000 or more for my much nicer townhouse vs. the outdated one on the next street will utlimately only cost them an extra 50 bucks or so a month on a 30 year mortgage, if not less. - Fri Apr 4 2008, 07:40

I feel pretty comfortable with my situation despite the market - my townhouse is completely updated and would stand out vs. others on the market in my area, I know this for a fact. Obviously I am very frustrated since a couple of folks in the community foreclosed I believe and that will probably impact my sale. I am somewhat flexible with regards to pricing and assuming I used the same broker for buy and sell-side, I would think they would be quite motivated to find a buyer for my townhouse given that I would be in a position to move quickly and make them a nice buy-side fee on a $500K+ property. I am fairly certain that given waht I have seen on the market I would be looking in the towns of N.Reading, Saugus, Lynnfield, Swampscott, Marblehead, Wakefield as a first choice - with towns like Beverly, Danvers, Lynn (very limited areas), Stoneham being my "Second Tier" areas. - Fri Apr 4 2008, 06:04

Thanks for the answers - to be clear - this is not necessarily the option I would use. I was just curious since many of the homes I am looking at are new builds. I am also not looking for "top dollar" for my place - I live over in the Pickman Park Condos in Salem, I have put in the following in 2007 - New Windows, New Deck, New Wood Floors - Kitchen and Bathrooms were updated in 2005. I have seen tons of other units, and mine is much nicer than all I have seen. Like many, i would love to break even (I owe about $265K or so), but being that we are in a much more favorable financial position than I was in '04 when I bought the townhouse, I am just looking at options that dont' leave me stuck with the townhouse for 6-9 months and prevent us from buying a nice house. I'm sure this is a common story given the market conditions. - Thu Mar 27 2008, 05:34