Plastic Fences Make Good Neighbors ?

As I drove through Longmeadow this past week I spotted the many signs of the fall season. In addition to all of the trees still ablaze with remnants of a spectacular season of fall colors, there are the many different methods that abound in Longmeadow for dealing with the leaves after they fall. Longmeadow for many years has not collected leaves at curbside so residents have had to make their own arrangements.

Bagging leaves on some streets is sometimes a contest to see who can bag the most leaves...

Some people rake the leaves to curbside (or into the street) and have them removed.....

I've always been a little bit frustrated that the leaves from my neighbors' trees and lawns blow onto my lawn (I have no maple trees but have a lot of maple leaves)....

Here is a possible solution that one Longmeadow homeowner is trying this year....

It will be interesting to see how effective adding a 3 ft plastic fence around the perimeter of your property is to reduce the volume of leaves.

Perhaps, next year this will become a new "sign" of fall in Longmeadow

Latest October 2009 Home Sales for Longmeadow

Shown below are a series of charts summarizing the latest single family home sales in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. These results include both MLS and FSBO transactions and are based upon public information obtained from the Hampden County Registrar of Deeds website.

As the peak selling months and 2009 draw to a close it appears that the number of Longmeadow homes sold in 2009 will be similar to 2008 but ~ 20-25% below the recent peak reached in 2007.

There was some good news as the median price seems to be holding significantly above the low reached earlier this year (~ $320,000 vs. $296,000 in February 2009).

Other highlights of the recent sales data include:

• Median home prices in October ($320,000) are up ~8% from the February 2009 low ($296,000) but down 8.6% from the October 2007 peak ($350,000- see figure 2).
  
  
• Home sales in the month of October were lower than one year ago (10 vs. 17) and 2009 YTD figures are relatively flat vs. 2008 (136 vs. 140, a 3% decrease- see figure 1).
  
  
• A large percentage of homes continue to be sold at prices below the official assessment value continuing a trend that has been in place for greater than one year (see figure 3).
  
  
• 2009 YTD data suggest higher priced homes (>$400K) have been more difficult to sell with only 30 out of 136 homes sold were priced above $400,000.

Figure 1
[click chart to enlarge]

Figure 2
[click chart to enlarge]

Figure 3
[click chart to enlarge]

It does appear that a bottom may be forming for the Longmeadow real estate market (as well as the rest of the US). This combined with a recovery economy may lead to a more normally functioning real estate market in 2010.

Here is a link to the data for 2006-2009 Real Estate Transactions that were used to develop the above graphs.

Longmeadow FSBO
East Longmeadow FSBO
House for Rent at LongmeadowBiz
Vacation Rentals at LongmeadowBiz

LongmeadowBiz.com- Longmeadow's #1 Business and Community website