BUYING A HOME: Know Your Expenses Before You Buy

For many, homeownership is still a dream. Moving from renting can seem like it’s an impossible mission. But if you plan ahead and carefully budget, the goal of homeownership can be yours.

Private Mortgage InsuranceWhen budgeting how much home you can afford, it’s important to understand and anticipate the costs of owning and maintaining a home. Here are a few things that some first-time buyers forget to include.

This is added on to your mortgage when the down payment is less than 20 percent. You can buy a home with less money but you’ll pay the PMI which covers the lender should a homebuyer default on the loan. As you build up equity, your PMI drops off.

Taxes

Property taxes generate revenue for municipalities, counties, and schools. It’s an expense that can vary across the U.S. However, on average, it’s 1.38 percent of the home’s value. Back East tends to have the highest property taxes.

HOA Fees

Homeowners’ Association fees (HOA) can add several hundred dollars to your monthly household expenses. These HOAs help to maintain common areas, typically within condominium complexes. They also govern what can be done to the unit and the surrounding area. While there is an up side to HOAs, some buyers prefer to have more freedom over their property, perhaps, until the neighbor paints his house turquoise with red accents.

Homeowner’s insurance

Lenders require homeowner’s insurance on your property. The amount you’ll pay depends on

WANT TO BE A REALTOR?: So Eager to Get Foot in Real Estate’s Door, They Work Without Pay

In past years, becoming a real estate agent was rarely a first-choice gig. For many people, it was a way to pay the bills while trying to break into another field. For some, it was a second career — or maybe a third or a fourth — tackled after the children went off to college, or earlier paths fell off a cliff.

But more recently the image of the real estate agent has moved away from racks of keys and dingy walk-ups. Sashaying into the limelight by way of reality television and eye-popping sales, the profession started to seem a bit glamorous — and compelling enough that some young people are willing to try it out for no pay.


 Please welcome to the bottom of the food chain an ambitious group willing to do anything, earn nothing and wake up early on a Sunday to fluff the couch cushions at your open house: the real estate broker’s interns.


This is the height of the internship application season, and young people — at least those who can afford to work without receiving a meaningful paycheck — are weighing their options. Those who choose to spend the summer in the land of expensive apartments may enjoy these tasks: copying keys, sending out Evites, promoting the boss on Facebook and hiding a seller’s dirty socks when potential buyers come calling.

But there are some perks as well.


“On my second day of work, I was in a $28.5 million apartment,” said John Liss, 18, who was an unpaid intern at Gumley Haft Kleier last summer, and is now a licensed agent with his own listings.


Unfortunately, his cut of that million-dollar-plus commission would have been nothing.


Everyone has heard intern horror stories: A bright young English major spends the summer at a fashion magazine, wedded to a coffee urn, making dentist appointments for her manager without a dime to show for it. And the resistance to endless hours of free labor has lately been picking up steam. Two men who interned on the movie “Black Swan” and one former intern at Harper’s Bazaar filed lawsuits in recent months alleging that their arrangements violated wage laws, and in December, Schneider & Rubin, a law firm that specializes in representing interns, opened its doors.


Federal guidelines require that an unpaid internship (a term that comes from the first year of training that doctors receive after medical school) satisfy six criteria, including that the “trainees” must be taught things they might learn at vocational school or an academic institution, and that they not displace regular paid employees.


Even if training is given, however, some industry professionals consider interning with a broker

The number of housing markets showing measurable improvement expanded by 29 metros in February to include a total of 98 markets listed on the Improving Markets Index published monthly by First American and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). Thirty-six states are now represented by at least one market on the list.


The index tracks those housing markets that are showing signs of improvement in overall economic health, based on growth in employment, home price appreciation, and increases in single-family housing permits. The index identifies metropolitan areas that have shown improvement in each of these three areas for at least six consecutive months.


The 29 metros added to the index in February include:

• Napa, California
• Deltona, Florida
• Miami, Florida
• North Port, Florida
• Tampa, Florida
• Augusta, Georgia
• Shreveport, Louisiana
• Boston, Massachusetts
• Springfield, Massachusetts
• Cumberland, Maryland
• Lewiston, Maine
• Detroit, Michigan
• Duluth, Minnesota
• Rochester, Minnesota
• Jefferson City, Missouri
• Kansas City, Missouri
• Hattiesburg, Mississippi
• Omaha, Nebraska
• Ocean City, New Jersey

HOME DESIGN: Those brass light fixtures send a message to buyers: C-H-E-A-P

Don't get Steve Somogyi wrong. He doesn't hate all brass finishes -- just the really shiny, yellow-toned stuff that he thinks screams "Cheap!" when homebuyers notice it in light fixtures, switch plates, doorknobs, etc.

That brass tone was fashionable a couple of decades ago, but its day is done and it has to go if it's in a house you're trying to sell, according to Somogyi, a real estate agent and interior designer.

In prepping a small house for the market recently, he switched out every single brass light fixture, switch plate, door hinge and knob for ones with an oil-rubbed bronze finish that's a very dark brown.

Dark-toned fixtures and hardware may work to deformalize a room.Photo/Sea Gull Lighting.

By buying the replacements from a big-box store and a website specializing in closeouts, the homeowner spent $300 to $400 for materials, he estimated, and a contractor/installer made the changes in a day.

In a larger home, such changes might be too complex or expensive to do throughout, but at the very least, sellers should take a hard look at the front-door hardware that greets potential buyers

NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS: Downtown Crossing Development

The development firm taking control of the former Filene’s property in downtown Boston said it will build a tower as high as 600 feet, rivaling the tallest buildings in the district and creating a new magnet for shoppers, diners, and residents.

At that height, the new Filene’s tower would be as tall as the Federal Reserve Bank building or the nearby One Boston Place. It would be taller and more slender than the first building proposed for the site, a 39-story building that stalled in the early stages of construction.

Principals of the new development firm, Millennium Partners, yesterday said the new tower will cost at least $500 million and include about 1.2 million square feet of residential and commercial space, including a base of retail stores, a substantial office component, and apartments on the upper floors. “What excites us about the [Filene’s site] is the opportunity to do something truly spectacular,’’ Philip Aarons, a founding partner of New York-based Millennium, said at a news conference at Boston City Hall. “It will again become the center of downtown.’’

Mayor Thomas M. Menino expressed confidence the firm will begin construction within a year, ending the work stoppage that has left a giant hole in the middle of Downtown Crossing for more than three years and that slowed a larger plan to revitalize the district.

“Millennium Partners is taking control of this project and will get it done,’’ Menino said.

Millennium is teaming up with the project’s existing owner, Vornado Realty Trust of New York, which will be a passive investor. Aarons declined to identify the amount of the firm’s investment so far, but said it will be the lead partner and present a new plan within several months.

Millennium has built large projects in major cities across the country, including the four-building Lincoln Square complex in New York, the Millennium Tower in San Francisco, and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel & Towers down the street from the Filene’s site in Boston. Anthony Pangaro, who