The Boston Real Estate Blog says that Movoto has come to town. It’s another disintermediation play like Redfin and ZipRealty, although I haven’t bothered to figure out what their specific angle is, because I don’t really want to buy a house right now.
See, I spend a lot of time drooling over loft condos, because that’s the kind of shallow yuppie I am. So I looked up a few in my neighborhood and found 7 Park Ave, which is asking a million bucks and has been on the market for over a year. I used to live across the alley from that building. It’s nothing special, and it’s shadowed on one side by the tall, unattractive apartment building I used to live in. Yeah, the library garden on one side makes up for that a little, but not much. And sure, the condo residents get offstreet parking, but it’s just not a million-dollar condo. Spacious, yes – 3BR, 3500 square feet. And well-appointed, too, with granite countertops (the harvest gold appliances and shag rugs of the ’00s). Whoever owns this place must be a real admirer of Manny Ramirez, who has had his condo on the market for two years now without a nibble or a price reduction.
There are a lot of fancy loft condos in this neighborhood for a lot less money, and they’re not moving either.
If they all started cutting their prices by, say, forty or fifty percent, then I’d consider trying to get a loan. (Yes, I know, I’m going to rent forever because I am too cheap to pay all the various fees, which strike me as deliberate insults. Shut up.)
Secretly Ironic 
Some random economist I was reading recently argued that a larger home (3,500 square feet!) is one of the expenses that provide the least marginal increase in happiness of anything you can spend a gob of money on, because people so quickly get used to the additional space.
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