Quarterly market briefs, occasional house biographies, and the kind of writing about real estate we wish more brokers did. Edited by Eleanor; written by all four of us. Mailed in print to clients twice a year, online whenever we have something we think is worth your time.
Salem's McIntire Historic District holds the densest concentration of Federal-era domestic architecture in the country, and prices here have risen 8.2% annualized for six consecutive years. Rosa Della Rocco walks you through which streets compound fastest, what changes after the 2028 historic-tax-credit reauthorization, and the four houses she's watching this spring.
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Built 1842 by a Marblehead schooner captain who'd just buried two children. Three generations of one family, then sold once in 1971, and on our market again in 2025.
The math has shifted enough that we're finally seeing serious inventory motion in Manchester. Here's how we're advising sellers and buyers in Q2 2026.
It's the most-requested renovation we hear about, and the one we wish more buyers thought twice on. A primer on why the original cellular plan often outperforms the open kitchen-great room.
A working checklist Theo gives every Salem buyer before the second visit — from foundation evidence to ridge-board sag to which neighbors share which party walls.
We had a roof to replace on a coming-soon listing in Marblehead and we wanted hand-split white cedar shingles. The man who can still make them lives in Topsfield and is 81.
The renovations that hurt sale price more often than they help. The "freshening up" that costs a buyer's emotional response. And the one thing every seller should do — but almost no one does.
A rough projection of where Cove pricing lands in 2030, what the rail-access trade looks like once the fast-ferry pilot finishes its second year, and the four micro-neighborhoods we'd watch.
Number 18 has belonged to a sea captain, a poet, a midwife, three doctors, two judges, a music teacher, and a software architect. The deed reads like a small-town novel.
Every closing teaches us something. We pulled the nine hardest of 2025 — a divorce, two estates, a contested easement — and wrote up the lesson behind each.
The Journal goes to clients in print twice a year — May and November, six pages, lightly edited, mailed first class. If you'd like to be on the list, leave your address. We don't share it. We don't email between issues.