A Few Places to Visit
The professional real estate agent is a student of the market and of people.
Only by following economic changes can one spot trends and plan ahead. Interpersonal skills – managing time, listening more and talking less – are invaluable. A little reflection over the choice and meaning of the words in law broadens one's thinking. A basic awareness of design and construction serves as an aid to staging and marketing real estate. A simple curiosity regarding mortgage financing becomes a tool to enable purchases. A tiny effort to learn the rudiments of appraising, a complicated undertaking that is unequally both art and science, improves analysis.
ART & SCIENCE
Architecture – Simple guide to residential styles
Interagency Sea Level Rise Scenario Tool
Environmental scientists and urban planners tell us to build sustainable and resilient structures particularly in vulnerable locations. A task force of partners from government and academia have developed an amazing map displaying the unevenness of "ocean creep" as a result of sinking land.
Massachusetts Interactive Property Map
MassGIS developed this interesting tool for viewing property and tax information, and for measuring distances and area.
Massachusetts Water Resources Authority
Quite literally, there really is nothing like air and water – vital, clean, abundant yet precious. The MWRA maintains and delivers high-quality water to people and businesses in eastern and central Massachusetts. It cannot control potential contamination once it enters the service line, which is your pipe under your land to your structure.
A state of equilibrium is the eventual end result in both the marketplace and nature. Naturalists and landscape designers understand that the introduction of non-native plants and animals, whether accidentally or deliberately, can cause a new and less beneficial natural balance. Human habitats become diminished. The Native Plant Trust has compiled a wonderfully useful resource that may aid gardeners and others to reverse the damage.
Residential Appraisal Process – FAQs for Agents
World Resources Institute has produced its independent and non-partisan platform for displaying the state of the planet and its inhabitants. In one place, you find hundreds of peer-reviewed data sets collected from established sources.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has produced a dynamic map showing probable changes to our land mass from water inundation.
COMRADES & KAHUNAS
Association of Real Estate License Law Officials
Educators, like John, seek ARELLO's certification as instructors and for courses. You can verify a real estate license on its nationwide database.
Business owns or wants space, and requires special information about it. Real estate professionals have long found ways to share key details for this purpose and to cooperate. While a regional multiple listing service can be useful, the Commercial Information Exchange and, more recently, the Commercial/Industrial MLS have emerged as preferred models by which to target different user groups with pertinent property data. These services are accomplished through a growing number of platforms with competing strengths that range from ease of use to sector-specificity. LoopNet is one prominent example.
Massachusetts Association of REALTORS®
Massachusetts Home Inspector Board
- Check a home inspector license
- Consumer Fact Sheet
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Required handout about home energy audits
Massachusetts Real Estate Board
- Apply for or manage a real estate license at eLIPSE
- Business Entity License information
- Check a real estate license
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Frequently Asked Questions by Licensees
- Good Moral Character for Initial Licensing
- Out-of-State Real Estate Development form
- Reciprocal licensure extended to certain other states
National Association of Real Estate Brokers
NAREB identifies its members as REALTISTS®.
National Association of REALTORS®
- Affiliated Organizations
- Code of Ethics Training (free) – Triennial requirement by 12/31/2027
- Designations and Certifications
- Homebuyer and Homeowner resources – realtor.com®
- Housing Statistics
- REALTOR® Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice
New Hampshire Real Estate Commission
Rhode Island Division of Commercial Licensing and Regulation
Of special interest to professional real property and personal property appraisers.
DEBT & TAXES
Credit Freezes and Fraud Alerts are now free. What's a Credit Lock?
A credit freeze and a credit lock differ, but each provides important protections and is fairly simple to implement. A credit freeze, also known as security freeze, is free and, because it is federally guaranteed, provides stiffer legal protections than a lock.
Credit locks are easier for consumers to manage, but they can carry a monthly charge as a voluntary service of the credit bureau. Both block access to your credit report, provide a safeguard against identity theft, and may reduce junk mail.
Freeze or lock each of your 3 credit reports by contacting the respective nationwide credit bureau:
First-Time Homebuyer resource – My Mass Mortgage
- Affordable Homes – Massachusetts Housing Partnership
- Important source for financing affordable homes – MassHousing
Free Credit Reports – Credit & Identity Protection – Learn from the FTC
Independent Contractor – IRS definition
IRS Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
Learn from the source about deductions for homeownership, home office, rentals, much more.
Authoritative site presenting explanations to promote intelligent borrowing decisions.
DREAD & SORROW
Contaminated Massachusetts properties including Superfund sites
FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) and other public and private parties generate a lot of easy-to-understand science-based information so that the rest of us can learn and prepare for disasters.
- Create a home inventory
- Flood Zones and Maps
- National Flood Insurance Program
- Quiz: What's insured?
- Video: What's a basement?
Lead – Start here to understand concerns, obtain forms, and comply with law.
A child whose blood contains 10 µg/dl (micrograms per deciliter) or greater is lead-poisoned.
- Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program – for Owners, Parents, Everyone
- List of Inspected Homes Containing Lead
Radon – Action level, Risks, Zones– learn from the EPA
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends fixing a home where radon levels measure 4 pCi/L (picocuries per liter) or higher.
The World Health Organization recommends remediation at a lower 2.7 pCi/L.
TRUTH & CONSEQUENCES
Remodeling Magazine annually estimates the monetary benefit obtained from certain home improvement projects.
Foreclosed properties from RealtyTrac®
An aggregator of data collected from other sources.
Homeownership Affordability map
Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies generates a remarkable range of analyses. This is just one example.
House Price Index compiled by the FHFA
Actually a suite of indices compiled by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which measure the movement of single-family house prices. Do not to be overwhelmed, let yourself be guided by its FAQs. There are tables, graphs, and maps. Of particular interest to most of us is the Purchase-only Index.
Landlord Support at MassLandlords.net
Legal Aid from MassLegalHelp.org
Rental Fees Charged by Landlords and Brokers – an examination
Tenant Screening Service for Landlords
WE & US
Massachusetts School and District Data
Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board
An undertaking to compile and map indigenously inhabited lands and waters around the world. Indigenous people were the first to settle land as homo sapiens began to emerge and migrate through and from Africa. Many would be displaced, often repeatedly, or absorbed and reabsorbed by others. They faced annihilation or, remarkably, survived into the present.
Although not its purpose, this project can remind us that ownership is received from its preceding holder and began with the original landholder— the indispensable chain of title that underpins ownership to everything.
What is recyclable in Massachusetts? What should I put in the recycle bin? Now you know.
Registries of Deeds for all Massachusetts counties
Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List
Transactions involving large amounts of money are supposed to draw attention by our federal government. Many threats to the national security and foreign policy of the United States include money laundering to fund terrorist activities, narcotics trafficking, and mass destruction capabilities.
Financial institutions, commercial property managers, real estate brokers, and investors seeking partners need to avoid transactions with such parties. The U.S. Department of the Treasury maintains this important list of individuals, groups and regimes that may pose a threat.
Vote – Register Online in minutes
World Maps (in English and Spanish)
Real estate is place. International real estate is about other places where people, their customs and viewpoints are rooted. Know their geographies.
