Last year’s “Salem’s Christmas Party,” which was held at Victoria Station restaurant for the 20th time, raised more than $32,000 for the charity, which was hands down the most ever raised. Turner Construction made a particularly generous donation of $10,000. Santa took time out of his busy holiday schedule to make an appearance, and various entertainers contributed to the wonderful night as well.

Read more:

http://goo.gl/9kcxFb

Salem Waterfront Hotel to Expand

Includes 32 hotel rooms, 14 apartments, and a waterfront restaurant

Courtesy illustration An artist's rendering of the existing Salem Waterfront Hotel.

Read the full story here: http://goo.gl/UjJ4hH

The developer of a planned shopping center on Brimbal Avenue, Steven Cohen (CEA Group), spoke on the topic of the rezoning that is up for a vote in a February 8th special election. 

If the rezoning passes the public vote, Cohen plans to include Whole Foods Market as a tenant in the new shopping center. If the rezoning does not pass, there will still be a shopping center, but with no Whole Foods, which Cohen believes would be too costly to include under that scenario. Cohen notes that an increase in local traffic is coming in either case. Opponents to the rezoning have gathered over 3,500 signatures.

http://www.salemnews.com/local/x651172717/Developer-No-rezoning-no-Whole-Foods

The project before Town Meeting called for a six-lane lap pool with a zero-entry swim area, which allows people to enter the water by walking down a gradual slope, similar to a beach. It also included a kiddie pool, a new bathhouse, increased deck space and seating, a lifeguard station and reconfigured parking. The next Town Meeting will be in April.

http://goo.gl/87dl6m

Rob Lutts, President of Cabot Money Management in Salem & David Caruso, Managing Director of Coastal Capital Group in Danvers believe the economy should continue to improve in 2014, with signs of modest growth. Thoughts included job growth picking up and continued improvement in the real estate market:

http://goo.gl/3tB6pH

On January 30th, Goldberg Properties is scheduled to buy the empty building that formerly housed Bell Market on Cabot Street in Beverly, according to Bill Goldberg, the company’s founder. 

Bell Market, which first opened for business in 1965, was a grocery store in Beverly for 42 years, until its closing in 2007. The property has been vacant since 2009.

http://goo.gl/qXVDp3

An underground explosion blew the covers off multiple manhole covers in downtown Salem on Tuesday 1/8. The incident took place near (and was audible at) our Salem real estate office (corner of Washington and Front), at the intersection of Front Street and Central Street.

Early thinking is that a transformer may have exploded. Shortly after the explosion, several buildings in the immediate proximity on both Front Street and Central Street were evacuated due to high carbon monoxide levels that were detected by the Salem fire department. A number of downtown streets were also closed in the hours after the incident. Fortunately, no one was injured, though one parked car was damaged. Many residents and businesses were unfortunately without power in the cold weather.

http://www.salemnews.com/local/x12778489/Manhole-covers-blow-off-in-Salem

http://salem.patch.com/groups/around-town/p/power-outage-reported-in-downtown-salem

RE/MAX Advantage Broker/Owner and Realtor Kathy Sullivan was recently featured on NBC Nightly News' segment on the real estate market. The story focuses on the impressive gains in real estate prices nationwide in 2013. Check out what Kathy had to say about the 2014 real estate market at the 1:37 mark in the video below. 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Kathy & Terry Sullivan, broker/owners of RE/MAX Advantage, are happy to announce that they recently purchased our RE/MAX Advantage Real Estate office building in Gloucester, MA from TD Bank.

Our business is the sole tenant of this lovely building at Grant Circle, first Rotary on Route 128 in Gloucester, with a TD Bank ATM in the rear of the building for your convenience and your real estate purchases. Visit us soon to buy or sell at home. We have plenty of parking at our office location. Ruth Pino, thank you for the beautiful American flag at our Gloucester office.

RE/MAX Advantage's Tim Curtin, a Realtor in our Beverly, MA real estate office, spoke to the Salem News recently about the limited number of homes for sale having a cooling effect on the local real estate market in November. Curtin also noted that 2013 was an excellent year for real estate in both Massachusetts and Essex County.

Here is an excerpt from the Salem News article:

" 'It’s been a very good real estate market this year, both in the state and Essex County,' said Tim Curtin, a real estate agent with RE/MAX Advantage of Beverly. The Essex County real estate housing market had a median sale price in November of $355,000, better than the $316,500 price statewide, Curtin said.

Homes sales in Essex County were up 10 percent year-over-year, said Curtin, citing Multiple Listing Service data. Home prices in the county are up $25,000 over the same month last year.

'It’s tough for buyers right now,' said Curtin, who said the pendulum has swung toward sellers, as buyers face fewer choices and more competition for the scarce homes that are available.

Waiting to buy could be costly.

He gave the example of buyers who are looking for a home in the price range of $500,000 in Marblehead. With a mortgage rate of 4.3 percent, they would pay a mortgage of $2,400 a month. If they wait a year, and rates increase to 5.3 percent, the payment will increase to $2,700."

Here is the full article:

http://www.salemnews.com/local/x1221286769/Lack-of-homes-slows-sales/print