Buying a Home in Boston: A Practical Guide

A pre-approval letter in Greater Boston is not a formality. In a competitive situation, listing agents will read yours before they read your offer price, and a letter from a lender they have never heard of will cost you the deal against an equal bid.

Work with a lender who closes locally and can be reached on a Sunday. Get the letter refreshed to the exact offer amount rather than submitting a generic one. It signals that you and your lender have actually spoken about this specific property.

If you are self-employed or your income is bonus-weighted, start this conversation two months earlier than feels necessary. Underwriting on non-salaried income takes longer than anyone tells you.

Boston's housing stock is old. A large share of what you will tour was built before 1940, and much of the rest is a conversion of something that was. That is not a reason to avoid it, the construction quality of a well-maintained period building is frequently better than its modern equivalent, but it does mean the questions worth asking are different.

Ask when the roof, heating system, and electrical panel were last replaced. Ask whether the building has been repointed. In a condominium, ask for two years of meeting minutes, not just the budget: the minutes tell you what the owners are arguing about, which is where the next special assessment comes from.

This is the part of the process where working with someone who has been on a construction site is worth something concrete. Knowing that a repointing job on a three-storey brick facade runs into five figures changes what you are willing to pay.

Well-priced property in the desirable submarkets frequently goes under agreement within ten days, often with offers due on a set date after the first weekend of showings. If you are not ready to write on a Sunday evening, you will lose properties.

Escalation clauses are common and are read carefully. Waiving contingencies is also common, which is precisely why it deserves caution: an inspection contingency is not a formality on a hundred-year-old building, and waiving it should be a decision you make with a clear picture of what you might be absorbing.

There is a middle path most buyers do not know about, an inspection for information only, where you retain the right to walk but not to renegotiate. It reads far stronger than a full contingency and still protects you from the worst outcome.

This surprises buyers from almost everywhere else. You will sign an Offer to Purchase, and then roughly a week or two later a Purchase and Sale Agreement. The second document, not the first, is the one that governs.

The gap between them is when the inspection happens and when the lawyers negotiate. It is also, in practice, the last real opportunity to adjust terms. Have your attorney engaged before the offer goes in, not after it is accepted.

Yes, you want an attorney. Massachusetts is an attorney-involved state and the cost is trivial relative to what one catches.

Beyond the deposit and down payment, expect attorney fees, lender fees, title insurance, recording fees, and a prepaid escrow for taxes and insurance. On a condominium, add the first month of fees and often a capital contribution to the association.

A reasonable planning figure is two to three per cent of the purchase price in closing costs, though it varies. Ask your lender for a written estimate early. They are obliged to produce one, and it is far better to see the number in month one than in week eleven.

An enormous share of Greater Boston's leases turn over on September first. If you are buying a property with tenants in place, or buying while you are still renting, that date will shape your timeline whether you want it to or not.

Closings clustered around late August are harder to schedule, movers are booked out, and the city is genuinely gridlocked. If you have flexibility, closing in a quieter month is worth real money in reduced friction.