And good evening and welcome to uh Talk of the Towns. I'm Lee Kaiser, your host on this program, uh, today we're gonna be doing some, uh, as a custom a short commentary and, uh, things happening in the towns, and, uh, then we'll go on and talk to our guests, and we actually do have a guest, so. Anyways, but as I say, as a custom, let's talk about a few things that are going on in the towns. And one thing that was very nice to see this past Sunday after 5 years of town board hearings and court proceedings and working things out to get permits, the First Congregational Church on Bay Road finally had a groundbreaking service and uh the construction is already on the way for the uh. Large function room that they're building and the classrooms and modern unit at the Family Life Center. It was nice to see this finally, uh, came to combination and once they get that done, they hope to work on the main church and do some renovation there. Also, a lot of people know that on the internet you can find all kinds of things. One thing that I ran across it's very interesting, the mass lottery puts out a page, uh, and for their numbers, but they also put a page that talks about the fact where the money goes, and, uh, if you get on that page you will find the town of Hambleton got $533,000

00:01:34,000	the past year. One of them also came up with a sum of $275,000. So I guess the question we would ask here is, uh, where does this money go? One of the selectmen in Hamilton did tell me that it goes into the general fund, but, uh. I think a lot of people are gonna turn around and say why can't we use this money to knock off the override so we wouldn't have to worry about it and uh I guess that's something we'll have to check into later and see what's going on but uh. It also reminds me of the fact that a lot of times we ask about the uh when the school budget comes up and uh I know the state doesn't give a lot of money that they should give uh to the towns and cities but uh every time we question some of the money that the state is uh given the towns it's like a gray area we don't hear much about it uh maybe that's something that would help if people thought that the uh. state was giving money to the schools and maybe that would help uh some of the explanations of why it costs so much money to run the schools and why they have to keep coming back to the uh towns but uh. And just on one other comment that uh we hope that the public safety committee uh has got their fingers crossed because the bids are coming up with the new set of bids for the uh. Uh, building that they want to put up and if the bids come in too high that's gonna mean another override which I hope will not happen because that would mean that we'd have two overrides at least on the ballot and one would be the school and one would be the public service building and I'm afraid somebody would not make out too well so we're hoping that uh. The new prices, uh, the new, uh, beds will come in a bit lower, and a finally comment is that, uh, if you want to see more or read more about the, uh, the commentary and stuff like that, uh, man of our town is now in the Planet newspaper, uh, it comes on biweekly. You can find it. Uh, and restaurants and banks and places like that. In fact, the, uh, newest edition just, uh, is up today. So if you want to check more about what Man About Town is all about, this is it. OK, now we'd like to switch over and talk about our guest who was uh Jay Burnham who was a member of the. Hamilton and also he's in the real estate and trying to find out what's going on in that department, uh, Jay, I know one of the things that, uh, I keep hearing about is people say, well, I'd like to move into Hamilton, but, uh, I like the school system, but, uh, I don't like the idea of all the overrides and the taxes going up and stuff like that. What, uh, do you hear in your business in the real estate? Well, good morning, Lee. Um, things certainly have changed a little bit in the last year, uh, in the market, but as far as the schools go, uh, the Hamilton school system still remains, uh, one of the best on the North Shore and, uh, certainly is an attraction to people. Personally, uh, most of the sales that I make, um, in Hamilton tend to be from people from Beverly moving into Hamilton and specifically for the school system, but along with the changes in the market this year. One of the other changes that I, I hadn't experienced for at least 10 years was that there are a lot of people in Hamilton that are concerned about the overrides, and I'm doing market analysis for people that are actually planning to leave town because for the first time they're finding their taxes are too high, and, uh, that happened to me a couple of times, uh, in the last month and one customer that was going to, uh, purchase in Hamilton chose to not purchase because, um. Well, first of all, the cost of the houses are more than they are in Beverly, but the taxes were significantly more. What, uh, is it still the main reason that people come into this town? I was looking in the town is the schools. I don't think it's the main reason. It's, it's one of the main reasons, uh, certainly, uh, people have always liked the open space, the parks, the recreation. Um, it's a beautiful town. It's horse country. Um, it's certainly a beautiful place to live, but, um, the schools play a major factor always in, in where people decide to live. Used to be the comment at one time that, uh, there were more houses in Hamilton and, and there were people, but, uh, I think we lost that, uh, Ipswich now supposedly he's taken over that, uh, so-called record if you wanna call it that, that, uh, about the horses, but. I guess we're still up there someplace on the line, but, uh, no, I was just wondering sometimes because you hear a lot of talk about uh oh we want to get the because we like the school systems and yet then again you start hearing well no, maybe that's not the reason so I just was curious what your output on that was that. Well, the taxes are very high now. In fact, they're running, uh, the new assessments came out and, uh, they're running close to 100%. Um, even though they, the assessment was supposed to be at 100% in the past, it's generally been 80% of the market value, uh, with a lot of the new assessments that have come out, I'm finding that the, um, town assessment is close to or at 100% of market value, so prices are up. Yeah, we've discovered that I know, uh, being a townie having lived here all my life and, uh, we had to, we couldn't buy a house when we first got married, so we went to Bentley, but then we came back uh later and I know the house that my father and my mother built, uh. With something like $25,000 complete and uh now the thing is up in the $400,000 someplace. In fact, I think that's what the average house in Hamlin is what, about $45,000 is the median sale price. My question, I guess at that point is how the heck did somebody that just got married, uh, trying to raise a family coming in, where did they come up with that kind of money? Uh, that's a good question, Lee. Um, we've had a good 10 year run of appreciation, uh, for the last 10 years we've seen in Hamilton and Wenham an average of about 10% a year. So over a 10 year period, the, the, the prices have doubled, um, but we've certainly seen a change in the last, uh, 6 to 9 months. Uh, inventory up, uh, sales are down. Uh, just to give you an idea, in, in Hamilton last year, today there were 31 single family homes on the market. Um, today there's 51 single family homes. That's an increase of over 50%. Uh, in Wenham there were 20 last year on this day, and, uh, today there's 34. So there's significantly more homes. In fact, we've coined a new phrase that last last year there were 5 buyers for every house, and this year there's 5 houses for every buyer. Yeah, what's that, uh, what's going to be the long range, uh, a change in prices, uh, there's no doubt about it, uh, things have leveled off, um. I don't want to say there was a bubble bursting. Nobody likes to hear that, but the truth of the matter is that, uh, uh, in the 1st 3 months of this year in the, uh, towns of Hamilton and Wenham, uh, Beverly, Danvers, Ipswich, and Manchester, there's currently 494 homes, single family homes on the market, and during the last 3 months there have been 111 price reductions, so that's almost 20%. So we're seeing prices come down and, and, and it's OK because. You know, we've had a good, like I say, a good 10 year run, uh, double the, the, the, the values of our homes, um, it couldn't go on forever. So we've seen uh an adjustment and uh a repositioning of of prices. I, I suppose the question a lot of people say, well, the prices are coming down. How much lower are they gonna come? Well, that, that's anybody's guess. Um, I mean, I will tell you that the median sale price last year in Hamilton and Wynham was 669,000. Medium mean that there were as many for sale above that as there were below that. The median sale price this year. Um, is, uh, 629,000, so that's come down about 7%. Yeah, of course, the big, the big, uh, thing that everybody's pushing now and I'm not even sure how this town is gonna handle it is, is, uh, housing for low incomes and and seniors and being involved in the housing, uh. Uh, authority, I know we're always looking for land, always looking for buildings and stuff like that, places so we can do stuff like that and get a percentage up, but uh. Uh, right now I don't see any answers. Uh, I know the planning committee or whatever they call them is talking about the fact of doing, um. Apartments over the over the schools down in uh the uh stores down in Hamilton uh in South Hamilton that is and uh yeah I've talked to people at the uh in the housing. Would you move into a place like that? Oh yeah, it's a beautiful place and the locations of stores and stuff like that, but, uh, I wouldn't want to live over a uh store, so I don't know how that plan's gonna work out, but, uh. I know they're talking about doing some kind of sewage, uh, study down there again to see if they can increase a base so we haven't got much of a base. Well, that was always the issue down on Railroad Ave is that, uh, that there wasn't enough, uh, um, uh, septic field area and, uh, originally when the planning board approved those stores down there, um, they did not allow, in fact they were very specific about not allowing the second floors to be used for commercial space or residential space. Now would people live there, uh, with the new liquor store in town, there's a couple of apartments over that and it's right on the tracks and they're rented, so people are always looking for a rental apartment. Um, it probably would not be a bad use, but there's there still remains the question of of how are you gonna facilitate the the sewage problem down there. I know that that came up with the uh several times and one of the comments I remember a year ago when they were trying to tie in the uh. Uh, housing authority up on Riverwood Avenue was part of it and we said, well, it's a great idea, but the state won't give us any money to do it, so if you can come up with the money, fine, but uh. they still seem to be talking about doing that, but, uh, I don't know, I just can't see that being a great idea to, you know, to push the, the base up. Well, it doesn't increase a lot of the base. What could you get 34 apartments in there, maybe 5 apartments that that really doesn't make a big difference. Mm. You know, our, our numbers are what, 2.3%, uh, something like that but just I think we finally sneaked into like 3% or something like that, but it's like 3.1% and we have a long ways to go a long ways to go and uh I know they keep talking about, uh, in fact, uh, out on Cutler Road, uh, Mike Carter's place they're talking about converting that into something, but that deal went down the drain for some reason and uh. Uh, they talk the, uh, uh, the ice cream place out on Essex Street and uh. I don't know them, but the, uh, that that would only be 2 or 3 units or something like that. It's not gonna be you gotta put in someplace that's got 30 or 40 units in it all for one, you know, for low income they increase it. Well, the question remains like at the junction that you just mentioned that if you're gonna put in 24 units and 3 or 4 of them are affordable, you're still adding to the stock another 20 or 21 units. Um, so it, it's a little harder to get up to that 10%, uh, because it's, it's only 20% of what you're building. The, uh, not to, not to, uh, sneak something in here, but, uh, just to see if I what the reaction would be that uh at a meeting last night that I was at in the town they talked about uh the scenes of interest, uh, doing what some of the towns are doing is what they call transfer attacks. And I don't know how that's gonna go over too well. I don't, uh, it's, uh, some places run it all the time. I thank you for sneaking that in. I know that uh the town of Hamilton tried to do that years ago and it was voted down and at that time, uh, the real estate community was, was pushing the uh Community Preservation Act because that's a fair tax because it affects everybody the same way whereas with the transfer tax it only affects a few people in town. Uh, it's got to be a fair tax and I was pleased to see that the people that originally were behind the transfer tax. That in fact ended up not getting passed that they had did step up and support the Community Preservation Act which which so in fact the uh gentleman's on the same committee with me uh he said I just bought a house and, uh, and, uh, when I was, he works out of Washington a lot of times and he says I bought a house in in uh Maryland and the first thing before I moved in I had to go to the uh. The town government or the office and give them a check for $25,000. It's an incredibly unfair tax. It has passed in a few, uh, places, um, but it's rare, and if people see it for what it really is, which is, you know, a, a, a tax on leaving town or actually it, it ends up being a tax on coming to town too. Because it all fits into the cost of real estate, which is as high as it's ever been now already add another tax, and it just makes it even more difficult for the people that you mentioned to, to be able to afford to live in, in, in Hamilton and Wenham bad idea because of the people that would like it to be the match it be the school system because what you're doing is you're in a sense giving the money to this, uh, you come in, you move in, I'm gonna move in. I got 3 kids. OK, this is what it's gonna cost you and suppose that you're paying for their education. So if you move out in 2 or 3 years, hey, you have the education that we're, they're not losing anything. That's their thinking. Well, again, if you're gonna, if you're gonna support a tax, it should be an equal tax that everybody shares and not just a few. Yeah, I don't know how that's gonna work, as I say, it was strictly just talking at the committee I know, and, but I know a couple towns in this area have tried it. A lot of towns have tried it. A lot of towns, um, have, have failed, uh, to, to initiate those kinds of taxes just because, you know, they are so, um, focused on just a small percentage of the people that live in the community, terribly unfair tax. Yeah, I kind of get that impression from talking to people. Uh, but do you have any thoughts on, uh, where we go from here as far as, uh, any, uh, things like, uh, as I say we need more housing for the people, but, uh, again we have to come up with the land and so far I haven't seen any real big tracts of land that we even for sale. No, the the land in Hamilton and Wenham is is very difficult to find, um. Uh, I know that the planning board now is working on an elderly housing district by law which I think is, uh, demands our support, um, because in terms of, um, over 55 development it's certainly something that we need and it's also something that, um, is, is cost effective in terms of, uh, um, not sending kids to the school system, um, and it's a great idea, you know, the, the Maples has always been an example that people have held up on a pedestal, although that was very difficult to get in at the time. Certainly Jim Brady was was a forward thinker. Now a lot of people are stepping up on the bandwag realizing that that preserves open space. Um, it provides housing for our elderly that want to stay in town that don't have a place to go now. And of course, uh, Steve Dodge is, is in the process of building the one over on the old Dodge Dodge's field over in Wenham. So it's a great idea and, and I support the planning board, and I hope that everybody will with the with the new zoning bylaw. Well, we've got that, uh, plan on the on the boards there, uh. Um, I can't think of the name of the, the farm out of the, uh, horse farm out on Highland Street or I S upper SB there,

00:17:09,801	and I don't know how that's gonna work out. Uh, he's supposedly saying that's for low income, uh, uh, older people, I guess, so they won't tax the, uh, school system. I don't know if that how that's gonna work out or even they're gonna get permission to do it. There there's a tremendous amount of issues involved with that property up there, not the least of which is, um. You know, uh, wetlands issues and conservation issues and things like that, so I, I think that's a long ways off. Oh, that's good. Uh, I just was wondering, like I say, we keep hearing about all the time, but then we start talking about things as, uh, well, where do we go from here? Well, we haven't got any land, and we can find was just like down on Harris Avenue where we'll put two units in there. That was it. And uh I know they keep talking about as we grow. I don't know if that's uh a viable plan or not. They're talking about taking that place over, taking part of it and building some houses, but uh I haven't heard any more about that. I don't know if anything comes through your area or not about it. Not so much about Asbury Grove, but again the issue is that there's, there's a lot of land in Hamilton but not a lot of available land. Um, people are holding on to it. There's still a lot of larger states, but as time goes by, um, I think we'll see it, you know, parcels coming up and hopefully we can take advantage of those, yeah, OK. Very good. Well, we're coming down on the end. I'm not quite sure how much time we got left to go, but, uh, any other comments that uh you'd like to make as far as what's going on in the towns or anything like that or? Well, we have a town meeting coming up. I hope everybody will attend that, um, and certainly get out the vote because there's several positions to be filled. And um you know just um watch the real estate market because it's it's it's slipped a little bit uh it's still great in a town like Hamilton but um there's no doubt about it that, uh, it has changed uh tremendously. The interest rates are going up when rates go up then prices have to come down for people to be able to afford the same amount of a mortgage on a property. And, um, a lot of sellers, um, still think it's 2003 and unfortunately it's not, but like I said, um, it's still not bad. Uh, I have to laugh a lot of times if I'm at a party or something, somebody will come up to me and ask me, um, about the real estate business, and when they find out that I'm in it, they'll say, um, oh jeez, you know, I just lost $50,000 on my house, and I say, Well, you did that, that's amazing. They said, well, You know, my neighbor's house just sold, and How did that happen?

00:19:44,567	he, he sold it for last year was worth $450 and this year it's only worth $400 so I, I, I lost $50,000. And my next question is always, well, really, you paid $450,000 for it, and they'll say no, we bought it 10 years ago for $200. So it's a question of perception because it's still a very good real estate market. Hamilton and Wenham remain just such beautiful towns to live in. Um, prices couldn't go up forever. They've leveled off and lowered in some places, but, um, uh, it's, it's still, it's still a good strong market. OK, uh, I got, well, my own case, as I mentioned earlier that, uh, our house originally was $25,000 you know, complete, and that's an oversized ranch, and, and, uh, all of a sudden now the thing is in the 400, almost $500,000 without even trying, and, uh, because people like, oh, sell your house, sell your house, yeah, but now you gotta go buy and where where are you gonna go exactly where do you go from here, so, uh. I don't know. Well, anyway, it's been interesting, and I thank you very much for your comments and uh thank you Lee. Uh, I'll see where we go from there and I thank my guests and also thank you people out there are watching and we'll be on again, uh, sometime down the down the road and uh about that time in case you want to see more, make sure you buy the plan it and read it, OK, that should do it for.