The Greater Boston condo market has shown remarkable strength through the recession and economic maelstrom that has been the past few years.

The Standard & Poors / Case-Shiller real estate index reported that that Boston metropolitan area condo prices rose 62.5% between January 2000 and August 2011.

Case-Shiller estimates that LA prices are 74% higher than in January 2000, San Francisco’s are 35% higher, Chicago’s are 15% higher, and New York City condo prices have doubled what they were in January 2000.

Greater Boston condo prices reached their zenith in October 2005 when they were 83.68% higher than January 2000. Since October 2005, it’s estimated that Boston condo values have dropped 11%.

In comparison, Los Angeles condo values are down 40% from their high, San Francisco values are down 32%, Chicago values are down 28%, and New York values are down 11%, according to Case-Shiller.

According to an analysis from the National Association of Realtors, the Boston metropolitan area has the second lowest unemployment rate in the country.

Measured in percentages, Boston had about a 6.3% unemployment rate, the latest data available. Only Washington, D.C. did better, with a rate around 6.1%. Las Vegas has a rate over 14%, with Detroit second at about 13%.

Nearby New York is around 8% while San Francisco’s near 10%.

Below, changes to the metro-Boston unemployment rate during the past five years.

When you put your house or condominium up for sale, after you get an offer from a potential buyer that you find acceptable, the next step is that the buyer’s lender will send out a home appraiser to estimate the value of the home. The estimate will be based on how your home compares to other properties in the neighborhood of similar size, style, and quality. It might seem odd to you that the lender has a say in how much your home is worth, after all, the buyer seems to have had no problem making an offer you find acceptable; shouldn’t the bank just make its loan based on that?

Well, no. Easy lending criteria is what got us into this economic mess (well, partially). Sometimes, the banks lent too much money to people buying homes that are now worth less (or, much less) than they were just several years ago. So, the banks are much more careful about how much money they will give a borrower in order to buy a home.

The home appraiser is supposed to be independent, non-biased. I’ve found the majority of appraisers to be so. What I have found to be a problem, however, is that many appraisers here in Boston are used to appraising homes in the suburbs, so aren’t educated or sophisticated enough to estimate the value of a condominium accurately. The appraiser might look at comparable properties that are in completely different neighborhoods than the condo is in, or might compare a newly-constructed condo with one in a traditional townhouse.

Although the appraisal process is pretty much cut-and-dry and straight-forward, there are some simple ways you can make your home look its best and add a bit of value to the home appraiser’s estimate.

The Wall Street Journal has ten tips to increase the value during your home appraisal. There’s a couple of simple tips, such as cleaning up your property, locking up your pets during the appraisal, doing some painting to make it look fresh. They also recommend having a folder of renovations and repairs with costs included. And, most importantly (and your real estate agent should do this for you), you should have a list of comparable properties that have recently sold in your neighborhood, to help the home appraiser understand the current state of the local real estate market.

A complete list of all single-family and condominium homes with open houses scheduled for the weekend of October 16, 2011 in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston.

Please contact me for more information on these listings and to inquire about my services as a buyer’s agent.

Above, 56 Commonwealth Ave #41, Back Bay, Boston, Massachusetts. Robert Cohen of Boston Realty Advisors is the listing agent.

There’s a lot of information out there, some good, some bad, some just interesting.

This comes in as “interesting”.

Trulia did a study that purports to show a difference in behaviors of male and female real estate agents.

Supposedly, male real estate agents have more listings than female agents, while female real estate agents list their properties for sale at higher prices.

In Massachusetts, they say, there’s a 23% discrepancy between list prices by male and female real estate agents. Meanwhile, the typical male real estate agents has 5% more listings than your average female real estate agent.

The discrepancy in number of listings is interesting for another reason; nationwide (and, presumably, here in Massachusetts), the number of female real estate agents is higher than the number of male real estate agents.

There’s so many factors at work here, so who knows. Perhaps more women than men are working as part-time agents, so they have fewer listings? Maybe sellers are sexist, and prefer listing with men? Maybe men take on more listings than they should – being either greedy or just short-sighted?

Regarding the higher price – that’s list price, not sales price. Which raises the question – do female real estate agents list properties for higher prices and sell at higher prices, or do their listings have to come down by more than the male real estate agents’ properties in order to sell?