WELLESLEY – Delightful Cape in sought-after neighborhood close to everything. Three bedrooms, three full baths, gracious living room, and lovely first floor family room with bay window, many bookshelves and beautiful tile fireplace. This well-loved home also boasts a warmly wood-panelled and fireplaced rec room and east facing sunroom to enjoy your morning coffee. EXCLUSIVE $815,000

Contact Rutledge at 781-235-4663 or email us at rutledge@rutledgeproperties.com if you’d like this see new listing.

Young, bright, spacious Townhouse set in a quiet neighborhood in the heart of South Natick. This open-design features dramatic details such as a 2-story foyer, Great Room with custom built-ins, and high ceilings: the perfect layout for today’s lifestyle. Imagine sitting on your own private deck with a spectacular backyard that abutts the Charles River…very special! Three generous bedrooms on the second floor plus a bonus room currently used as an office. The perfect turn-key home waiting for you!

Contact Rutledge at 781-235-4663 or email us at rutledge@rutledgeproperties.com if you’d like this see new listing.

Click here for property details.

Many of my clients and colleagues are talking about Zillow, an online National pricing and marketing entity that offers an immediate comparative price analysis based on recent sales in a given market. “Is it accurate in pricing?” They may ask. Or “Is it a meaningful part of a real estate company’s marketing proposal?” “Is it something that Sellers and Buyers should worry about or follow closely?” And finally, “What impact does it make on the market at large in the minds of the Sellers, Buyers and Brokers?”

These are all great questions and here’s what I think…

Real Estate is, has, and always will be a local, people business. In order to accurately price a property, a real estate professional draws from years of experience “in the trenches”, so to speak, not just computing data from a large database.    While Zillow  is designed to gather, compute, compare and contrast regional county assessments, and recent real estate transactions , it can NEVER replace the experience a Realtor has by going INSIDE houses every day, looking at the more intrinsic features of a property and following the market history.

For example, Zillow can never make a judgement call of how valuable a splendid custom WoodMode kitchen is, or how luxurious and fine a home’s library wood paneling may be, how much money you spent on the amenities, or even just how a home “feels” when you walk through.  Since Zillow has no subjectivity, and relies solely on averages and a town’s assessment to determine a home’s value, it can not possibly determine true value of a property. In addition, their calculations are only as good as the databases from which they derive their information.  Many homeowners have not had town assessors into their home in years, if not decades, and   even when construction is done on their home, and a local assessor requests a walk thru to determine new value, many homeowners are unavailable or even unwilling to let them through. In this case, a home is assigned an average price for an  average upgrade, and trust me, assessors can never imagine what we can conjure up! In addition, many towns have inaccurate  data and antiquated town halls and management and the assessments are way off mark.

So, while I think that the public is aware of Zillow, reviews Zillow and may even be interested in following Zillow, the well-informed Buyers and Sellers realize that there is a huge differential in the prices between Zillow’s “zestimate” and the eventual sale price of a home.

I’d love the opportunity to talk with you in more detail,  and give you a much more reliable snap shot of your home’s true value.

Marcie Pucker, Realtor,
Rutledge Properties

With the start of the new year, we at Rutledge as part of our new “Proud to Be Part of Our Community” series, will be highlighting for you the wonderful work that our agents do in our communities.

Rutledge Properties’ agents are dedicated to their home towns, volunteering for town, school and public service activities which serve town residents and those in need.

Every realtor at Rutledge Properties understands that buying and selling homes is only part of the story. It all begins with you, the client, and we understand that love of and commitment to our communities of Wellesley, Weston, Needham, Natick, Sherborn and beyond help us to understand your needs as you settle into a new home and possibly a new town as well.

With that being said, we would like to highlight Kathy Hughto who is Proud to Be A Part of Our Community.

Kathy Hughto

Kathy was recently featured as a “Bright Light” in the Wellesley Local Town Pages newspaper for her volunteer work with incarcerated women at MCI Framingham, a maximum security prison, and South Middlesex, a minimum security prison. Kathy works with an innovative program meant to connect incarcerated mothers with their children known as Read to Me Mommy.  Here is a teaser with a link to the full article on the wellesleytownnews.com page.

Bright Lights: Wellesleyites You Should Know

by Je’Lesia M. Jones

There are many stereotypes of incarcerated women. Some views are fact-based, while countless opinions lean toward misrepresentations. Whatever the perception of females behind bars, Kathleen Hughto’s vision is different: she simply sees a woman whose life has taken a very difficult turn.

“Most of the women want all the things we want, primarily love,” the 27-year Wellesley resident said. “That is why it is important to reach out … it is such a gift to be with the women; to know their remorse, regret, their sadness. Many don’t know what it feels like to be loved. Most of them have been ignored, left on their own to figure it out.”

Click here to read the rest of the article. When you get to the page, click on the Wellesley Town News image – it will pull up a PDF file that you can read.

Click here to find out more about Kathy Hughto and how she can serve your real estate needs.

You can play Santa Claus this season
by dropping off a new, unwrapped toy
or a contribution check for the
U.S. Marine Corps. TOYS FOR TOTS campaign
at our office in the heart of Wellesley Square
(572 Washington Street).
We look forward to sharing our holiday cheer with you!