Shrewsbury Real Estate Information

SHREWSBURY, Massachusetts – Governor Patrick, late today, released his preliminary budget, and the news is not great for those of us in Shrewsbury.   What was expected to be the large increase the Governor spoke of for Education Funding, seems to have not graced Shrewsbury at all.

Based on the current proposal, Shrewsbury would see a net loss of over $200,000, which breaks down as shown in the table below.

He has also added in an additional $80 Million in new circuit breaker reimbursements for special education, which, if it stands, would be a big help to towns like Shrewsbury.

Obviously this is all incredibly preliminary, and we’ll need to wait and see what figures come out of the legislature to know what the final number may look like for next year.

Left to right, Hannah Boudreau, John McBride, Sara Pederson and Leland Smith. photo by Joyce Maranto

SHREWSBURY, Massachusetts – In the first public presentation of the 2012 fiscal budget, the Shrewsbury School Committee heard a presentation from Superintendent Joe Sawyer and new business manager Liam Hurley, on the budget situation for next year.  In keeping with the uncertain nature of state and federal funding at this time, the leadership chose not to make a specific recommendation for funding, but rather to highlight what the needs of the district were, based on maintaining the current state of programming, complying with mandated requirements, and leveraging money effictively in enhancing some programming, in order to reap the rewards elsewhere in the program.

Current estimates by the central office team indicate that we’re looking at a potential increase of approximately $4.3 Million dollars over FY11.   This is balanced by quite a bit of savings from other avenues, not the least of which was a federal jobs grant of over $1M. The total of these savings is expected to reach $2.49M, resulting in a net deficit of approximately $1.8M for FY12.

In the town managers initial budget projection, he indicated a potential of a reduction in the FY12 school funding of 700K, which would mean a delta of approximately $2.5 Million between the current town manager recommendations, and the cost required to fully fund the school programs.   This is not atypical for so early in the budget season, and no doubt as we get more clarification from Beacon Hill, and the town manger goes through and fine tunes his budget recommendation, this gab is expected to close substantially.

You can check out the complete presentation from the school department at this link.

http://schools.shrewsbury-ma.gov/egov/docs/12973471405243.pdf

SHREWSBURY, Massachusetts – As we break into the heart of budget season, the three governing board of the community will hold a tri-board meeting on Wed. March 2nd, at 7PM, at Town Hall.   This is always a great opportunity for the School Committee, Finance Committee, and Board of Selectman to get together and discuss the budget priorities for the coming year, along with town manager Dan Morgado, and representatives from the School Departments Central Office.

Working through the various items is such a dynamic and healthy part of our town government, and really helps everyone put into proper perspective the many different priorities that each constituent group has to focus on.

The meeting will be televised on Shrewsbury Cable so hopefully you’ll be able to tune in.

SHREWSBURY, Massachusetts – The annual Shrewsbury Garden Party to benefit the Shrewsbury Schools will be held on Saturday night, June 11th, at the Fallon House at 4 Prospect Street in Shrewsbury.  The group returns to this amazing home, owned by Heather and Jason Logrippo, where it began.  Last years event took place at yet another historic Shrewsbury property, the Levi Pease home, owned by Jim and Hannah Kane.

This will continue the fantastic tradition of this annual get together, and undoubtedly will be the biggest and best event ever.  Hosted again this year by emcee Peter Blute, and replete with fantastic food, amazing auction items, live music and an overall great vibe, this is sure to be the party of the year.

Watch for an announcement for ticket opportunities very soon, but in the meantime, don’t plan any big family vacations for that day!

Well rescue training, held last fall at the UMASS campus.

SHREWSBURY, Massachusetts – One of my personal highlights during the course of the school year is the two day science fair, held in the SHS media center.  This year, was no exception, with a group over over 50 dynamic young scientists in grades 9, 10 and 11 displaying their personal research and engineering projects.  Many of these have been worked on for almost a year now, and present some truly innovative ideas that are far beyond what you might expect from a high school student.

Visitors were treated to as wide an array of different project as I’ve ever seen.  We saw techniques for testing the efficacy of different means of absorbing oil spills, several green energy initiatives which studied wind and solar power, a new version of one of last years great projects, which created an energy producing fuel cell out of common household bacteria.   While on the subject of those, we learned about which anti-bacterial soaps were best, and how long one needed to wash their hands to get rid of contamination.

On the forefront of technology, a student illustrated a potential new iPhone application, which would be called iMood, and would work to cheer you up when you’re depressed.  In a project that I’m still trying to understand, a student explored different means of increasing the solubility of various drugs through chemical manipulation, while another described the process of dissolving a cold pill once it’s swallowed.

The “near space experimentation platform” made it’s debut, and this device was quite dramatic, soaring to 20 miles above the earth, where it’s able to conduct experiments at high altitude.  In keeping with an ecological theme, we were treated to several projects which studied the effect of acid rain on corrosion of metals, as well as it’s effect on various lake creatures.

The twelve best projects from Shrewsbury High School will be selected to move on to the Worcester Regional Science Fair at WPI in March.  Those who wind up in the top three at the WPI event will then be selected to represent Worcester County at the State Science Fair to be held at WPI in May.

SHREWSBURY, Massachusetts – Over the course of the last decade, Shrewsbury public schools have gradually raised the age at which students begin foreign languages up to the 6th grade level, from it’s early beginnings back in elementary school.  At the same time, studies have shown that younger a student is when they are first exposed to a new language, the easier it is to integrate it into their knowledge base. Nonetheless,these changes were necessitated by a series of very tough budget seasons, which required a multitude of different sacrifices to be made.

A big objective has been to try to find a way to allow Shrewsbury  families to avail themselves of the  fantastic technology out there, in order to find ways to help children pick up on languages at an earlier age.   At the high school level, one can look towards the great work being done with our older students, along the lines of the SHS “Global Studies Initiative” and find a way for students to graduate from high school being “conversationally fluent” in four or five different languages.  Imagine the opportunities that would present themselves.  The ability to spend a semester studying abroad, doing summer internships at companies based in Europe or South America, all free from the limitations of having to stick with the one language that they had been focusing on throughout their time in Shrewsbury schools.    Lastly, for our English language learners, having the ability to use software to aid them in mastering English, would only serve to improve their performance in other classes as well.

Some families have answered this through private tutoring, where others did it by going out and buying Rosetta Stone software, having their children use it to learn some German, French, Italian or a host of other languages.  Other families have used one of the other software providers, with equal success.   The question I posed to the staff in the central office, and my colleagues on the School Committee, was how we could make this type of software available to all students in Shrewsbury, regardless of age, and allow them to augment their existing studies, with the extra-curricular learning of additional languages, in a self directed fashion.  As is often the case, the biggest obstacle was cost.  Companies like Rosetta Stone work very well with school districts around the country, but it comes at a high price tag that would mean tens of thousands of dollars to outfit even just a few of our schools with an unlimited site license for all the students, and right now there is very limited ability when it comes to adding cost to our school programs.

It is said that if you want a task done, the key is to give the job to a busy person, and that was certainly the case here.  After running through this issue with the School Committee at multiple workshops, and meeting with Dr. Sawyer, and others, the task fell upon our Assistant Superintendent Dr. Jay Cummings to pursue.   He spent countless time and energy meeting with representatives from Rosetta Stone and other such companies, as well as with some of Shrewsbury’s language teachers and department directors, to formulate the ideal way to make this happen.   In the end, the solution turned out to be right in front of us all along, as the School Department and the Shrewsbury Public Library explored the idea of working together, using the existing site license that the Library already owned, a result of a federal grant, and making it available to our school children.

Jay Cummings spoke about this great opportunity in detail. “The Shrewsbury Public Schools are working with the Shrewsbury Public Library to maximize the use of resources to expand the horizons of all students.  One way that we are doing this is through the promotion of the use of Mango Language Software. This software provides students with access to free, online language software that can be accessed remotely through the internet at any time.  Through the use of Mango Languages, students are able to develop conversational skills among over fifty different languages.  Whether students look to build upon their formal learning of a foreign language, or expand their view of the world by experimenting with a completely new language, this tool is very exciting.  Thanks to the Shrewsbury Public Library, students have the ability to become more engaged in our global society by taking advantage of this free, online resource that can be tailored to the individual’s own pace and development.”

This just goes to show the incredible value that the Library holds to our community, something which many of us have known for a long time.  Ellen Dolan, Shrewsbury Librarian, was kind enough to explain just how they came to select this particular brand of software, and how it dovetailed with the needs of the School Department.  ”We are very excited to be able to offer this new language web tool. We’ve been expanding our online resources these past few years, and we’ve been interested in offering a language instruction tool for some time.  We offered Rosetta Stone a year or so ago, and patrons were pleased with the tool. However, Rosetta Stone decided to get out of the public library market, so we were unable to continue that service. We began looking at some other tools, but they were quite pricey. This past year however, we received A Federal Library Services & Technology Act Grant to provide expanded English Conversation Circle (ECC)programs. (These are guided programs for people seeking a group setting to practice their English speaking skills. )  Part of this grant provided funds for materials and online resources. After examining a few language tools, we opted for Mango for it’s ease of use and manageable cost. Our ECC participants use the English Language component, and find it very helpful for improving their English speaking skills.”

Dolan continued, “… since Mango provides instruction in 29 of the most popular languages the program, we knew the program could serve a much broader audience. The library has always offered language instruction tools. In the past, we mainly offered books and audio guides. Switching these tools to online access has clear benefits. First, people can access the tool wherever they are—school, work, home, and at any time of day, as long as they have internet access and a library card. (If a person doesn’t have internet access at home, they can use the library computers.) Another advantage is that many people can access the tool at one time. With books and videos, if the item was checked out, others could not use the resource. Finally, we don’t have to worry about updating. That’s a basic part of the online service.”

People have long since worn out the axiom about “thinking outside the box,” but this is an example of a mutually beneficial partnership that truly makes sense.   Since the library already had grant funding for the software, and it has no limit on the number of users, the School Department will be able to offer it to all students for free.  Naturally it will be up to the parents, teachers, and of course, the students, to encourage participation…but imagine in this so-called “global society” that we live in, the benefit our students will see from it’s use.  Picture for a moment, a student applying to college, and being able to state that they are fluent in five languages.  Imagine how far a student could go, by arriving in 6th grade to begin taking Spanish, already with a great command of the language, or alternatively that same student opting to take Mandarin or French, knowing that they already have Spanish well under their belt.

At the older ages, I know I hope we’ll see many students at Shrewsbury High looking to use their time in studies, to be able to work in the media center on picking up a new language or two, and then perhaps having the opportunity to practice that language by going on one of the many wonderful trips to foreign lands, run by our language departments.  More details will be available soon, so stay tuned for lots more information.  In the meantime, one thing you’ll want to do, if you haven’t already,  is to stop into the Shrewsbury library and get a library card.  You’ll need to use your library card number to access the language learning tools.

Once you have your library card handy, you can click this link, and being setting up your free user account and password. Mango Language System.

Feel free to take it for a test drive, and you and your children can try out multiple languages to see just how the system works.  It truly is an amazing resource tool, and I hope you all will enjoy it.   As you play around with it, I’d love to hear your feedback on the program.

SHREWSBURY, Massachusetts – No doubt it’s challenging to think of spring on days like this, but I’m happy to be the first to announce that the spring market in SHrewsbury real estate is right on the horizon, and signs are pointing to a fabulous season indeed.   Inventory remains at a critical low point, and with rates still hovering near 50 year lows, there is tremendous pent up demand from the Buyer community.

At this time of year, when so many people are having trouble picturing spring at all, I tend to try and get them to think backwards, from summer.   For someone thinking of a closing at the end of June, remember that it usually takes about 60 days to close a transaction.   That means that in order to close at the end of June, it would be great to have the property under contract by the end of April.   Allowing about a month for it to go under agreement, from the date it hits the market, would indicate that it should be listed by the middle to end of March, which is only a few weeks away.

People often ask what the most critical element in a successful Shrewsbury real estate sale is, and there are certainly no shortage of important things to consider.  One of the most critical, has to do with the few weeks that actually precede the home going on the market in the first place.   This is a time I call the “pre-marketing phase” in which we work to properly prepare the home for the market in a way that will ensure that you achieve a top dollar sale.   For this, a pre-marketing team is an essential “value added service” for an agent to bring to the table.  Recognizing the frustration that people often go through with trying to get vendors to even call them back, much less show up and do the work, I’ve spent years assembling a turn-key team of professionals to assist us with all aspects of pre-sale preparation.  By bringing in my team of painters, handymen, rug cleaners, stagers, landscapers, carpet installers, exterminators, and other top professionals I work with all the time, we can get a house to it’s absolute best state, so that it hits the market as near to perfect as it can. The better job we can do in preparation, the higher price you’ll ultimately command for the property, and that’s a win-win for everyone.

This pre-marketing team has a hidden side benefit as well.  Once the home is on deposit, and through the home inspection, we will inevitably have a few nip and tuck items on the Buyers punch list, and in comes the team again to polish off the items on the list efficiently, effectively, and affordably.  By removing that layer of stress from the transaction itself, we can add a level of piece of mind that enables a seller to relax, move on to the search for their next home without worrying about the details of the Shrewsbury real estate sale.

Now that we seem to have turned the corner in the market, we can begin anew with an exciting and fresh approach, and with nothing but hope and optimism for what lies ahead. In recent weeks, I’ve had multiple clients re-enter the marketplace after being previously for sale with other agents last year.  So far, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see many of those properties sell as fast as we can get them listed.

When that happens, we know that we’re on the right track in terms of our marketing approach and pricing, and that the overall health of the market itself is vastly improved over where we left off last year.  We’re still seeing inventory shortages in many towns and ranges, so if you were on the market in the past, or even if you weren’t, now is the time we should be talking.  Once the tulips are blooming you may be the last one to the party.

Working with people re-entering the market is one of my favorite things.  It’s sometimes a bit challenging, because these homeowners usually feel as though their last agent let them down, and so naturally they are scared to trust anyone again. In the end we need to look at each and every one of these as an individual situation and come up with the most decisive marketing strategy to get the job done.  The one thing we know for sure isn’t the answer is that “nothing was selling” last year.  In fact, an analysis of the Shrewsbury market shows increases in both prices and home sales over the same time period a year ago.

For new listings entering the market, I have seen some impressive results in the last couple of weeks.  Homes in outlying suburbs in which the market had been sluggish for over a year were coming on the market and selling in a week.   Always in demand, those pristine younger colonials in great neighborhoods are still commanding bidding wars at the first open houses.

We all are aware that these are challenging times in the market, but they are not unique.  After 25 years in the business, I’ve been through this type of market three times, and so I suppose that I tend to approach it from a standpoint of practicality, rather than one of fear.

As I do each winter, I’ve opened up the Homeowners Blend program again, in the hope that we can get 10 or 12 new listings on that program in the next 30 days.  That’s always been a huge hit with the local home sellers, just because it puts extra money in their pockets. Feel free to email me for more information on that program.  You can see the results first hand by checking out this little video that we put together, starring a host of your Shrewsbury neighbors.  See how many people you recognize!   Here’s the link  Shrewsbury Real Estate Video

Remember, if I can be of any help to you, or anyone you know, you can always reach me at steve@shrewsbury.net

SHREWSBURY, Massachusetts – Archbishop Desmond Tutu, moral and religious leader of the struggle against apartheid and racism in South Africa, will speak to students, faculty and guests at Saint John’s High School on the evening of Monday, May 23.

“Archbishop Tutu’s work in South Africa and around the world has helped to transform individuals and societies,” remarked Saint John’s Headmaster Michael Welch ’78. “His life of Christian service has changed history on a global scale and serves as an inspiration to all.”

Mr. Welch noted the similarity between Archbishop Tutu’s non-violent, faith-filled and inspirational legacy, and the mission and values of the Catholic Xaverian Brothers, who founded and sponsor Saint John’s.

Archbishop Tutu’s visit to Saint John’s is sponsored by Fred ’85 and Sarah Curtis, and the Betty Curtis Writing Center. Mr. Curtis credits Saint John’s, along with his parents, for shaping his faith, moral focus, commitment to human rights and awareness that one individual can make society a better place. Like Mr. Welch, he sees a connection between what he learned at Saint John’s and what Archbishop Tutu has given the world.

Desmond Tutu was the first black dean of the Anglican cathedral in Johannesburg, South Africa, and became the first black archbishop of Cape Town in 1986. During that time, he rose to international fame by criticizing the institutionalized racism of South Africa and denouncing violence — by both supporters and critics of apartheid.

When apartheid ended in 1994, Archbishop Tutu led the nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He is credited with coining the term “Rainbow Nation” to refer to the new South Africa’s unity and ethnic diversity. He became archbishop emeritus in 1996 and has continued to advocate justice in Africa and in the world, campaigning against racism, unfair trade, war, political corruption and HIV/AIDS.

“Archbishop Tutu helped the world to become better aware of the problems facing South Africa and other regions around the world, which  helped to bring about solutions,” said Mr. Curtis. “I’m excited that we’re bringing one of the greatest leaders in human rights, not just in South Africa but in the world, to Saint John’s.”

Last year, Archbishop Tutu announced his retirement from public life and his May 23 engagement in Shrewsbury is believed to be among his final public appearances in the United States.

The archbishop’s visit includes a learning, reading and writing component for students — a perfect fit with the Betty Curtis Writing Center, which also sponsors the Betty Curtis Worcester County Young Writers’ Conference on March 5. In preparation for the talk in May, Saint John’s students will read a selection of Archbishop Tutu’s writings and respond to a school-wide essay prompt.

Among his many awards, Desmond Tutu has received the Nobel Peace Prize (1984), Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism (1986), Gandhi Peace Prize (2005), William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding (2008) and Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009).

Archbishop Tutu will be the second Nobel Peace Prize laureate to have addressed Saint John’s students in recent years. Professor Elie Wiesel, the noted Holocaust survivor and worldwide activist against injustice, spoke to a capacity crowd of 1,200 as part of the school’s Abdella Center for Ethics lecture series in 2005.