From our President

I wanted to share with you this great article from last week's Newsweek Magazine.

It describes the robust real estate markets in university towns across the country. What it gets right is exactly what we've seen in Cambridge year after year: sustained demand and steady increases in property.

"Move back to college"

"Here’s a bright spot in all the housingmarket gloom and doom: college communities. Town-and-gown spots like Austin, Texas; Charlottesville, Va., and Madison, Wis., have long been heralded as great places to live and retire because of their proximity to good health care, cultural events, steady employment and smart people. For all those reasons—and a healthy mix of demographics—their real-estate values are more stable than those of comparable towns without schools."

Click here to read more...

Here's a bit of positive news courtesy of Peter Lynch, research consultant at Fidelity Investments and personal investing strategy expert.

There has rarely been a moment in history when you couldn't scare yourself into doing nothing. And yet, as Lynch observed nearly 20 years ago, "in spite of all the great and minor calamities that have occurred ... all the thousands of reasons that the world might be coming to an end--owning stocks has continued to be twice as rewarding as owning bonds."

A top reason to not buy stocks, in Lynch's view, is if you don't already own a home--in which case, that should be your first investment, since an owner-occupied home is nearly always profitable. Through a spokesman, Lynch reaffirmed these views to me--housing debacle and all.