An experienced broker navigates the Boston area’s real estate landscape.
By Kelly Innes
If anyone is familiar with change, it is Lili Banani, a Vice President with Coldwell Banker Global Luxury for over 20 years. Previously running her own development and construction company, Banani made the switch to real estate after shifts in the economy in the early 2000s pushed her to reinvent herself. “I decided to be on the other side of the table and now have been doing this for a long time,” she says.
With a territory that covers all of Metropolitan Boston, some local suburbs, and Cape Cod, many of Banani’s current clients are the same from when she was a developer. These established relationships give her the unique ability to anticipate her clients’ needs and connect them with their best property fit. “I pay special attention to every client that I work with as if they’re my only client,” she says. “They really enjoy that, and it’s what I’m good at.”
One change that Banani is currently navigating is this season’s real estate market lull. “It’s a little bit slower than we experienced last year,” she says. “The suburban market has been extremely active, especially during COVID, but now it’s definitely easing off a little bit.”
Surprisingly, though, the slow movement of buyers and sellers is not due to impending winter storms or drops in temperature. In fact, according to Banani, seasonality does not really have too much of a sway over the local real estate market. “Boston proper is a very small area, so it really doesn’t matter if it’s spring or fall,” she says.
Instead, the main challenge is motivating buyers to list their house on the market. Inventory of properties for sale remains quite low, and while Banani is unable to definitively pinpoint why this is, she hints at global forces larger than the city market. “[Sellers are] not sure where their next move is going to be and whether [listing their house is] cost-effective,” she says.
Though Banani cannot singlehandedly control the current market realities, she is nevertheless excited about her own upcoming listings. She is bringing a few exciting properties onto the market soon and is confident that the spring season, which begins the second week of January, will jumpstart the market back to its usual pace. “Typically, the most activity in the suburbs is in the spring market because people like to settle before the school year,” she explains.
Despite the ups and downs, Boston proper remains one of the more consistently stable urban markets in the region. “In general, if everything is status quo, the Boston market is pretty steady year-round,” Banani says.
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