September 2, 2010 | Updated 11:26am
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Deals & Developments

A regular blog by Banker & Tradesman columnist Scott Van Voorhis offering his unique, often irreverent take on the world of Massachusetts commercial development.


Housing Scene

Our regular compendium of arcane data, interesting trends and notable figures powered by The Warren Group databases and compiled by our own Aglaia Pikounis.

  • Loan Refis On Upswing

    Loan refinancing activity has boomed recently. Nearly 19,000 single-family home loan refis were recorded in February. That’s a 22 percent increase from a year earlier and a huge improvement from late summer and fall.


  • Difference Between Single-Family & Condo Prices Shrinks

    Here’s one thing people searching for a new home in this spring market might want to keep in mind: the difference between home prices and condo prices has shrunk significantly in recent years.


  • Foreclosure Activity Picks Up In Salem, Pittsfield, Medford

    A new report from The Warren Group today offered some encouraging news. Fewer properties were lost to foreclosure in February compared to January and to the same month in 2008.


  • Targeting Greedy Scammers

    Federal and state official announced yesterday that they were cracking down on foreclosure rescue scams and loan modification fraud. That’s surely welcome news in cities like Springfield and Worcester, where thousands of desperate borrowers are trying to save their homes.


  • Home Prices Stabilizing? Maybe Not

    Most parts of the Bay State are hurting when it comes to the housing market, and home prices don’t seem to be stabilizing. But some parts of the state are hurting less than others.


  • Bank-owned Home Sales Dragging Down Bay State Home Prices

    The sale of real estate-owned property, or REOs, is definitely a drag on home sales prices. The Warren Group found that if the bank-owned property sales were taken out to the equation, the median price for homes sold in January and February would have been $272,000 instead of $251,000.


  • Smaller Lenders Growing Market Share

    Which institutions are doing the most lending in Massachusetts?


  • Going Where the Bargains Are

    Where can you find a home for less than $300,000?


  • Home Prices In Some Boston Neighborhoods Under $300,000

    My husband and I bought a modest single-family home in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood back in 2002, so I’m always interested in what’s happening with home values in Boston.


  • Manny Swings For The Fences

    The news this morning that Manny Ramirez put his penthouse at the Residences at the Ritz-Carlton on the market for a whopping $8.5 million got my attention.


  • Good Time For Bargain-Hunters To Snag A Cape Vacation Home

    For those who’ve always wanted a vacation home on the Cape this may be an ideal to snap up a bargain. The median price for a condo on the Cape fell to $257,450 in January, the latest month for which statistics are available.


  • Drowning Homeowners Who Might Get Help Under Obama’s Plan

    It’s a question a lot of folks have been asking ever since President Obama unveiled details of his mortgage rescue plan 12 days ago: How many Bay State residents will be eligible for help?


  • Housing Wealth Evaporates for Many Baby Boomers

    Real estate professionals have frequently pushed the idea that owning a home is a good long-term investment. But with housing values plummeting, many people are starting to question whether relying on their homes as investments is really such a good idea.


  • January Numbers Offer Bleak Start To '09 Housing Market

    Optimists hoping 2009 would deliver some better news for the local housing market will have to wait some more.


  • Foreclosure Forecast Still Cloudy

    Malden had 17 foreclosures last month, more than double the number in January 2008. Two years ago during the same month, Malden didn’t have any foreclosures. Saugus had 10 foreclosures, which was more than triple the foreclosures a year earlier. Weymouth had only 1 foreclosure last January but that number jumped to 5 last month. It’s only a month’s worth of data, but it’s still worth keeping an eye on.


  • Worcester’s Hurting Condo Market

    Worcester’s condo market has suffered some deep losses during this housing downturn. Sales of condos last year totaled only 386 – down about 46 percent from two years ago when condo sales peaked at 711 transactions.


  • Foreclosures, Dropping Prices Pumping Up Multifamily Sales?

    Here’s a surprising real estate factoid that hasn’t been widely reported: While sales of single-family homes and condos in Massachusetts tumbled in 2008, sales of two- and three-family homes jumped 21.5 percent.


  • Cleaning Up The American Nightmare

    I caught a report on NBC Nightly News last night highlighting a burgeoning new business: cleaning up vacant foreclosed homes. Apparently, these clean-up companies are springing up all over the country. The report showed crews clearing out books, couches, lamps, blankets and other personal belongings from abandoned homes in Big Bear, California – an area that is being referred to as foreclosure alley.


  • Joining the Million-Dollar Club

    At a time when most towns and cities were suffering through the housing slump, Wellesley was joining the exclusive million-dollar club: The median home price in the toney town topped $1 million in 2008.


  • Ritzy Nantucket Loses Some Luster

    Realtors will tell you that the island’s real estate market is largely driven by affluent second-home buyers, who unlike most other homeowners don’t have to sell their property unless they get the asking price they want. But 2008 broke that trend.


  • 2008 Numbers Are Coming - And They’re Not Pretty

    A sampling of transactions from The Warren Group shows that roughly 30 percent of single-family home and condo sellers sold at a loss - meaning that they sold their property for less than what they originally paid for it.


  • Get Used To Bank-Owned Sales

    In some Massachusetts communities, as much as a quarter or more of sales transactions involved a bank or lending institution.


  • Dorchester, Brockton, Lowell Foreclosures Drop Year-Over-Year

    Some good news: The Bay State communities most people think of when it comes to high foreclosure activity — like Worcester, Brockton Lowell, Lynn and Dorchester – all had a drop in foreclosure deeds during the first quarter compared to a year ago.


  • Foreclosure Auctions At The High-End

    Foreclosure prevention counselors have been noting in recent months that the foreclosure problem has spread to more affluent areas.


  • Fewer Bay State Homeowners Past Due On Mortgage Loans

    More homeowners in Massachusetts may have lost their homes to foreclosure so far this year than they did a year ago, but fewer homeowners are behind on their mortgage payments.


  • Underpricing A Home: Too Risky?

    One of the biggest challenges for real estate agents, especially in a down market, is getting home sellers to price their property to accurately reflect market value.


  • Hey Curt, Medfield Is No Weston

    Perhaps someone needs to remind Curt Schilling that Medfield isn’t Weston.


  • Foreclosure Trouble Spreading to Suburbs

    Lexington, Dover and Sudbury aren’t places you typically associate with foreclosures. But foreclosure prevention counselors and real estate brokers have been reporting that a growing number of homeowners are defaulting on their mortgage payments because of unemployment.


  • Delaying Foreclosures

    As reported by Banker & Tradesman, Massachusetts Land Court Judge Keith Long refused to change a ruling he made in March when he found that two lenders had improperly foreclosed on two Springfield homes because they didn’t hold the mortgages at the time of the auction sales. My initial reaction was good for the judge for admonishing lenders and servicers for their sloppy practices. But after listening to some of the critics, I’m definitely confused.


  • The Condo Slump

    With the auction of new luxury condos in Boston slated to take place next week, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at what’s been happening with condo sales. Condo sales in the Hub are at their lowest point in eight years. A total of 2,888 condos sold through August. From 2004 to 2007, condo sales for that same period were averaging over 4,600, according to data collected by The Warren Group.


  • Foreclosures Still A Problem

    Some good news emerged today about foreclosures in Massachusetts. Fewer properties have been foreclosed on so far this year compared to 2008, according to a new report from The Warren Group. But before any pronouncements are made that the foreclosure crisis is over, here is something to consider: Lenders haven’t really slowed down on starting foreclosure proceedings.


  • New Housing Report Raises Question: Have We Hit Bottom?

    Some good news for the housing market: The Warren Group reports today that single-family home sales jumped almost 12 percent in July from the same month last year. There were almost 5,000 single-family home sales during the month, the best sales pace for the month of July since 2005.


  • ‘Organized’ and ‘Frustrated’ Group Wants to Repeal 40B

    Here we go again. The group that was trying to repeal the state’s affordable housing law two years ago is taking another crack it.


  • Appraisal Group Slams Appraisers Who Ignore Professional Standards

    The Appraisal Institute, a group representing professional real estate appraisers throughout the world, recently took a swipe at appraisers who take assignments in geographic locations that they’re not knowledgeable about.


  • Sluggish Home Sales Even in Elite Towns

    Some of the ritziest towns in Massachusetts have seen the worst home sales in over two decades. Only 42 single-family homes were sold in Weston, where the median home price has exceeded $1 million since 2003, in the first half of 2009. The last time sales transactions were so slow for the first two quarters was in 1987, according to The Warren Group.


  • House Bargains In The Bay State’s Vacation Spots

    If the economic downturn has pummeled home prices in many parts of the state, it’s nearly pulverized prices in some of the Bay State’s most popular vacation spots.


  • Milton Makes Best Places To Live List

    Gov. Deval Patrick’s hometown has made Money Magazine’s top 10 “Best Places to Live."


  • Another Lifesaver or Anchor for Homeowners in Trouble?

    So let me get this right. Congressman Barney Frank is now proposing to give loans to unemployed homeowners who are having trouble keeping up with mortgage payments. Really? The solution to helping people who can’t afford their home loans because they don’t have jobs is to give them another loan, pushing them further into debt?


  • Lenders Saying No Thanks to Loan Mods

    Here’s one study that is likely to get a lot of attention: The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston reports in a new paper that lenders aren’t modifying many loans for homeowners at risk of foreclosure because it’s not profitable for them.


  • Federal Requirements for Agency Disclosure?

    The National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents (NAEBA) wants to make sure buyers and sellers know exactly who the real estate agent is truly representing in a real estate transaction.


  • No Overbuilding Here

    Scott Van Voorhis writes in this week’s Banker & Tradesman that the Bay State won’t see the steep home price drops that other parts of the country have seen, including communities in California. He points out that one of the reasons home prices are a bit more resilient here is that there hasn’t been the type of overbuilding that took place in places like Phoenix and Las Vegas.


  • Where Condo Prices Are On The Rise

    Condominium sales in Massachusetts have been pretty sluggish for the last six months and prices have slumped considerably. But there are some communities where condo prices are on the rise.


  • Foreclosures Popping Up Among Chestnut Hill's Country Club Set

    About five years ago, I wrote a column for Banker & Tradesman about luxury home sales that mentioned a multi-million dollar mansion that was under construction on Lee Street near Brookline’s country club. The home was listed for $4.65 million at the time. Just a few weeks ago the home caught my attention again, and not just because it’s currently on the market again for over $4.6 million.


  • How REOs Are Affecting the Local Housing Market

    Housing experts routinely point out that bank-owned and other distressed property sales are dragging down home values in many parts of the country. What’s happening here in Massachusetts?


  • Bay State Bargain-Hunters Finding More

    What can you get in Massachusetts for between $100,000 and $200,000? Apparently a lot more than you could a year ago.


  • Mass. Million-Dollar-Plus Home Sales Sinking

    Home shoppers have become more frugal. Sales of million-dollar-plus homes in Massachusetts have plummeted. A total of 174 single-family homes with price tags of $1 million or higher traded in the first three months of the year, according to The Warren Group.


  • How REO Sales Price Compares to Assessed Value

    Groups like the National Association of Realtors are saying that distressed homes, including foreclosed properties, typically sell for 20 percent less than traditional homes. The number of distressed home sales has grown and NAR says they’re skewing median home prices. In Massachusetts, The Warren Group recently looked at the sale of some distressed properties.


  • Cars, Boats, Gift Cards and Other Freebies To Sell Homes

    Crafty home sellers can come up with some pretty creative incentives to entice buyers when market conditions are sluggish.


  • Top REO Sellers

    It seems like even well-paid celebrities can’t escape the foreclosure crisis.


  • Is Obama’s Housing Plan Rescuing Homeowners?

    The Obama administration made a big deal about a foreclosure rescue/housing plan it announced earlier this year.


  • Unexpected Drop In Foreclosures

    The Warren Group issued a surprising report this morning that foreclosures in Massachusetts are down 26 percent so far this year compared to 2008.


  • Bigger Tax Credit = More Home Sales?

    Apparently low interest rates and reduced home prices aren’t enough incentive to get consumers to purchase new homes.


  • Spending Less On Home Improvements

    It seems like just yesterday homeowners were eagerly lining up to secure home equity loans to transform their tiny drab 1970s kitchens into gleaming chef’s paradises or their yellow-tiled baths into spa-like retreats.


  • Looking Beyond The Rosy Housing Report

    When the National Association of Realtors reported last week that home sales rose in June — the third consecutive month that sales increased — the media gobbled the news up. Some news reports even attributed the Dow Jones gains to the rosy Realtor report.


  • Troubled Properties in Suffolk County

    If you’re trying to sell a home in Boston, Revere or Chelsea, you’re more likely to be competing with foreclosed or other types of distressed properties.


  • Want A Multifamily Home? Think REO

    Sales of two- and three-family homes in Massachusetts jumped by double-digit percentages in the first two quarters from a year earlier, according to The Warren Group.


  • Not Feelin’ The Housing Recovery Yet

    There have been numerous stories lately about how the housing market is starting to stabilize or recover. Try telling that to my neighbors who have their homes on the market. For-sale signs began popping up along the tree-lined street in Jamaica Plain where my home sits around the beginning of June.


  • Faster Loan Work-Outs For Some Homeowners

    Lenders are stepping up the pace of mortgage modifications, according to a recent story in the Patriot Ledger. The article highlights the plight of a Brockton woman who was able to secure a loan modification from GMAC Mortgage within a few weeks.


  • ‘Spectacular’ Mall Condos Hit The Auction Block

    Another local luxury condo property is headed to auction, and the discounts being offered are pretty head-turning. The Boston Globe reports today that 42 condos at the Natick Collection are being auctioned early next month with minimum bids at about 70 percent below the previous asking prices.


  • Where Were Bank Regulators?

    Why would you commit yourself to a loan that you know you can’t really afford? A special investigation in today’s Banker & Tradesman offers some clues about how and why that could happen. The report highlights what happened to Latino homebuyers who were misled into mortgages that were way beyond their means.


  • Hurtling Toward The Tax Credit Deadline

    The Obama administration is weighing a proposal to extend and expand the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit that Realtors and experts say has helped to boost home sales.


  • Where The Sales Are

    If you’re trying to sell a pricier home in the Bay State, you’ll need to be patient. The Warren Group reports today that single-family home sales inched up 2 percent in August compared to the prior year. August was the second straight month that sales volume increased in Massachusetts.


  • October - The Season for Condo Auctions

    October is shaping up to be the month for luxury condo auctions. First up, are 42 condos at the Natick Collection or the Nouvelle at Natick, which will be auctioned Sunday. The starting auction prices are being advertised as low as $160,000. Two weeks later, ten upscale units at The Bryant Back Bay are up for grabs. Starting prices are listed at just over $1 million.


  • Boston & Worcester Poised For Housing Rebound?

    Boston and Worcester have something new to cheer about. The two cities are on a list of 10 hard-hit housing markets that are ready for rebound that U.S. News & World Report recently compiled with help from Moody’s Economy.com. According to the news magazine, Moody’s Economy.com predicts that Worcester home prices will increase about 6 percent by the first quarter of 2012 and 21 percent by the first quarter of 2014.


  • Bay State Housing Is Cheaper, But Not For All

    Home prices may have declined in Massachusetts, but housing affordability is still a real concern, according to a new report that Banker & Tradesman reporter Ian Murphy wrote about. The median price for single-family homes sold through September was $285,000, The Warren Group reported today.


  • Should the Homebuyer Tax Credit Be Extended?

    Momentum is really building to extend and even expand the tax credit for homebuyers. Senate leaders are reportedly backing a plan to extend the $8,000 tax credit for buyers who purchase their first homes by the middle of next year and to even offer a $6,500 credit to homeowners who haven’t moved in five years.


  • Investors Snagging House Bargains

    Investors are out in droves snapping up discounted properties. I haven’t done a scientific poll to prove this, but if you listen to real estate agents, auctioneers and even some prospective homebuyers who’ve had their purchase offers rejected you’ll believe that to be the case.


  • Homeowners Facing Foreclosure Get Chance To Rent

    Fannie Mae has announced a new program designed to help homeowners who are facing foreclosure. The government-controlled company is giving homeowners at risk of foreclosure the option of renting their homes.


  • Not Reality For Most Real Estate Agents

    I have to admit that I’m one of those people who watch reality television. Lately, I’ve been watching the Bravo TV series “Million Dollar Listing.”


  • More Short Sale Trouble

    Homeowners with two mortgages or those who used 100 percent financing to purchase their residences and are now trying to negotiate a short sale may be facing even more trouble in the future.


  • Realtors Say Home Prices Heading Up

    By now, most real estate industry professionals have already heard about the rosy forecast that the chief economist of the National Association of Realtors has made.


  • New Foreclosure Report Shows Mixed Results

    During a tour of foreclosed properties in Fall River earlier this week, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan noted that he’s seeing early signs of progress because foreclosure rates nationwide have dropped.


  • Blame Game

    The Obama administration is putting the pressure on lenders to provide permanent loan modifications for homeowners in danger of foreclosure. So far, the federal government’s efforts to prevent foreclosures by getting mortgage companies and banks to rewrite loans have fallen short.


  • Realtors & Home Sellers Beware

    As if home sellers didn’t have enough to worry about, now they have to beware of one more thing: scam artists who post their home as a rental on Craigslist.


  • Christmas Wish

    A neighbor of mine recently asked her daughter-in-law what she wanted for Christmas. Her daughter-in-law quickly replied that she didn’t want or need anything, except to find a house to buy.


  • Fewer Foreclosures in Mass.

    Some smaller Bay State communities appear to have had the biggest increases in foreclosures this year.


  • Foreclosure Problem Persists For Worcester, Other Urban Areas

    It should come as no surprise that the cities that have struggled with the highest foreclosure numbers in the last two years were also facing the issue in 2009.


  • Boston, West Roxbury, JP Home Prices Up

    Median prices for single-family homes sold in Boston last year slipped 2 percent to $327,500 from $335,000. But home prices actually managed to creep up in a few city neighborhoods, according to new stats from The Warren Group.


  • Home Prices Have Fallen Off A Cliff In ...

    Where in Massachusetts have home prices dropped the most since the peak of the market?


  • Home Price Increase Not All Good News

    Is it good or bad news that home prices have increased for two months straight?


  • What Kind Of Home Can $24.5M Buy?

    Weston has no shortage of ritzy properties, but a press release that I came across announcing the listing of $24.5 million estate got my attention.


  • More Foreclosure Help On The Way

    The last few days have been filled with news about one program or another aimed at helping homeowners who are at risk of losing their homes to foreclosures.


  • Bump Up In High-End Home Sales

    Some in the mortgage and real estate industries say that conditions are improving for homebuyers who need so-called jumbo loans.


  • Local Home Loan Modifications

    A total of 23,324 homeowners in Massachusetts have participated in the federal government’s home loan modification program. Less than a quarter of those homeowners – 5,635 – have been able to secure permanent mortgage loan modifications.


  • Foreclosure Trouble Ahead

    For a while it seemed like foreclosure activity was starting to moderate in Massachusetts. But today’s report from The Warren Group shows a spike in the number of foreclosures started and completed in March.


  • Music, Food At Next Open House

    It’s been just about a year since one of my neighbors put his elegant home on the market.


  • Realtors Feeling Hopeful

    Looks like local Realtors are starting to feel more optimistic about the housing market. The Massachusetts of Realtors released its Realtor market index today.


  • Number Of Canceled Loan Modifications Grows

    Foreclosure activity in Massachusetts isn’t easing. A new report from The Warren Group shows that lenders started and finished more foreclosures statewide in April than they did a year earlier.


  • What Do Wellesley, Hanover & Palmer Have In Common?

    Real estate agents in Dover, Melrose, Palmer, Hanover, Brookline and Wellesley have been much busier in the first four months of this year than they were a year earlier.


  • Nantucket Home Sales Heating Up

    Summer is quickly sneaking up, and people with dreams of vacationing with the rich and famous and all sorts of VIPS are snatching up properties on swanky Nantucket.


  • Borrowers With Home Loan Modifications Won’t Escape Default

    More bad news for homeowners who’ve been struggling with mortgage payments: Fitch Ratings released a report yesterday predicting that most homeowners who’ve received a loan modification under the federal Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, will default within a year.


  • Housing Info Overload

    Housing industry followers might be suffering from information overload this week.


  • Million-Dollar Foreclosures

    Those of you who’ve been following housing trends know that foreclosures have been spreading to some of the wealthier suburban parts of the state.


  • Newton Makes Top 10 Best Places To Live

    It looks like Newton just got a bit more desirable. The city snagged the No. 3 spot in Money magazine’s annual search for the top 100 best places to live in America.


  • Homes Going From Large To Enormous

    When does a house size go from big to too big? That’s a question I’m sure planners have been asking themselves for several years as they’ve watched McMansions spring up and home sizes balloon.


  • No Dent In Foreclosure Filings

    A government watchdog says participation in a federal program to help struggling homeowners is “anemic”.