A Tale Of Two Real Estate Markets
Wow, the contrast between the slowly improving office market and the ever more troubled house sector gets starker by the day.
Just take the big news that came out today.
It’s best to hold on the champagne, but things are once again looking up for the office market.
A new study out by Reis Inc. suggests the amount of empty space in office towers across the country has finally hit bottom, while rents are holding steady.
The numbers are even better for Greater Boston, with a significant drop in the amount of empty corporate suites in the third quarter, Richards Barry Joyce & Partners reported last week.
And, in case you missed it, the Hancock tower just fetched $930 million in a bidding war reminiscent of the bubble years.
Contrast that with the embattled housing market. Bank of America today announced it would halt foreclosures in all 50 states, with a number of other big mortgage lenders and servicers having already taken similar steps in dozens of other states.
The moves come after damaging revelations that bank employees were blindly signing off on foreclosures - spawning the phrase robosigning - without even doing the most elementary checking.
It comes atop a simmering controversy over banks that mistakenly foreclosed on homeowners who are either current on their mortgages or not even customers.
Basically, people have arrived home after work or a long weekend to find their homes padlocked and cleaned out, bank hired contractors having done their dirty work.
Oops!
The growing foreclosure gridlock of course will only delay the housing market’s agony, possibly for years to come.
Until all that access inventory is cleared from the market, no recovery.