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.

“It takes the high-end to a whole different level,” the listing agent told me about the home.

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.

I was doing some research on WarrenGroupForeclosures.com and the home’s address popped up.

A foreclosure petition was filed back in November. The 6,000-square-foot home is assessed at over $3.2 million.

There are other for-sale multi-million-dollar homes in Brookline that are at risk of foreclosure. Two are located on Woodland Road in desirable Chestnut Hill.

One of them has six bedrooms and is listed for $2.85 million. The lender filed a petition to foreclose in February.

The other home features 8,400-square-feet of living space and is on sale for $4.75 million. The lender started foreclosure proceedings in early May.

Most news stories on foreclosure activity focus on working families in lower-income urban areas. But it’s clear that even the upper-income are hurting.

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?

The Warren Group reported today that median price for single-family homes sold in Massachusetts during the first four months of 2009 was $257,450.  If the lender-owned single-family home sales transactions were taken out of the equation, the median price would have been $273,000 – or $15,550 higher, according to an analysis from The Warren Group.

Meanwhile, the median selling price of the lender-owned single-family homes that have sold so far this year was only $100,000.

A total of 752 single-family homes, or 8.5 percent of the single-family homes that sold from January through April, were lender-owned, according to The Warren Group. That’s up from 538 home sale transactions, or 5.3 percent of sales, during the same months last year.

Today, The Warren Group released its latest foreclosure report which shows that the number of foreclosures dropped in April compared to a year ago and compared to March. Lenders also initiated fewer foreclosures.

Some good news for the state or is it just a blip?

Mortgage companies and banks had been holding back on pursuing foreclosures earlier this year as they waited for the federal government to come up with rescue plans for struggling homeowners. That could be one reason that the numbers are lower.

Lenders may also be working harder to negotiate deals with homeowners and agreeing to short sales instead of waiting for the property to go through foreclosure.

But unemployment figures and the growing number of mortgage delinquencies are troubling and could mean that this decline is temporary and not a long-term trend.

Urban area continue to feel the crisis most. Here are the top 10 communities where the most foreclosures have been initiated so far this year: Worcester, Springfield, Brockton, Dorchester, Lynn, Lawrence, Lowell, New Bedford, Haverhill and Framingham.

What can you get in Massachusetts for between $100,000 and $200,000?

Apparently a lot more then you could a year ago.

Last week, I wrote about how million-dollar-plus single-family home sales sank in the first quarter compared to a year ago.

Not so with sales of lower-priced homes in Massachusetts.

The number of single-family homes priced between $100,000 and $200,000 has climbed 20 percent.

Roughly 1,660 homes in that price range traded from January through March, up from about 1,380 a year earlier.

Foreclosures have put downward pressure on prices, so that has probably contributed to this trend.

In fact, at least one-third of the homes in that price range were sold by either a bank or mortgage company.

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.

That’s down nearly 50 percent from the same months last year, when 341 in that price range were sold.

Top sales in the first quarter included nine properties that sold for $4 million or higher.

What are some of the priciest residential property sales this year?

A 5-bedroom home in Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard fetched $11.75 million in January. On the North Shore, an 8,800-square-foot waterfront mansion with 5.5 acres in Manchester-by-the-Sea, went for over $6.2 million.

And on Nantucket, a 6-bedroom Antique sold for $5.75 million.

Newton and Needham had the most million-dollar-plus sales in the first quarter, with each community seeing 12 single-family home sales transactions in that price range.

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.

The company examined the sale of REO, or lender-owned, single-family homes in Barnstable and Plymouth counties, to see how the REO sales price compared to the assessed value.

Here’s what The Warren Group found:

On the Cape, there were 174 REO sales last year and they sold for 65 percent of the assessed value. Meanwhile, all other single-family homes sold for 101 percent of the assessed value.

Plymouth County had 350 REO sales, which sold for 62 percent of the assessed value. Other 1-family homes sold for 94 percent of the assessed value.

Banks clearly took a hit when they marketed and sold homes in those areas.

By Aglaia Pikounis

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.

In fact, 49 fewer homes were lost to foreclosure in Brockton in the first three months of 2009 compared to the same period last year.

And in Dorchester, the number of foreclosure deeds recorded dropped 26 percent year-over-year.

But there were dozens of towns that saw an increase.

In Marshfield, foreclosures more than doubled, jumping from 6 last year to 15 in the first quarter of 2009.

Same with Salem’s foreclosures, which rose from 13 to 29.

Meanwhile, Quincy’s foreclosure activity nearly doubled. In the city of presidents, there 26 properties were foreclosed on from January through March, 86 percent higher than the 14 foreclosures last year.

Want to see which other communities have had more foreclosures so far this year? See here.

After reports of sliding home sales and prices last week, the National Association of Realtors reports this week that pending home sales are up.

The trade group reports that pending sales, based on purchase and sales contracts signed in March, increased in three out of four regions, but fell in the Northeast.

Sales in many areas are increasing because of bank-owned property sales. In some places, distressed property sales make up as much 40 percent of transactions.

That hasn’t been the case in Massachusetts, where about 10 percent of single-family home sales involve a bank-owned property. 

There seem to be some signs that foreclosure activity is moderating in Massachusetts. The Warren Group will be releasing a report later this week showing that the number of Bay State foreclosure deeds and petitions to foreclose has declined from last year.

Despite these positive signs, foreclosure petitions have been steadily rising for five consecutive months.

And foreclosure activity may pick up now that several large lenders, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup, have ended foreclosure moratoriums that they had in place.