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.

It’s not really a new listing. High-powered agents Beth Dickerson and Julie Harrison, who work for Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty’s Back Bay office, have had the listing for months.

The mansion, located at 5 Willow Road, is the site of the former Cabot Estate, home of the late philanthropist and businessman Thomas D. Cabot.

The residence was designed by local architect Jeremiah Eck. With 33,000-square-feet of living space, its features include six bedroom suites, a spa, pool and in-home movie theatre.

The market for such ultra-luxe properties has been slow. But if it sells, it would probably be the highest priced home to ever sell in Weston.

As far as I can tell, the highest-priced home that sold in Weston was a $10 million mega-mansion that sold back in June 2008. And eight homes with price tags of $6 million to just under $9 million have been sold in Weston in the last decade, according to records from The Warren Group.

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

This is quite a reversal from the first few months of 2009 when prices were falling by anywhere from 12 percent to 20 percent.  One of my co-workers compared the start of last year’s housing market to a funeral.

At first glance, the increase in prices seems positive — it’s a sign that confidence is returning in the housing market.

More and more homeowners are starting to feel more comfortable and have decided to put their homes on the market after holding back for a long time.   I’ve seen at least half a dozen for-sale signs pop up in the front yards of my neighbors in the last two weeks.

But the price increases are also bad news for buyers. Prices inflated so much during the housing boom, that the recent declines were welcomed by many who felt they would never be able to purchase a home in Greater Boston.

The price increase could be temporary, and of course, two months doesn’t make a trend.

The homebuyer tax credit encouraged buyers who were sitting on the sidelines, creating some demand. Meanwhile, inventory has been sagging but that could change as the spring market approaches and the economy improves.

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

Mostly in urban areas that have been hard-hit by foreclosures.

Median selling prices for single-family homes in communities like Brockton and Chelsea, for example, have plunged by 40 percent or more since 2005, when home prices peaked in Massachusetts, according to The Warren Group.

Foreclosures in those towns have surely helped to drag down home values.  In fact, Chelsea and Brockton are among the cities with the highest foreclosure rates in the state.

Brockton’s median home price stood at $165,000 in 2009, a 40 percent decline from $275,000 four years earlier.

And in Chelsea, the median price plummeted almost 48 percent to $168,900 from $323,250.

Here are few more towns and cities that saw steep drops in median prices from 2005 to 2009:

Lawrence (-35 percent)
Revere (-35 percent)
Everett (-36 percent)
Randolph (-36 percent)
Athol  (-39 percent)
Hyannis (-42 percent)
Roxbury  (-43 percent)
East Boston (-45 percent)
Mattapan (-47 percent)

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.

In downtown Boston, which includes posh neighborhoods like Back Bay and Beacon Hill, home prices surged 36.1 percent to almost $1.96 million from about $1.44 million. The good news didn’t carry over to downtown’s condo market, however. Median condo prices in downtown fell 6.4 percent from 2008.

In West Roxbury, median home prices climbed 5.7 percent to $381,500 from $361,000.

And in Jamaica Plain, prices rose to $529,000, a 4.6 percent increase from $506,000 a year earlier.  Median selling prices for JP condos, however, slipped 4 percent from a year earlier.

Allston’s home prices also shot up 41 percent to $380,000 — but the neighborhood only had seven sales in 2009.

In contrast, Roxbury median home prices plunged 33 percent to $195,000 and East Boston’s price dropped 16.3 percent to $180,000.

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.

Worcester, Springfield, Boston’ s Dorchester neighborhood, Brockton and Lynn were the cities with the most foreclosures in  2009, according to new data put out by The Warren Group.  Worcester had 505 foreclosures last year. With 503 foreclosures, Springfield wasn’t too far behind.

 Foreclosures in those five cities, however, actually fell in 2009 from 2008, as they did statewide.

But before celebrating, it’s important to keep in mind that those cities were also in the top five for petitions to foreclose, which represent foreclosures that were started in 2009. That means more homeowners in those cities were at risk of foreclosure than anywhere else in the state.

Petitions to foreclose actually climbed year-over-year in those cities anywhere from 9 percent (Lynn) to 23 percent (Worcester).

So is the situation getting better or worse? Some experts think that homeowners with the riskiest, nontraditional mortgage loans, have already gone through foreclosure so the pace of foreclosures will slow.

But there are analysts that fear that persisting unemployment  will drive homeowners with more traditional mortgage loans into foreclosure. 

The big push for loan modifications to help troubled homeowners doesn’t seem to be working.  More than 900,000 homeowners nationwide have sought trial modifications but only 66,000 borrowers have secured permanent modifications.

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

In Greenfield, home foreclosures almost doubled to 22 from 12 last year, according to The Warren Group.  Raynham’s foreclosures jumped 75 percent, and in Marshfield, foreclosures increased almost 60 percent to 41 from 26.

Nantucket has had the sharpest increase, with 19 foreclosures compared to only 1 through November of 2008.

Overalll, fewer people in Massachusetts have lost their homes to foreclosure this year.  The Warren Group reports that a total of 8,409 foreclosures were recorded in the first 11 months of the year, down 27 percent from a year ago. Still, more homeowners have faced foreclosure this year.

Petitions to foreclose, which are filed in Massachusetts Land Court in the first step of the foreclosure process, have increased 28 percent to 25,868.

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.

That’s why a recent article in the Hartford Courant about underpricing homes caught my attention. The article highlights a home seller and agent who priced a property slightly below market value to generate interest and spark a bidding war.  The home ended up getting four offers in a little more than a week and ended up selling for more than the asking price.

It’s a risky strategy and most homeowners aren’t eager to follow such advice. But in a market where there is a lot of competition and homes are taking longer to sell, it may be a seller’s only hope – especially if he has to sell quickly.

In Massachusetts, home sales have picked up for four consecutive months, according to The Warren Group. But some fear that the sales gains could be temporary once the homebuyer tax credit disappears in the spring. The Warren Group will release November home sales numbers next Tuesday.

In the meantime, agents who are assisting home sellers who have to move may be more seriously considering tactics like underpricing. Is it worth the risk?

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.

The young woman and her husband are both Boston-area professionals who are currently renting in Needham. They started their search in the summer before they were married and then put it off until after their wedding.

With low mortgage interest rates and prices a lot lower then they once were, they thought they could find a property fairly quickly. But they’ve had trouble finding a decent home in their price range, and now with inventory down, they’re just plain frustrated.

The number of for-sale listings typically drops as we approach the holidays, when most folks are more focused on gift shopping, office parties and decorating than they are about cleaning their homes to make them presentable for showings.

 But this year, the number of listings is especially low.

The Massachusetts Association of Realtors reported last month that the number of single-family home listings dropped 15 percent in October compared to the same month last year.

Perhaps a flood of homes will come onto the market in February and March, just before the buyer tax credit expires.  For now, the young couple is just waiting it out.

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.

A Brockton couple who was trying to sell their home had a few would-be tenants show up at their front door saying they saw their home listed for rent on Craigslist.

Someone had taken the for-sale listing from the couple’s Realtor’s Web site and pasted it into a Craigslist ad requesting that interested tenants send $950 to rent the house and that the keys would be mailed to them.

The homeowners were interviewed on WCVB-ABC Channel 5 last night and when asked what should be done to fraudster, the husband said, “His typing fingers should be cut off.”

Unfortunately, this isn’t a new scam. The Massachusetts Association of Realtors sent a warning to its members back in May. The group told Realtors that photos and listing information were being taken from Realtor.com and other online sources to trick renters.

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.

More than 650,000 trial loan modifications have been issued but that’s only helped about 20 percent of eligible borrowers and the new loan terms are temporary.

In Massachusetts alone, almost 40,000 owners of single-family homes and condos have faced foreclosure since 2007, according to The Warren Group. 

Officials want to make sure that the temporary loan modifications are converted to permanent ones, so they’re saying they’re going to crack down lenders who aren’t doing enough by possibly fining them and withholding any financial incentives until trial modifications are made permanent.

They’re also requiring lenders to provide a status report on modifications and submit a schedule of their plans to reach a decision on each loan.

Banks have been complaining that it’s tough to get borrowers to send in properly completed paperwork in time to make the loan modifications. It’s too confusing for the average borrower, they say.

Lawyers and advocates who represent struggling homeowners say it’s the banks that are losing paperwork that’s submitted multiple times and shuffling their clients from one department to the next.

I’m sure both complaints are valid.