This week

Mortgage lenders:
Are most loans made these days “non-recourse”?
I guess I assumed almost all of them are.
Never really thought about it.
With a non-recourse loan, if you decide to stop paying your home loan, you can pretty much walk away, your loan is “forgiven”, and you go on with your life.
Otherwise, if you walk away from your […]

This week

The following information is from the local MLS database, as of December 25, 2007, compared to (December 15, 2007) (December 16, 2006 - where available).
Total # of condos for sale in the city of Boston: 2,039 (2,164) (2,189)
Average # of days on market: 151 (141) (146)
Number of condos sold (closed) over past 30 days: 272 […]

More from The Warren Group’s November sales report.
Suffolk County includes Boston, Revere, Winthrop, and Chelsea-by-the-sea.
Data is November, 2007 compared to November, 2006, except where indicated.
Single-family homes
November #Sales: 122 134, +9.84%
YTD November #Sales: 1545 1376, -10.94%
November Median Price: $327500 $317000, -3.21%
YTD November Median Price: $350000 $330000, -5.71%
Condominiums
November #Sales: 518 365, -29.54%
YTD November #Sales: 6537 6272, -4.05%
November […]

The Warren Group just announced condominiums and single-family homes sales for November, 2007.
What’s up?
A total of 3,538 single-family homes sold in November, 15.4 percent fewer than during the same month in 2006, according to a new report by The Warren Group, parent company of Banker & Tradesman. Sales are the lowest recorded for any November […]

This week’s Boston Real Estate Condo Market Reports are now available, here.
The market reports provide readers with detailed information on the state of the Boston real estate market.
The reports include data on inventory, recent sales, and price per square foot of condos for sale and recently closed.
In addition to a summary report of sales across […]

Maybe you read today that GMAC Carlson is closing 14 of its Massachusetts offices.
Ouch.
As the articles mention, almost all real estate agents are paid on commission, meaning there is little cost to keeping them on-board.
Therefore, those who lost their “jobs” are support staff and office managers.
But, it may surprise you that, while some companies are […]

The following information is from the local MLS database, as of December 15, 2007, compared to (December 8, 2007) (December 16, 2006 - where available).
Total # of condos for sale in the city of Boston: 2,164 (2,212) (2,189)
Average # of days on market: 141 (137) (146)
Number of condos sold (closed) over past 30 days: 276 […]

Last week, the Globe’s Binyamin Appelbaum, who reports on real estate for the paper, wrote a story about his search for a new home.
He made a comment that has created a lot of controversy (by “a lot”, I mean, a little).
The comment:
Title insurance is a curious thing. Before a home is sold, a lawyer checks […]