Condo ownership presents some special hazards during an economic downturn. Even you personally are solvent, your fellow condo owners might not be. Today’s New York Times reports: Collateral Foreclosure Damage for Condo Owners When people buy condos, they expect their monthly fees will cover many of the responsibilities that they would otherwise have as owners […]
Housing Market
Wall Street Journal: “Real-Estate Drop Has a Green Lining”
The May 9 Wall Street Journal notes that a softening real estate market has made conservation a more attractive option for some landowners: Real-Estate Drop Has a Green Lining There’s a green lining to the real-estate cloud: Developers are dropping plans to build on some choice pieces of land and instead are selling it for […]
Bloomberg: “S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. Home-Price Index Fell 12.7%”
Bloomberg reports today: The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index dropped 12.7 percent [in February] from a year earlier, more than forecast and the most since the figures were first published in 2001. The gauge has fallen every month since January 2007. Prices will probably keep sliding as foreclosures push even more properties onto the market just as […]
Springfield Republican: Hampshire County Home Sales Fall 21% in Q1
Home sales and prices continue to fall in Pioneer Valley, reports today’s Springfield Republican. In Hampshire County, 151 homes sold in the first quarter of 2008, down 21% from the first quarter of 2007. The median sales price slipped from $259,000 to $249,000. The median sales price of homes in the Pioneer Valley fell 4.9 […]
AP: “S&P Says Home Prices Fall by Record 10.7 Percent in January”
AP reports today: U.S. home prices fell 10.7 percent in January, and the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index of 20 cities saw the steepest decline in the index’s two-decade history… Pava Leyrer, president of Heritage National Mortgage in Detroit, said the tightening of loan standards has compounded the problems of too much inventory, foreclosures […]
Woes in Condo Market Build As New Supply Floods Cities: Wall Street Journal
March 22’s Wall Street Journal predicts challenging times for condo developers. The supply of condos currently exceeds 10 months of sales, the highest level since the National Association of Realtors began keeping records in 1999. Delinquency rates for condo loans held by commercial banks ballooned from 5.9% in the third quarter of 2007 to 10.1% […]
Springfield Republican: “Pioneer Valley home sales drop 26%”
Today’s Republican reports on the state of the local and national housing market: The Realtor Association of Pioneer Valley Inc. today released statistics showing that single-family home sales in the region fell 25.9 percent last month compared to January 2007. The median price of a home dropped nearly 7.5 percent, from $210,500 to $195,000, over […]
Downtown house on “dead end street” in “rural setting” flies off market
The Gazette reports that residential real estate sales in Northampton are slow, but you wouldn’t know it if you were the seller of a certain single-family house on Bradford Street. According to the Multiple Listing Service, this home went on sale on February 8 and is now under agreement, just 12 days later. What makes it […]
Gazette: “Contractors assess extent of slowdown, as some projects lag”
Today’s Gazette contains a large section examining the local real estate market. Softness in residential development is evident… Construction at crossroads, or dead end? Contractors assess extent of slowdown, as projects lagFor the first time in recent memory, Northampton city planners do not expect to have a permit application for a residential or commercial project before them, […]
Gazette: “North King Street condominium project stalls”
Today’s Gazette reports that financing challenges and market conditions have suspended a condo development off North King Street. It was to have been one of Northampton’s largest residential development projects in recent years: James M. Harrity Jr., of Northampton, has put 46 acres off North King Street on the market for $2.4 million. The listing […]