News / Features

Federal Reserve Votes to Stop Bailing Out Failing Firms

Effective Jan. 1, the Federal Reserve will not be allowed to bail out failing companies. Members of the Fed board voted 5 to 0 in favor of restricting the policy. The new policy will restrict the Fed from lending to individual firms,

New Home Sales at Highest Level in 7 Years

New home sales are hot, but what are the larger market trends? Sales of new single-family houses rose 10.7 percent from September to October and 4.9 percent from Oct. 2014 to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 495,000, according

The Top 10 Reasons Consumers Bought Homes in 2015

Why did U.S. consumers decide to buy homes in 2015? That question was one of many that NAR’s 2015 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers tackled, and the results were many and varied – especially when the consumers’ disposition

7 Ways Boston Can Stop Rising Development Costs

Many potential avenues cited to help alleviate costs The Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2015 was released last week, the news was not good. The report called the situation in Boston “fundamentally unmanageable,” thanks to high development costs and strong

Boston Price Growth Remains Steady

How have home prices progressed in the 2015 housing market? Home prices in the Boston housing market rose 0.1 percent from August to September and 4.8 percent from Sept. 2014, according to the new Case-Shiller Home Price Indices from Standard &

How Does Thanksgiving Impact Real Estate?

The ins and outs of buyer traffic around the holidays It has been long been considered common knowledge that the buying craze of Black Friday does not extend to real estate, thanks to a lack of large savings for homes

Boston Among Nation’s Worst Cities for Thanksgiving Travel

According to Google Maps data, Boston is one of the worst cities in the country for Thanksgiving travel. Out of 21 cities that Google investigated, Boston came in at No. 17, with long-time traffic haven Los Angeles on top.

Boston’s Affordability Issues Continue

High development costs and restrictive zoning plague Boston Affordability has been a reoccurring problem in the Greater Boston area thanks to a population boom, especially among young professionals. The influx of people has vastly outpaced the amount of new

Mortgage Applications Up Despite TRID

We’re approaching two months since the implementation of TRID, and after a string of weeks that saw declining originations, mortgage applications were back up in the week ending Nov. 13, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. In the two

Existing-Home Sales Decline, Market Continues to Improve

Homes sales were down in October, but the overall picture remains a very positive one for housing Existing-home sales declined 3.4 percent from September to October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.36 million, according to the latest report

FHA Reserves Back in Line with Federal Requirements

In another marker of the housing market’s recovery, the Federal Housing Administration announced last week that its reserves were back in line with federal requirements. The FHA stated that its insurance fund’s net worth at the end of September was

Greater Boston’s Top 5 School Districts

Lexington Public Schools is the top school district in the Greater Boston area. That ranking came courtesy of the analytics website Niche, which just released its 2016 rankings of public schools from across the country. Four of Greater Boston’s

6 Facts about the Homes Consumers Purchased in 2015

Single family? Condo? 2,000-plus square feet? What defined the homes consumers bought this year? For our latest story in our continuing series on NAR’s 2015 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, we’re taking a detailed look at the homes

As Apartment Building Falls, So Does the New Construction Marketplace

October provided yet more evidence of how integral multifamily building is to the current new construction economy October was a rough month for new construction, with housing starts falling 11 percent from September and 1.8 percent from Oct. 2014

CoreLogic: Boston Cash Sales Share Among Nation’s Lowest

The share of total residential real estate transactions carried out in all cash fell from 34.9 percent in Aug. 2014 to 31.7 percent this most recent August, according to a report from CoreLogic. Month-over-month, cash sales inched upward by

Are America’s Large Homes Bad for Energy Efficiency?

Is our love for large homes nullifying the progress in energy efficiency? Thanks to new technological advances in water use, insulation, heating and cooling and household appliances, today’s homes are more energy efficient than ever before. Yet new research

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