“A slowdown in financing for office towers and high-rise condominiums in Boston is prompting a dramatic increase in proposals from developers to build apartment complexes instead, with more than a dozen projects totaling about $1 billion now pending.
The proposals — some of which still need financing — represent thousands of additional rental units across the city, where a shortage of apartments has led to increased rents.”

To read more about why there is a low demand for everything but apartment complexes, read the entire article here!

Bank of America and other large lenders have resumed foreclosures after the whole ordeal earlier this month when they realized that foreclosure documents were processed incorrectly. Whether their mistakes were due to the overwhelming number of foreclosures after the housing market collapse or due to sheer maliciousness, the U.S. government has issued a statement that lenders who have broken any law will be fined. Read the rest of the article here.

In conjunction to Bank of America stopping all of its foreclosure sales nationwide and conducting thorough review, many other firms have followed suit. So, is all this commotion surprising?

“Bank of America has said it will halt foreclosure sales nationwide after reports that loan servicers signed thousands of foreclosure documents without verifying the information.

A spokesman for JPMorgan Chase said the company has stopped seeking judgments in 41 states while it reviews all paperwork. GMAC Mortgage is conducting independent reviews of its foreclosure procedures in all of the states.

Tom Miller, the attorney general of Iowa, is leading a 50-state coordinated review of the practice within the mortgage servicing industry known as “robo-signing.’’

“This is not simply about a glitch in paperwork,’’ Miller said.

No, this is not a glitch. The foreclosure crisis reminds us again that there is a fundamental problem in the mortgage industry. As a society, we claim we value homeownership. But that does not appear to be true anymore for many lenders since mortgages became akin to baseball trading cards, and since removing people from their homes became something like an assembly line.

The only way to unbundle this mess is case by case, treating each borrower as an individual.

In the mortgage trading game, millions of home loans have been sold and resold at warp speed. During the housing boom, lenders created mortgage mills and put people into overpriced homes with mortgages that were difficult to understand and even more difficult to maintain. They often didn’t bother to verify incomes or ability to pay.

Now, we have foreclosure factories where many of the people who are supposed to ensure the process is fair and legal simply rubber-stamped the paperwork that led to kicking homeowners to the curb.

The word “fair’’ is being used quite a bit in this latest crisis. But there is nothing fair about what’s happened in the mortgage industry.

Fair would be to slow down. Fair would be to hire even more people, as many as it takes, to spend a fair amount of time reviewing the cases of people in mortgage trouble. Fair would be carefully examining every single sheet of paper in foreclosure files.

There is no easy solution except to give up on mass production of both home mortgages and foreclosures.

If there isn’t enough money to be made in this slow-down solution for major banks, then tough. They need to fix what they broke.

Handle mortgages the way they should have been handled. That is, if we really do still believe that homeownership is an integral part of the America dream.

And if a foreclosure is ultimately deemed necessary, don’t send the person’s paperwork off to a foreclosure factory. Handle it with care.” – Boston.com/realestate/ (Michelle Singletary)

The Boston Foundation recently released a new report detailing the current trends in the Boston housing market.  The report’s findings conclude that there are very few new housing developments under construction.  At the same time, Boston’s student population is continuing to grow at an accelerated rate.  So, we have a steady supply combined with an increased demand for rental housing.  The result:  Despite the sluggish economy and the rise in unemployment, the Boston rental housing market remains expensive and it is simply very hard for people to find suitable rental housing.

For more information, you can download the full report from the Boston Foundation here.

For a free real estate rental consultation, please call Proper Realty Group at 617-756-3029.

Following in the recent trend, Bank of America decided on Friday, October 8th to stop its sales of foreclosed homes nationwide in order to review the corresponding papers more carefully. (boston.com/realestate/)

To find out why and the effects of this huge move, check out the rest of the article!

Check out this awesome 3BR Split on Mt. Hood Rd. for $2150!

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The economy is improving slowly but surely.  However, the national unemployment rate is still at a high of 9.6%; Massachusetts at 8.8%.  It is inevitable that some homeowners are without a job right now and cannot make the necessary mortgage payments.  To assist this part of the population, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development just unveiled a $1 billion federal program through which jobless homeowners in Massachusetts (plus 31 other states including Puerto Rico) will be able to take out interest-free loans of up to $50,000 for mortgage payments.  To qualify for this loan, homeowners must have suffered a significant drop in income and be at least 3 months behind in mortgage payments.  In addition, the borrower must show some sign of being able to resume the payments within 2 years.  To read more about this article from Boston.com/realestate/, click here!

National home sales have been on the rise lately as portrayed by the pending figures of August.  The “Pending Home Sales Index” rose 4.3 % to 82.3 from the 78.9 mark in July.  It is safe to correlate rising home sales with an improving economy, but in order to match 2009 levels, the unemployment rate is still too high.

To read the full article with more interesting figures and assumptions, click on the link below!

“http://www.realtor.org/press_room/news_releases/2010/10/pending_show“

The number of luxury condos in the past several decades has certainly risen due to higher demand.  But, the same problem still exists in trying to sell out every single unit.  Auctioning is one way management companies and brokers/agents are trying to market these state-of-the-art, modern condos in this struggling market.  Recently, however, there has been a new trend in showing off these magnificent properties – art shows, cocktail parties, and other hip open houses.  Check out some of the photos from this article!

If you are interested in scooping up one yourself, we have tons of luxury condo units available for very affordable prices!