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Standard & Poors: S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index

THURSDAY, NOV. 27, 2008

Boston Prices Continue Moderate Decline

In its latest, September release, the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index reported continuing record price declines of single-family homes across the nation. A slowing in annual rates of decline that had give encouragement over prior months, was ended by the turmoil in the financial markets. Boston's string of five consecutive months of improvement also came to an end. “The turmoil in the financial markets is placing further downward pressure on a housing market already weakened by its own fundamentals,” summarized David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee.

Notwithstanding this bleak outlook, the metro Boston market continued its moderate, single-digit rate of decline, in stark contrast to annual declines in the teens and twenties elsewhere.

S&P/Case-Shiller Press Release The New York Times story

-Ron Cohen

Bankrate.com: Massachusetts Mortgage Rates

Bankrate.com: Massachusetts Mortgage Rates

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 26, 2008

Mortgage Rates Plunge on Fed's Buyout Plan

After a wild ride upward for several months, mortgage interest rates have dropped to a level they last reached in September when the federal government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This latest decline came after the Fed announced it will buy $600 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities from the two mortgage giants, thus reducing the risk premium they had been paying on their debt. Fed officials are hoping this giant step will unfreeze the mortgage market, making mortgages more available as well as more affordable, thereby spurring home sales.

Graph is updated daily by Bankrate.com. The New York Times story

-Ron Cohen

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2008

Waltham Among 10 Best Suburbs to Sell a Home

Forbes magazine recently rated Waltham, Mass. among the 10 best suburbs in the country for selling a home. They had this to say:

"Sellers in Waltham, Mass., a middle-class suburb west of Boston, [have] seen 1% price appreciation over the last year, and only 53% of them have to reduce their price in order to make a sale. It's not exactly a bull market, but homes only take 79 days to find buyers, the second-quickest turnaround of any suburb on our list."

Forbes based its ratings on data from Altos Research of Mountain View, Calif. The Altos price graph for Waltham is show here. Click on the graph for more Waltham market data.

-Ron Cohen

MLS PIN: Metro Boston Pending Sales

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2008

Boston Pending Sales Defies October's News

Pending sales are the closest we have to a "real time" view of the real estate market. They represent the "moment of truth," when buyer and seller come to an agreement based on the market conditions at the time.

So it was with anticipation that we awaited the Boston-area pending sales for October, to see what effect the cascade of bad economic news during the month would have on our regional real estate market.
Based on data from the regional MLS, we can report that pending sales for October 2008 gained 6.4 percent over October 2007. That followed a truly remarkable September gain of 21.3 percent over a year earlier. To make this even more impressive, we note that MLS sales are overwhelmingly private sales, not bank foreclosure sales.

The net result: After a disappointing second quarter, which declined 10 percent from last year, pending sales for the third quarter were up a significant 2.6 percent over the previous year.

-Ron Cohen