The study, “The Wealth of the Baby Boom Cohorts After the Collapse of the Housing Bubble,” finds that net worth for near retirees ages 45 to 54 and ages 55 to 64 has declined at a rapid pace since 2004 and many of these households will have little wealth to rely on in their retirement [...]

From the Boston Herald:
Boston’s Teflon luxury condo market is showing signs of wear.
While sales of condominiums priced $600,000 or more in the downtown increased by 3.4 percent last year – fueled by a sellout of the Mandarin Oriental in the Back Bay – January sales plummeted by nearly 60 percent.
“The world’s in a different place,” [...]

Mortgage finance company Fannie Mae said Thursday it needs $15.2 billion in government aid to make up for losses from the slumping U.S. housing market.
The mortgage finance company, seized by federal regulators in September, posted a loss of $25.2 billion, or $4.47 per share, in the fourth quarter.That compares with a loss of $3.6 billion, [...]

From the Boston Herald:
Simon Property Group has put on ice its Copley Place plan for the city’s tallest condo tower.
The mall operator was developing a 47-story tower with 280 luxury residential units, along with a 54,000-square-foot addition to Neiman Marcus and 60,000 square feet of new retail and restaurant space.
Les Morris, a Simon spokesman, confirmed [...]

From the Boston Globe:
The nation’s banks lost $26.2 billion in the last three months of 2008, the first quarterly deficit in 18 years, as the housing and credit crises escalated.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Thursday that U.S. banks and thrifts also more than doubled the amount they set aside to cover potential loan losses, [...]

I think this can be a new real estate trend. Boston real estate offices working togther to share retail office space. My thought is that it’s becoming less and less important to have a good office location on Newbury Street and more important to have a large showing on the internet (Google Search Engine). My [...]

From CNN:
The government’s closely watched list of troubled banks grew during the fourth quarter to its highest level since 1994, regulators said Thursday.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reported that the number of firms on its so-called “problem bank” list grew to 252 during the last three months of 2008, compared with 171 banks making the [...]

From Yahoo News:
New-home sales tumbled to a record-low annual pace in January and there’s no relief in sight as mounting damage from the collapsed housing market pushes the country deeper into recession.
The Commerce Department reported Thursday that sales fell 10.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 309,000, the worst showing on records going [...]

The following story is from the Small Property Owners Association Newsletter Febraury 2009.
A Roslindale landlord wanted to rent one of his units in his triple-decker. He posted an ad on Craigslist in his own name, address and phone number. A woman called regarding the apartment and said she had a two year old, the landlord [...]