First let me describe what virtual home staging is. The idea works like this, a real estate agent sends in a photo of an empty room to Virtual Staging Properties and they send the photo back digitally staged (see photos below).
Electronic staging consists of scaling pictures of home furnishings to fit into the photo you [...]

This is a hot, sticky and lousy July if you were selling a Boston Waterfront condo. Here are examples of Boston Waterfront condo sellers that didn’t leave the closing happy.
338 Commercial St #C – 100
Sold on 7/1/09 for $450,000.00
FY2009 Tax Assessed at $710,000.00
85 East India Row #29D – Harbor Towers
Purchased on 4/29/04 – $410,000.00
Sold on [...]

If Timothy Geithner is as bad at handling the economy as he is at picking bathroom tiles, we’re in big trouble.
Click here if the video is slow to load

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c

Congress debates how to strengthen the economy and prevent reckless lending in the future, 1 in 10 families is behind on their mortgage. The latest available figures show that the number of households at risk of foreclosure is 700% higher than the number of loan modifications, and the gap has been increasing steadily.

From David Streitfeld at the NY Times: Recovery Signs in Housing Market Stir Some Hope

After a plunge lasting three years, houses have finally become cheap enough to lure buyers. That, in turn, is stabilizing prices, generating hope that the real estate market is beginning to recover.
Looking to buy Boston condo

Who knew less than 140 characters could potentially cost more than $50,000, in the form of a defamation lawsuit?
That’s something Amanda Bonnen is discovering the hard way.
In May, the Chicago resident did what many of Twitter’s users do–she tweeted a complaint. Specifically, she tweeted THIS complaint:
@JessBi23 – Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment [...]

NEW YORK — There were fresh signs Tuesday that home prices in much of the country are stabilizing and the housing market is on the mend.
Home prices in May posted their first monthly increase since the summer of 2006, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city index. Prices rose from April in 13 of the [...]

Well the above title doesn’t tell the full story.
Dorchester Boston condo sales ‘09
Number of Drochester condo sales in ‘09 – 201
Number of Dorchester condo sales in ‘08 – 181
Avg price per sq ft in ‘09 – $158.00
Avg price per sq ft in ‘08 – $219.00
Info based on MLS comparing 1/1/09 – 7/28/09 with [...]

Here’s a question. Should real estate agents provide an “Irrational asking price index”? This would be an index that represents the difference between what a seller hoped that they would get for their home, and what they actually obtained after months of price reductions. If you’re a seller perhaps a better name would be the [...]

My favorite line about Ben Bernanke is from Anna Schwartz a N.Y Times Op-Ed contributor: “Mr. Bernanke seems to know only two amounts: Zero and Trillions.”
File Under: Does this guy know what he’s doing?