The number of Boston luxury condos presently under agreement priced $1mil and above, 46. Info based on MLS data.

Here’s an interesting piece from NPR, headlined ‘It Was a Good Decade for Home Prices. Really.’:
Sure, there was a lot of sound (the housing bubble grows) and fury (the bubble pops) in the last decade.
But numbers released this morning show that home prices rose by 46% between January 2000 and December 2009.
That’s way above [...]

The Reuters piece here and the BusinessWeek piece here look like they contradict each other regarding the latest S&P/Case-Shiller report on housing. But they appear to say the same thing in different ways: The housing crunch seems to be easing nationwide.
The confusion comes from whether they look at seasonally or non-seasonally adjusted numbers.
The bottom line: [...]

The Great Recession certainly took its toll on cities across the United States. But even with high unemployment rates and declining wages, some communities have done very well for themselves. Portfolio.com surveyed 420 of the largest cities and Newton, MA came in second for highest income.
Excerpts from Portfolio.com: Rich City, Poor City
Newton. MA ranked 2nd.
Median [...]

The median price for single-family homes in Massachusetts shot up in January when compared to the same month last year, driven by low mortgage rates, tax credits and an improving economy.
The Massachusetts Association of Realtors said Tuesday that the median price of a single-family home jumped 14.1 percent in January compared to the year-ago period, [...]

The owner and operator of Jacob Wirth’s Restaurant on Stuart Street is considering renting 214-218 Cambridge Street in Beacon Hill. Known as the Puffer Building, the property was formerly the home of ERA Boston Real Estate (City-State Real Estate).
The operation would be run similarly to the existing Jacob Wirth location. The idea is to have [...]

According to MLS, the city of Boston presently has 526 condos under agreement.
A sample of a few Boston neighborhoods with condos under agreement:
Back Bay: 45 condos under agreement.
Beacon Hill: 17
Charlestown: 14
Dorchester: 79
Midtown: 4
North End: 9
South Boston: 102
South End: 58

From San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen: The Outlook for the Economy and Housing. Excerpts:
… I’m not at all convinced that a V-shaped recovery is in the cards. That fourth-quarter leap in GDP overstates the underlying momentum of the economy. Much of it was due to a slowdown in the pace at which businesses [...]

Only joking.
This clip below was a mean trick to play on these real estate agents: