The latest news from the Boston Courant:
*The Boston Courant reported today that the city is considering installing a bicycle lane on the Back Bay stretch of Boylston Street.
*The Courant did a random-sample survey of buildings’ fire escapes and found 60 percent of Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Fenway and South End exterior iron fire escapes had [...]

The following are interesting stats from MLS based on Boston luxury condo sales from January 1st – May 15th.
Boston luxury condos that sold for $900,000 or above in ‘05 – 80
Bosron luxury condos that sold for $900,000 or above in ‘06 – 78
Boston luxury condos that sold for $900,000 or above in ‘07 – 122
Boston [...]

Enough with the negative news. Jay Fitzgerald from the Boston Herald has an interesting and postive news article on how Massachusetts is on the way to an economic recovery. Here are two excerpts:
A report by the New England Economic Partnership said the Bay State’s economy is now “firmly on track” for recovery through the end [...]

Paul Krugman once again has an Op-Ed in the NY Times about how America is heading to an economic Japan-style crisis.
… Recent data don’t suggest that America is heading for a Greece-style collapse of investor confidence. Instead, they suggest that we may be heading for a Japan-style lost decade, trapped in a prolonged era [...]

More homeowners in Massachusetts may have lost their homes to foreclosure so far this year than they did a year ago, but fewer homeowners are behind on their mortgage payments.
That’s according to the most recent delinquency survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association. The association reported today that the Massachusetts delinquency rate fell 90 basis point [...]

From the minutes of a Fed meeting on April 27-28, when Ben Bernanke and his band of the central bankers expressed concern that there’s a risk home prices may go down:
… the recovery in the housing market appeared to have stalled in recent months despite various forms of government support. Although residential real estate [...]

% sold price to ask:
April 2009 – 96%
April 2010 – 96%
% change – 0
Sold Homes
April 2009 – 330
April 2010 – 481
% change – 46%
MLS Days on the Market
April 2009 – 110
April 2010 – 97
% change – 12%

I am pleased to once again welcome Mortgage Banker Brian Cav, the creator of a mortgage blog called Smarterborrowing.com. Here’s his weekly mortgage market update, which I’m sure you’ll find interesting.
Mortgage Market
Mortgage Rates are currently staying and settling down near 2010 lows. I would have thought they would have come up a bit from [...]

In Boston, it’s Gisele Bündchen all the time. Even in currency markets, it’s becoming Gisele Bündchen all the time. Read the linked post immediately – and make millions!
File Under: Model strategy for aspiring traders
PS: BRE Blog rejects in advance any suggestion we’re engaging in cheap Gisele Bündchen name dropping to drive up web traffic. We’d [...]

Mark Zandi, chief economist and co-founder of Moody’s Economy.com, sees job creation in the near future, which he thinks is the key to an economic and housing recovery. Zandi believes mortgage interest rates will remain historically low, the availability of jumbo loans will improve and home sales will rise over the next few years.
The following [...]