The Commerce Dept. has released national home construction data showing August had a 10.5% increase from the prior month. The figure was a little surprising (though not outrageously so) and much of the growth was attributed to condo and apartment construction rather than single-family starts. Now for the bad news: new home starts were up [...]

The steps and sidewalk in front of a Marlborough Street townhouse were transformed into wintry scene for an upcoming Coca-Cola holiday advertisement.

We’ll take good news where we can find it. This week French software company Dassault Systemes signed a lease in Waltham for a whopping 320,000 square-feet of space on Wyman Street in Waltham. This is a big commercial leasing deal for the Boston area. The new space will have room for 800 employees, but don’t [...]

Damn the economic conditions. Developers say it’s full steam ahead for the highly — and we mean highly — ambitious Seaport Square project.
Assuming it gets done over the next ten years, developers are looking at millions of square fee of new residential, retail, office and other types of spaces.
But can it be done? Can it even [...]

The “Great Recession” is over. Time to buy real estate—Anonymous

The famous Los Angeles landmark the Hearst Mansion is back on the market. After a whopping $70 million markdown. Once listed at $165 million, it’s a virtual steal at a bargain-basement price of $95 million. If you’ve seen the horse-head-in-the-bed scene from the movie The Godfather, yeah, it’s that place. Here’s the link to the [...]

Boston Real Estate:  Boston Fenway condo sales from Jan – Aug
Click chart to enlarge.

An interesting new study just came out  stating the importance on pricing your condo/home correct on the first try increases your home being sold.
 A listed property receives four times as many views in the first five days of it being marketed online than one week later, meaning the common sales technique of setting a higher asking price initially [...]

 
The Boston Herald is reporting today that the replacement of the pokey little Tea Party ship “replica” and museum in Fort Point Channel now has a hefty $25 million price tag on it. The lion’s share of the tab ($18 million) is coming from the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, $3 million from the BRA (via [...]

Ford Realty conducted two open houses today. The first one was located on the flat of the hill and had approx 10 potential buyers. The second open house was located at 5 Grove Street, and we only had 4 potential buyers.
Were you at an open house? What was the activity like?