The Boston City Council just passed the a new rule requiring all new residential and commercial property to use 20% less energy. The new rules will also apply to “major” new home renovations. Here’s the whole story from The Boston Globe: City Council OK’s energy efficiency rules for new construction.

Sadly Interesting. Like watching a slow motion train wreck.

File Under: Stretched out Mona Lisa, sign this document!!

A brief summary of the deposition:
Lawyer: What did you study when you went to college for one year?
Alleged Robo Signer: Nothing…
Lawyer: How many legal documents did you sign as an officer or Vice President of the company Nationwide Title [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications, which includes loans for home purchases and refinancings, fell 14.4 percent to 713.6 in the week ended Nov. 12, the lowest since the July 9 week.
Borrowing costs on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages surged to a two-month high of 4.46 percent in the week, up [...]

We couldn’t help but notice that even though the mayor is touting the American Expresss-inspired “Small Business Saturday” (Nov. 27) in a city press release, there’s no mention of something that could really help: free parking downtown that day. Boston has had parking holidays (though rare). Seems like “Small Business Saturday” would be a perfect [...]

Yikes. The Boston Federal Reserve chief Eric Rosengren gave a talk yesterday in R.I. in which he let loose this little gem of a happy thought: the country will need “four to five years of relatively strong growth to bring the unemployment rate down significantly.”
[UPDATE: More cheery news — a Boston Herald report now says [...]

Even though ground was broken yesterday on the Yawkey Commuter Rail Station in Back Bay, the proposed massive Fenway Center mixed-use development lags behind (The Boston Herald reports). Originally envisioned as a $450 million development with retail and up to 330 apartments, funding went south last year thanks to a lawsuit over the (approved) zoning [...]

Abigail Field has an eye-opener of a column today over at the AOL Daily finance site. She takes a swipe at the lenders who were on display today at hearings on Capitol Hill. If you want to learn why we have a foreclosure mess, her column has some great who’s-making-money-off-this facts.
Here’s a snippet:
According to The [...]

The Mass. Association of Realtors announced today that the October Market Index (a market-rating survey filled out by realtors) showed slight month-to-month improvement from September to October — the first gain since April. The MAR’s Price Index showed a slight month-to-month gain as well. But of course numbers are still way off when compared to a [...]

Stop by the Prudential Center today at the Boylston Arcade entrance for a free slice of pie. The nonprofit Community Servings is having their “Pie in the Sky”rel=”nofollow”

The Beacon Hill Times has an interesting article written by Karen Cord Taylor regarding Boston real estate trends:
In her article she quotes Mark Melnik, the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s deputy director of research, who analyzed the numbers coming from the assessing department.
Melnik looked at statistics for Downtown (2000 – 2008). Here are his findings regarding multi-unit [...]