First the good news: The larger U.S. banks are coming back, and the banking system as a whole is slowly getting healthier. According to  FDIC’s latest report.  81% of banks were profitable in the third quarter — the highest percentage since the middle of 2008, before Lehman went bust and everything fell apart. Now the bad [...]

If you are a Boston apartment renter you may find this week’s Forbes magazine of interest. Forbes on 10 cities to go from renting to buying: Whether to rent or buy is a complex decision, but timing is important. In many U.S. cities, the premium to buy–the difference between what you’d pay monthly to own [...]

One of the more interesting numbers to come out yesterday was the cost per marginal homeowner of the $8000 first time homebuyer tax credit. It’s a rather astounding $43,000 per new homeowner. That’s what it costs to lure those that wouldn’t have bought into the housing market. A couple sites in the blogosphere talked about [...]

Click here for a larger version The Mortgage Bankers Association just released its weekly index of applications to buy a home or refinance a loan, and the numbers aren’t good: it fell last week by 19 percent — the biggest plummet since February. As you can see from the above chart, applications have fallen by [...]

After all the mortgage fraud, foreclosures and Countrywide did you know that if you go to a mortgage broker he is not bound to work in the best interests of the Borrower? It’s is hard to believe but there you have it. Senator Schuemer of New York has for several years tried make fiduciary part [...]

Having dinner with a close friend who works for one of the bigger national banks, I asked him the question, “What does the smart person do who is looking to buy a house or a condo in this market….I mean, from a banking point of view, what should they be doing now while the market [...]

It’s funny how the press works. Someone comes up with a new story arc, suddenly you read about in every newspaper, suddenly everyone’s talking about it, then it disappears. This week, it was, “Are buyers holding off buying because they think interest rates will drop, further?” From the Globe: … [E]ven though rates on home [...]

When’s the best time to make an offer on a home? How about 11 AM on December 23? I’ve done that, and my client ended up being the only buyer at the InterContinental to pay less than full-asking by the time they completed construction. If you’re going to ask for 10-20% off full-asking, you’re asking [...]

The following is from the Brookline TAB regarding the Brookline real estate market. According to the real estate tracking firm The Warren Group, the median price for single-family homes in Brookline in August was $915,000, down from nearly $1.5 million just last year. Median condo prices in August fell to $397,000 from $422,500 last year. [...]

Here’s the way the $7,500 new homebuyers’ credit works (I am not a tax accountant or tax attorney, so do not rely on this information in any way shape or form.) If you haven’t bought a home before, you will be able to take a $7,500 tax credit when you file your 1040 next year. [...]