Interest rates are still historically low. But they’ve been starting to head back up recently, perhaps never again reaching the lows we saw earlier this year. You’ve been warned. Ah, percentages, percentages, percentages. File under: Hello 4 and 5 percent rates?

From Bloomberg, proving once again that we’re now experiencing a pretty darn strong recovery in the housing market: The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values increased 10.9 percent from March 2012, the biggest 12-month gain since April 2006, after advancing 9.4 percent in February, a report showed today in New York. The median projection of 30 [...]

The potential sale of the most expensive home on the US market is being closely watched as a possible harbinger of hot markets to come. This humble little ocean-front cottage is located in Greenwich, Conn.

Well, all we can say is: OMG. Bloomberg has a story about how there’s a housing bubble threat, not to be confused with an actual housing bubble reality, and how it’s a worrisome development. Let’s get this straight: After five years of being in the dumps, the housing market finally bounces back, stronger in the [...]

In case you missed it, American Residential Properties Inc. went public earlier this week, raising $287.7 million from its initial public offering. Keep in mind that ARPI’s business model is to buy single-family homes, then rent them out. That’s it. So far, it has no home investments in Massachusetts (or New England, for that matter). [...]

Here’s a pretty amazing story about one of those securitized packages of crappy subprime mortgages (in this case the MABS-2006-FRE1 bond) sold before last decade’s housing market collapse. Believe it or not, good old MABS-2006-FRE1 is still around — as is one of the original holders of those old crappy mortgages, Stephen Monzione of New [...]

Ken is basically writing about why some homes don’t sell and others do. Normally, this is a subject that could arise at just about any point in either a thriving or struggling housing market. But it’s of particular interest now because there are currently many hot housing markets with high demand and low inventory (not [...]

The NYT has a fun story about an old, handsome, three-story brick building, sitting right in the heart of Greenwich Village and easily worth more than $11 million (and probably much more, based on a recent nearby townhouse sale). Thanks to early 19th Century deed restrictions and a very eccentric owner, the Northern Dispensary building, [...]

There are some really beautiful buildings on the list. Enjoy.

This is cool: Adam Gaffin’s Universal Hub now has a TV version of its indispensable French Toast Alert System for snow storms. What would the world do without the French Toast Alert System? Fyi: The FTAS is now on ‘high‘ — “Heavy snow predicted. Harvey Leonard breaks into huge grin, can’t keep his hands off [...]