March 3, 2010 excerpts from Fed Beige Book:
Residential Real Estate
Home and condo sales continued to show significant year-over-year increases in December 2009, belying concerns that year-over-year declines would recur after the huge sales increases in November that were mainly attributed to the first-time homebuyer tax credit. Part of the continued strength may be due to [...]

It’s not like I would ever say that free money isn’t worth it, especially when it’s a tax credit of up to $8,000. But I still doubt that first-time homebuyers who got their chunk of the housing kick-start are jumping for joy that they won’t be able to e-file come April.
As if it’s not hard [...]

Attorney General Martha Coakley is going after Acton developers who were allegedly “padding their profits” on affordable housing projects. It’s just one case — and it was referred to Coakley by the inspector general’s office. There’s no indication whether the Acton case is part of a larger probe. But there are lots of similar allegatons [...]

Buried in an article in Sunday’s New York Times was an update on Gale International’s One Franklin, née Filene’s building, development project.
As most readers know, the project has been delayed “because of difficulties obtaining credit,” according to the Times.
According to Gale president and chief executive John B Hynes, III, about three-quarters of the 250,000 square [...]

There is a cool building at the corners of Tremont and Charles Street South. It’s the “Church of All Nations” building at 333 Tremont Street, a.k.a., “the Round Building”. (The current-day building was constructed in 1975; prior churches on the site were apparently more ornate. The building before the current one was [...]

Back in the day, the area around North Station was a vast wasteland of government offices and eight-lane highways (remember when you had to go to the Registry on Nashua Street?)
Fast forward, and today the area, re-christened as “the Bulfinch Triangle” is the site of condos, apartment buildings, and hotels … surrounded by a vast [...]

Those worried about a glut in the number of “luxury” condominiums going up around the city have a little less to worry about.
In recent days, developers of two high-profile projects have announced they are cutting residential units from their plans.
Boston Properties, developer of the under-construction Russia Wharf mixed-use project, told the Boston Business Journal they [...]