Could the Trump name one day be emblazoned on Boston’s skyline?

Donald Trump’s company confirmed it’s been scouting the Hub for possible real estate development deals. Donald Trump Jr., son of The Donald, has had a number of meetings in Boston with local real estate developer Bruce Percelay to explore opportunities, sources confirmed. The junior Trump is executive vice president of development and acquisitions for the Trump Organization. Rhona Graff, assistant to Donald Trump Sr., confirmed the billionaire’s company has set its sights on Boston. “They explored most of the high-end properties on the market,” Graff said. “It’s very, very early in the process.”

Petitions to foreclose, auctions up again

There were 2,185 petitions to foreclose filed in Massachusetts Land Court, up 66.5 percent from July 2006. In June 2007, the Warren Group reported that the number of foreclosure filings by lenders was 2,309. Auction announcement rose 130.2 percent to 1,128 in July 2007, the Warren Group reported. Banks and lending companies scheduled 1,367 auctions of foreclosed Massachusetts homes in June.

Berkshire County Real Estate

Edward Joseph Stefanik, Edward J. Stefanik and Susan E. Corah sold property at 23 Anthony St., Adams, for $147,000 to Terry A. Leclair. Brigit Connerton sold property at 12 Clifford Lane, Adams, for $80,000 to Kelly F. Rice. Ernest F. Wellington and Cheryl A. Wellington sold property at 22 Crandall St., Adams, for $190,000 to Denise R. Simon.
Diane M. Tucker sold property at 66 Henderson Road, Clarksburg, for $140,000 to Scott R. Smith and Patricia L. Galusha. Spring Horne sold property at 55-77 Carson Ave., Unit 11, Clarksburg, for $71,600 to Wendy A. Burda.

Short sales of homes on rise

The couple found a solution to their dilemma -- a "short sale," in which a lender agrees to accept less than the total amount remaining on the mortgage, allowing the homeowner to sell the property at a lower price and pay off the small er loan balance.
As foreclosures soar nationwide, lenders are more eager to negotiate short sales to avoid the expense and hassles of seizing a delinquent customer's property. Foreclosing on a house and selling it in an auction costs $50,000, on average, in New England, and that amount is on top of the funds the lender needs to pay off the loan itself.

Red Sox owner pays $16M for mansion

Red Sox owner John Henry probably wouldn’t trade teams with Frank McCourt, but he’s shelling out millions for the Los Angeles Dodgers owner’s Brookline mansion. Henry has agreed to pay a near record $16 million for McCourt’s Georgian Revival estate in Boston’s leafy suburb, according to real estate records and an executive close to the deal. The mega-sale, which closed this week, is one of the most expensive in Bay State history. Still, despite the big numbers, Henry got a relative bargain. McCourt first put his estate on the market years ago for more than $22 million. It then sat unsold as the once-hot real estate market went south, prompting McCourt to drop the price more than once.

Home prices in Massachusetts fell for the 15th straight month

The median price for a single-family home has dropped 4.6 percent, to $323,000, since July 2006, Warren Group, a Boston real estate and publishing firm, said yesterday. July's sales volume increased 1.5 percent from a year ago, but analysts said it was a short-term rise brought on by a surge of parents buying homes prior to the new school year in September. The median price for a condominium rose less than 1 percent, to $280,000,"People who are ready, willing, and able to buy a house can't do it because they can't find a mortgage," said Timothy Warren Jr., Warren Group's chief executive. "That's got to be bad."

A real estate agency from Brockton offers much more

Many years ago Manny Goncalves decided he wanted to start a business in Brockton that would serve the city's growing Cape Verdean population. So, in 1987, he opened Goncalves Real Estate, which he now runs with his wife and daughter. The storefront business in Brockton's Campello section is actually much more than a real estate agency. Goncalves offers one-stop shopping for the Cape Verdean community that includes help with immigration issues, tax preparation, and health, life, and auto insurance, as well as real estate.
"I saw a need to assist our people," Goncalves, 63, said of his small company. "People come to this country for a better life to buy a house, to buy a car. I said we should have an agency to help our people."

Dodgers owner sells Brookline estate

If you thought the real estate tumble bruised your home's resale value, it can't quite compare to the hurting Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt took on his Brookline estate. The developer and construction tycoon first listed the 18,000 square foot three-story, eight-bedroom, seven-bathroom Brookline mansion for $22 million. The house sits on nearly three acres surrounded by multimillion-dollar homes, but most $10 million or more below the most recent asking price of $15.75 million.

Tufts Health Plan pays $85.5m for Watertown headquarters

The Art Deco structure was built in 1931 as a service center for Western Electric.
Tufts has leased space in it since 1998, and this year said it was consolidating its offices and moving 475 employees from Waltham to Watertown. "Buying this building signals our long-term commitment to the marketplace," said James Roosevelt Jr., chief executive of Tufts Health Plan, in a statement. "This purchase will provide us with millions of dollars of savings over the next several years, which will enable us to further lower administrative costs."

Mortgage game fallout

Massachusetts businesses know the impact of a credit crunch. During the recession of the 1990s, when New England banks collapsed under the weight of bad real estate loans, even well-established businesses couldn't find credit to expand -- or just survive. The credit crunch deepened that recession, the state's worst in the post-World War II period. Mortgage companies now have less concern for the borrowers' ability to make monthly payments, since they are selling the mortgage anyway.

The incentive for them is to make as many mortgages as they can. That incentive gave birth to subprime mortgages, interest-only mortgages, adjustable rate mortgages and other products that house-hungry but cash-poor families have jumped on. Rising home prices, cashed out in the form of home equity loans, helped the economy ride out the bursting of the tech bubble in the first part of this decade. But when real estate inflation slowed and interest rates rose, the results were predictable. Foreclosures and bankruptcies are up, mortgage lenders are in trouble, and so are all the companies, mutual funds and individuals who invested in mortgages.

Purcell Sells 'Boston Herald' Property

Following word last week that Boston Herald owner Patrick J. Purcell was considering outsourcing printing of his newspaper and selling its Herald Square property, the paper today reports that Purcell is working with a developer for future use of the site.

The Herald publisher sold the building and 6.6-acre site to a venture he owns in partnership with National Development, based near Boston. No sale price was given.

The Herald may remain at its current site for several years. Purcell has been talking to Dow Jones & Co. about the possibility of the Wall Street Journal publisher taking over printing the Herald at its Chicopee, Mass., plant (E&P Online, July 30). In a statement, Purcell said the Herald in future must be produced "more efficiently than is possible in our current location."

Real estate recovery slow as sellers lower expectations

The condominium market in both towns has been more volatile, both in terms of the average asking and selling price and the average number days on the market. In Acton, the average asking price for a condo has stayed fairly constant around $300,000, but the average selling price has varied widely, at times exceeding the average asking price. Condos were on the market for an average of 127 days in Acton, down from 270 in March. In Boxborough, the average asking price for a condo has risen to $191,000, up from $170,000 in March, and $58,000 above the average selling price. The average number of days on the market for a condo in Boxborough peaked at 227 in April and is now 118.

Boston Commercial Market at Mid-Year: Investors Fly High as Rents Reach Record Level

Wall Street investors like The Blackstone Group, Broadway Partners, Normandy Real Estate Partners, and Beacon Capital Partners have been enjoying quite a ride in Boston, as rents and vacancies have reached respective highs and lows not seen in more than six years: Average asking Class A office rents in Boston have climbed from $47 per square foot in the first quarter to $52/SF at the close of Q2, while office vacancy has dropped to 10%. More dramatically, some high-rise asking rents in the top floors have reached $90/SF, and vacancy in the Financial District and Back Bay for Class A space is about 6%.

As less choice inventory is available, many companies are looking at Class B buildings downtown, but rates in that market are climbing almost as quickly, up from $35/SF last quarter to $38/SF today.

Dictating these terms, Wall Street investors have swooped into Boston and other metro markets nationwide, aiming to gobble up prime portfolios, make a relatively quick killing, and then fly into other feeding grounds. By passing along rent increases of 30% to 50% to newly vulnerable tenants, it seems that that have reached their objectives. But the investment giants may be leaving faster than they had anticipated, as the landlord market appears to be cresting.

Fool’s gold can’t buy prosperity: lessons from the casino debate

Martha Bebinger asked me to comment on whether instate casinos might help the commonwealth recapture state tax revenues that, courtesy of Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, currently go to Connecticut. I told her that Massachusetts municipal officials were extremely concerned about whether casino revenues might end up being used for purposes other than local aid. I said that we were also worried that the state’s casino-related revenues might not be as great as advertised – and I reminded her that casinos bring significant social costs to the communities that host them.

Tedeschi real estate is sold

ROCKLAND - Tedeschi Realty Corp. has wrapped up the sale of the bulk of its commercial real estate to a Denver company in one of the biggest real estate transactions in Southeastern Massachusetts.

Rockland-based Tedeschi Realty said it completed the sale of 22 properties on Wednesday, and will transfer three other properties in the next few weeks. Tedeschi Realty is selling the entire 1.9 million-square-foot portfolio to Dividend Capital Total Realty Trust for $377 million.

Dividend Capital initially reported in June that it would spend $392 million for the entire 26-property portfolio that Tedeschi Realty had put on the market. But the price has since been reduced because Tedeschi Realty decided to keep one of the properties - the nearly 90,000-square-foot Middleboro Square plaza anchored by a Stop & Shop off Route 28 in Middleboro.

Local home sales above average

While a nationwide housing slump continues to cause concern for the economy, Shrewsbury’s housing market, however, appears to be bucking some of the national and regional trends.According to the National Association of Realtors’ numbers released last week, the sale of total existing homes dropped by 3.8 percent in June.

Sales declines were recorded in all areas of the country, but the most drastic drop was seen in the Northeast, which fell by 7.3 percent.According to data provided by the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, single-family home sales increased approximately 1 percent in June 2007 in Shrewsbury compared to June 2006, rising to 52 sales from 47 while the median home price rose by $46,000, from $432,000 in 2006 to $478,000 currently