Home prices swoon again

That market downturn, however, was caused by problems in the banking system, the report noted, while the current problems are driven by the mounting number of foreclosures, which show no sign of abating.

"It might be a while before we pull out of the current housing slump," concluded Timothy Warren, CEO of The Warren Group.

Barnstable County experienced a slightly steeper drop in prices over the same period. The median sales value of a single family home on the Cape last month was $345,000, down nearly 12 percent from the March 2007 price of $369,000.

Boston company seeks to buy Marine Home Center

A Boston-based real estate company has expressed interest in acquiring Marine Home Center, the island's largest building-supply, housewares and home-furnishings business, the second such overture from an off-island group in five months.

Intercontinental Real Estate Corporation has sent Marine Home Center a letter of intent, Marine Home Center owner Denis Gazaille confirmed Tuesday, and both sides are exploring a potential deal, he said.

Intercontinental's chairman and CEO is Peter Palandjian, one of the investors in the Nantucket Dreamland Foundation, which purchased the historic Dreamland Theater last year.

Longwood Towers to hit auction block

Nearly 200 luxury condos will hit the auction block next month at Longwood Towers in another big blow to the Boston area’s battered real estate market.

The foreclosure auction, at which 196 units in the Brookline development will be sold as a single block, is the largest of its kind to date during the current real estate market downturn.

The lender, New York-based iStar Financial, plans to bid on the property at the auction through a subsidiary. If successful, the firm would then complete renovation work on Longwood’s three residential high-rises, the company said in a statement, where units are priced anywhere from the low $300,000 range to $1.5 million.

Title insurers face criticism over pricing

Boston Property - The price of title insurance, a mandatory surcharge on every Massachusetts mortgage loan, more than doubled over the last decade. The average borrower last year paid about $1,500 at closing.

A chorus of critics, including state regulators and members of Congress, say the title insurance industry overcharges its customers. The industry says it offers a valuable service at a fair price, and it has opposed reforms with considerable success. But there is still an easy way to cut the cost of insurance in half.

Boston’s commercial real estate market

Boston real estate - Rents for the Boston area’s most exclusive towers and buildings are cooling in a sign the red-hot office leasing market may have peaked.

After several quarters of rising rates, the average asking rent for Class A towers and buildings in Greater Boston fell 45 cents to just over $40 per square foot, commercial real estate firm Richards Barry Joyce & Partners reports.

That comes after 18 months in which rents for top towers and buildings spiked, jumping nearly 30 percent since the end of 2005, the firm finds in its first quarter market report.

Demand for office space stays strong south of Boston

Boston’s southern suburbs have become the most popular new address for corporate tenants in 2008.

The south suburban region led all of Greater Boston’s office markets in newly leased space during the first quarter. Vacancies fell as tenants signed up for more than 184,000 square feet of office holdings during the quarter, according to data compiled by real estate brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle.

“The South Shore continues to get activity from tenants who need big blocks of space and Red Line access,” said James Elcock, an executive vice president at Colliers Meredith & Grew.

Local commercial office market is holding steady

Two new reports offered some reassuring news about the Greater Boston commercial real estate market for research space and office towers.

Despite a faltering national economy, leasing fundamentals held steady in the Greater Boston office market, Boston real estate firm Colliers Meredith & Grew said in a first-quarter report.

The vacancy rate remained flat since year-end 2007, at 14.3 percent, and down from 16.3 percent at the end of the first quarter a year ago, the report said.