The Boston-based publisher of real estate information reported that the median sale price for a single-family home fell 11.6 percent from $345,000 in 2007 to $305,000 in 2008, a five-year low.
The numbers get more stark if one compares the median price of homes that sold in December of 2007 - $325,000 - to the median of those that sold in December of 2008 - $267,250, dropping 17.8 percent.
Bay State home prices are now 14 percent lower than their 2005 peak.
The 34 storey office tower has approximately 94,500 square meters of rentable space, plus an underground parking garage for 309 vehicles. The Class A office tower atop Beacon Hill in Boston's Financial District is 96 percent leased.
The building was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and completed in 1973. Since then One Beacon Street received additional capital improvements and upgrades. The building was the first to receive the LEED-EB (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – Existing Building) Silver Certification given out by the United States Green Building Council in 2008. It also received the EnergyStar label in 2007 and 2008 from the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
The transaction is a co-investment together with a subsidiary of a fund of the Boston-based real estate firm Beacon Capital Partners, LLC. The 50 percent joint venture follows Allianz's recent buy in the US: a 25 percent stake of 1301 Avenue of the Americas in the heart of Midtown Manhattan in a joint venture structure together with the Paramount Group, New York.
Developer John Rosenthal wants to build what would be the state's largest solar installation atop one of the buildings in his sprawling development along the Massachusetts Turnpike near Fenway Park.
The solar farm would be installed on the roof of a parking garage that Rosenthal would build over the turnpike by Brookline Avenue. Altogether, Rosenthal's proposed One Kenmore development is a five-building complex that includes a 27-story residential tower, 367,000 square feet of offices, retail stores, and 1,290 parking spaces.
Rosenthal said the solar farm could produce up to 450 kilowatts of electricity, enough to power about 100 of the 330 apartments he wants to build on land between Brookline Avenue and Beacon Street.
As 2009 gets under way, Realtors on Cape Ann prefer to look to the future rather than rehash a year one broker described as “challenging, challenging, challenging.”
The overall good news for this year, says Terry Sullivan of Re/Max Advantage Real Estate in Beverly, is that “Essex County tends to outperform the rest of the state.”
In addition, brokers are hopeful that historically low interest rates (the 5-percent mark, a rate that hasn’t been seen for several years, is fast approaching) and the availability of mortgage money will bring buyers back into the market. “There is going to be a lot of pent-up demand, so I think it is going to be a strong year,” says Ann Olivo of J. Barrett & Company in Gloucester.
According to a new report from RE/MAX of New England, "home foreclosures will continue to significantly impact the New England real estate market in 2009, creating opportunities for first-time buyers and real estate investors, but keeping home prices at or near 2008 levels."
remax109.jpg Average sales prices in Massachusetts dropped by 9 percent, from $398,724 in 2007 to $363,102 in 2008, said a report titled "The 2009 New England Housing Market Outlook."
But low mortgage rates and lower home prices could usher in some hopeful signs by the second half of 2009, the report added.
According to several Boston commercial real estate brokers, Boston Scientific is trying to sell two key properties in Massachusetts - a 316,000-square-foot warehouse it once planned to convert to office space, located on Superior Drive in Natick near its current headquarters, and the company's former headquarters in Watertown, a 200,000- to 250,000-square-foot complex once used as a mill. The company is also vacating as much as 90,000 square feet of leased office space at Cochituate Place in Natick, the brokers said.
Boston Scientific spokesman Paul Donovan declined to comment, but the company appears to be shedding space for two reasons. First, it added roughly 500,000 square feet of office space in Marlborough in 2006, making some of its older real estate holdings redundant. Then, last year, Boston Scientific was forced to cut costs to cope with flagging sales of drug-coated stents used to prop open arteries and implantable defibrillators used to regulate heart rates, its two major markets; heavy debt from its $27 billion acquisition of Guidant Corp. in 2006; and Food and Drug Administration restrictions on its ability to launch products. As part of its cost-cutting, the company has reduced its worldwide workforce 8 percent, or 2,300 jobs, including scores of jobs in Massachusetts.
