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Housing
Posted inEconomy, Politics, The Download
Going ‘Freddie’ in Florida
The Republican presidential primary entered a new and brutal phase when it rolled into Florida yesterday, with Mitt Romney going sharply negative on the suddenly re-resurgent Newt Gingrich. Romney is […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
Coakley’s foreclosure gamble
We’ll know as soon as this week whether Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley was right to walk away from a national foreclosure settlement, or whether that decision will leave Bay […]
Posted inEconomy, Education, Politics, The Download
From American Dream to “American Scream”
“Occupy” protesters with tents pitched in city parks and loud marches in scores of US cities have been beating a drum figuratively — and sometimes literally — about the economic […]
Posted inEconomy, Education, Health Care
97.4
the bay state economy expanded by more than 10 percent last decade—8 percent growth on a per capita basis after accounting for inflation. It’s not the Massachusetts Miracle, but given […]
Posted inEconomy
Out of reach
Jeffrey Goldstein lived the American Dream growing up. His father joined the postwar exodus from the city, and got his own piece of land out in the suburbs. Like many […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
40B debate, cont’d
Voters settled the latest battle over the state’s affordable housing law last November when they soundly rejected a ballot question that would have repealed the 42-year-old statute known as Chapter […]
Posted inEconomy, Environment, State House News Service, The Download
The Download: House hunting
Headlines about housing woes are usually followed by tales of low-income families squeezed by the sky-high cost of housing in Greater Boston. But that very difficult reality has obscured a […]
Posted inEconomy
Feds taking aim at real estate fees; BRA seeks guidance
A novel real estate fee long collected by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, and more recently by some private developers, is coming under fire from the federal government.The Federal Housing Finance […]
Posted inOpinion
Jobs held hostage by housing
Like new england Patriots victories, high housing costs became matter of fact in Massachusetts over the last decade. As we rebuild from the Great Recession and the housing bubble that […]
Posted inEconomy
Right to rent slow to catch on
As the sun broke through a bank of gray clouds one recent September morning in Dorchester, a glimmer of hope filled a small group of protestors. A Massachusetts constable had […]
Posted inEconomy
Boston nonprofit helping foreclosure victims
For nearly two years, the federal government has pledged billions of dollars to keep banks from foreclosing on homes—with little result. But while the bailout has faltered and foreclosures have […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
High housing costs still pricing many out
By Paul McMorrow The housing bust has done little to ease the pressure housing costs exert on working families in eastern Massachusetts, a new report from the Urban Land Institute […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion
We need more housing
I participated yesterday in a forum on the connection between housing and the economy held by the Home Builders Association of Massachusetts. The event marked the release of a report demonstrating the […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
Money machine
UPDATE: CommonWealth magazine and Fox 25 Undercover worked together on our special reports on the Boston Redevelopment Authority. For links to the Fox 25 broadcasts, go to Fox Undercover. The […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
City workers tap BRA housing program
UPDATE: One of the benefits of our new website, as well as our new media partnerships, is the ability to have timely updates on stories that appear in CommonWealth magazine. […]
Posted inEconomy
Zeroing in on the BRA
The Boston Redevelopment Authority isn’t easy to write about. The agency wears so many hats (regulator, landlord, banker, developer) and is involved in so many things (city planning, real estate, […]
Posted inEconomy, Education, The Download
More affordable housing not the answer for Gateway Cities
The Bay State's older industrial cities are suffering from weak housing markets and high concentrations of poverty. So does it really make sense to "fix" these cities by adding more […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
Nevada underwater, Bay State relatively dry
The Wall Street Journal reports that nearly one in four American home mortgage holders owe more than their property are worth in today's market. Nationally, 22.6 percent of mortgage holders […]
Posted inEconomy
Foreclosure limbo continues for retiree in Dorchester
the good news for Helen Williams is that two years after receiving an initial foreclosure notice, she hasn’t lost her house. The bad news is that she still doesn’t know […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
Slow housing growth in Mass., but better than Michigan
The Census Bureau has just released its newest estimates of housing units by state, and Massachusetts is pretty far down the list in terms of creating new homes. You can […]
Posted inEconomy
Banks balk at short sales of underwater homes
with banks bleeding red ink under the weight of massive losses on home loans, you would think lenders would be scrambling for every dollar they can squeeze out of the […]