"Green" may be the most elastic word of the new century. Once signifying a color midway between blue and yellow, “green” has morphed to refer to anything that could possibly […]
Housing
Posted inEconomy, The Download
Home builders deem Worcester “80 percent affordable”
The Worcester area has the most affordable housing stock in New England, according to new data from the National Association of Home Builders. The group's Housing Opportunity Index (HOI) estimated that 79.5 […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
Housing starts hit “record” low in 2008
Housing construction in the US hit an "all-time low" in December, according to new data from the National Association of Home Builders. (The definition of "all-time" is not clear; there […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
Worcester wants struggling artists
Despite the bad economy, Worcester is apparently proceeding apace in its bid to become a magnet for the creative class (or, in Michigan lingo, a cool city). The Daily Worcesteria […]
Posted inEconomy
Emptied nests
Failed mortgages are almost always more common in lower-income areas, but in the current housing crisis, all of the Bay State’s foreclosure hotspots are in communities with relatively low home […]
Posted inEconomy
Broken homes
Helen Williams, of Dorchester, thought she was getting “a good deal”but is now facing foreclosure. Helen Williams certainly doesn’t know anything about credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, or mortgage-backed […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
A foreclosure milestone on the West Coast
Tuesday, November 18, 2008 If you bought a house in Southern California last month, the previous owners probably didn’t leave willingly.
Posted inEconomy
Statistically Significant
Illustrations by Travis Foster FORECLOSURE CRISIS FLOODS DOUBLE-DECKERSThe current foreclosure wave in Massachusetts has knocked down a disproportionate number of multifamily homes, at least compared with the housing market crash […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
Montana left standing in housing collapse
The number of new housing units built in the US was down by one quarter from the year before, according to recent data from the Census Bureau, depicted on the […]
Posted inEconomy, Environment, The Download
Housing slump brings together Detroit and Las Vegas
USA Today has charts on the slump in housing sales and prices. We think we have it bad in Massachusetts, but the number of home sales fell by a relatively […]
Posted inEconomy
House hikes
UPDATE: Get town-level data on average property-tax bills for single-family households in 2000 and 2009 as an Excel spreadsheet or PDF. Note that the state’s Division of Local services does not […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
The subprime virus
Writing for the Atlantic, Matthew Yglesias points out that the subprime mortgage crisis is beginning to affect people who have the misfortune to live near people who made unfortunate decisions: […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
Wonder condos in Natick
Last week the New York Times reported on the 215 luxury condos going up next to a Natick mall, on the site of an old Wonder Bread factory:Applying the lifestyle-center […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
More heads need more roofs
Housing has become scarcer in the dark-colored states on the above map, with new residents moving in (or being born) faster than contractors can put up houses. (Click […]
Posted inEconomy
Not-so-prime spots
UPDATE: For more recent foreclosure data, go to the Head Count in our Winter 2009 issue.home foreclosures in Massachusetts continued to climb this spring—up 40 percent in May compared with […]
Posted inEconomy, Education
AN OPPORTUNE TIME FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES
Once I got past the inflammatory cover headline (“College Try: Why Aren’t Mass. Community Colleges Making the Grade?” CW, Spring ’07), I was glad to see CommonWealth present such a […]
Posted inEconomy
Deeds that keep houses affordable may keep neighborhoods poor
INTRO TEXT in a state short on affordable housing, it might seem odd that housing advocates are calling for policy changes that could eventually bring more market-rate units to poor […]
Posted inEconomy, State House News Service
On the Cape new homes for workers go begging
INTRO TEXT sandwich attorney jonathan Fitch doesn’t like the term “workforce housing.” He thinks it’s “gimmicky.” All he and his wife Nancy, who have been active on land-use issues in […]
Posted inEconomy
Healey drops into a dispute over a homeless shelter in Worcester
Fall 2005 Lt. Gov.Healey at the controversial PIP Shelter in Worcester. The tour of the PIP Shelter on Main Street in Worcester on July 26 starts out as a routine, […]
Posted inEconomy
Growing pains
A long about June, the “housing bubble” became big news nationally. In the same week, a cover story in Time (HOME $WEET HOME) focused attention on the “blistering” US real […]
Posted inEconomy
The state considers carrots for smart growth
With Massachusetts home prices continuing to soar, the housing crisis has begun to sound like the old Mark Twain saw about the weather: Everybody talks about it, but nobody does […]
Posted inEconomy
The death and life of American cities
The Boston Renaissance: Race, Space and Economic Change in an American Metropolis By Barry Bluestone and Mary Huff Stevenson Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2000, 461 pages Comeback Cities: A […]