HOLLISTON — In an effort to help low-income families afford homes in Holliston, the town is refurbishing a foreclosed condominium to designate it as affordable housing, officials said yesterday. more »

What makes for a great piece of retirement real estate? Polls among retirees say the following seven items.

With more unemployed Americans choosing to retire rather than continue their frustrating job searches, many retirees are currently in the process of downsizing and looking for a new retirement rental lease or piece of real estate. Based on surveys of retirees, the following are cited as the seven most important components of retirement real estate. more »

This might seem surprising, until you think about how price changes affect consumer behavior

When you think of places where real estate is in high demand these days, places like Manhattan and Washington, D.C. probably come to mind. Certainly, the sunbelt regions decimated by the housing bubble won’t be on the list. And yet, according to a new report by real estate listing website Trulia, the opposite is true. more »

MERCED, Calif. — Heather Alarab, a junior at the University of California, Merced, and Jill Foster, a freshman, know that their sudden popularity has little to do with their sparkling personalities, intelligence or athletic prowess. more »

NEW YORK—Four men who own a large chunk of the New York cityscape got together on Tuesday to talk business.

At the annual Real Estate Expo held at Columbia University, John Catsimatidis, chairman and CEO of the Red Apple Group; Richard Mack, North American CEO of Area Property Partners; Steven Witkoff, founder and CEO of the Witkoff Group; and Richard Dansereau, head of Investor Relations for Stonehenge Partners Inc., discussed their investments and their overall projections for real estate trends in the city. more »

Grubb & Ellis | Harrison & Bates reports the following deals:

11700 Jeff Davis, LLC purchased 26,990 square feet at 11700 Jefferson Davis Highway in Chesterfield from Stewart Lee Robertson for $1,500,000. more »

Somerville — Opponents to Somerville Community Corporation’s planned affordable housing development came out in force at a community meeting Monday night.

SCC is in a purchase and sales agreement with the Boys & Girls Club to buy the club’s building on Washington Street, which could create around 40 units of affordable housing plus some ground-floor retail outside of Union Square. The specifics of the project have not been determined yet. more »

MCLEAN, Va., Nov. 17, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Freddie Mac (OTC: FMCC) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey(® (PMMS®), showing average fixed mortgage rates changing little and remaining at or near 4.00 percent for the past three weeks amid positive economic and consumer confidence data. The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage, a popular refinancing choice, averaged 3.31 percent for the week. more »

La Jolla, CA.—-The Bay Area housing market logged another month of lackluster activity in October as some of the recent signs of incremental market improvement began to fade. High-end sales dropped markedly, likely the result of changes to “conforming loan” limits, a real estate information service reported. more »

In response to the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act of 2009 (HEARTH Act), enacted into law on May 20, 2009, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published two sets of regulations today. The first are interim regulations on the Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) Program with conforming amendments to the Consolidated Plan regulations, and the second are final regulations on the definition of homelessness used for HUD’s homeless assistance grant programs. more »