Avon, MA. 02322

• 1 Family

• 2 Bedrooms

• 1 Full Bath

• GLA = 1,008 Sq. Ft.

• Lot = .72 acres

• Heat – Forced hot water/Oil

• Exterior – Vinyl siding

• Built in 1920

• Book: 19826

• Page: 279

TERMS: Five Thousand Dollars ($ 5,000) will be required to be paid by certified or bank check at the time and place of sale as earnest money. The balance is to be paid by certified or bank check within thirty (30) days of the date of the sale and shall be deposited in escrow with the Law Office of John E. McCluskey, Esq., P.C. 932 Main Street, Brockton, Massachusetts. A deed will be provided to purchaser for recording upon receipt in fulll of the purchase price. Other terms will be announced at the sale.

Click here for more information:

http://www.callahanre.com/flyer151easthigh.pdf

Irvine, Calif. — A $1M foreclosed Weston, Mass. house is among 60+ foreclosures that will be auctioned Saturday March 27 at Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel by Real Estate Disposition, the nation’s leading real estate auction company.

The Weston property is at 193 Boston Post Rd is a 4,900 square foot 14-room property. Here is a link to the property – http://www.auction.com/property.php?auctionID=H-152&itemID=178249&venueId=1057&start=0&flgRemoved=0&flgEscrowed=0.

“This is a great opportunity for a homebuyer or investor to purchase a beautiful property in a highly deserable part of the state and country,” says REDC CEO Jeff Frieden.

Here are some of the other best potential deals in the auction:

300 Raleigh Tavern Ln North Andover, MA 01845 — 3219 sq ft 10-room property previously valued at $700K that has a starting bid of $119K (http://www.auction.com/property.php?auctionID=H-152&start=0&itemID=178250&srch=&flgRemoved=0&flgEscrowed=0).

2 Village Ln South Hamilton, MA 01982 — 1776 sq st 6 room house previously valued to $415K, starting bid $99K (http://www.auction.com/property.php?auctionID=H-152&start=0&itemID=176507&srch=&flgRemoved=0&flgEscrowed=0).

To see all the properties, go to REDC’s web site, www.Auction.com.

The auction is part of REDC’s record 125 auctions in 71 days. The company has auctioned a U.S.- leading 7,350 properties for $415 million so far this year.

“2010 is the year of the foreclosure,” Frieden says, referring to the three to seven million foreclosures that are hitting the market this year, doubling the number from 2009. “The market is white hot. The demand is there along with the inventory.”-

The dismal state of foreclosures in New England and the U.S. is staggering. The State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group, which is made up of state banking regulators and attorneys general, released a report that reports, “Despite efforts of servicers, homeowners, and the government, the foreclosure crisis continues to worsen. These signs point to more foreclosures in 2010 than in 2009.”

In response to the millions of foreclosures hitting the market, REDC ramped up operations to auction bank-owned residential homes and condos, commercial buildings and notes in more than 47 states, both in live auctions and online.

Thousands of these foreclosures will change hands through REDC’s auctions, which directly impacts the local and national economy by helping to minimize the ramifications of another economic crash. REDC auctions have emerged as a hot new trend in home buying and investing, whether it’s residential, commercial real estate or notes.

Since its launch in 1990, REDC has helped tens of thousands of families and individuals purchase homes for affordable prices through its unique auction process, establishing the company as the global leader in real estate auction marketing.

“REDC’s real estate auctions have gained tremendous appeal and popularity among buyers and sellers in today’s market,” Frieden says. “In fact, the real estate auction industry now plays a major role in property sales in the U.S. As a result, REDC has helped make auctions a preferred choice over conventional, time-consuming and expensive real estate sales methods.”

REDC also conducts commercial and notes auctions, which can also be reviewed at www.Auction.com. REDC’s headquarters are in Irvine, California with offices in Dallas, New York and London.

GE Business Financial Services Inc. is foreclosing on the 5-year-old hotel and an adjacent unfinished restaurant building after owner Jiten Hotel Management Inc. defaulted on a $16.2 million mortgage.

“The loan matured, and they didn’t pay it,” said Marcia Robinson, the Boston attorney handling the sale. “That’s the biggest default that you can have.”

Based in Brockton, Jiten owns 15 hotels in five states.

Jiten CEO Nayan Patel said he’s been trying to negotiate with GE Financial, but the lending climate is difficult.

“GE doesn’t want to extend (the loan), and nobody would finance it,” Patel said. “I can’t cover the mortgage.”

The credit crunch is hitting hotel owners across the country, according to Matt Arrants, managing director of Pinnacle Advisory Group, a Boston hospitality consulting firm.

“We’re starting to see more and more of this now, where lenders are taking properties back and selling them,” he said. “There’s a lot of money out there looking for deals. They’re buying at a discount, so it’s easier to get financing if the price is right. Some buyers are even going all-cash.”

Affluent towns including Nantucket, Concord, Weston, and Winchester, saw triple or quadruple digit percent increases in foreclosure deeds during the first 11 months of the year, according to data released yesterday by Warren Group, a private company that tracks real estate data.

The numbers are tiny to be sure – 19 homes in Nantucket and six in Concord – a problem dwarfed by the hundreds of homes lost to foreclosure in cities like Springfield, Worcester, and Brockton. However, the increasing problem in costlier towns presents evidence that the battered economy and an 8.8 percent unemployment rate is leaving no community untouched, many housing experts agree.

“The wealthier communities are experiencing maybe for the first time the hardship that low-income and minority communities have been feeling for many years,’’ said Bruce Marks, chief executive of the Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America, a nonprofit advocacy organization based in Jamaica Plain.

Statewide, the number of foreclosure deeds, which represent a completed foreclosure, dropped 26.8 percent to 8,409 between January and November compared with the same time last year, according to Warren Group. But petitions, the first step in a foreclosure process, increased 28.2 percent this year to 25,868 – a sign that the foreclosure crisis has yet to ebb.

Many communities that were hardest hit by foreclosures over the last several years saw the problem slow in 2009. For example, in Worcester the number of foreclosure deeds fell to 445 between January and November, a 36.8 percent drop compared with the same time last year. Dorchester, the Boston neighborhood most plagued by streets of boarded-up and abandoned buildings, saw foreclosure deeds fall 40.5 percent to 352 this year.

Dean Baker, codirector of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., said that poorer neighborhoods most affected by the subprime market and predatory lending probably have seen the worst wave of the foreclosure crisis, which occurred in 2007 and 2008. Most vulnerable homeowners already have lost their homes. In wealthier neighborhoods, residents are now being affected by the economy and housing price declines that can wipe out all their equity, he said.

“You have record high rates of unemployment for people with college degrees,’’ Baker said.

In Nantucket, where median home prices hover at about $1.25 million, 19 homes were lost to foreclosure during the first 11 months of the year, up 1,800 percent from the one recorded foreclosure in 2008, according to Warren Group. Foreclosure petitions also jumped to 75, a 102.7 percent increased compared with the same period in 2008.

Weston, where median home prices reach $1.2 million, saw a rise in foreclosure deeds between January and November of this year to six compared with two during the same time last year. Seventeen homeowners went into foreclosure this year, representing a 41 percent increase from the year before, according to Warren data.

Virginia Pratt, a foreclosure prevention counselor at the nonprofit, Jamaica Plain-based Ecumenical Social Action Committee, said she gets more calls from distressed homeowners in the suburbs. She said many with incomes of about $150,000 talk about losing their jobs or having a health complication that limits their income. They no longer can access credit to help them through lean times and aren’t able to cut costs enough.

“The lower income doesn’t support the higher income lifestyle,’’ she said. “It’s people being stuck.’’

Statistics regarding foreclosures in Massachusetts for the month of October were a mixed bag of news, according to Timothy M. Warren Jr., CEO of The Warren Group.

According to the latest report released by the Warren Group, a provider of real estate data in New England, foreclosures in Massachusetts rose nearly 30 percent in October compared to September, but on a year-to-year basis the number of foreclosures in October 2009 dipped, with 85 fewer than the same time last year.

While the number of new foreclosures initiated in the state in October dropped 9 percent from September, these same results created an 11 percent increase from the same period last year.

“The number of foreclosures in October was actually the third highest so far this year. But the pace of foreclosures is still lower than it was last spring and summer when there was an average of nearly 1,200 foreclosures a month,” Warren said. “Still, a key concern is the level of petitions to foreclose, which indicate how many distressed property owners are at risk of foreclosure in Massachusetts. Lenders have filed an average of over 2,500 foreclosure petitions a month since May.”

As the first step in the state’s foreclosure process, petitions to foreclose decreased 9.1 percent in October, compared to September. While month-to-month numbers were down, there was an 11.2 percent increase in petitions to foreclose this October compared to October 2008. Year-to-date petitions to foreclose have surged 27 percent. Due to high delinquency rates, unemployment, and income issues many homeowners are facing, Warren said he fears this initial step of foreclosure will increase in the next few months.

Completed foreclosures, referred to as foreclosure deeds, rose 29.6 percent from September to October this year, but compared to October 2008, this number decreased 8.5 percent, the Warren Group said. The 7,707 foreclosure deeds recorded in Massachusetts so far this year show a 27.3 percent decline from the 10,606 completed foreclosures in 2008.

On the auction front, announcements increased 38 percent in October compared to September of this year and surged 57.3 percent from the same period last year. With a total of 15,273 auction announcements so far in 2009, numbers are down 9.8 percent compared the 16,930 in 2008.

According to the Warren Group, a number of factors have helped temper foreclosure activity in Massachusetts. Most noted of these factors were federal efforts to offer loan modifications to troubled borrowers and a Massachusetts Land Court decision forcing some lenders to hold back on foreclosure proceedings until proper mortgage assignments have been made. Additionally, a state law went into effect last year which slowed the rate of foreclosure petition filings by requiring lenders to give delinquent borrowers 90 days to catch up with missed payments before starting a foreclosure proceeding.

Just as all the hoopla over the extension of the home buyer tax credit starts to fade, along comes the The Mortgage Bankers Association to bring the market back to reality.

One in seven loans is now in foreclosure, up from one in ten at the start of the year. It’s the highest on record since the MBA began track this stuff in 1972.

And forget about all those goofy subprime loans. The driver now is the ever rising jobless rate, which has topped 10 percent and may top 11 percent or higher before it settles out.

Foreclosures on prime mortgages accounted for 33 percent of all foreclosures last quarter, up from 21 percent at the start of the year, the group reports.

The mortgage bankers project rising foreclosures well into 2010, not leveling off unitl the jobless rate starts to moderate.

And the local numbers don’t look much better, either.

The number of homes seized and sold by lenders, the last step in a months long process, has actually been on the decline so far this year in Massachusetts.

But the number of initial foreclosure notifications sent out by lenders kicking off the process is up, and up dramatically, according to local real estate data tracker the Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.

Initial filings were up 11 percent in October over October 2008 and have risen 27 percent year to date.

Here again rising unemployment, not foolish subprime loans, appears to be driving the increase.

It certainly helps back up Rep. Barney Frank’s case that we need to start thinking about emergency loans to jobless homeowners.

And the foreclosure debate is clearly shifting now, from one about personal responsibility to the fallout of a brutal recession.

That’s my take. How about you?

The auction was held by Helaba, the German bank that holds the first mortgage on the property. Helaba itself ended up buying the site with a bid of $42.5 million.The only other bidder was the real estate investment firm The Bulfinch Companies of Needham, which offered $26 million.

The 119-acre property, which fronts Route 128, was owned by Watch City Development LLC, a joint venture between Polaroid and The Related Companies of New York, which intends to build a 1.7 million-square-foot office and retail complex at the site. Polaroid declared bankruptcy last year, and now that Helaba has bought the site, it’s unclear whether Watch City will be able to work out a deal to proceed with the development.

Officials from Polaroid did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Related declined to comment, as did Barry Braunstein, a lawyer representing Heleba.

Waltham Mayor Jeannette McCarthy expressed relief that the property wasn’t scooped up by another developer. ‘‘I was pleased that the bank is the one that got it,’’ she said. ‘‘It’s not somebody completely new.’’

McCarthy said the site is ‘‘absolutely’’ important to Waltham, simply by virtue of its size. ‘‘It will have a major impact on the city no matter what goes in there,’’ she said.

Whoever develops the land, McCarthy said, should honor four commitments Watch City agreed to as part of the proposal: to make $45 million in traffic improvements, to preserve 20 acres of forest on the property, to convert a rail bed into a recreation trail, and to set aside part of the site for a potential direct connection to Route 128. She thinks the site can still be developed as planned at some point, despite the current weak real estate market, McCarthy said.

David Begelfer, CEO of the commercial real estate trade association NAIOP Massachusetts, agreed that the land could support a major development. ‘‘Someone may choose to scale it down and just get something started, but I think it does have the potential to be as large as originally planned,’’ Begelfer said. ‘‘The market will be coming back. When it does, properties like this will be the first to be developed.’’

Begelfer said Heleba may just let the property sit vacant for a couple of years until it can fetch a higher price. ‘‘There was a hope that someone could steal this property’’ with a low auction bid, Begelfer said. ‘‘Clearly, the bank was not going to allow the property to be stolen.’’

Inge Uhlir, who lives about a mile from the site, said neighbors are happy with the current plan and would fight any major changes. ‘‘If that’s ditched, there’s going to be a storm of opposition,’’ Uhlir said.

Justice Keith C. Long affirmed his own March decision that invalidated foreclosure proceedings involving two Springfield homes because the lenders did not hold clear titles to the properties at the time of sale. In today’s reconsideration of that ruling, Long described a convoluted process in which ownership of the mortgages changed multiple times without being properly recorded. He said the problems lenders now face are “entirely of their own making,” and if they seek a change in law they should look toward the Legislature.

“The issues in this case are not merely problems with paperwork or a matter of dotting i’s and crossing t’s,” Long said in a 27-page decision. “Instead, they lie at the heart of the protections given to homeowners and borrowers by the Massachusetts Legislature.”

The decision comes seven months after Long’s initial ruling, which came as a shock to many who deal with distressed properties. Lenders believed they could complete foreclosure transactions and later produce formal proof they held the mortgages. Since March, some lenders have stopped selling foreclosed properties out of fear the sales later could be voided, and title companies have refused to insure them. The logjam has impaired efforts by communities and nonprofits to buy and rehabilitate foreclosed homes in some of the state’s hardest hit areas. It has also made it difficult for individuals to buy foreclosed homes.a

Jon Davis handles 10 percent of the state’s foreclosure auctions. The Marshfield lawyer has been watching these auctions migrate from places such as Dorchester and Lowell.

“Now you’ll see them in the Sudburys, the Hinghams and the Westons,” Davis said, “where you wouldn’t have in the past expected to see foreclosures.”

The reason for these auctions is not the crazy interest-rate mortgages. It’s the recession. Nowadays, people are losing their homes the way they used to before the sub-prime crisis.

“Historically, people lost their home when they lost their job, they lost their health or they lost their spouse,” says Nick Retsinas, a housing market economist at Harvard University.

Unemployment is to blame again today. The number of foreclosure proceedings in Massachusetts has jumped an alarming 150 percent.

In fact, people under foreclosure I talked to in Sudbury didn’t want to be interviewed for this story. They said they’re ashamed — to have lost their jobs; to have run out of savings; to not be able to make their payments.

Whitney Tilson, a Harvard Business School grad and money manager, said, “the number of distressed homes coming through the pipeline has actually never been greater than right now.”

Tilson says Sudbury is a good example of what this coming wave could do to the market. Only seven homes above $1,000,000 have sold in the town this year. Last year it was 43, and that was a bad year.

“The listed prices appear to show that prices are holding up, but that’s phony,” Tilson says. “So what breaks the logjam? The wave of foreclosures working their way through the pipeline.”

Foreclosed properties priced to sell will push housing prices down and push more homeowners under water and into foreclosure. And that could really hurt regional banks.

Unlike the sub prime mortgage crisis — which hammered national mortgage companies — in this instance, local banks carry more of these loans. When Massachusetts banks stand to lose as much as a few hundred thousand dollars a pop, they get more conservative about lending. Tilson says that will suppress economic recovery.

“This is something that’s going to be with us for a while,” he says. “There’s no real way to hurry it up. As Warren Buffet said you can’t get nine women pregnant and have a baby in one month.”

If we’re lucky, Tilson says, the housing market will bottom out next year.

Harvard economist Nick Restinas agrees it will take a while, but at least Massachusetts, which isn’t seeing as many foreclosures as other parts of the country, will be among the first places to get there.

“We take solace in the fact that we are still a growing population, people need a place to live,” Retsinas says. “And at some point people will make the calculation –- not so much is this home a good investment, but is this home worth living in?”

Which goes to say: Massachusetts residents will have to go to more housewarming parties, before they can start celebrating a healthy economic recovery.

BEVERLY, MASS. –  Gone, in less than two hours. Well, sort of.

In today’s 1 p.m. auction of the North Shore Music Theatre on Dunham Road in Beverly, Citizens Bank, the holder of the primary mortgage on the property, was the winning bidder, so to speak.

So, essentially, nothing has changed.

In a process that took less than two hours and included the reading of the lengthy, required legal notices — with a bit of wit by auctioneer Dan McLaughlin — the bank “bought back” the theater for just under $3.6 million when it was clear none of the other bidders were willing to go above $3.5 million.

Approximately 55 people, including bidders, media, former theater employees and volunteers and other interested citizens, gathered around the entrance of the building, where the auction was held. Everyone patiently waited for McLaughlin to read the legal notices pertaining to the property and also to the sale.

“Would anyone like me to repeat that,” McLaughlin asked the crowd when he finished what amounted to a tome.

McLaughlin opened the bidding at $5 million, but the first offer was for $1 million. It rose from there, but only to $3.5 million, at which point McLaughlin said, “Did we mention it’s right off Route 128?”

Citizens Bank Vice President Gavin Taylor, looking a little impatient, called out $3,599,099, sending a signal that anything less than $3.6 just wouldn’t do. However, no more bids were made.

After the auction, Taylor said he didn’t know what the bank, which foreclosed on the primary mortgage of $3.8 million, would do next. (There is also a mortgage for the smaller parcel, on which the restaurant sits.)

McLaughlin was pleased that there were a number of bidders for the auction.

But, he said, “I was hoping the bank was not going to end up with it.”

His prediction?

“They’ll sell it,” he said of Citizens. “They did not get what they thought the property was worth.”

The 54-year-old NSMT sits on 26.5 acres and is assessed at $12.5 million by the city for tax purposes. In addition to mortgages totaling about $5 million, NSMT owed an addition $5 million to other creditors, including approximately $2.5 million in season ticket payments made for the 2009 season from about 4,400 subscribers. Boston Culinary Group, which ran the theater’s food service, also has a $250,000 attachment on the property for unpaid bills.

While there are no outstanding taxes to be paid on the property, the city has a lien on it for about $1,800 in utility charges. Almost $9,000 in various charges are owed on the smaller parcel.