Its Microsoft and its Free?

The following conversation and characters are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person is totally unintended.

Me: Microsoft is giving something away free…

My Friend: No Way! The only thing less likely than Microsoft giving something away free would be Apple giving something away free. And that never ever happens.

Me: Well, I thought I would never live to see the day either, but it is going to happen. Microsoft is making its new version of Office (Word, Power Point, Excel, Access) available on the Internet free. Don’t you like free?

My Friend: I love Frrreeeeeee. I just find it hard to believe. Office accounts for a huge portion of Microsoft’s profits…so why would it just give Office away?

Me: Because it has no choice. You see, companies like Google and Adobe have been giving word processing and spreadsheet creating software away for years now, and people are beginning to get use to their programs. I use Google Doc almost exclusively. Because of these free web products and Microsoft’s high software prices ($500 for Office) people are not up grading their older versions of Office.

My Friend: I still don’t get it. How is giving away a product going to help Microsoft regain lost profit?

Me: OK, here’s the strategy…First you give users a free version of Office that doesn’t include all the bells and whistles. Then once you’ve hooked them and they remember how much they love Office, they’ll upgrade to the paid version… that includes all the bells and whistles.

My Friend: Interesting idea…when will the “hook”, I mean the free version of Office be available?

Me: In June

My Friend: wow…now if only Apple decided to give something away free

Me: Stop dreaming my friend, stop dreaming.

The Growth of the Homestead Exemption Amount

Several people recently asked me about the dollar amount of the current Homestead exemption. It is now $500,000 for both the regular Homestead (MGL c.188, s.1) and for the Elderly or Disabled Homestead (MGL c.188, s.1A). I recently did some research regarding the growth of that amount through the years for the "regular" Homestead and thought that progression would be of interest to readers (info on the "elderly" amount will be forthcoming in the future).

prior to 1939, the exemption was $800. In 1939, it was increased to $4000. The following list shows the year and the amount of subsequent increases:

1970 - $10,000
1973 - $20,000
1974 - $24,000
1975 - $30,000
1979 - $50,000
1983 - $60,000
1985 - $100,000
2000 - $300,000
2004 - $500,000

Recurring question on name change after marriage

Each day brings several inquiries from local residents on a variety of registry-related topics. Two questions I was asked yesterday arise frequently. Since neither of them has a clear yes or no answer, I decided to share my views with the caveat that the registry does not provide legal advice, we just make an effort to state our general understanding of the law and procedure.

The first question involved a couple who had recently purchased a home, financed that purchase with a mortgage and then married shortly afterwards. The question was, "how to we add the wife's new last name to the deed?" This question hints at the common public misperception that we maintain some sort of master ownership list that we update as circumstances change. Of course that's not the way the system works. Once a document such as a deed is recorded, that document cannot be changed or altered. If something changes, a new document must be recorded that can be linked to the existing one and change its legal significance.

As I understand it, there is no urgent need to reflect the spouse's new name in the registry's records. She owned the property under her old name and she continues to own it in the same way, only her name has changed. Many people leave the record as is until a new document needs to be recorded for other reasons (a homestead or a new mortgage, for instance). On the new document, the spouse's name should appear "Mary Married-Name, formerly known as Mary Maiden-Name."

Two other considerations do arise in this set of facts. Now that the co-owners are married, they would be eligible to hold the property as tenants by the entirety which, in addition to providing a right of survivorship which may already exist under a joint tenancy, also provides some protection to the spouse against creditors of the other spouse. To create a tenancy in common would require a new deed by which the couple would transfer the property from themselves to themselves as tenants by the entirely. The other issue is the existing mortgage and any prohibitions that may have established on changing the ownership of the property without the consent of the mortgage company.

Because what would appear to be such a simple question does carry with it significant legal pros and cons which is why we always advise folks to consult with a lawyer who can become acquainted with all the particulars of that case.

Courthouse Iron Staircase

Last Friday I decided to take some pictures of the parking lot side of the courthouse before construction begins on the new elevator. While taking these pictures I noticed the beautiful iron staircase leading from the Elm Street entrance to the second floor. Actually, this is only one of many exquisite iron staircases in the old building which dates back to 1845.

I took some close up pictures which I have posted below.
Click on picture to enlarge

April Deeds for Lowell: A closer look

The number of deeds recorded for the city of Lowell this April showed a considerable increase over the number recorded for the same month last year. Today I tried to determine what kind of transfers were represented by those deeds.

Of the 156 deeds recorded for property in Lowell during the month of April 2010, about two-thirds involved arm's length sales of property with the other one-third being related party transfers. Of all the deeds, 90 involved one party or entity selling to another for what seemed to be fair market value (58% of the total). An additional 20 deeds were conveyances from banks (presumably ones that had recently foreclosed on the property) to third parties (13%). While these sales may have been at a discount, they are close to FMV (or perhaps the new FMV). Thirty-seven deeds (24%) involved related party transfers such as spouses conveying to a single spouse (maybe an ex-spouse?) or similar transfers for no consideration. Another 9 deed were individuals conveying property into trusts of which they were the trustee.

A busy day (compared to what?)

Last Friday was the busiest day we've had in a long while here at the registry of deeds. It was the last day of April and the last Friday of the month which both tend to have substantial increases in activity over any other day of the month. But where does this past April 30 fit, volume of recording wise, with the other April 30th's of the past decade (and I use "April 30" to mean the last day on which we were open for business). Here are some numbers so you can make your own comparisons:

2000 - 591 documents recorded
2001 - 685
2002 - 575
2003 - 749
2004 - 816
2005 - 712
2006 - 564
2007 - 540
2008 - 374
2009 - 313
2010 - 470

Call Me Chrome Man

Today May 5, 2010 is a big day for me...

This morning while eating Shredded Wheat with my wife I made a life changing decision.
I didn’t tell her about my decision. I didn’t want to worry her.

Every major decision has consequences. And truthfully, I’m ready and one needs to be ready to make such a big decision and handle the consequences.

Any hesitation I might have had during breakfast dissipated as my mind recited Robert Frost’s famous poem “Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I-- took the one less travel by, and that has made all the difference”.

Today...I’ve decided...to change my life. Today...I've decided...to change my Web Browser.

I’ve been a Morzilla Firefox guy for the past three years. In fact I really like Firefox.
But today... I am officially announcing I've changed to Chrome, Google’s Web Browser. To paraphrase Shakespeare’s Brutus “it is not that I love Firefox less, it is that I love Chrome more”.


I have been mulling this decision for several months now.

Every time I logged into YouTube Google tempts me with a message “YouTube works better with Chrome”.
It does?, I thought.
Every time I logged into my Gmail account Google tempts me with a message “Gmail is faster with Google Chrome”.
It is?, I thought.

Finally, this morning, between bites of Shredded Wheat, I had an epiphany.
I need to make a change. I need YouTube to work better. I need my Gmail to be faster. I need to be...A Chrome Man.

And now, I am.
If you would like to be a Chrome Man (or Woman) too the download is easy...its making the decisions that is the tough part.

April recording statistics

The only piece of good news to be found in April's recording statistics is regarding the number of deeds recorded in the city of Lowell. In April 2009, there were 106; in April 2010 there were 167, an increase of 58%. The nine towns in the Middlesex North District saw only a slight increase in deeds, from 277 to 319, a 15% increase.

Foremost in the bad news category was an across-the-board increase in the number of foreclosure deeds recorded: Lowell rose from 20 to 36, a 80% rise. Town foreclosure deeds were up more dramatically, jumping from 9 to 31, a 244% increase. Town orders of notice were also up by 62% although orders of notice for Lowell dropped slightly, from 48 to 42. Another negative note is a noticeable decrease in the number of mortgages recorded. Lowell's drop was only 11%, from 237 to 212 but the town decline in mortgages was 39%, dropping from 1137 to 693.

Techie Shorts

Here are five of this weeks biggest Techie Shorts

1.Apple sold an incredible one million iPads in the first month of sales. That figure is double the amount of iPhone sold in its first month. Did you get that DOUBLE the sales of the iPhone

2.The Verizon's Droid smart phone is selling like hotcakes (see the iPhone and Blackberry aren’t the smart phones out there). Right now, you can’t buy a Droid and Verizon representatives are telling customers don’t expect to see delivery for several weeks.

3.Wired magazine is one of my favorites...Here is an example why. After the “theft” of Apple’s iPhone 4G and its premature publication by Gizmodo, “Wired” set out to find the person who found the phone and sold it to Gizmodo...within one week it hunted down and found Brian Hogan. Nice job Gizmodo.

4.Google is cooking something up. I can just feel it...the Internet giant purchased Bump Top. Bump Top? Remember when Google purchased YouTube for one billion dollars and we all asked "whats YouTube"? Yeah, you remember...and now we're all asking "Whats Bump Top?". It is a company that developed software that can take two dimensional pictures and make them three dimensional. I feel something simmering.

5.And back to Apple again...in December of 2009, Apple bought LaLa. Lala is a free music service that allows you to listen to “most” any song you want, did I mention Free? Just six months later Apple shocked Lala lovers, with an announcement that the site would be closing at the end of May. You see, I was right..Apple and Free are like water and oil.

Law Day 2010 (Part II)

Congratulations to all involved in this year's Law Day ceremony, held earlier today in Lowell Superior Court. The primary organizers of the event were the judges and staff of the Lowell Juvenile Court and the Greater Lowell Bar Association. After a formal opening of the court session by Assistant Chief Court Officer Wayne McDaniel, the Lowell High Junior Air Force ROTC elite color guard presented the colors, the pledge of allegiance was led by students from the Lowell Middlesex Academy Charter School and the National Anthem was sung by by Tiernan O'Rourke, a young man with a wonderful voice.

After welcoming remarks were made by Judges Patricia Flynn, Christine McEvoy and Barbara Pierson and a proclamation from the city of Lowell was presented by Kevin Broderick, vice chair of the city council, the five entrants in the essay contest read their speeches. They were:

George Murphy of Dracut High (winner)
Elizabeth Pepe of Notre Dame (second place)
Molly Black of Lowell Catholic (honorable mention)
Joshua Bradbury of Greater Lowell Tech (honorable mention)
Kevin Sorota of Lowell High (honorable mention)

After the speeches (which were all excellent and well-presented), the Lowell High School Chorus entertained the audience with a medley of patriotic songs. At the end of the formal program, the Bar Association treated everyone to a luncheon.

This was the sixth year that the Juvenile Court and the bar association hosted this event. These days, everyone is so busy that people often pass on participating public events like Law Day, but these types of activities play a very important and positive role in our civic culture and are deserving of our full support.

Law Day

Since 1958, May 1 has been recognized as Law Day in the United States. Internationally, the day had long been known as "International Workers Day" and considered a celebration of organized labor. The Soviet Union, however, transformed "May Day" into an elaborate parade intended to show off Soviet weaponry and (by their thinking) military superiority. As a counterweight to that, President Eisenhower instituted Law Day, an opportunity to celebrate the rule of law and the democratic institutions in America that rest upon the rule of law.

On recent Law Days, the Lowell Juvenile Court and the Greater Lowell Bar Association have held a Law Day ceremony here at Superior Court. The event includes entertainment, speeches by dignitaries and an essay contest by high school students. This year, the ceremony will be held on Friday, April 30 beginning at 11:30 am at the Middlesex Superior Courthouse, 360 Gorham Street, Lowell. Everyone is invited to attend.

Apple vs Gizmodo

The saga of the stolen/missing iPhone goes on...

Remember I wrote about this last week? Well, the story just keeps getting better and better.
First a little refresher...After having a couple of beers at a local bar in Redwood, California an Apple Engineer left his iPhone on a bar stool. After a brief inspection, the person determined that was something different about this iPhone and he was right. The Apple engineer had actually lost a "not yet released" iPhone 4G.
The finder sold the new iPhone to a popular tech site named Gizmodo for $5,000. Jason Chen, the editor of Gizmodo filmed the phone and did what you would expect any techie to do...he showed it to the whole world on YouTube.
As you would expect Steve Jobs and company were furious. Chen responded by giving the phone back to Apple, but it was too late, the damage was done.
Here is where it gets good...Last Monday, Apple kicked it up a notch (as Emeril) would say). They called the cops...and the cops made a visit to Chen's house, while he was out.
The San Mateo County Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team forced entry into Jason Chen's apartment and confiscated his computers, hard-drives, digital cameras, cell phones and copies of his American Express bill...of course, this was done with a search warrant.
Wow, I guess there's a simple message here...Don’t mess with Steve Jobs and Apple. They play tough.
And its not over... County authorities are considering charging Chen with receiving stolen property.
But it still gets better...Today Apple announced the dates for its Worldwide Development Conference (WWDC)at which they will release the "kind of new" iPhone 4G.

The dynamics at this conference are going to be something else...questions abound: Does Jobs mentioned the theft?
Was the found iPhone really the 4G?
Will Apple hold the release modify the phone?

All this because a guy stopped to have a few beers on his way home...wow! I love this stuff?

Second mortgages and foreclosures

An article in the April 19, 2010 print edition of Banker and Tradesman quantifies the impact of second mortgages on the likelihood of foreclosure. B&T examined 320,000 single-family homes and condominiums that were purchased between 2003 and the end of 2007 and that (1) involved at least one mortgage and (2) are still owned by the original purchaser. Using an "automated valuation model", B&T concluded that 46% of those original homeowners are now underwater (meaning they owe more on their mortgage than the property is worth). Roughly one-third of those 320,000 homes involved second mortgages. Of that group, 69% are underwater.

Besides increasing the likelihood of foreclosure, the existence of a a second mortgage greatly complicates any effort to have a short sale of the property since the consent of two lenders, both competing for the same too-small pool of money, must be obtained.

My own review of foreclosure cases in this registry district confirms the B&T findings: properties with second mortgages represent a disproportionate share of those undergoing foreclosure.

The Numbers Game

According to the National Association of Realtors, sales in the month of March increased by 6.8%.

Honestly, activity here at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds, just doesn’t reflect any kind of increase in business; in fact it is just the opposite. On April 26, 2009 we ended the day with 18,984 documents recorded...today April 26, 2010, exactly one year later, that figure will probably be about 17,100. This represents a decrease of about 1,884 or 10%. That is significant number.

Of course, the NAR is talking about just Deeds(sales) and my numbers represent all documents. So let's compare Apples to Apples (as they say) and look at deeds only at Middlesex North...Last year we ended April 26, 2009 with 1,358 deeds recorded...today, April 26, 2010 we will probably end the day with 1,450 deeds recorded. That is an increase of 92 deeds or 6.5%. OK, that number fits with the NAR numbers.

But our business is driven by mortgages, not deeds. We are busiest when refinancing is booming...Let's take a look. We ended April 26, 2009 with 4,509 mortgages recorded. We will probably end today, April 26, 2010 with 3,170 mortgages recorded, a decrease of 1,339 or 29.5%.
That's significant.

April 23 in Literary History

April 23 is one of the most important days in literary history. April 23 is the date William

Shakespeare was born and the date he died.

Shakespeare was born in Stratford on Avon in 1564. He married Anne Hathaway in 1582 and had three children with her...Susanna, Hamnet and Judith.

No one really knows what Shakespeare looked like or much about his philosophical or religious beliefs, but there are few that deny him the title of "greatest writer in the English language" and few that dispute his enormous influence on our society.

In all, the bard is credited with writing 38 plays and 154 sonnets. But what impresses me the most about Shakespeare’s words is that they are quoted more than any others except for the Bible.

Below are some of the more famous Shakespearean quotes…

1. All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players:
   
2. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
3. Brevity is the soul of wit.
4. Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.
5. "What's in a name? That which we call a rose
   By any other name would smell as sweet."
6. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
   But in ourselves"
7. "Nothing can come of nothing…"
8. A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!
9. Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
   Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds;
10. Sweets to the sweet, farewell!

This is perhaps the most famous speech in dramatic history...Hamlet's "To Be or Not To Be" soliloquy. In this video Laurence Olivier plays Hamlet.

What a Buzz

Bees buzz, electric saws buzz and even people buzz, but now there is Google Buzz.

Google’s Buzz is the latest in social networking sites. Yes, it looks and acts similar to other social sites.

I must admit, I love Buzz, but then again I’m kind of an odd duck.
How odd? Well, lets put it this way, I am the only person I know that uses Buzz.

I have been on for about three months and right now I have no Buzz friends...but, don’t feel bad for me. I have no friends, mainly because I don’t know anyone on Buzz, accept for me that is.

OK, so why do I like Buzz so much...
Because it connects directly to my Gmail, YouTube and Blogger accounts. When I write a blog post it is immediately posted on my Buzz page. If I post a YouTube video it too is immediately posted on my Buzz page.

Its great.

When I first started to use Buzz and experienced its inter-connectivity I thought it was going to take over the world, or take over Facebook at least.

But, I seem to be wrong...Buzz just isn't, well, creating much of a buzz in the social networking world.

I still think the concept of Google Buzz is a winner...Now all Google needs to do is get someone besides me to use Buzz.

Wanna be my friend?

Work Begins, Maybe

There is buzz everywhere that tonight is the night...The night when construction on the Lowell Superior Courthouse elevator will begin. The first step is for crews to lay footings for the structure, which will be attached to the side of the building.

Bids, talks and meetings have filled the past year in preparation for this work. Last month an architectural artist began casting molds of the historic window frames on the old building built in 1845. These cast will be used to duplicate decorative windows on the outside of the new elevator.

But last week the biggest sign that construction was near occurred. Dig Safe outlined three safe areas in the Elm Street Parking lot for boring.

The plan is for work to begin at 6:00 in the evening and continue until 4:00 in the morning…we’ll keep you posted as the project progresses.

Give Me My iPhone Back...Now!

Did you hear the one about the Apple Engineer that walked into a bar?
This is priceless. As they say, you can't make this stuff up...we''ll be talking about this one for years to come…

On March 19 an Apple Engineer named Gray Powell stopped to have a few in a bar located in Redwood City, California. After a couple of beers Powell left the bar and headed home. Shortly after Powell's departure another person, completely unassociated with the Apple engineer found his iPhone sitting on a bar stool.

Innocently, "the "finder" unlocked the phone and discovered it belonged to Powell. He intended to return the phone in the morning, but the next day "the finder" discovered the memory of the iPhone had been completely wiped out, remotely.

He found this curious and began to examine the phone closer. "The finder" discovered this iPhone was like none he had ever seen before. This phone had a strange case disguising it to look like an iPhone 3GS. There were two camera openings and it was much squarer than the 3GS. "The finder" knew he had found something special.

Somehow a popular tech site named Gizmodo heard about the unique iPhone and purchased it from "the finder" for $5,000.

People are speculating that the iPhone Powell lost is actually the new iPhone 4G scheduled to be released in June.

And Apple wants it back, now!…according to one rumor Apple CEO Steve Jobs himself called Gizmodo and demanded the phone be returned. I see a law suit coming...

Below is a video Gizmodo made of the new Apple 4G iPhone. It is quite a sneak preview.

Elevator construction begins next week

Word is that construction of the new elevator for the courthouse will begin next Wednesday, April 21. Since the majority of the work will be performed between 6 pm and 4 am (i.e., in the middle of the night), court operations should not be unduly disrupted by the work. A good portion of the employee parking lot will be blocked off to accommodate the contractor's equipment and the excavation, but that should have little effect on the public.

The elevator will be for handicap accessibility only and not for the general public. It will be constructed in an external tower, constructed along the south side of the 1848 building (the brick one in the rear), adjacent to the employee entrance. The elevator will have stops at parking lot level, the first floor and the second floor. I believe that construction is expected to take six months to a year to complete.

On another note, please remember that the Registry of Deeds is closed this coming Monday, April 19, due to the Patriot's Day holiday.

Media reports increase in foreclosures

An AP story in today's Lowell Sun reports a nation-wide surge in foreclosures. This is old news to us here at the registry; so many of the documents we see these days are foreclosure-related or part of the debt collection process. And with each foreclosure, values slide a bit more which just traps more and more homeowners in a situation where they owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth.

Here's what I wrote on this site at the end of March about the direction of real estate:

Our recording statistics for March 2010 duplicate trends seen last month. When compared to the same time last year, the number of mortgages recorded is down substantially while the number of foreclosure-related documents is up. Specifically, the number of deeds recorded for the entire registry district slid slightly, from 439 in March 2009 to 414 in March 2010, a decline of 6%. Mortgages were down by a much greater margin, slipping from 1430 to 920, a drop of 36%. Foreclosure deeds jumped from 33 to 57, an increase of 73%, and orders of notice more than doubled, going from 43 to 112, a jump of 160%. The total number of documents recorded dropped 20%, from 5919 to 4709.

When these figures are broken out by the city of Lowell versus the nine towns in the district, the same trends persist, although there was a slightly greater drop in deeds and mortgages in the towns and a slightly greater increase of foreclosure documents in Lowell.

Timing Is Everything

More often than not, timing is everything. It is true in life, business and even the registry of deeds.
For the past two years the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds has had a twitter account. Every day we post at least one tweet. We usually tweet about projects or happens at the registry and/or the Superior Courthouse.
What does this have to do with "timing"?
I’ve written about the registry's foray into twitter before and truthfully, we are looking for more followers...so this time, as I blog about twitter, I hope is the right time to get you interested. Just go to twitter.com sign up and look for lowelldeeds then start following.

Registry closed on Monday, April 19

Monday, April 19, is Patriot's Day here in Massachusetts. It's a state holiday, so all state and municipal offices will be closed. Patriot's Day commemorates the events that occurred not too far from here on April 19, 1775, when a regiment+ of British soldiers ventured into Middlesex County in search of arms and munitions. At day break, they were met at Lexington by that town's militia; shots were fired and the American Revolution commenced. The British continued on to Concord where they were engaged and driven back by other area militias which, later in the day, included men from towns in this Registry District including Tewksbury, Dracut, Chelmsford and Billerica.

Google Tablet

Just when I had convinced myself that I needed to buy one of Apple's new iPads, I find out that Google is making a tablet computer too...and it will run on Google's smart-phone Android Operating System. Now I don't know what to do...Apple? Google? Apple? Google?

Below is a "concept video" of the soon to be released Google tablet...once you see this you'll know why I am so confused. It looks like Google got a real winner coming.

iPhone OS 4.0

What a week Apple Computer is having…first the company release the revolutionary iPad and yesterday Steve jobs announced a brand new operating system for the iPhone. It is called OS 4.0 (one problem worth noting, OS 4.0 can NOT be downloaded to first generation iPhones, like mime)

If you are an iPhone user (other than first generation) here is what OS 4.0 will give you:

1.You’ll be able to run two Apps at the same time. As an example you could listen to Pandora music while playing a game.
2.You’ll be able to organize your Apps into folders rather than having page after page of icons on the phone’s desktop.
3.If you have an AOL email account and a gmail account you’ll finally be able to get email from multiple accounts.
4.And gamers, you’ll love this one…OS 4.0 will allow you to play games against friends “online”.
5.You’ll be able to wipe out data on your phone, remotely (don’t know why I would want that but…).
6.The same software now offered in the new iPad for e-reading will be available for iPhone allowing you buy and read books on your phone. I like this one the best.

Apple continues to be the industry’s leader mainly because of innovation like this. Thanks to Brian Caulfield of forbes.com for info used in this post.

The condominium market

The records here at the registry of deeds provide us only a limited ability to discern what is built upon each property, but we can usually pick out condominiums with ease. Consequently, I've applied a "condominium filter" to some of our recording statistics. In 2009 in the city of Lowell, for instance, condominiums accounted for one out of every three foreclosures. In the nine towns in the Middlesex North District, one out of every four foreclosures was a condominium.

The primary reason condominium foreclosures are relatively high is the roller coaster ride of prices through the last decade. Back in 2000, the median price of a condo in Lowell was $90,000. In 2005 when prices reached their peak, that number rose to $194,900. By 2009 it had slid to $147,000. If you bought a condo in 2000 and still owned it (and hadn't refinanced in the interim), you'd be in pretty good shape. But if you bought anytime near mid-decade, you probably paid more for the unit than it is now worth.

Similar trends apply to condo values in the towns of the Middlesex North District. In 2000, the median condo price was $142,900, in 2005 it was $256,500, and in 2009 it was $215,500. The 2005 to 2009 drop was 16% which means that if you bought in 2005 and borrowed more than 80% of the then value of the property, you now owe more on your mortgage than your unit is worth.

Net Neutrality

Earlier this week the FCC lost a huge ruling when a US Appeals Court shot down its attempt to control net neutrality. Haven’t heard of net neutrality? Trust me…you will in the near future.

First, What is net neutrality?

Net Neutrality is the concept that Internet Service Providers must treat all Internet traffic the same. That’s the way the Internet world works today. You pay one monthly fee and download anything you want with no additional charge. You can search for a particular site and you'll get it. This is net neutrality.

If net neutrality is gone this “might” not be the case. The Internet Providers (companies like Comcast, Verizon, AT&T etc) want to create a kind of two-tiered Internet. One tier of information would be provided to the consumer free, the other tier would be assessed an additional charge paid by the consumer or it would download slower.

For instance, just image if Comcast or Verizon made a deal with Microsoft and when you searched using Internet Explore it came up faster than when you searched using Mozilla Firefox.

Scary? You bet.

But there is another side to this story….The Internet Providers argue they own the pipes that deliver the data and they have the right to surcharge Internet gluttons. They even state a two-tier system would benefit the average user. How? Providers believe limiting big downloads would speed up the average surfer's Internet experience.

The fight for net neutrality goes on…but has suffered a major set back.

Community Preservation surcharge may increase

Senate Bill 90 now pending before the state legislature makes some modifications to the Community Preservation Act. The CPA went into effect back in 2002 and allows communities in the Commonwealth to vote to increase their property taxes to raise money for a variety of uses including open space and historic preservation. Any amount raised by a town is matched by the state from a Community Preservation Trust fund maintained by the state. This CPA Trust is funded by a surcharge on documents recorded at the registry of deeds. Since 2002, the surcharge has been $20 per document with municipal lien certificates having a $10 surcharge and homesteads being exempt.

SB 90 retains these surcharges with one important modification: If the state's Trust Fund has insufficient money to support at least a 75% match to the towns that opt into the act, the Commissioner of the Department of Revenue may raise the surcharge by an amount sufficient to raise the needed funds. The maximum the surcharge could increase would be to $70 ($50 for MLCs). This means that if there is an acute shortage of CPA funds and the surcharge is increased by the maximum amount allowed, it would cost $125 to record a mortgage discharge (instead of the current $75), $175 to record a deed (now $125) and $225 to record a mortgage (now $175).

As a practical matter, having the CPA surcharge change by some random amount (the reset fee is "rounded up to the nearest $1) will be disastrous for the operation of the registry of deeds. Our diverse clientele has a difficult enough time getting the current fees right even though they have been in place and unchanged for seven years. Changing the fees on a yearly basis will create recording gridlock when mail is returned, e-recordings are rejected, and customers are turned away, all because they haven't updated their registry fee chart. The objectives of the CPA are commendable, but tweaking it in the manner proposed is not without some negative consequences.

iPad

It looks like the Apple iPad did not meet industry experts sales expectations. On its first day Apple sold 300,000 iPads units, including preorders. Experts estimated iPad sales would approach 600,000 to 700,000...it didn't.
Most people I talk to ask..."what does the iPad do that a small laptop computer won't do. Truthfully, I don't know yet...and I wonder if that is the reason sales did not live up to expectations.
Regardless of the number of sales, Apple shares have jumped $1.59 in the past week fueled by iPad anticipation.
As far as I am concerned the jury is still out and the future of the iPad is in question.
Below is the Apple Company promotional video...it tell you exactly what the iPad can do. You can make up your own mind.

First time home buyer credit expires soon

A glance at the calendar reminds us that the Federal First time Homebuyer tax credit will be coming to an end soon. The deadline for having a purchase and sale agreement executed is May 1, 2010 and the closing must occur before July 1, 2010. The credit available for first time home buyers is $8000 and for long time homeowners who purchase a new residence, it's $6500. According to the Treasury Department, more than 1.8 million taxpayers have collected $12.6 billion in tax credits due to this act. The nice thing about a tax credit is that you get the money whether you owe any tax or not, so even if you'd be receiving a refund anyway, your refund would be even larger, possibly even exceeding the amount of taxes you already paid in. Taxpayers who purchase homes during 2010 may also claim this credit on their 2009 tax return (which is due in 13 days) or can wait until their 2010 returns are due.

From our vantage point, homesales have remained flat during the first quarter of 2010. Hopefully the continued availability of this tax credit plus the return of nice weather will cause an uptick in real estate activity in the coming weeks.

March recording statistics

Our recording statistics for March 2010 duplicate trends seen last month. When compared to the same time last year, the number of mortgages recorded is down substantially while the number of foreclosure-related documents is up. Specifically, the number of deeds recorded for the entire registry district slid slightly, from 439 in March 2009 to 414 in March 2010, a decline of 6%. Mortgages were down by a much greater margin, slipping from 1430 to 920, a drop of 36%. Foreclosure deeds jumped from 33 to 57, an increase of 73%, and orders of notice more than doubled, going from 43 to 112, a jump of 160%. The total number of documents recorded dropped 20%, from 5919 to 4709.

When these figures are broken out by the city of Lowell versus the nine towns in the district, the same trends persist, although there was a slightly greater drop in deeds and mortgages in the towns and a slightly greater increase of foreclosure documents in Lowell.

Water, Work and Computers

The first three pictures below show the security wall being constructed in the basement of the Registry of Deeds. The new room will be used to store equipment and as a computer lab. We used a semi-solid wall structure to allow light and air to infiltrate into the room. (Click pictures to enlarge)












The pictures below show water seepage (again) in two areas of the basement, including the new computer security room. To prevent damage we store all equipment in this room a minimum of eight inches off the floor. As the water flowed on the floor, construction workers continued to build the wall as custodial employees vacuumed the water.

New mapping project

Along with almost 10 million pages of document images, through the years, this office has recorded close to 30,000 subdivision plans. All of these have been scanned and are available for viewing at the registry and online, but the index that we maintain for finding relevant plans leaves much to be desired. When we record a new plan, we do enter the property owner's name if it is stated (it doesn't have to be) and any street names shown on the plan. Adding the streets is helpful, but if it's a long one, like "Chelmsford Street", there might be close to 100 plans that would be presented in answer to any search for that street.

The surest way to find a plan is by having its "plan book and page" numbers. (Whenever a plan is recorded, it is assigned such ID numbers). Since the property description of most deeds contain the plan book and page number of the plan that shows the lot covered by the deed, that's the way most folks find plan references. But many times there is not an exact reference even though a plan may be mentioned.

In trying to find ways to make it easier to find plans relevant to your parcel, I thought that if we could use an application like Google maps and then position each of our plans as a transparent overlay on top of the portion of the Google map depicted on the plan, it would be very easy for people to find their parcel on the Google map and immediately see which if any subdivision plans existed for that locus. Simple pop-up text boxes could easily display information about the plan and perhaps even the scanned image of the plan itself.

We're just in the exploratory phase now and some technological roadblocks may arise, but I wanted to get the concept out there and see what you thought about it.

March statistics to-date show RE slow down

I usually wait until the end of the month to compare recording statistics with those from a year ago, but with turbulent times in the economy and in real estate in particular, I thought today would present a good opportunity for a preview of coming attractions. Unfortunately, it doesn't look good.

When we compare recordings from March 1 to March 28 for 2009 and 2010, we find that in 2009, the total number of documents recorded was 5175 while in 2010 it dropped to 3841. The number of deeds and mortgages dropped, as well, from 373 to 312 for deeds and from 1212 to 707 for mortgages. The only thing that's up are documents related to foreclosures. The number of orders of notice rose from 40 in 2009 to 95 in 2010 and the number of foreclosure deeds jumped from 31 in 2009 to 50 in 2010.

Check back on Thursday for the full month's stats. Hopefully, there'll be a surge in deeds and mortgages over the next three days to even out these numbers a bit.

New Foreclosure Reduction Plan

The New York Times is reporting that the Obama administration is announcing a new program to reduce the number of foreclosures across America. The plan has a number of components, but the most important of them will help reduce the amount of principal owed on homes that are "underwater" to an amount more in line with the fair market value of the property. As much as this may seem unfair to homeowners who have been able to remain current on their own mortgages, cleaning up the inventory of underwater homes is essential to reviving the housing market. The theory is that the lender will lose less money by reducing the mortgage principal than by foreclosing and reselling on the open market.

This scenario was perfectly illustrated by a deed that was recorded earlier today for a Lowell condominium unit. The homeowners purchased the unit in October 2007 for $200,000, financing the purchase with a $190,000 mortgage. The lender foreclosed in December 2008, bidding $170,000 at the auction. This past year, the city of Lowell assessed the unit at $158,000. Today, the unit sold for $78,000.

Until the amounts on these types of properties get knocked down, either through principal reductions or more rapid foreclosures, real estate will remain stagnant.

A Visit to Chelmsford Town Hall

I stopped by Chelmsford Town Hall this morning to get an update on some of the great things the town's engineering department is doing with GIS (which stands for Geographic Information System). With GIS, a town can integrate records from almost every department to provide "one-stop shopping" for land related information.

More than ten years ago we first got interested in GIS but the technology and the electronic infrastructure was insufficient to do anything meaningful. But now, the cost has gone down and the capacity has gone up so we'll be revisiting GIS as a part of the registry. The first project I envision is converting copies of all of our subdivision plans into transparent digital overlays and then attaching them to a map of the area (of the Google maps variety). Once finished, if you were looking for a subdivision plan about a particular point on the ground, you could simply find that point on the computerized map and the subdivision plan overlays would show you which subdivision plans covered that particular lot. This is still just in the idea stage, but it certainly seems feasible.

y i not a

According to Wired Magazine for the past few months Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been answering customer emails, himself. Of course, he is not answering all customer emails, just some, well maybe several, or a few anyway. Wired says he has answered at least one.
i have to give Steve Jobs credit...This is a great PR move, and the billionaire is using his iPad to answer the mail.

What an opportunity i thought...Here is a chance to communicate directly with the man who created a technological revolution.

Today i am drafting my own email to Jobs in hope that i too might get a response...

Here is the first draft...

Hi Steve,
i have a question i need to ask...Steve, where did u get this lower case "i" thing u r using before the name of your products. Granted, its cool, but what does it mean.

Obviously, the "i" has some significance for u... iPod, iPhone, iTunes and now iPad. All named with an "i".

And your small "i" success has spawned many imitators... iHome, iTheather, iGoogle, iMobile and it goes on.

Steve, bear with me, but I never understood y u didn't use a lower case "a" instead "i"?... then people would listen to their music on "aPod" (get it "a" Pod). And people would talk on "aPhone"...
Come on Steve, admit it, it makes more sense, doesn't it? "a" is an article and belongs before a noun, "i" is a pronoun.
i know u are a busy man, but can u explain y u used "i" and not "a".
Sincerely,
Tony

Homesteads and Mortgages

For years, homeowners have asked whether they need to file a new homestead after refinancing and recording a new mortgage. Our answer has typically been “we don’t know” since we believed the law to be silent on this issue. Absent any clear statutory guideline, our logic has worked as follows: Since a subsequent deed dissolves an existing homestead and since a mortgage is a type of deed, a new mortgage should dissolve an existing homestead. But many lawyers respond to that formulation by saying that no, a mortgage is not a deed; it’s a security interest and unless the homeowner signed something that expressly released the homestead, the new mortgage should have no impact.

Recently, however, someone directed me to Massachusetts General Laws chapter 188, section 6 (“Property subject to prior mortgage”) which states as follows:

Section 6. Property which is subject to a mortgage executed before an estate of homestead was acquired therein, or executed afterward and containing a release thereof, shall be subject to an estate of homestead, except as against the mortgagee and those claiming under him, in the same manner as if there were no such mortgage. If the owner of the equity in such property redeems the mortgage, he shall not be allowed to claim under it against the owner of the estate of homestead, his or her surviving spouse, heirs or assigns; but if said owner of the estate of homestead, his or her surviving spouse, heirs or assigns offers to redeem the residue above the homestead estate and the mortgage from a sale or set-off on execution and the judgment creditor has redeemed the mortgage, the amount paid for such redemption of the mortgage, with interest and expenses, shall be included in the amount to be paid for the redemption of said residue.

There doesn’t seem to be much ambiguity in that first sentence – “Property which is subject to a mortgage executed before an estate of homestead was acquired therein, or executed afterward and containing a release thereof, shall be subject to an estate of homestead, except as against the mortgagee and those claiming under him, in the same manner as if there were no such mortgage.” Does anyone read it differently?

Wilmington Board of Selectmen

The Wilmington Board of Selectmen generously invited Register Richard Howe and I to make a presentation to the board tonight.The meeting begins at 7:PM in the Wilmington Town Hall. Register Howe will talk about projects currently going on at the registry and goals and plans for the future. Once Dick finishes I will explain the process the registry uses to create Assessors Reports with CD's of the images.

The handout on real estate activity in Wilmington that will be distributed at the meeting is available here.

Recording Handbook: Please suggest topics

How do you calculate tax stamps due on a deed in lieu of foreclosure? What is needed to record a document written in a foreign language? What other issues of these types arise at the recording counter? The Massachusetts Deeds Indexing Standards have existed for ten years and are intended to create a uniform set of rules for recording documents throughout the state. While some questions have been raised about the consistency of compliance by scattered registries, the standards themselves do take us a long way towards standardization. But what of the things that have not yet made it into the standards, like the two examples I cite above? What's the preferred way of handling them. Over time, I've developed a list of such items and how we respond to them, striving for uniformity within this one office, at least. It occurs to me that in the absence of anything more formal such as an expanded version of the Deeds Indexing Standards, a locally produced document that identifies these situations and describes our response to them and our reasoning for that response might be helpful. I'll report on the progress of this project here as it develops. In the meantime, if you have any suggestion for items that should be included, please send them to me by email.

Green Energy session in Lowell tonight

Tonight at 6 pm at Lowell City Hall (375 Merrimack Street) in the Mayor's Reception Room there will be a free and open-to-the-public information session on the Massachusetts "Stretch Code" which is an appendix to the state building code that allows cities and towns the option of implementing enhanced energy efficiency standards. Tonight's event is co-hosted by Lowell's Green Building Commission and by ICF International, a green energy consulting company that's working in partnership with the city. While a good portion of tonight's discussion will be for the benefit of those in the building and design fields (architects, building inspectors, etc), concerned citizens will also find much of interest including information about financial incentives of up to $42,000 offered by National Grid for "deep energy retrofit" projects.

Flooded

Today is the third consecutive day the basement of the registry of deeds has been flooded. The courthouse custodial staff has spent hours vacuuming the water. This morning the clean up continues, and probably will go on for most of the day.

International Amateur Scanning League

An article about scanning that appeared in yesterday’s New York Times caught my eye. Reading it, I was surprised to learn that it wasn’t about scanning paper; it was about scanning DVDs. This effort is being organized by the International Amateur Scanning League which has as its goal making thousands of hours of non-copyright video produced by agencies of the federal government freely available online through sites such as YouTube and the Internet Archive. In an interesting and very positive twist, the government is fully supporting this private volunteer effort which is doing its scanning at the main National Archives facility just outside Washington DC in nearby Maryland. Leaders of IASL refer to this as “an experiment in crowd-sourced digitization.”

With broadband internet giving most of the country a high speed connection to the web and with the cost of digital storage down to almost nothing, now is the time to convert massive amounts of analog and paper records to digital form. This story gives an innovative example of how a large volume of material can be scanned using volunteer labor – crowd-sourcing, as it’s called. It’s a technique that more governmental entities should consider trying.

et tu Brute?

In the Roman calendar "the ides" was used to describe the 15th day of March, May, July and October. But every month in Rome had an Ides. In January, February, April, June, August, September November and December the Ides fell on the 13th day of the month, not the 15th. The most famous ides is the "Ides of March, the day when assassins killer Julius Caesar in the capital. "Beware the Ides of March" a Soothsayer told Julius Caesar in 44BC. But Caesar, the most powerful man in the world, was not going to be told what to do by some fortune teller... and he paid dearly.

Below Marlon Brando, in the role of Mark Antony, delivers the funeral oration for his fallen friend in Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. Actually, Brando is good here, but Charlton Heston dwarfs him in the same role years later. I love this play.


This is one of the most famous speeches in all literature...

Washington Post sees new round of foreclosures

A story in today's Washington Post echoes my recent findings for the Middlesex North District: Foreclosures are rising rapidly and risk further destabilization of the real estate market. The Post story talks about a growing "shadow market" which represents the lag between a homeowner's mortgage default and the lender's decision to proceed to foreclosure. Because a glut of foreclosures, lenders are hesitant to actually foreclose lest they further suppress the market. And some lenders have so many defaults that they lack the resources to do these foreclosures expeditiously. This story predicts that it will take up to 30 months to work our way through the inventory of defaulting homeowners and get the properties back into possession of financially stable owners.

Lowell Judicial Center delayed

Today’s Lowell Sun reports that the commencement of construction of the new Lowell Judicial Center will be delayed due to the poor economy. The new courthouse, which will house the Superior, District, Juvenile, Probate and Housing Courts, is to be the centerpiece of the city’s Hamilton Canal redevelopment district which is located less than a mile from the current Superior Courthouse. The new building was supposed to open in 2013, but this delay means that construction will not begin until the summer of 2013. With a construction period of 30 months, that would push the grand opening of the facility into 2015.

Even though the registry of deeds will not be moving to this new courthouse, its construction does directly effect us since our current “landlord” is the Trial Court. Once they move out of this building, we would be unable to continue operating here alone, so we’d either have to move out or have a new tenant/owner move in. In either case, that decision was just kicked a few years further down the road.

Enter Google

Last Spring my wife and I bought two really nice bikes...you know the kind with gears galore. We made our purchase in the colder side on Spring, but vowed once the warm weather came we would be out pedaling our way to better health and fitness.

Now, a little preface...I love biking in Florida. Why? because its flat...no hills. In the Sunshine state you can go for miles and miles and never strain. Not so here in Massachusetts.

Unfortunately, our cycling plan never fully developed...Oh yes, we tried, but Massachusetts is no Florida, as far as biking goes. The few biking treks (get it) we made quickly ended in exhaustion. Why? The hills...too many hills.

Enter Google...I know what you are thinking, "What does Google have to do with biking"? This morning the Internet giant released "bicycle directions for Google Maps".

Now I'm excited. Why? You ask again...because Google Maps plans the bike routes avoiding steep hills.

You can bet as soon as the warm weather comes my wife and I will be back at it...this time with a Google Map in hand.

National Lumber in 2010

On numerous occasions I’ve written about National Lumber v Lombardi, 64 Mass App 490 (2005) a case in which the Massachusetts Appeals Court held that a document was deemed to be on record when it was “delivered” to the registry of deeds, not when it was indexed and scanned by the registry. The members of the Massachusetts Registers of Deeds Association have been concerned that this holding could alter the longstanding practice that a document is “recorded” when it is entered into the registry’s computer system and not before.

Two bills pending before the legislature, House 1527 and Senate 1861, seek to remedy this problem. Both carry essentially the same language which is as follows:

“No deed or instrument shall be considered to have been received by the register or left for record until said deed or instrument has been approved for recording by the register and an instrument number or document number or book and page has been assigned to said deed or instrument”

Indications are that a compromise bill is now under consideration. It’s language would amend chapter 36 by replacing the existing section 14 with the following language:

Each register shall keep a record, in book or electronic form, into which the register shall enter recording information for all instruments accepted for record, in the order in which they are recorded. Upon recording of an instrument, the following information shall be entered into the record: the day, hour and minute when the register assigns an instrument number, and/or book and page number as the case may be; the instrument number and/or book and page number so assigned; the names of the grantors and grantees in the instrument; and the city or towns in which the land lies.

No instrument received by the register shall be considered recorded, until the register assigns to the instrument an instrument number, and/or book and page number as the case may be.

Any change or correction made to the record shall be accessible to the public through the computer system in that particular registry district. Such change or correction made to the record shall be maintained by the register and shall be available for public inspection at said registry district during registry business hours. Any change or correction to the record shall document the nature and date of the change or correction.

New "short sale" program to begin April 5

The New York Times reports today that the Obama administration will launch a new program that promotes the use of short sales to jump start the nation's real estate market. Because of the precipitous decline in value since the peak year of 2005, many homeowners now owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, putting them "under water." The various mortgage modification programs attempted thus far have had little impact, so it's wise to try something new. Short sales - a situation where a lender agrees to take less than is owed on a mortgage to allow a homeowner to sell and avoid foreclosure - worked well back in the real estate collapse of the early 1990s, but they just haven't been employed much this time which is unfortunate. Under this program, if a homeowner brings a lender an offer to purchase that is lower than the balance of the mortgage, the lender must obtain an independent valuation of the property. If the property is worth the offered amount or less, the lender must agree to the sale and forego the balance of the debt. This program might be exactly what is needed to jump start housing.

E-Recording Update: The Worcester Model

Earlier this week I attended a meeting of the Massachusetts Registers of Deeds Association at the Worcester Registry of Deeds. One item discussed was the efforts by that registry in partnership with the Secretary of State’s Office and computer company ACS to develop a “governmental electronic recording portal.”

Currently, the four registries that are already doing electronic recording (Middlesex North, Hampden, Plymouth and Middlesex South) all use a model whereby the customer must sign-up with and submit electronic documents through a third party vendor. That vendor then passes the electronic documents through to the registry where they are recorded. The vendor is responsible for customer service and ensuring payment of all fees and excise taxes incurred by the customer.

Under the Worcester model, customers would be able to sign-up directly with the registry, by-passing the middleman. Or customers could continue to use the third party vendors (the “middlemen”) who would then submit directly to the registry just as any other customer would.

I’ll reserve judgment on this new system until I see it in operation which is not expected to occur until at least July 1, 2010.

Globe story on January foreclosures

Tuesday’s Globe carried a story with the encouraging headline “Mass foreclosures drop in January.” I had to read the article several times to be sure the reporter was talking about THIS January, because nothing that I’ve seen supports such a statement. The source of the story – Warren Group CEO Tim Warren – surely knows his stuff and he’s quoted as saying that January 2010 saw the lowest level of foreclosure petitions since December 2008. Now to be fair, “foreclosure petitions” means new cases filed in the Land Court so that would certainly be an early indicator. We, on the other hand, track Orders of Notice (which come shortly after the petition is filed in the Land Court) and foreclosure deeds which are recorded after the auction sale is held.

And what we’ve seen paints quite a different picture. The number of orders of notice filed in January 2010 (168) and in February 2010 (141) each exceeded the total recorded in any month during 2009. The closest was October 2010 with 117. The number of foreclosure deeds filed in January 2010 (59) exceeded any monthly total from 2009 and the number in February 2010 (45) exceeded every month in 2009 except January and October which both at 49. In just less than four days so far this month, we’ve already had 25 orders of notice and 11 foreclosure deeds.

I do hope the Globe report is accurate because it might be a sign of a rebound in real estate. Perhaps the Greater Lowell area is lagging behind the rest of the state in this regard. But I tend to think not, because everything I see points to a long, slow recovery of real estate prices.

Me, Stevie & Twitter

I am not sure what it is...but I don't like the direction Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is moving his company. In fact, I my opinion Microsoft's opposition to open source software has held back the information world. And there is no question in my mind that Ballmer made that decision.

But, all things change, at least that's what they told me in high school science class. Recently, I read something that has changed my opinion of Ballmer...Steve,or Stevie as I now called him, is a twitter freak...
Way to go, big guy…

Good old Steve and I are both twitter believers...
Hey Stevie, don't listen to them when they talk about this open source stuff, its over-rated.


Here is what I read about Ballmer...my new best buddy, Stevie is using a secret account to twitter on Seattle High School basketball games…
right back at yah, bro, fun idea.

Me and my main man Steve, we’re both lovin Twitter, the latest and greatest in communication...
Stevie, you know what...this monopoly thing between you and the Feds, its just a tempest in a tea cup. Hang in there my friend.

The big difference between me and Ballmer is he has the power and money to buy Twitter, I do not. But Steve an I, we're friends and we go back a long way...
So what do you say, buddy, want to put up a cool billion and buy this little micro-blogging toy?... we can have ball with it.

February recording statistics

At the end of each month I've started to compare the number of documents recorded with in the previous month and in the same month last year.

Comparing February 2010 to January 2010, we find that the number of deeds record is somewhat stable, with deeds in Lowell up 4% and those in the towns down 3%. Mortgages were also down overall, with Lowell mortgages dipping by just 3% but with the town mortgages slipping by 20%. The good news is that foreclosure activity is also down. Foreclosure deed recordings fell by 26% in Lowell and by 20% in the towns. Orders of notice dropped similarly; by 24% in Lowell and by 8% in the towns.

Comparing February 2010 to February 2009 presents a slightly different story. Deeds recorded in Lowell dropped 7% while deeds in the towns rose by 16% during that 12 month period. The number of mortgage recorded dropped precipitously during that same period, with mortgages in Lowell falling by 23% and mortgages in the towns by 43%. Foreclosure deeds in Lowell were even, with 25 in each of the two February's. But town foreclosure deeds rose by 54%, from 13 to 20. Orders of notice saw a very sharp increase, as well, with those recorded for Lowell up 280% and those in the towns by 573% (they rose from 11 to 74).

February has always been our slowest month, so in a way, the statistics for this year aren't as bad as they may seem. Still, the steady decline in the number of mortgages and deeds being recorded suggests that a real estate recovery has not yet commenced.

An innovative approach to the foreclosure crisis

In an Op-Ed column in Saturday’s Globe, Tufts professor Rachel Bratt proposed an interesting approach to our seemingly unshakable foreclosure crisis. Bratt begins by restating the obvious: there is “ample blame all around” for the crisis and none of the measure proposed thus far have worked.

What Bratt now suggests is that the 2008 Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which assisted municipalities in purchasing vacant and abandoned homes, be modified to allow non-profits to assume that role. Such involvement would consist of taking title to the property and then renting it back to the current homeowner, the very same person who lost the house to foreclosure. This approach would address the “moral hazard” concern of allowing borrowers to walk away from debts they knowingly took on - in this case, the borrower would actually lose ownership of the home and would not profit from any future appreciation. The benefit of this approach is that it would lend stability to neighborhoods and families and would ensure that local property taxes were paid and that buildings were kept in good repair.

While Bratt’s solution is not a simple one, nothing else has worked and the frequency of foreclosures continues to rise. It’s time for new and innovative approaches.