BOSTON — Michael Smith, Avison Young Principal and Managing Director of the company’s Boston office, announced that Laura Spressert has joined the Boston office as Vice-President of Marketing, effective immediately. Spressert will direct Avison Young’s marketing, public relations and branding efforts throughout the Greater Boston region. A longstanding industry leader, Spressert brings more than a decade of commercial real estate experience to Avison Young. “We are very pleased to have Laura Spressert join our expanding operation in Boston. Her relevant experience, skill set and creativity Continue reading >>>

Boston sellers are looking lucky, while buyers might want to think twice. A Zillow analysis in the metro area shows the top five markets for home sellers and homebuyers. Sellers’ markets mean homes are listed for a shorter time, prices are slashed less frequently, and properties are sold at prices close to or greater than their last listing price, according to the real estate database. In buyers’ markets, the opposite is true. In the markets favorable for sellers, the median sales price exceeds the median listed price. Brookline is the exception here, where the asking price is very high. In Continue reading >>>

Greater Boston House Concerts opens its 4th Season with a magnificent concert of luscious music for guitar and cello, including the Boston premiere of 'Concert Champêtre' by Thomas L. Read of Burlington, Vermont. A full array of music is featured in this one night event: timeless solos by Bach, fiery passionate Spanish duos by Manuel De Falla, Joaquin Rodrigo, Enrique Granados, and sounds of our time by local composers include a Boston premiere! A moderated Question and Answer session with the artists and reception will follow the evening's concert. PRESS QUOTES "Another great performance" Continue reading >>>

Boston-area home values declined 0.9 percent between June and July on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the SP/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.However, Boston-area home values were up 5.7 percent between July 2013 and July 2014, according to the indices. Continue reading below The indices track repeat home sales around the United States, and for its July report, out Tuesday morning, the indices found “a significant slowdown in price increases” nationwide. Greater Boston is one of 20 US real estate markets tracked by the indices.A Tuesday SP/Case-Shiller Continue reading >>>

Tom Clifford is presented with a award in appreciation of all that he has done to benefit Irish culture in the Boston area Continue reading >>>

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Photo by: Charitable Irish Society Continue reading >>>

Kevin Washington, president and CEO of the YMCA in Boston, will leave the local organization early next year to take the reins of the national YMCA. Mary Moore Reporter- Boston Business Journal Email  |  Twitter Continue reading >>>

The most fundamental questions investors face are all about risk. How much should you take? How much can you stomach? It’s literally an acid test.These are important issues to people managing a few thousand dollars from a kitchen table and portfolio managers directing billions from a corner office. Today, let’s put them to Harvard University. Continue reading below To state the obvious, Harvard has a lot of dough. The university’s $36.4 billion endowment is the biggest on the planet and it pays for about a third of the school’s operating budget. That’s why Continue reading >>>

A sizable donation to the Chelsea Collaborative and the Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS) will assist unaccompanied immigrant children, who have fled their home countries and ended up in Chelsea, as hundreds of the children enter the public school system this year. The Chelsea Collaborative and Greater Boston Legal Services announced a $40,000 gift from immigration and higher education advocate Bob Hildreth that will support the sheltering, feeding and providing legal services for the estimated 600 unaccompanied minors who traveled across the US border over the past two years and landed in Continue reading >>>