Credit crunch?  Can't borrow?  For those who are overleveraged or have bad credit then it possibly is true.  However, for the great majority of Berkshire and Bennington County buyers, credit is readily available particularly at small and midsize local and regional banks where mortgage lending continues to be a mainstay of their business [...]

Home sales decreased only 3.6 percent in December 2008 over December 2007 compared to a decrease of 20.5% from November 2008 to November 2007 indicating that the "slippery bottom" described in previous reports is alive and well.  While one month of improvement does not signal the end of the housing recession, it does indicate that despite [...]

Mortgage rates continue to drop, and some of the nation's largest banks are offering loans below 5 percent. Chase Bank advertised a 4.75 percent 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage, Wells Fargo's rate was 4.875 percent, and Bank of America was at 5 percent on their Web sites recently. The rates are for borrowers who have a 20 percent down payment [...]

Top 10 Museum Exhibits

1. Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective

The wall drawings of Sol LeWitt are art's equivalent of gifts that come with "some assembly required." LeWitt was a pioneer of Conceptual art. For him the idea behind a work was all important, the execution a secondary matter. So a LeWitt wall drawing was simply a set of [...]

Those of us fortunate enough to live in Williamstown are really rather reluctant to tell too many people about it because, well, we like it like this. Everyone knows how beautiful Martha's Vineyard and Block Island are, how swanky the Hamptons are, how upscale Newport is, and just how crowded and expensive they all are but well, again, we [...]