The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 43

D.01V Also Inside Legal notices 56 News 58 Deaths 62 THE BOSTON GLOBE THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4. 1993 Low rates give Boston home sales a boost 51 Jj 1" 1 l1w' Home sales move up Sales of single-family homes, as reported by Mass. Association of Realtors' Multiple Listing Service the coming of the 500-channel universe, it's important for the station to have a strong identity.9 Broadcasting to buy Ch. 56 By Matt Carroll GLOBE STAFF Greater Boston home sales, boosted by the lowest interest rates in 25 years, continued their strong recovery in the third quarter, up 9.7 percent from last year. Sales of homes in July, August and September increased from 3,068 last year to 3,366, according to the Greater Boston Real Estate Board.

Average sale prices, however, were flat, climbing a scant 1.5 percent, from $230,048 to $233,503. Sales of condominiums increased 17.5 percent, from 658 to 773. Home sales statewide did even better, climbing 17.7 percent, according to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. Average prices were flat, climbing less than 1 percent, to $178,313. Condo sales jumped 27.6 percent, with prices up 2.7 percent, to $111,046.

"Maybe the Massachusetts Miracle is making a comeback," said Edgar M. Ramey a broker and president of MAR. He expected strong sales to continue through the end of the year. "It's exciting stuff for a change," Ramey said. "I put a Kingston house on the market on Monday and had four offers by yesterday, two above the asking price," he said, noting the final sale would be recorded in the fourth quarter.

He said other brokers had similar tales. Besides the low interest rates, he said creative financing deals by lenders were helping get younger buyers into homes. The South Shore (43.2 percent increase), Worcester County (40.2 percent), and Cape Cod (29.2 percent) led the state in home sales. Interest rates for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, which averaged below 7 percent for much of the third quarter, have spiked upwards recently. The average rate yesterday was 7.17 percent, up nearly a quarter of 1 percent since Friday, according to rosier output up i Staking out TV turf Each of Boston's independent TV stations market niche Channel Owner Boston Celtics Broadcasting LP.

GLOBE STAFF PHOTO SUZANNE KRFJTER is attempting to develop a specific Market segment Fox network affiliate Spanish language programming Celtics, Bruins and Red Sox games Proposed WB Network affiliate Secondary NBC affiliate Syndicated programming, with plans for local programming 'Pending completion of sale agreement; GLOBE STAFF CHART WFXT WUNI Corridor Broadcasting WSBK Ronald Perelman Peter Temple of Channel 56: "With Tribune No price announced; network affiliation is seen as a plus By Susan Bickelhaupt GLOBE STAFF Independent TV stations, once viewed as poor cousins to network-owned stations and affiliates, have become a hot commodity as new networks spring up and look to expand their reach. -The latest evidence: Tribune Broadcasting Co. yesterday said it would buy WLVI-TV (Ch. 56) from Gannett Co. for an undisclosed amount The deal was announced about 24 hours after Tribune unveiled plans with Time Warner Inc.

to launch a new prime-time TV network by next fall. Channel 56 will be the WB Network's Boston affiliate. Massachusetts Greater Boston 3d quarter '92 3d quarter '93 SOURCE: Massachusetts Association of Realtors GLOBE STAFF CHART HSH Associates of New Jersey, which tracks rates. Rates are up three-eighths of 1 percent over the past three weeks. In Greater Boston, sales of multi-family homes increased 30 percent, from 329 to 429.

The average sales price was down to $166,263. Karl Case, an economics professor at Wellesley College, said that the news on homes sales in the state was very mixed, however. In areas with high unemployment Lawrence, Lowell, Brockton, Fitchburg, Leominster, and Chelsea housing prices were still as low as half their 1988 value, he said. On the other hand, prices in the western suburbs of Boston were close to that peak, he said. Sales of homes nationally in September were up 2.6 percent, to an annually adjusted rate of 3.91 million homes.

f. Him 'tii hhOhilTS ur.n 1 1 4 I SCI Inc. VVLVI Tribune Broadcasting WMFP Avi Nelson (principal shareholder) WQTV Boston University Communication Inc. 'Rupert Murdoch's Fox TV owns option to acquire; "To be named WABU after regulatory approval SOURCE: Globe research Economic forecast gets Fed says consumer spending, factory Clinton formally sends NAFTA to Congress Just last week, Paramount Communications Inc. said it would -start its own network in partnership with Chris-Craft Industries Inc.

Paramount, no doubt, will be looking to swallow up yet another independent station in Boston, the sixth-ranked TV market. It was only seven years ago that Jamie Kellner and Barry Diller, working Rupert Murdoch's News began a serious challenge to the "Big Three" networks ABC, CBS and NBC with the Fox network. Now Fox is a bona fide fourth network, and both men have gone on to expand even more: Kellner as head of WB Network and Diller as chairman and chief executive of QVC, the home-shopping network which is trying to take over Paramount. The appeal of independent sta-CHANNEL, Page 45 The House is scheduled to vote on the bill Nov. 17.

Although the president conceded he doesn't now have the necessary majority to pass the bill, he told reporters, "We're getting there." In the White House view, amplified by a new national advertising campaign launched yesterday by a business coalition, tearing down trade barriers between the United States and Mexico will increase exports and thus create hundreds of thousands of US jobs. But to Carl Omer, a union leader in Newcastle, who drove over to Ambridge to protest the agreement, NAFTA's principal effect would be to export jobs, not goods. "It doesn't do anything for the American or Canadian or Mexican people," Omer said. "It just takes away what's left of American jobs." Rep. Ron Klink, the freshman Democrat who represents this district, introduced the Clintons at a health care rally in the local high school with praise for their concern about the tens of thousands of steel-workers' jobs lost in recent years in Beaver County.

But Klink is "totally opposed" to the trade agreement the president insists will create new jobs by letting Americans tap the grow-NAFTA, Page 48 By David Pauly BLOOMBERG BUSINESS NEWS 1 i I '4' 3. percent on Oct. 15. A bond with a face value of $1,000 has lost about $45 in that time. Meantime, the Dow and other major stock indexes have hit records.

But as they did yesterday, stock investors keep their eyes on bond prices and often react to them rather than to enhanced prospects for higher corporate profits and dividends. "There's a tug of war between people who like the economy and people who are afraid," said Don Hays, director of investment strategy at Wheat First, Butcher Singer in Richmond. Afraid, that is, that the Fed will raise interest rates in an effort to keep a growing economy from triggering higher rates of inflation. ECONOMY, Page 44 NEW YORK The economy is looking better than it has any time in the past three years. The Federal Reserve said yesterday consumer spending and factory output was growing in most sections of the country.

But are investors happy? Apparently not. Stocks and bonds both fell yesterday. The Dow Jones industrial average, the most-quoted stock indicator, dropped 35.77 points to 3661.87 and the bellwether US 30-year bond lost about $8.75 on each $1,000, raising its yield to 6.12 percent Bond prices have been falling generally ever since the long bond hit its record low yield of 5.77. GLOBE STAFF PHOTO FRANK O'BRIEN HELPING HAND Rev. Charles Stith urged the US Senate to allow banks to sell insurance in the inner cities.

Page 45. gamble on riverboat casinos By Michael Putzel GLOBE STAFF AMBRIDGE, Pa. In this forlorn former steel town in Western' Pennsylvania, where President Clinton and his wife were visiting yesterday, the administration's uphill battle for the North American Free Trade Agreement was lost long ago. "We can't risk losing any more jobs," said Elizabeth Kerr, an unemployed Ambridge resident and one of several dozen protesters who shivered on the sidewalk, dusted overnight by an early snowfall, as they waited to wave anti-NAFTA placards at Clinton's limousine. The president, in town to press for health care reform, never mentioned the trade pact in this hostile territory.

But before leaving Washington, he won Mexican concessions that would continue to protect US sugar, citrus and other commodities in a bald-faced pitch for the support of Southern and Western growers concerned about an influx of Mexican commodities. 1 5 With the long-discussed concessions in hand, the president signed and sent to Congress the legislation to implement NAFTA as the scramble for votes entered a two-week countdown. MONEY' Pae46 Fall River says By Mitchell Zuckoff GLOBE STAFF By voting overwhelmingly to support riverboat gambling, Fall River residents this week gave the clearest sign to date that some Massachusetts cities are ready to use casinos to salve their fiscal wounds. In a nonbinding referendum Tuesday, 14,840 city voters, or 62 percent, supported a proposed river it's willing to boat casino, while 8,913 residents voted against it, unofficial returns showed. Casino gambling is outlawed in.

Massachusetts, so legislative approval would be needed for Fall River to move ahead with its plans. Sen. Thomas C. Norton (D-Fall River) has introduced a bill to legalize riverboat casinos. The Fall River vote was the first of its kind in the state, and it echoed public opinion polls that suggest estimated would create 3,000 jobs.

"Obviously, we're very pleased with the results of the vote," said Michael Sloan, vice president and general counsel at Circus Circus. "We think it is probable that the government of Massachusetts will give this issue consideration in the short term, and we obviously are exceedingly interested in Massachusetts," Sloan said. RIVERBOAT, Page 44 Massachusetts residents would support riverboat gambling under certain circumstances and in certain lo-' cations. Fall River, still hurting economically after the recession, has attracted the attention of Circus Circus Enterprises a Las Vegas casino firm that is moving to expand into riverboats. In the weeks before the election, the company outlined plans for a $100 million hotel, entertainment and gambling complex that it Kenneth Hooker Unpleasant as it may be, a son must sit down with his elderly mother and find ways to reduce her expenditure of the dwindling capital.

Alexander A. Bove Jr. Since Massachusetts hasn't yet adopted the new federal Medicaid law changes, there may still be time to make some protective moves. Money Watch Higher-income retirees should accelerate income into 1993 to beat the new levy on Social Security benefits; "900" safeguards 'in place..