Rhode Island single-family home sales rose 43 percent in November compared with the same period last year, the Rhode Island Association of Realtors said Thursday. more

Home prices in the Providence metropolitan area increased 1.47 percent year over year in October, according to the LPS Home Price Index report. more

Employees at Embrace Home Loans in Newport again continued the company’s tradition of assembling Thanksgiving baskets for those in need during the holiday. more

The 2,700 spaces of the Misquamicut State Beach parking lot now lie under a veritable mountain of sand, all of it removed from Atlantic Avenue and its businesses and residences in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. more

A man-made sand dune, stretching about 200 yards and engineered with steel rebar, its top covered with planted grasses, is the largest built object still standing along the entire Atlantic Avenue beachfront in Westerly. more

Patrick Boris, a banquet chef in Las Vegas, is inching closer to his own “fiscal cliff,” 2,100 miles away from the political brinksmanship under way on Capitol Hill. If Congress and the White House allow the country to go over the cliff later this month, Boris figures he could owe federal income taxes on more than $100,000 in forgiven mortgage debt following the short sale of his two-bedroom townhome next year – a personal financial “disaster,” in his words. more

The Downtown Providence Parks Conservancy often points to Bryant Park in New York City as the model for a public-private partnership transforming a crime-ridden and desolate urban space into a vital civic center. more

Urban chicken-keeping in Rhode Island appeared to cross from the fringe into the mainstream two years ago when Providence legalized small, backyard flocks, followed by Warren and exclusive Barrington last year. more

The Providence-Fall River-New Bedford area foreclosure rate dropped 0.33 percentage points in October compared with the same period last year, CoreLogic said Thursday. more

The 15-bedroom “Cliff Walk” mansion known as “Hopedene” has sold for $16 million, the highest purchase price of a Rhode Island home this year and second highest ever, Gustave White Sotheby’s International Real Estate announced Wednesday. more