At the edge of Manhattan’s Meat Packing District in Chelsea, Pier 57 abuts an area that has seen a burst of activity over the last decade. Located at the end of West 15th St. and encompassing some 375,000 square feet of waterfront space plus rooftop area, the pier is now the focus for three bids for renovation.

The builders are about as pessimistic as they've ever been. Yesterday, we learned that the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, which tracks builder sentiment, fell to a record low of 9 in November (sinking from an already low 14 in October).

Today we found out that housing starts fell 4.5% in October and even more concerning, single-family home building permits plummeted 14.5%, meaning that we'll see an even more significant drop in housing starts in coming months.

Patrick Newport, U.S. Economist with IHS Global Insight, seemed downright worried when I spoke with him today. He called the housing start report, a "shocker."

"These are people who know their business," Newport said of the builders. "They’re in better touch with the market than we are and the press is."

The financial crisis, which really got going after Lehman Brothers collapsed on Sept. 15, will likely cause serious damage to the already faltering housing market. It seems that mortgage applications are way down since September, an indication of falling buyer demand.

U.S. home mortgage applications dropped last week by a seasonally adjusted 6.2% compared to the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. And the application volume was down 41.3% compared to the same week in 2007.

Using the proceeds to pay down its unsecured line of credit, Boston Properties Inc. has closed on an eight-year, $375 million loan secured by Four Embarcadero Center in San Francisco. The loan was provided by a syndicate of life insurance companies and bears interest at a fixed rate of 6.10 percent annum.

National home prices, driven lower by a flood of foreclosures, plummeted by a record year-over-year 9% in the third quarter, according to a report issued Tuesday.

Two New York City office properties are back on the market, as a deal under which George Comfort & Sons would have acquired the assets--1540 Broadway and Worldwide Plaza--for some $2 billion has fallen through.