Mansion Global reports:
Boston is undergoing its biggest residential boom since the 1920s, drawing the attention of wealthy house-hunters who would traditionally stick to New York, Miami, Los Angeles and San Francisco. ...
When completed in the summer of 2018, One Dalton will be New England’s tallest and most expensive residential building on display, with 165 condos priced between $2 million and $35 million.
Boston Displacement is a site that's started showing where tenants are being displaced by gentrification - specifically by landlords seeking to clear out units.
The Crimson reports how the the Allston Brighton Community Development Corp. used a $3 million grant from Harvard to gain loans with which to buy houses in Allston/Brighton to then re-sell to people on condition they live in those houses.
Ironically, one of the first houses the group bought they got by outbidding a couple looking to move from Cambridge to Brighton - they then resold the house to the couple.
A Boston Foundation report out today paints a grim picture of a housing market with prices spiraling out of control - in which condo prices are reaching parity with single-family home prices, triple deckers are being snapped up by investors and families are struggling to stay afloat. Read more.
Boston Metro reports on what it says is Dorchester's first single-family home to sell for seven figures - in the over-the-bridge part of Savin Hill.
Even in rapidly gentrifying South Boston, $12 million for a 3-bedroom, 2,421-square foot condo seems just a tad high, so we're going to assume that Zillow made a $10.8-million mistake on its initial price listing, rather than fretting that such a dramatic price reduction signals the complete collapse of the South Boston condo market.
H/t Eileen Murphy.
The BRA board today approved an apartment building near North Station where all 239 units will be aimed at people who couldn't afford to live in the other towers rising in the area. Read more.
New York, San Francisco and San Jose beat us, according to the Boston Business Journal, which quotes some Gloomy Gus about how all those new residential units are going to force landlords sooner or later to lower their rents.
Good news: Suffolk County (Boston, Revere, Chelsea, & Winthrop) leads the nation in the percentage of housing considered to be affordable to those in "extreme" poverty (earning no more than $28,300 for a family of four).
Bad news: Only 51 extremely low-income families out of every 100 in Suffolk County are able to access safe and affordable rental housing.
Source: Urban Institute, The Housing Affordability Gap For Extremely Low-Income Renters In 2013
The Globe reports on Related Beal's proposal for a 14-story tower across Causeway from the ramps to the Zakim with " rents well below the going market rates."
Councilor Bill Linehan (South Boston, South End, Chinatown) tomorrow asks the City Council to consider a proposal that would let people over 55 who have lived in their homes at least ten years defer payment of their city property tax until they sell the property or die.
In his request for a hearing on the matter, Linehan says the measure would let longtime residents stay in their homes even as their property taxes skyrocket due to the effect of the well off snapping up all the properties around them at ever escalating prices.
Two months' free rent AND no application fee in new building in chic Fort Point.
Via Boston Reddit.
Earlier:
Supply and demand works with apartments.
City Councilor Tito Jackson (Roxbury) wants to take a look at the role large landlords are playing in forcing longtime residents out of the city.
On Wednesday, Jackson will ask fellow councilors for a hearing to consider "displacement, community stability and neighborhood preservation."
In his hearing request, Jackson writes:
The foreclosure crisis and the surge of residential housing conversion by corporate landlords backed by investors are causing displacement and community instability.
Wait, so there might be a limit to how many luxury apartments Boston can support? Apparently so.
The BRA decided tonight to solicit bids from groups that might have ideas on how to use $3 million in money from Harvard for increasing owner occupancy rates in Allston houses.
BRA staffers say trends show growing percentages of houses in the North Allston and the neighboring section of Brighton being bought up by investors, who might not have the same neighborhood interests as people who actually live in the area.
The Boston Redevelopment Authority today approved plans for a 145-unit building on the Riverway in which most units will be aimed at the sort of people who could not possibly afford the sorts of apartments being built in the rest of the city.
The proposed 11-story building will be next to a Brigham and Women's Hospital building now under construction on the Riverway at Fenwood Road - and the hospital is a partner in the project, for which it is donating the land, along with the Roxbury Tenants of Harvard, a non-profit group that currently maintains some 1,000 apartments in the Longwood/Mission Hill area.
In a message to the City Council today, Mayor Walsh says an outpouring of objections has convinced him to retain a city ordinance that requires city department heads and other top appointees to live in Boston.
But, Walsh continues, the current tough Boston housing market can make it difficult for new appointees to find a place to live here in the six months they currently have, so he wants to up the time requirement to a year.
The council will consider the proposal at its Wednesday meeting, which begins at noon in its fifth-floor chambers in City Hall.
John Keith considers statements out of City Hall on the need to build middle-income housing in neighborhoods not being overrun by luxury towers and conversions of old garages into condos.
The Herald reports. Low interest rates and the presence of all our colleges are bringing them in.
The Globe notes the re-emergence of escalation clauses, in which people desperate for a given property agree to pay whatever the highest bid is plus a bonus.
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