Whittier Choice Neighborhood | 1158 Tremont Street | Roxbury

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Utilizing the 40x rule that's common in NYC to be approved for a rental unit, that means the bare minimum income for a unit here would be $131,000. I know Boston is a high income city, but are there really that many people easily clearing six figures in the city to justify these prices?
 
OK so this report used US census data to mostly report around demographic and income segregation in the Boston metro area (which isn't the point here) but they do have a decent breakdown of income, caveated that this also includes good parts of the suburbs. $131k is squarely in the fat part of the distribution. And if you flex up on the 40x rule you could imagine a median income person of $112k making that work as well.

We're a very rich metro area!



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As of 2023, median household income in Metro Boston was approximately $112,500—fifth highest among major U.S. metros, behind only San Jose, San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Seattle. This reflects both Boston’s longstanding affluence and a recent increase in incomes. After stagnating between 1990 and 2015, inflation-adjusted median income grew nearly 16 percent from 2015 to2023, its fastest pace in four decades.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Just perused that website https://flat9rox.com, 1 beds start at $3,275... Guess being a new build and the prime transit location must sell...
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$3,275 is not too bad for a new-build 1BR in an inner(ish) neighborhood of Boston. Of course, it's frustrating that rents are that high, but in terms of what the market sustains right now, that's a decent deal.
 
NorthshoreCity said:
Utilizing the 40x rule that's common in NYC to be approved for a rental unit, that means the bare minimum income for a unit here would be $131,000. I know Boston is a high income city, but are there really that many people easily clearing six figures in the city to justify these prices?
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I mean Idyl Fenway seemed to lease up pretty quickly charging $1000+ more per 1bed than this place. I feel like I occasionally see reports that the tippy top tier of residential condos is struggling but not so much for these types of developments 🤷‍♂️.
 
I mean, a high median income is about the best you can ask for a city, especially if it's safe and has low unemployment. The move here is to just build as much housing as possible. Squaring high incomes with flat (or, please) falling rents and abundant housing is a superpower most cities can only dream of.

It's so much harder to have a high income city than it is to have "affordable" market rate housing. Zoning for and building as much housing as we can, especially in underutilized urban areas, should be priority number 1 for the whole city.
 
Justbuildit said:
I mean, a high median income is about the best you can ask for a city, especially if it's safe and has low unemployment. The move here is to just build as much housing as possible. Squaring high incomes with flat (or, please) falling rents and abundant housing is a superpower most cities can only dream of.

It's so much harder to have a high income city than it is to have "affordable" market rate housing. Zoning for and building as much housing as we can, especially in underutilized urban areas, should be priority number 1 for the whole city.
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I mean that's all true but I don't think we would accept the same fate in high income areas for most other consumer goods. Imagine if an Xbox was 80% more expensive because it was being bought here rather than in the Phoenix suburbs. Obviously cost of labor would necessarily scale with area income via some kind of baumol effect, but like even with that I think we are still operating with prices above what's viable for many projects under the right regulatory requirements. High incomes under the right circumstances can also translate to high surplus in the economic sense if we reached a more efficient quantity of housing right.
 
I agree with what you're saying and my very loud drum here and in real life is about driving down housing costs through abundant construction to allow for price filtering across our housing stock so that we end up outside of this lopsided price regime. It's not clear that falling rents would disrupt the high median income, and even a marginal adjustment in rent prices while maintaining strong wages would make the 40x rule possible for many more people.

Generally I think it's ok to have relatively more expensive housing in areas that have higher incomes, even if the equilibrium seems absurd to someone outside the system. Boston will probably never be the land of $800 rents again, but if wages are high, we continue to build and install a more favorable regulatory regime while ALSO providing some subsidized housing to the poorest, the students, and new arrivals (bring back SROs!) then we can be the little Switzerland in the northeast where incomes are strong and people want to live here.

This is all so far beyond the point of this thread, so I'll try to bring it back by saying this place looks nice for pretty standard new construction, but I would HATE to cross that section of Tremont every way to the Orange Line. It's basically a highway and even worse when you add the Ruggles bus traffic.
 
sean99090900 said:
I mean that's all true but I don't think we would accept the same fate in high income areas for most other consumer goods. Imagine if an Xbox was 80% more expensive because it was being bought here rather than in the Phoenix suburbs. Obviously cost of labor would necessarily scale with area income via some kind of baumol effect, but like even with that I think we are still operating with prices above what's viable for many projects under the right regulatory requirements. High incomes under the right circumstances can also translate to high surplus in the economic sense if we reached a more efficient quantity of housing right.
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That's why @Justbuildit is advocating for lots more housing construction. We want the X-Box to be the same price (as it is), and we also want housing to be the same price (or at least closer in price).
 
Justbuildit said:
I agree with what you're saying and my very loud drum here and in real life is about driving down housing costs through abundant construction to allow for price filtering across our housing stock so that we end up outside of this lopsided price regime. It's not clear that falling rents would disrupt the high median income, and even a marginal adjustment in rent prices while maintaining strong wages would make the 40x rule possible for many more people.

Generally I think it's ok to have relatively more expensive housing in areas that have higher incomes, even if the equilibrium seems absurd to someone outside the system. Boston will probably never be the land of $800 rents again, but if wages are high, we continue to build and install a more favorable regulatory regime while ALSO providing some subsidized housing to the poorest, the students, and new arrivals (bring back SROs!) then we can be the little Switzerland in the northeast where incomes are strong and people want to live here.

This is all so far beyond the point of this thread, so I'll try to bring it back by saying this place looks nice for pretty standard new construction, but I would HATE to cross that section of Tremont every way to the Orange Line. It's basically a highway and even worse when you add the Ruggles bus traffic.
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HenryAlan said:
That's why @Justbuildit is advocating for lots more housing construction. We want the X-Box to be the same price (as it is), and we also want housing to be the same price (or at least closer in price).
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I 100% agree with both of you, unrestricted supply is the easiest and maybe only viable way to get to that efficient situation. I'm only bringing this up as a point because I see a lot of discourse that is just resigned to how much higher prices are in high income areas.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Just perused that website https://flat9rox.com, 1 beds start at $3,275... Guess being a new build and the prime transit location must sell...
Click to expand...

That's because that's what it has to be in order for the numbers to work. Just so expensive to build here.

I imagine it would be a 2 or 3 income household.
 
jklo said:
That's because that's what it has to be in order for the numbers to work. Just so expensive to build here.

I imagine it would be a 2 or 3 income household.
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Do you get many 3 income households living in 1 bed apartments? That doesn't seem like an ideal lifestyle.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Do you get many 3 income households living in 1 bed apartments? That doesn't seem like an ideal lifestyle.
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Its not too uncommon among young professionals from developing countries eg. India. I haven't visited many 1 beds but I've seen a lot of 2 bed units with 5 people living there and lived above 11 people in a 5 bed with the extra person(s) living in the living room.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Do you get many 3 income households living in 1 bed apartments? That doesn't seem like an ideal lifestyle.
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OK so three might be pushing it but as noted above I'm sure there are people doing it.

So lets just stick with two. 130k+ combined seems very doable. It's one where yes I would say that's asking a lot. Personally I would want more than 130k combined for $3275 rent but that's just me.
 
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