Chelsea Infill and Small Developments

[odurandina]

Its not like the locals are buying these condos in the cities? Who actually can afford 700K-1,4M condo in the city with condo fees. These are rich and mostly upper class international groups of people.

I believe their are plenty of condos you just can't afford them. I believe this is what is pushing the city condo boom.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-adv-investor-visas-20151127-story.html

i'm in Los Angeles a lot (3 trips in the last 6 weeks). Like NYC & Miami, LA will always attract a huge number of foreign upwardly mobile people.

Thank more our tech boom + colleges

for attracting so many of our residents from foreign countries.

 

[kmp1284]

Its not like the locals are buying these condos in the cities? Who actually can afford 700K-1,4M condo in the city with condo fees.

Lawyers, financial professionals, management consultants, advertising folks, business owners, executives and managers, college professors and administrators, scientific researchers, healthcare administrators, non-profit execs, architects, engineers and higher level city/state/federal employees to name a few.

 

[TheRifleman]

i'm in Los Angeles a lot (3 trips in the last 6 weeks). Like NYC & Miami, LA will always attract a huge number of foreign upwardly mobile people.

Thank more our tech boom + colleges

for attracting so many of our residents from foreign countries.

I agree with this.

Lawyers, financial professionals, management consultants, advertising folks, business owners, executives and managers, college professors and administrators, scientific researchers, healthcare administrators, non-profit execs, architects, engineers and higher level city/state/federal employees to name a few.

Looks like the Millennium Tower missed your memo.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/busines...oney-magnet/keC5sjXE546tpvGmGsTVlM/story.html

At the high-end Millennium Tower, buyers have come from Greece, Hong Kong, and the Middle East, scooping up condos two or three apiece. There’s a real estate executive in San Francisco who markets luxury US properties in Asia, and claims on her website that she’s sold 7 percent of the tower — roughly 30 units.

And then there’s the recent immigrant from China, Bingyi Chen, who lives in a modest townhouse in Concord and has bought at least 16 condos on behalf of investors in his native country, according to property records and his real estate agent. He paid $15.6 million in total. All cash.

"You believe they outbidded Sully for these condos?" Lets just go back to the tavern and call Joe at the Union.

 

[kmp1284]

Looks like the Millennium Tower missed your memo.

That’s one building at an entirely different price point.

You asked who can afford units between $700k and $1.4m and I told you.

 

[TomOfBoston]

I was recently looking at doing a 50 unit project in Chelsea. I ran into two major problems. First, even though the project would have abutted a new Silver Line station that powers that be will not allow anything to be built with less than a 1.0 parking ratio. Second, in their great foresight, the city council saw fit to adopt an affordable housing requirement. For a fifty unit deal, one must provide 8 units of affordable housing. Sales for such units incur net losses of $300k + per unit. So it makes sense to opt for the $200k per unit buyout. But since that adds $1.6mm to the project cost the deal was no longer viable. Given the cost of construction a marginal location like Chelsea was always going to be done on thin margins. This pushed the calculus right over the line.

In the old days in Chelsea you could have obtained approval for about $100,000 split generously among the mayor and aldermen. But back then no one wanted to build in Chelsea.

 

[jklo]

Lawyers, financial professionals, management consultants, advertising folks, business owners, executives and managers, college professors and administrators, scientific researchers, healthcare administrators, non-profit execs, architects, engineers and higher level city/state/federal employees to name a few.

College professors and scientific researchers make 250-400k? Have to think you don't make that kind of cash unless you are at a VP or CxO level. You're not talking about that big of a group. Now if you had 3-4 incomes (eg: Single with Roommates) you could make it work. I imagine most of the condos being sold in Boston are going to end up as apartments anyway for that reason.

 

[scorpio02150]

Green= Completed projects in recent years

Red= Project under construction or Future construction site

Broadway corridor outlined in yellow

https://flic.kr/p/27qvnek

 

[kmp1284]

College professors and scientific researchers make 250-400k? Have to think you don't make that kind of cash unless you are at a VP or CxO level. You're not talking about that big of a group.

In most cities it would be a small group but in Boston where you have two elite universities and hundreds of companies that are willing to pay good money for top talent from around the world, those numbers aren't at all unreasonable.

 

[JeffDowntown]

College professors and scientific researchers make 250-400k?

The ones at MIT and Harvard often do. And the top researchers throughout the Longwood medical complex and at many of the biotech firms do.

 

[coleslaw]

Adjunct professors, the vast majority in this city are paid at rates typically below the poverty line.

 

[kmp1284]

Adjunct professors, the vast majority in this city are paid at rates typically below the poverty line.

So? If they're adjunct faculty it's probably because they're not terribly talented instructors, there's little demand for their specialty or they don't have great credentials.

 

[TheRifleman]

Please help me identify these people? higher level city/state/federal employees

Really the last I heard the president of the United states makes a salary of$400,000 year.

Who are these special high level city and state workers buying these condos in the city?

 

[tysmith95]

Lots of college professors make tons of money from side consulting gigs, you've also got ones who make money from writing textbooks. Harvard/MIT professors are all top notch in their field, and make good money. I really don't think there are many, if any, professors at MIT/Harvard making poverty wages.

 

[kmp1284]

Please help me identify these people? higher level city/state/federal employees

Really the last I heard the president of the United states makes a salary of$400,000 year.

Who are these special high level city and state workers buying these condos in the city?

Here's an idea ... instead of obsessing over how much other people make, try obsessing over improving what you make so as to not be left even further behind than you already are.

 

[Beton Brut]

I really don't think there are many, if any, professors at MIT/Harvard making poverty wages.

Very true. But there are ~ 60 colleges in Greater Boston, and not all of them have an endowment that would allow the financing of a mission to Mars.

I have quite a few friends who teach at the college level; most of them only dream of home ownership.

No argument, there's a lot of money inside of 128 that affords highly skilled people in desirable business sectors to drop north of $700K on a home. I don't think any of them are adjuncts at BU or Northeastern. Indeed, a senior administrative assistant might command a higher salary than an adjunct with an advanced degree.

 

[393b40]

Keep in mind most people get married at some point around which then increases their purchasing power even further. A couple making a combined 200, 300 or 400K is pretty common around here and only requires a 1 bedroom . Even if you decide to have kids you can do a lot of stuff.

 

[tysmith95]

No argument, there's a lot of money inside of 128 that affords highly skilled people in desirable business sectors to drop north of $700K on a home. I don't think any of them are adjuncts at BU or Northeastern. Indeed, a senior administrative assistant might command a higher salary than an adjunct with an advanced degree.

At least at my school a lot of that had to do with what field the professors were in. A humanties professor has a harder time getting tenure versus a mathmatics, accounting, etc professor.

 

[cadetcarl]

So? If they're adjunct faculty it's probably because they're not terribly talented instructors, there's little demand for their specialty or they don't have great credentials.

That isn't fair at all. One can claim that there are plenty in the local university sector who can afford places at this price point without taking shots at adjunct professors. Rates of tenure are down across the board; it's never been harder to break into and make it in professorship despite ballooning tuition. To make this about talent and credentials in a competitive field is to side with universities with mega-endowments over teachers trying to make it work, who can be very good at what they do.

Of course it can always be the case that there isn't much demand for their particular services.

 

[kmp1284]

That isn't fair at all. One can claim that there are plenty in the local university sector who can afford places at this price point without taking shots at adjunct professors. Rates of tenure are down across the board; it's never been harder to break into and make it in professorship despite ballooning tuition. To make this about talent and credentials in a competitive field is to side with universities with mega-endowments over teachers trying to make it work, who can be very good at what they do.

Of course it can always be the case that there isn't much demand for their particular services.

I’m all for economic opportunity and not exploiting workers but if one has the intellectual capacity to pursue a Ph.D. then they also have the intellectual capacity to think long and hard about what their career prospects are going to be. If with eight to ten years of higher education under one’s belt the best they can do is poverty wages then they picked the wrong line of work.

 

[bigpicture7]

I’m all for economic opportunity and not exploiting workers but if one has the intellectual capacity to pursue a Ph.D. then they also have the intellectual capacity to think long and hard about what their career prospects are going to be. If with eight to ten years of higher education under one’s belt the best they can do is poverty wages then they picked the wrong line of work.

kmp, i'd been in a rare state of agreement with you on much of what you were saying above about there being a plethora of professional fields in Boston that support $700k+ condo purchases, including agreeing with much of the list of professions you put forth...

But I think you are picking the wrong battle with this adjunct professor thing. Notions of an ideal meritocracy (in compensation) is simply more true some places than others. This is particularly applicable when it comes to tenure of faculty. Many adjuncts these days do have PhDs and are highly accomplished scholars. PhD credentialing follows what labor economists call a "cobweb theory," meaning you pick your field and invest many years of your life years ahead of knowing what the labor market conditions (in terms of tenure-track openings) will be. There's a book that describes inadvertent over-production of faculty aspirants in depth. Are you seriously going to blame a 27-30-yr-old for not knowing what the labor market would be back when they were 21? Sure, these folks can switch fields or look for an industry job, but the truth is they are making an impact with good quality teaching; there are political issues at play that thwart them from receiving more just compensation compared to their tenured peers. Moreover, many of them spent a good deal of time in industry first (getting paid well while there) but had to make a choice about their next chapter being further up the management ladder, or taking an exit ramp to academia. Sure, there are personal choices at play. But it is quite insulting to boil it down to such a facile argument as adjuncts are as inferior as their paycheck gap (compared to the tenured's) suggests. There's no need for you to "go there" in your discussion above. Even if the tenure process did sort the more capable ones, the adjuncts should be getting paid more, period. If you are critical of unions, then you should be critical of tenured faculty as well for protecting their fifedoms...but its even worse with the faculty, because the tenureds benefit like crazy from having the adjuncts around to handle teaching loads.