East Boston Infill and Small Developments

kmp1284 said:
It's really not unaffordable. There is a huge number of young couples and single people in Boston making $200-$400k a year who can easily swing something in the $500k-$1m range(young meaning 25-35).
Click to expand...

datadyne007 said:
You were on such a roll, my friend. That roll ended tonight.

You cannot call that price range affordable, no matter how you swing it.
Click to expand...

While I agree with data's sentiment here, this is a perfect illustration of why "affordable" is such a terrible term. No matter what price a unit is sold/rented for, it is by definition "affordable" as long as it finds a buyer/renter for its price and doesn't sit empty. If a unit were truly not "affordable", then nobody would buy or rent it. As long as its occupant can afford it, it is affordable.

In this sense, kmp is totally right. There are a lot of people with good incomes who can and will pay a pretty penny to live in Boston, and they're filling up the units on the market. Thus, these units are affordable.

But when we say "affordable" when what we really mean is "middle income", then no, prices in line with family incomes in the $200-$400k range would not be "affordable".

But, slight caveat, it doesn't take anything near a $200-$400k income to afford a $500k-$1m unit. A $500k 30-year mortgage at current rates with 20% down costs about $2,440 a month. A $1m mortgage under the same terms costs about $4,850 a month. Using the "30% rule", and multiplying those monthly prices by 12, that yields annual gross incomes of about $98k and $194k. If you want to be more conservative and use a "20% rule", you get $146k and $291k. So yeah, no "$200-$400k" incomes needed...

And by the way, the "there are a lot of people with a lot of money who want to live here" dynamic 100% explains our high housing costs. The only way to reverse this is to: 1) make fewer people want to live here, 2) make people be willing to pay not as much to live here, and/or 3) make more housing available here so that fewer are crowed out by those who are willing to pay a lot. I vote option three.
 
JumboBuc said:
While I agree with data's sentiment here, this is a perfect illustration of why "affordable" is such a terrible term. No matter what price a unit is sold/rented for, it is by definition "affordable" as long as it finds a buyer/renter for its price and doesn't sit empty. If a unit were truly not "affordable", then nobody would buy or rent it. As long as its occupant can afford it, it is affordable.

In this sense, kmp is totally right. There are a lot of people with good incomes who can and will pay a pretty penny to live in Boston, and they're filling up the units on the market. Thus, these units are affordable.

But when we say "affordable" when what we really mean is "middle income", then no, prices in line with family incomes in the $200-$400k range would not be "affordable".

But, slight caveat, it doesn't take anything near a $200-$400k income to afford a $500k-$1m unit. A $500k 30-year mortgage at current rates with 20% down costs about $2,440 a month. A $1m mortgage under the same terms costs about $4,850 a month. Using the "30% rule", and multiplying those monthly prices by 12, that yields annual gross incomes of about $98k and $194k. If you want to be more conservative and use a "20% rule", you get $146k and $291k. So yeah, no "$200-$400k" incomes needed...

And by the way, the "there are a lot of people with a lot of money who want to live here" dynamic 100% explains our high housing costs. The only way to reverse this is to: 1) make fewer people want to live here, 2) make people be willing to pay not as much to live here, and/or 3) make more housing available here so that fewer are crowed out by those who are willing to pay a lot. I vote option three.
Click to expand...
Thanks. By "affordable housing prices," I generally am referring to people making up to ~150% AMI being able to comfortably live (without assistance).
 
datadyne007 said:
Thanks. By "affordable housing prices," I generally am referring to people making up to ~150% AMI being able to comfortably live (without assistance).
Click to expand...

Just for the record, Boston's Income, Asset, and Price Limits set a one-bedroom "Maximum Affordable Rent" for 150% AMI at $2,662. This corresponds with an income of $117,750 for a two person household. If we're talking about owning instead of renting, $2,662 would be the monthly payment on a $545k mortgage, assuming 20% down on a 30-year fixed at current rates.

There are currently 61 homes listed for sale in East Boston for under $545k, and many (most?) of those are larger than one-bedroom.
 
JumboBuc said:
Just for the record, Boston's Income, Asset, and Price Limits set a one-bedroom "Maximum Affordable Rent" for 150% AMI at $2,662. This corresponds with an income of $117,750 for a two person household. If we're talking about owning instead of renting, $2,662 would be the monthly payment on a $545k mortgage, assuming 20% down on a 30-year fixed at current rates.

There are currently 61 homes listed for sale in East Boston for under $545k, and many (most?) of those are larger than one-bedroom.
Click to expand...

Boston's AMI is inflated by West Rox, Downtown, Back Bay, etc. While I can't find specific stats by neighborhood/zip, Eastie's AMI (while definitely rising as gentrification continues) has to be lower than the general Boston one of $78.5k. It's probably closer to Chelsea's $48k.
 
The biggest challenges with home ownership in Boston are 1) lack of supply (which makes it competitive), and 2) saving enough money to make that 20% down payment.

I don't mind talking money with others for educational purposes, so I want to share my East Boston story. I saved for several years between working through college (thank you NU co-op) and a bit more after college... after spending two years searching for a condo in the City of Boston, I finally found one I could afford in 2014. It was a $249k East Boston 2-bedroom, one of three units in a triple decker. I put down ~20% ($50k) and got a mortgage at 4.5% interest for the difference, which came out to about $1,050/month to the bank. I was earning $40,000/month at the time and had good credit, so the bank was happy to issue the loan.

All three units were valued at the same when I bought. One year later, my neighbor sold for $300,000. Two years later, the other neighbor sold for ~$330,000. It has been 3 years since I purchased, and the latest market estimates peg the value up to $400,000.

On the one hand, I'm thrilled at how much it's appreciated in value! But on a worrying note, this is a suspiciously fast appreciation of value for a 3-year period (37.5%) in a community that has been traditionally affordable and blue collar. Where someone who had the means to save and earned less than $50,000 was once able to live in the neighborhood, the reality is that you'll need to be earn and save on incomes over $60,000 to afford the absolute cheapest home(s) available in the city... and while more than half of Boston residents do earn above that, nearly half of them don't.

When I see retail proposals for Eastie like the one at Maverick Square, I completely empathize with datadyne's point: THERE NEEDS TO BE HOUSING THERE!!! The whole square needs a revamp of all uses (residential, retail, hopefully office and hotel too). Eastie's pulling its weight better than some other communities with the volume of units coming to market, but the truth is that they won't have a noticeable affect on affordability until a greater share of them provide ownership opportunities and not exclusively (luxury) rentals.

[steps off soap box]
 
If a house is less than 590k (and in an FHA approved building, if a condo) you can buy it with 3.5% down
 
datadyne007 said:
Boston's AMI is inflated by West Rox, Downtown, Back Bay, etc. While I can't find specific stats by neighborhood/zip, Eastie's AMI (while definitely rising as gentrification continues) has to be lower than the general Boston one of $78.5k. It's probably closer to Chelsea's $48k.
Click to expand...

True, Eastie's AMI is probably below that of the city as a whole. Although I do quibble with your use of "inflated". AMI is median, not mean, so it's not as affected by the "tails" of the distribution.

Do you know Revere's AMI? It isn't clearly stated on their (comically bad) website.
 
datadyne007 said:
Boston's AMI is inflated by West Rox, Downtown, Back Bay, etc. While I can't find specific stats by neighborhood/zip, Eastie's AMI (while definitely rising as gentrification continues) has to be lower than the general Boston one of $78.5k. It's probably closer to Chelsea's $48k.
Click to expand...

The Boston wikipedia page has a section on income demographics by neighborhood, but the #'s are from '08-'12 ACS estimates and zip codes. Not exactly what you're after, but illustrative of your point.
 
JohnAKeith said:
Boston median income by census tract. (Lol, appears to be same data as mentioned above, from Wikipedia.)

http://www.bostonplans.org/getattachment/36c03693-2a54-4fec-8b64-b130c8a509e3/

Like anything & everything, appearances can be deceiving. Brighton median income is affected by the large student population, while Mattapan & parts of Dorchester show low median income because people are poor.
Click to expand...

OK, there seems to be one really interesting anomaly in the map.

How does Logan Airport have a census tract? (With a rather high income.) (Or is there actually some housing within the area that looks like the airport boundaries?)
 
JeffDowntown said:
OK, there seems to be one really interesting anomaly in the map.

How does Logan Airport have a census tract? (With a rather high income.) (Or is there actually some housing within the area that looks like the airport boundaries?)
Click to expand...

There's housing in there. 156 Porter is in that area - a pretty nice condo building. It also looks like it includes everything east of Cottage St and north of Maverick St.
 
It seems like there's a calls for 'street level retail' on many project threads, imo.

i'm confused when people post for retail, becuase i don't know if they're talking about the inclusion of basement pubs, deli's, micro-convenient stores, or larger stuff.

Lafayette is a mystery. This part of the city is crazy dense now. Then, what's wrong with traveling a mile or two for Herald Square (NY) scale of shopping?

Did the 1st facelift come 30 years too early?
 
odurandina said:
It seems like there's a calls for 'street level retail' on many project threads, imo.

i'm confused when people post for retail, becuase i don't know if they're talking about the inclusion of basement pubs, deli's, micro-convenient stores, or larger stuff.
Click to expand...

When I call for ground-floor retail, I'm thinking of small-scale shops, convenience stores, restaurants, delis, bars. Stroll on in, neighborhood places.
 
The Logan Airport census tract is 9813. From what I've read, census tracts that begin with "9" or "98" are low-population tracts.

Here's some data on the 9813 census tract. It seems to reflect that assumption.

Name Census Tract 9813
County Suffolk County
State Massachusetts
Area (square miles) 3.54
Land Area (square miles) 2.76
Water Area (square miles) 0.78
% of Land Area 78.03
% of Water Area 21.97
Latitude of the Internal Point 42.36112890
Longtitude of the Internal Point -71.00697540
Total Population 389
Total Housing Units 245
Total Households 236
Median Age 33.3

For comparison, here's census tract 703, South End / Bay Village

Name Census Tract 703
County Suffolk County
State Massachusetts
Area (square miles) 0.13
Land Area (square miles) 0.13
Water Area (square miles) 0.00
% of Land Area 100.00
% of Water Area 0.00
Latitude of the Internal Point 42.34841050
Longtitude of the Internal Point -71.07035710
Total Population 3,909
Total Housing Units 2,706
Total Households 2,448
Median Age 38.8
 
JohnAKeith said:
The Logan Airport census tract is 9813. From what I've read, census tracts that begin with "9" or "98" are low-population tracts.

Here's some data on the 9813 census tract. It seems to reflect that assumption.

Name Census Tract 9813
County Suffolk County
State Massachusetts
Area (square miles) 3.54
Land Area (square miles) 2.76
Water Area (square miles) 0.78
% of Land Area 78.03
% of Water Area 21.97
Latitude of the Internal Point 42.36112890
Longtitude of the Internal Point -71.00697540
Total Population 389
Total Housing Units 245
Total Households 236
Median Age 33.3

For comparison, here's census tract 703, South End / Bay Village

Name Census Tract 703
County Suffolk County
State Massachusetts
Area (square miles) 0.13
Land Area (square miles) 0.13
Water Area (square miles) 0.00
% of Land Area 100.00
% of Water Area 0.00
Latitude of the Internal Point 42.34841050
Longtitude of the Internal Point -71.07035710
Total Population 3,909
Total Housing Units 2,706
Total Households 2,448
Median Age 38.8
Click to expand...

Thanks -- it just seemed really odd that the Census Bureau would carve those few residents away from the other parts of East Boston (and yet include all the land area of Logan Airport).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top