Housing (Supply Crisis & Public Policy)

The fun thing is that lots of folks already have roommates, too. That's an observed part of how displacement has happened in neighborhoods like Eastie and Dorchester: 3x kids with white-collar jobs typically out-earn a family of low-wage workers who are competing to rent the same three-bedroom in a three-decker. Up in my neck of the woods on the near-North Shore, this has meant our less-well-off neighbors are usually crowding into units, not multiple unrelated people to an apartment, but multiple unrelated families with kids into one -- it's one of the reasons COVID spread so wildly in places like Chelsea in early 2020, because it was nearly impossible for people to isolate. Like, the working-class people of this region are really taking it on the chin in the current rental market.

And if personal anecdote is any guide, I've never met a renter while living here over the last 10 years who doesn't have at least one other person splitting the rent with them. This includes spouses/partners, but most folks I know (white collar, college-educated social circles) have 2+ others .

Nationally, stats show we certainly had an uptick in household formation in 2020 (folks moving out of roommate situations or parents' basements), when rents dropped, and this clearly helped contribute to unusually high demand this year, but we also just have a demographic "pig in the python" in Mass. of people of the age (20s and 30s) where they're most likely to be striking out on their own after high school or college, or marrying, and that's elevated demand beyond what we've built for as a state.

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kmp1284 said:
Not sure we need to fundamentally alter the urban landscape for a small percentage of snowflakes who refuse to live with a roommate or two while starting their careers. Boston has always been a comparatively expensive city and people from all economic backgrounds have at some point had to share a place to make rent.
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Have you ever considered that the alteration of the urban landscape would be... (now don't grip your pearls too tight!) ... for the better?
 
Not "would" be better, that has not always been the case. It could be better with the right plan
 
Justbuildit said:
Respectfully,

“Learn to have roommates”:young urbanites::“Learn to code”:West Virginia coal miners
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Can't make the numbers work for new construction if you are selling to a one income household. Even a good one. You need two, ideally three. That's where the roomates come in.

There are condos at 200 and under in the "Boston Area". But you're talking about Worcester or Acton or Lowell or Nashua. May as well be on the moon.
 
jklo said:
Can't make the numbers work for new construction if you are selling to a one income household. Even a good one. You need two, ideally three. That's where the roomates come in.

There are condos at 200 and under in the "Boston Area". But you're talking about Worcester or Acton or Lowell or Nashua. May as well be on the moon.
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The median condo price is Worcester is now at $300,000, as ludicrous as that sounds. Still a bargain for anyone coming in from greater Boston.

www.wgbh.org

Worcester's housing market, once affordable, is squeezing out many residents

Dave Vespucci fears he’s on the verge of homelessness.
www.wgbh.org www.wgbh.org
 
kmp1284 said:
Not sure we need to fundamentally alter the urban landscape for a small percentage of snowflakes who refuse to live with a roommate or two while starting their careers. Boston has always been a comparatively expensive city and people from all economic backgrounds have at some point had to share a place to make rent.
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But isn't there a shortage of family units because people bunking up are taking them up? Seems like you're looking at this from a complete vacuum. Take a step back will ya
 
Since there was a post on Reddit complaining about housing prices, it inspired me to revisit this...

kmp1284 said:
There’s at most a crunch. The idea of a crisis is a fabrication of some far left socialist think tank. The problem is that people feel entitled to live in certain neighborhoods that they can’t afford to. Hyde Park, Mattapan, Roxbury, etc. are quite affordable but white professional victims are unwilling to live in those areas.
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I looked on apartments.com and there are plenty of 2bdrs in the 2000-2500 range just in Allston/Brighton. Split three ways, that should be very doable even with 3 low incomes. Would it be a very luxurious lifestyle? No... but as long as you don't have any frivolities (eg: cars) you shouldn't be eating ramen every day either. To me it seems like the people complaining are refusing to consider this. So yeah it does seem entitled.

The burbs aren't exactly cheaper either when you consider you need a car there and possibly an expensive CR pass.
 
According to Zillow (n=>11,000) the median rent for a 2 bedroom apartment in Boston is $3,150 ($3,800[!] for a 3 bed), so you managed to find the left side of the distribution. There's also a handy graph showing seasonal differences, which indicates Q1 is cheaper than the yearly average, at least over the last year or so, which makes sense with a near-universal 9/1 lease-start date (also why things might look a bit cheaper in Feb). Boston is the second-most expensive market in the US, and there are tons of students and first-stage career young people living here. If I understood your point you also suggest 3 people split a 2 bed rent? Blaming it on "entitlement" feels incredibly out of touch.


Average Rental Price in Boston, MA & Market Trends | Zillow Rental Manager

Research rental market trends in Boston, MA. See the average rent, monthly and annual rent changes and compare rental costs across locations.
www.zillow.com
 
jklo said:
I looked on apartments.com and there are plenty of 2bdrs in the 2000-2500 range just in Allston/Brighton. Split three ways, that should be very doable even with 3 low incomes. Would it be a very luxurious lifestyle? No... but as long as you don't have any frivolities (eg: cars) you shouldn't be eating ramen every day either. To me it seems like the people complaining are refusing to consider this. So yeah it does seem entitled.
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The Boston rental market also has this weird dynamic where a lot of the lower cost apartments include heat/hot water but the more expensive ones don't, so the "housing" component of rent is lower than the listed rent. Instead of paying National Grid directly for gas you're paying the landlord, in the form of "rent", who pays National Grid.
 
737900er said:
The Boston rental market also has this weird dynamic where a lot of the lower cost apartments include heat/hot water but the more expensive ones don't, so the "housing" component of rent is lower than the listed rent. Instead of paying National Grid directly for gas you're paying the landlord, in the form of "rent", who pays National Grid.
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How much of that is lower cost units are typically in older buildings, which may not have gotten retrofitted to have separate meters for each unit? Afaik, separate meters are prerequisite for tenant billing.
 
Stlin said:
How much of that is lower cost units are typically in older buildings, which may not have gotten retrofitted to have separate meters for each unit? Afaik, separate meters are prerequisite for tenant billing.
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I would think that in most cases it's that the H/HW system is shared between all the units. LL pays for it via their condo fee.
 
www.universalhub.com

Board rejects six-unit residential building in East Boston as too dense for street zoned for single-family homes

The Zoning Board of Appeal today told a developer that if he wants to tear down the single-family home at 20 Waldemar Ave. in East Boston, its replacement has to be something with fewer than the six units for which he had sought approval. Read more.
www.universalhub.com www.universalhub.com

See this is what I'm talking about when I talk up the conspiracy angle on the Burb Bill...

Council member and nearby resident Sean Calista said the building would be excessive even under new zoning proposed for East Boston and said the neighborhood opposition reflects that "we want to protect our single-family homes."
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This location is basically next door to the Suffolk Downs T stop. And they are telling this guy no to turning his SFH into 6 units.
 
Man it’s stuff like this that radicalizes me. Zoning capacity in the city of Boston should be so so much higher. How did that next door apartment get built? Was it either a variance or was the area down zoned after the apartment was built? We need city wide upzoning now
 
jklo said:

The updated estimates for the Census are out and Suffolk lost about 5k from 2021-2022.

Lost 18k from Domestic Migration offset somewhat by +9k in international migration and 3k in births-deaths.
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I was first saddened by this too, but then I read a Washington Post article (citing this same round of Census data) about how the urban outflow from the first stage of the pandemic is stemming and in some cases reversing:

Americans are returning to cities after remote-work exodus, data shows

Not sure why we aren't seeing it yet in the data for Boston/Suffolk Co., but the broader trend in the U.S. seems to be showing a re-urbanization after an initial exodus when the pandemic first hit. It would seem that Boston would too start to experience this trend, but I don't think we can know until the next wave of data hits.
 
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bigpicture7 said:
I was first saddened by this too, but then I read a Washington Post article (citing this same round of Census data) about how the urban outflow from the first stage of the pandemic is stemming and in some cases reversing:

Americans are returning to cities after remote-work exodus, data shows

Not sure why we aren't seeing it yet in the data for Boston/Suffolk Co., but the broader trend in the U.S. seems to be showing a re-urbanization after an initial exodus when the pandemic first hit. It would seem that Boston would too start to experience this trend, but I don't think we can know until the next wave of data hits.
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People left because we kept businesses closed longer, taxes are up, costs are high and the T sucks. Not sure they are rushing back until these are fixed.
 
TallIsGood said:
People left because we kept businesses closed longer, taxes are up, costs are high and the T sucks. Not sure they are rushing back until these are fixed.
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I dunno... it's not like Middlesex was any better on Domestic Migration. They also had an 18k loss. They had way more Int Migration though (+14k)

The only county in MA that was positive for Domestic Migration was Barnstable, ironically enough.
 
jklo said:
I dunno... it's not like Middlesex was any better on Domestic Migration. They also had an 18k loss. They had way more Int Migration though (+14k)

The only county in MA that was positive for Domestic Migration was Barnstable, ironically enough.
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The T was just the icing on the cake.
 
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