Why Boston rents are so high.

KentXie said:
It's because developers are focusing too much on high-end residential market or high profit niche residential market. The average family can't find affordable housing because developers are building micro-units that doesn't have room to support a family of four or are building luxury condos that a family of four can't afford. An average family of four aren't looking for a condo in a tower that has a gym, a swimming pool, and a lounge which ups the cost per unit. They are just looking for a regular apartment.
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What is wrong with building these units if they are bought and used?

Also, I live in a condo building with these amenities and I see lots of parents with strollers, young children, and teenagers. There is some foreign ownership of units, but they are all rented out; vacancies in the building usually only correspond to renovations and investors trying to sell units letting them go vacant to widen the pool of potential buyers.

When these units aren't built, the wealthy who want to live in Boston often still buy, just in the existing housing stock. Having them buy in the luxury buildings does lower the pressure on prices in those buildings. Wealthy people have no difficulty buying up units and renovating them to live in. They'll even buy two adjoining $500K units and combine them. That sure does wonders for housing affordability, reducing the number of available units and doubling the price!!
 
dwash59 said:
What is wrong with building these units if they are bought and used?

Also, I live in a condo building with these amenities and I see lots of parents with strollers, young children, and teenagers. There is some foreign ownership of units, but they are all rented out; vacancies in the building usually only correspond to renovations and investors trying to sell units letting them go vacant to widen the pool of potential buyers.

When these units aren't built, the wealthy who want to live in Boston often still buy, just in the existing housing stock. Having them buy in the luxury buildings does lower the pressure on prices in those buildings. Wealthy people have no difficulty buying up units and renovating them to live in. They'll even buy two adjoining $500K units and combine them. That sure does wonders for housing affordability, reducing the number of available units and doubling the price!!
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There's nothing wrong. They just need to keep building all kind of income-level housing at once but I think the micro-unit housing is an absolute scam. As Jumbo mentioned above, a lot of family houses are taken by unrelated roommates and the reason this happens is because the only way for these roommates to be able to afford for a place to live is to pool their money with other people. These micro-units, going $2000+ a pop, won't help relieve that problem because if these roommates could afford $2000 a month in the first place, they wouldn't be sharing a house with other roommates. It just sounds incredibly tone-deaf to me when I see all these large projects going up (outside micro-units) and the minimum amount per month is around $2300 a month. If you want to solve the roommate situation, build something that actually caters to the demographic.
 
KentXie said:
There's nothing wrong. They just need to keep building all kind of income-level housing at once but I think the micro-unit housing is an absolute scam. As Jumbo mentioned above, a lot of family houses are taken by unrelated roommates and the reason this happens is because the only way for these roommates to be able to afford for a place to live is to pool their money with other people. These micro-units, going $2000+ a pop, won't help relieve that problem because if these roommates could afford $2000 a month in the first place, they wouldn't be sharing a house with other roommates. It just sounds incredibly tone-deaf to me when I see all these large projects going up (outside micro-units) and the minimum amount per month is around $2300 a month. If you want to solve the roommate situation, build something that actually caters to the demographic.
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There is no all kinds of income level housing in Boston anymore. Its basic supply/Demand-----Not enough supply
Multi-families have turned into million dollar homes even Everett, Chelsea it costs 500-700K per house.

East Boston section 8 live in better conditions than the rich yuppie in Southie.
That is my point
There is just not enough supply at this point. Unless the economy blows out I see rents will continue to RISE at this point.

What I am seeing is people are renting out rooms for 700-1200 a room in the multi-families for apts in the surrounding areas of Boston/Cambridge.

If you did not buy 5-10 years ago the average family has no shot to live in BOSTON at this point. Just way too expensive.
 
fattony said:
I fixed that for you. Nobody is in business to do favors. They are making the decisions that are best for their business.
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Honestly I think a lot of it is because it is such a pain in the ass to get anything built in the area developers will only bother if it's super luxury.

OTOH I don't really think they really have to do something about it, because it's not like people have much of a choice. I think what's happening is that the areas where the good jobs in the US are located is consolidating. Boston/Cambridge will surely be one of them but at the same time where you can get to them and still have a sane commute is going to be a small area and of course those areas will be super expensive.
 
Well. The next 400' tower in Kenmore Square will be built at 200' because someone's plant stand will be put under a shadow. ...Then, the Bldg Dept will say, "it's 172' " (leaving out the mechanical floor). The silliness will only end when every last true logical parcel good for a 390~400' tower is gone. Then we can just build more infill all the way to Dedham.

The same selfish nutjobs that question if we should ever build a 250' tall building in Kenmore also feel the same entitlement to bully their way around City Hall and make sure that dense building from a limited resource never comes to pass.

When Tremont went 280' instead of 380' it was a very bad defeat that will set precedent. We're doomed to leave significant height and density on the table for every damned project in the city. Nevermind how many parking spaces you leave off the table. No amount of pleading or negotiating will work. People always side with their neighborhood bully agitators.
 
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You know what will happen next--- the dumb monkeys (Our elected leaders) will continue to raise property taxes but then continue to give tax incentives to corporations like GE & liberty Mutual and which will continue to push out the original landowners to rich foreign investments that are looking to hide cash.

The state and Local Govt's are forcing out families that bought property back in the day by taxing them out of the area because of affordability.

Families that don't sell or buy their property for a certain price should be grandfathered into what taxes they pay for their property in my opinion.
 
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What is forcing people out is assessed values of homes. The property tax rate (unless override) has a ceiling for how much it can be raises YoY.

Due to voter proposition YEARS ago:
maximum 2.5% increase on tax rate (Towns can override but would be voter authorized)

So if your rate is 1% of assessed value, next year it could be raised to 1.025% and so on.

However, if you home value (assessment) goes from 300k to 600k, your property tax would double. There's a difference between property values skyrocketing and thus raising property tax AND politicians raising property tax percentage. The former is the cause of much of the displacement in Massachusetts.
 
Reznor said:
What is forcing people out is assessed values of homes.
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No.

Practically all housing policy is designed to the benefit of homeowners. The burden of property tax increases faced by owner-occupiers is a drop in the bucket compared to the the burden of rent increases faced by renters. And homeowners do who face steep increases in assessed value due so because they bought their houses at prices way below what housing costs now. When you evaluate the big picture of housing costs, those people are the winners!

Besides, property tax is (relatively) cheap. If you own and live in single-family house assessed at $700k in Boston, you'll pay about $5 grand a year in property tax. That comes out to about $417 a month, and a single-family assessed at $700k is a nice place! That's not "forcing people out [...] of homes".

Even if you believe that property tax is a burden to residents, remember that property tax hits renters harder than it hits homeowners, due to the practice of "residential exemptions".
 
I'm just now sitting down to reading this so can't completely vouch for its significance but here's one community activist's opinion on the current housing situation in Boston. Grace tends to lean "toward the left" on this sort of thing so be on the lookout for criticisms of our current mayor. Still, worthy of your time, I think.

What Does “Affordable” Mean in Boston?
How the City of Boston Defines Affordable Housing

Boston, like most major cities experiencing rapid growth, is facing an affordable housing crisis — the majority of residents cannot afford the city’s housing stock, and low-and-middle income residents are finding it difficult to stay in their homes. In 2014, the Walsh administration, responding to development pressure and seizing the opportunity to grow, created a plan to build 53,000 new units of housing by 2030 — a plan that promises to result in more affordable housing opportunities for Bostonians as it is implemented.

Thousands of new units have already been completed or permitted in accordance, and as residents see their neighborhoods transform, they’ve been assured that the building taking place is for their benefit: Mayor Walsh has said on multiple occasions that so far “rents have decreased in existing stock by 4% citywide” and “40% of all new housing stock is affordable to low and middle income people”. Hearing these claims, many Bostonians have wanted more information — they’ve asked what “affordable” actually means and why they aren’t personally experiencing decreasing rents if costs are reported to be going down.

Boston’s data on affordable housing is often confusing and sometimes misleading; reports on housing contain inconsistencies in data and how affordability is defined. ...
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... continues
 
Real estate is all about location. People have a choice --- they can live in Boston for 2500-4000 a month for rent.
Or move to Lawrence and take the commuter rail into town.

This is why Transit is so important.

But our leaders should not be giving away land deals on Boston Prime real estate to the corporations because there is such a demand for Boston Land. Why are we giving it away.
 
tysmith95 said:
The problem with building out in suburban areas is that the infastracture does not exist for more sprawl. Unless we improve transit it's best to focus on building in the urban core.
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Gee isn't that a bright idea. That was my point to the Suffolk Downs proposal.
The infrastructure is broken in and around Boston. Having another 500Sqfeet in that area will only suffocate basic traffic for the community.

They continue to add 100's + 1000's of condos on every parcel possible in and around Boston
Everett
Medford
Malden
Somerville
Cambridge
Revere
Eastie
Chelsea
Allston

They continue to add 1000's of units but continue to ignore that the roads were not able to handle this type of volume.

The cities and state need to improve both Infrastructure and MBTA Access.
This should be the STATE's #1 priority at this point

If Boston and the surrounding areas is becoming a cosmopolitan city its time to invest in a NYC Subway system concept.
 
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TOD in town centers and/or within 1/2 mile of commuter rail is the best way suburbs can contribute. Town centers that are further than walking distance to commuter rail can run shuttle buses. Transforming commuter rail into a regional rail system with a less commuter oriented schedule (post NSRL and electrification, so obviously sometime out in the future) could link these town centers in a meaningful way.

I don't know how to incentivize towns to make this happen. Perhaps just like the feds dole out money with strings attached to states for infrastructure, maybe the Commonwealth could give money to towns to pursue development patterns that are in the best interest of the Commonwealth.

The biggest impediment is probably not money to make the transformation happen, but that the entrenched and established populations of these towns would oppose any change reflexively, despite the long term benefits to their community. On a bright note, there is some town south of Boston (I think near Foxboro?) that is doing this today without incentives. I can't recall the name of the town.
 
On a positive note Framingham has a huge masterplan for transit oriented housing and retail around the downtown station area. Hopefully if this successfully revitalizes the downtown area which has become blighted it will be a model of success that other towns/cities will want to copy. I think if some examples turn out successfully other towns will want to copy the model. It seems like theyre kind of just waiting for someone to make the first move. Hopefully thats what it is and once a few examples are successful the rest will fall like dominos.
 
Would love to know the overall median Rents in these areas at this point for this group for 1 or 2 bedrooms:
Everett
Medford
Malden
Somerville
Cambridge
Revere
Eastie
Chelsea
Allston

Estimate for an Average probably $1500 a month for a 1 Bedroom---I bet
 
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