Is the price of Greater Boston real estate unfairly high? Are we about to see a correction? These questions ought to weigh heavily on investors’ minds, particularly now as arguments (at least among landlords) seem to intensify.
Some Boston-area communities are loosening the red tape that prevents homeowners from adding in-law-style apartments and small accessory dwellings, tapping into an overlooked housing affordability strategy.
Greater Boston’s position as one of the priciest rental markets in the U.S. appears secure, even as developers add more than 5,000 new apartments to the local inventory this year.
Last week, Google announced to some acclaim it would spend $1 billion to build 15,000 market-rate and 5,000 affordable homes in the housing-starved San Francisco Bay area. Before any like-minded Massachusetts actors get a similar idea, we suggest a better use of that money would be helping efforts to modernize our mass transit and suburban zoning laws.
At the office, some people are trying to turn rising home prices to their advantage.
We need to provide compelling-enough incentives and rewards for neighborhoods that approve the development of new affordable housing units, while at the same time promoting the social benefits of doing so.
The idea that 495 has become a low-cost alternative for homebuyers and businesses is great spin. But the gulf in prices points a grittier reason for the shift: Discouraged by increasingly grueling commutes, buyers are simply bypassing the outer suburbs in favor of communities closer to Cambridge and Boston.
Massachusetts faces an $8.4 billion shortfall in revenues needed to ensure that state roads and bridges and MBTA infrastructure are in a state of good repair over the next 10 years, according to a new report.
The Massachusetts Association of Realtors reported Wednesday that a survey of its members show a lack of confidence in the housing market that belies the state’s high home values.
Congratulations Massachusetts, you’ve done it again – though December figures aren’t yet in, 2018 is going to smash the single-family home price record. And that record is only a year old.
Imagine having to save up your money to purchase your first home for more than a half million bucks, and the place you buy is a two-bedroom, 1,200-square-foot starter home – yikes!
Are you pumped that Amazon might pick Boston or even Somerville for its new global headquarters? Be careful what you wish for. Mayors and newspaper columnists, lawmakers and business executives alike are stoked over the possibility that Jeff Bezos might pick Boston for his company’s new digs and bring with him 50,000 jobs. But apparently the folks who run this town would rather tiptoe around the elephant in the living room than spoil this delightful fantasy of Boston as Silicon Valley East.
