Victims of our own success, I suppose; and also of the Monopoly money that our flagship industries are laundering into “real” estate:
Think Boston housing is expensive now? Wait five years – The Boston Globe.
Home prices in the Boston area are only going one direction: up.
So says a new report Thursday from Standard & Poors, which estimates that home values here will climb 24 percent by 2020. The Wall Street rating agency looked at 48 markets around the United States to see if the strong growth in home prices of the last few years was likely to continue.
Much of that prediction rests on how well the economy performs.
That 24 percent jump assumes that things continue more or less apace. If the economy performs better than expected, home prices could increase even more — as much as 49 percent, S&P predicts. Bully for homeowners, though not so much for those looking to buy.
Our paulsimmons has had some smart things to say on gentrification — a really tough nut to crack. If you build nice stuff in a relatively densely populated area, then people with money will come in and crowd out those with less. That’s true for transit — trains are decidedly nicer and better than buses — but it’s also true for schools, parks, supermarkets, and especially access to jobs. Now, if good transit is actually pervasive, then at least there might not be such a magnet effect to a few favored places. The Red Line — when it runs properly — is nice. That’s why those neighborhoods have done well.
And yes, if you have amenities coming into neighborhoods with an already squeezed real estate market — well, the results are predictable.
The high cost of real estate/rents is one of the hardest things MA has to deal with now. We’d have to decide that accomodating the middle- and working classes is more important than the magically rising real estate values of those who own. We’ve dragged our feet on overhauling zoning laws on a statewide basis, so that there can be a genuine market solution.
Welcome to Silicon Valley East – a “boutique location for elites”, as Ed Glaeser once said.
More from the Mass. Smart Growth Alliance. Can anyone here comment on the prospects for S.122?
merrimackguy says
There’s no other way around it. In general we should be building higher residential everywhere.
Note that it’s not just metro Boston where housing is an issue. The cost of housing, both buying and renting, is incredible throughout eastern MA.
thegreenmiles says
Is 35-40 feet, so if you want to build a new apartment building, you have to go groveling before town boards, who will be much more concerned about protecting existing homeowners’ parking spots than providing current non-residents with an affordable place to live. Many of the developments that do get approved are senior-only, leaving young people screwed.
stomv says
Take a look at the wealthier communities immediately adjacent to Boston or a Gateway City, and I’ll bet this comes up over and over again.
stomv says
I don’t think it’s real estate owners who are the ones causing a lack of more housing. It’s real estate occupiers.
More than half of Boston housing is rental. Now it’s true, some of it is three deckers where one guy owns the building, lives in one unit, and rents the other two. But my bet is that the majority of rental housing is owned by extremely wealthy individuals or, more likely, by REITs, insurance companies, and other large companies.
It seems to me that the opposition to more housing comes from residents, who don’t want their neighborhood to change. If they live in a neighborhood with 30′ tall wooden buildings like three deckers, then they oppose 4-5 (or more) story concrete and steel apartment buildings. If they live in a neighborhood with 4-5 story concrete and steel apartment buildings, then they oppose 8 story buildings. Etc.
Fenway is one of the few recent housing growth success stories. It worked because developers took an area that wasn’t residential at all — it was run down commercial — and built an entire neighborhood in a short period of time. Outside of that, who wants their neighborhood to grow substantially? The folks who live there like it the way it is — that’s why they live there.
P.S. I’d love to see some way for MBTA land to have ability to develop bigger housing. Sort of a zoning height/FAR/parking bonus or something. Then you get a few things: 1. more housing, 2. more revenue for the MBTA, 3. more ridership and hence political support for the MBTA, and 4. Development that isn’t solely in one place — the MBTA land is distributed widely, after all.
SomervilleTom says
The new development in Assembly Square exemplifies, I think, the kind of new high-density housing that will address the issue. Of course, there are some (ahem) who will reject such development because it appeals to “yuppies”.
I note that the new development is closely tied to a new ORANGE line station.
jconway says
Cambridge is starting to do that too, is this the case with Assembly Sq. units?
nopolitician says
I would beg anyone who is in a position to try and “solve” this problem to recognize that this is primarily a Boston-area problem; please consider the impact to other communities across the state before advocating for or enacting anything (like, for example, 20-year “affordable” housing rehab laws which have the impact of converting virtually all urban apartment buildings in Western MA to low-income housing, driving out higher income residents).
A much better approach would be for the state to try and spread economic growth across the entire state rather than letting it accumulate in Boston. There are over a dozen Gateway Cities which are starving for an improved economy and housing growth.
There are currently 535 single-family houses for sale in Springfield, ranging from $399k (for a 6,900 s.f. mansion) to over 2 dozen “fixed upper” houses which can be had for under $50k. Why are prices so low? Because our economy is ice cold here. It is to the point where most of our housing stock is worth far less than its replacement cost.
We would welcome gentrification. We would welcome building nice stuff in our densely populated neighborhoods.
One relatively simple thing the state could do to solve this problem would be to focus on locating state governmental functions outside the Boston area. It doesn’t have to be a disruptive thing like moving existing departments across the state. However if there is some new state function devised, why not locate it in a Gateway City rather than in the greater Boston area? Sure, there are more potential employees to choose from in Boston, but the salaries will need to be that much higher.
There are very likely many other ways to encourage the the growth to spread around the state – maybe the state economic development gurus could, at the very least, offer the option to relocate to a Gateway City to companies looking to expand.
jconway says
Baltimore had some success turning into a new ‘bedroom’ community for DC area workers. I know at least one friend from U of C who bought a condo there and commutes via the MARC to his job. My old roommates dad is a construction worker, and most of those jobs are in the DC area and it’s suburbs while he lives in the Baltimore metro area. So it can be done.
According to googlemaps, Baltimore is an hour away from DC via car and 90 minutes via train while Springfield is 90 min from Boston via car and over 4 and a half hours via train. I remember trekking out to Hadley and Amherst to visit friends and the only transit option short of hitching a ride and carpooling was the Peter Pan bus which took a circuitous route to get there.
Expanding it to these gateway cities will bring in needed capital, professional residents, and jobs to those areas while also alleviating some of the housing pressure in the immediate Greater Boston market. A win win, and something the whole state should get behind. Western MA residents have to be brought into the fold as stakeholders in transit for this to be a statewide solution.
SomervilleTom says
Workers have been commuting by train between NYC and Long Island and Poughkeepsie for generations. For many, that’s a 1-1.5h commute. To build on jconway’s example, people live in Harpers Ferry WV and commute via MARC to both DC and Baltimore.
Conventional trains can easily outpace automobiles given suitable right-of-way and station-stop planning. Amtrak regional trains reach 125M between Back Bay and the Rt. 128 station, and between Rt. 128 and Providence.
Frequent commuter rail service between Springfield and Boston strikes me as something that should VERY MUCH be on the table.
thebaker says
A dirty train car will serve no one.
Al says
Also, it would help if the train schedules were set up to allow riders the ability to get in and out of town after commuter periods. I used to live in CT, in a suburb of Hartford. I took a commuter bus into work, using a bus pass subsidized by my company (Travelers Ins) to the tune of 20%. That was comfortable and convenient, but the last bus out to my area was 5:30, hardly convenient if I wanted to go out after work with my friends, or think about taking a bus into the city to take in an event or go out to dinner.
stomv says
If someone is saving $1,000/month on housing costs by living in Springfield instead of Boston, how much can they spend on the train?
Poughkeepsie to Grand Central, on peak:
one-way: $23.75
weekly: $162 (I assume this is both ways, which means $16.20/ride)
monthly: $506 (ditto, assuming 40 trips (one holiday/month), $12.65/ride)
Zone 10 for MBTA:
one-way: $11.50
monthly: $362 (assumptions as above, $9.05/ride)
So that’s not crazy. That is, current Zone 10 prices for the commuter rail are in line with NY’s MTA prices. Now you could argue that MTA service is better, and that the distances are greater as the taxi meter ticks. I’m not claiming Zone 10 fares are perfect, just that they’re in line with NY.
stomv says
Worcester is Zone 8, which is roughly 10% cheaper than Zone 10.
centralmassdad says
It was very difficult to achieve on the Framingham-Worcester line, because the right-of-way circumstances that prevent express trains and force competition with freight. For many years, there was essentially one train in, and one out every weekday. (Miss it, and you are either four hours late for work, or paying $100 for a taxi home.) That was insufficient to generate significant usage.
Recently more trains have been added, partially due to Lt. Gov. Murray and partially due to the changes at the CSX terminal in Brighton. For most trains, it is a 90 minute (scheduled) ride from Worcester. I am not sure if the rail line links directly to Springfield.
I am mostly concerned that the T is going to cut the frequency of the trains because of demand. I can tell you that people are a little reluctant to commit to commuting by rail because they don’t trust the T not to yank the service after they begin to rely on it.
Ultimately, I hope they allow the demand to grow into the schedule, rather than vice versa. The Somerville renaissance is in my view closely linked to th Red Line expansion, completed in the late 70s. When my sisters were in college (same period), Davis Sq. was a scary neighborhood where one drove to purchase certain illegal substances, but was otherwise to be avoided. By the late 80s, things had begun to improve, and I recall heading over to Redbones during that time. By the early-mid 90s, the renaissance was on. It took 15 years.
Ultimately, the point is that the scheduling has to have a certain consistency in order to achieve those kind of results, and I am not sure that there are many commuters who are today willing to place a lot of trust in MBTA commuter rail scheduling, even if one sets aside the reliability issues that have elsewhere been discussed.
stomv says
To arrive in the morning work hours (before 9:10 am at South Station) there are trains leaving every ~20 minutes, to arrive 7-9 am. Departing South Station are trains every ~20 minutes beginning at 5:15pm for 5-7pm, then trains every hour or so until last call at 11:25 pm.
I’m not arguing that the scheduling is perfect, but it seems like there’s enough frequency for rush hour commuters from Boston to Worcester. It would be nice to shave some of the ~90 minute commute, but that’s an infrastructure problem at least as much as a scheduling one.
centralmassdad says
So, now invest your life savings in a home here, entirely on faith that you will be able to commute to your job in Boston on the T for as long as you have the job, and hope that the MBTA won’t decide to trim the schedule because of “lack of demand”.
SomervilleTom says
It would be better for us to KILL the MBTA outright than to continue this death-by-a-thousand-cuts.
A state willing to invest in the infrastructure build-out needed for modern service (two tracks in each direction, separate from freight traffic) is a state much more likely to operate trains on those tracks.
A state unwilling to pay even the on-going maintenance of their existing fleet of locomotives and coaches is a state eager to “trim the schedule” in response to even the flimsiest of excuses.
One wonders what on earth those in charge think this area will do in ten years. It is very hard to avoid the conclusion that they very carefully AVOID thinking such thoughts.
stomv says
If you live in Worcester, you almost certainly own a car. That doesn’t mean you want that drive to Boston, but it does mean you could do it in a pinch, even for a month or three while you change jobs (or homes).
If you buy in Worcester, you can sell your Worcester home too. Can’t argue one without the other. Sure, there are transaction costs and some asset risk, but don’t oversell it. If you rent in Worcester, you reap the savings associated with lower housing costs without the transaction stickiness of selling a home.
Is there risk of schedule trim? Of course. More risk than some other T users, less than others? Probably. And if the only uptake in the near term are new graduates, DINKs, and empty nesters [so as to avoid disrupting kids with a move], that’s still plenty of potential riders, residents of Worcester, and new investment in the city of Worcester.
P.S. My home is a 15 minute bike ride to my work — but depending on time of day, 30-70 minutes by T. I don’t own a car, nor do I plan to do so (and the commute is 30-60 minutes by car). I’ve invested entirely on faith that I’ll be able to ride my bike to work most days of the year, because Lord knows I can’t deal with spending 90 minutes round trip for work. My threshold for pain (90 mins) may well be different than another persons, but the concept is the same.
Christopher says
…that it really takes so much less time to bike to and from work?
gmoke says
Was at an event last night for the book When We Fight, We Win and took the opportunity to have a short conversation with Lisa Owens Pinto of City Life/Vida Urbana about the internationalization of real estate that is now happening. She mentioned that some of the companies, for instance one called Black Rock, which have been buying foreclosed properties here are also buying properties around the world and that City Life/Vida Urbana is in contact with Spanish housing advocates who have to deal with the same companies on the same issues.
My own interest was piqued by the reports of international money buying up luxury properties for second, third, or fifth homes which the owners inhabit a month or so a year. The result is that high-end neighborhoods are hollowed out, become a ghost town most of the year and cannot support local businesses, even businesses that tend to cater only to the wealthy. London is an exemplar of this trend according to what I’ve read but this is also beginning to happen in the Newton and Wellesley, I’ve also read, and there seems to be one Chinese businessman who is buying as much as he can of Harvard Square now.
There’s an international aspect of the rise in local real estate prices for attractive communities that is not often taken into account and should be.
Peter Porcupine says
Of course, the foreigners are from Dorchester and Southie.
centralmassdad says
at Hyannis Town Hall–they’ll be gone in a week
Trickle up says
Sure, if you make someplace more desirable to live, it will cost more to live there, to the point where only people with money will be able to.
In a world where everything is a commodity, it has become inconceivable that things could be any other way. Well, if you want to make the most people better off, better be willing to look beyond that.
At the very least think about harnessing that economic growth and putting it to work for the public good. Not just a few crumbs like a small share of “affordable” housing that reverts back to an unfettered commodity in 20 years, either.
If not, it is about as dumb to rail against the “yuppies” as against the way that water seeks its own level. That’s how the system works; you don’t like it, change the system. And the system is not smart growth or mass transit, either.