The rental supply glut in Downtown Boston has received quite a bit of attention in the past 12 months. The pandemic caused a shift in demand for housing in Boston, and many Downtown neighborhoods went from being the hardest areas to find an apartment to the easiest seemingly overnight.
Over the past month, most of Greater Boston’s largest Universities have made announcements that they plan to significantly scale down remote learning for the Fall 2021 semester. The much anticipated news was greeted with a collective sigh of relief from thousands of Boston professors and college students, most of whom have been struggling with remote learning. The announcements also bodes well for the off-campus housing market in Boston and the thousands of businesses that rely on the student population for business.
East Boston’s apartment rental market has undergone quite a transformation even before 2020 and the market turbulence that came with it. Over the previous 10 years, rising rent prices in neighborhoods close to Downtown were quickly gentrifying East Boston, as renters began looking outward for relief in rent prices. Just a year ago, East Boston was experiencing record low vacancy rates thanks to a steadily growing metro population and a shortage of affordable housing in Boston.
The apartment rental market in Mission Hill is heavily reliant on the local student population. It’s situated just south of Fenway and Northeastern, providing students quick and easy access to some of Boston’s largest Universities. It’s also considerably less expensive than renting close to these schools and it provides plenty of options for 3 and 4 bedroom apartments so students can save splitting rent.
A city zoning rule that bans more than four undergraduates in an apartment isn't working, city officials said today, so they've begun looking at changes that would let them start levying fines on landlords who persist in overcrowding their units. Read more.
The Boston Housing Authority said today it's chosen Corcoran Jennison of Dorchester to completely rebuild and expand the Bunker Hill development into a mixed-income community. Read more.
A new, all-affordable apartment building will soon rise on the site of the old Boys & Girls Club, but it’s being built – in part – with non-union labor, which is dividing the city’s usually tight progressive community.
The $11 million dollar project that will rise at 181 Washington Street
The city of Boston's Department of Neighborhood Development has filed legislation (sponsored by Mattapan's State Rep. Russell Holmes) that would allow the MBTA to sell land along its rail lines to developers at discounted rates, according to Scott Van Voorhis at the Globe. A second proposal would allow the city to offer property tax incentives to developers in order to encourage them to build housing affordable to those with low and/or moderate incomes.
With Tufts leaving the negotiation table on the Powder House School, the opportunity for the parcel to be developed is down to two candidates, one of which has a very direct connection to Ward 5. As I reported previously, one of the top contenders was Davis Square Partners who submitted a proposal that could bring between significant numbers in annual tax revenue for Somerville.
Mayor Menino today released his proposal for getting 30,000 new housing units built in Boston over the next seven years at a combined public and private cost of $16 billion.
Although the bulk of the units would come through easing construction of market-rate apartments, the mayor is also proposing a 2014 referendum on enacting the state's Community Preservation Act, which would let the city add a 1% surcharge on local real-estate taxes to be dedicated to an affordable-housing fund.
Menino is also proposing a $1.5-billion revolving fund to help middle-class residents stay in this increasingly expensive city.
In 1995, the House of Compassion opened its doors taking in people living with HIV and AIDS to live in a welcoming home environment. The House now faces closure, with a looming 30,000 in debt threatening the homes of their ten residents. Find out more about the House of Compassion!
Michael Pahre considers the legal case lawyers could be building even now against the city's new five-students-and-you're-out law.
No, really. Jason Feifer details the scam, along with a couple of tips: Never send anybody money in advance just to see a place, and never trust somebody named Louis Pontecorvo.
Some renters lose their heat after apartment foreclosures:
New mortgage-company landlords in some foreclosed Boston apartments haven't made needed repairs or paid for heating oil.
This Globe story makes the point when it comes to certain mortgage companies - they're not trying to be evil, but they wind up being that way anyway.
Although mandated school busing here in Boston was implemented for a reason, I firmly believe that, for a number of reasons, it did noit work out the way it was intended.
It's a known fact that, for many years prior to mandated school busing, the all-white Boston School Committee had violated the Racial Imbalance Law in the most mean-spirited, egregious fashion, deliberately keeping de facto segregation of the Boston Public Schools intact.
I just signed a new lease for an apartment here in Boston and was thinking this morning about the rental market and how it differs so much from city to city, and even from section within city to section within city. Around here, if you see anything that even seems remotely passable at a decent price, you need to act immediately (as in same day), show up with check in hand, be pressured, give a pint of blood and some fingers, and then pay first/last/security/brokers fee in many cases.
John reads in the Globe that Suffolk-county foreclosures are up 50% and he gets worried:
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