Tag: South End real estate

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Rising Prices In Boston Neighborhoods

Informative post by Scott at Boston.com.

Where condo prices are rising fastest in Greater Boston

The median condo price in Cambridge is $570,000.
Josh Reynolds/Boston Globe
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By Scott Van Voorhis, Boston.com Correspondent

The Boston area condo market is poised to get even more expensive in 2016, with rising prices spreading from shiny new luxury towers downtown to traditionally working class enclaves.

The median condo price in downtown Boston neighborhoods like the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, the South End and the Fenway hit $775,000 in 2015, up 9 percent from the year before, according to The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.

But neighboring Revere, and Boston neighborhoods like Roxbury, Dorchester and East Boston, saw even bigger, double-digit increases.

Revere saw one of the biggest jumps in condo prices in the Boston area, with the median value leaping more than 23 percent to just under $280,000 in 2015. Sales were also up 9.8 percent for the year.

Roxbury condo prices were not far behind, rising 17 percent, to $427,500.

Dorchester, which is starting to see proposals for new condo developments, saw its median price rise nearly 12 percent, to $341,500, while East Boston hit $339,000 after an 11 percent jump.

“Bidding wars have moderated a little, but we saw 35-40% of Boston city neighborhood condos sold last year go over asking price,” noted Michael DiMella, managing partner of Charlesgate Realty.

In fact, DiMella said that number rises to 50 percent when it comes to affluent and super-hot neighborhoods like the South End and Charlestown, which saw a 27 percent jump in sales last year, one of the largest increases in the Boston area. The median price of a condo in Charlestown rose 7 percent, to $570,000, according to The Warren Group.

Increasingly upscale South Boston saw prices rise 11 percent, to $555,000.

“There’s some variation from neighborhood to neighborhood, but there was strong median price growth throughout downtown Boston, especially when you look at price per square foot,” DiMella said.

Student-packed Brighton, which is seeing its own surge of new residential construction, also saw condo prices rise 9 percent, to $353,500, while sales edged up 4.7 percent, The Warren Group reports.

Hipster hotspots like Somerville, Jamaica Plain and Cambridge also experienced big run-ups in condo prices in 2015, though sales lagged amid a tight market that saw a decline in the number of units for sale.

Cambridge prices edged up nearly 6 percent, to $570,000, while Somerville was not far behind after a 13 percent jump boosted its median condo price to $540,000. But sales fell 5 and 15 percent in Cambridge and Somerville, respectively, Warren Group stats show.

Jamaica Plain proved to be an exception, with sales rising 6 percent and its median condo price hitting $440,000 after a 10 percent increase.

“The most important driving force in the market is lack of inventory,” notes veteran Coldwell Banker real estate agent Sara Rosenfeld, who has been selling real estate in Somerville since the early 1980s. It is “supply and demand – simply laws of economics.”

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Where Americans Are Moving

Interesting graphic by the good folks at Keeping Current Matters. Massachusetts still has “high outbound”! Hard to believe…but it could be because it is going to be -2 degrees this weekend? 🙁

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Where Are Americans Moving? [INFOGRAPHIC] | Keeping Current Matters

Some Highlights:

  • For the 4th year in a row the Northeast saw a concentration of High Outbound activity.
  • Oregon held on to the top stop of High Inbound states for the 3rd year in a row.
  • Much of this Outbound activity can be attributed to Boomers relocating to warmer climates after retiring.
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Five Year Projection For Home Price Appreciation

 

I am always impressed with the KCM Crew.  (Keeping Current Matters) They are excellent at distilling big data points into understandable and accessible information.

 

Home Prices: Where Are They Headed Over The Next 5 Years?

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Home Prices: Where Are They Headed Over The Next 5 Years? | Keeping Current Matters

Today, many real estate conversations center on housing prices and where they may be headed. That is why we like the Home Price Expectation Survey.

Every quarter, Pulsenomics surveys a nationwide panel of over one hundred economists, real estate experts and investment & market strategists about where they believe prices are headed over the next five years. They then average the projections of all 100+ experts into a single number.

The results of their latest survey:

Home values will appreciate by 3.9% by the end of 2015, 3.4% in 2016 and 3.1% in each of the following four years (as shown below). That means the average annual appreciation will be 3.2% over the next 5 years.

Projected Mean Appreciation | Keeping Current Matters

The prediction for cumulative appreciation rose from 18.1% to 21.6% by 2020. Even the experts making up the most bearish quartile of the survey still are projecting a cumulative appreciation of 13.8%.

Cumulative House Appreciation | Keeping Current Matters

Bottom Line

Individual opinions make headlines. We believe the survey is a fairer depiction of future values.

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Boston Sales And Prices Jump

A good year end analysis from Scott at Boston.com.

 

Boston sees condo prices, sales jump

From Back Bay and Beacon Hill to Dorchester and Southie, doube-digit price increases have been seen in several Boston neighborhoods.

By Scott Van Voorhis

Boston.com Correspondent

Boston’s red hot condo market is closing out the year with a bang, posting double-digit increases in prices and sales, the latest stats show.

The median condo price in Suffolk County, made up mostly of Boston, hit $580,000 in November after a 34 percent jump, finds real estate publisher and data firm, The Warren Group. Condo sales jumped 43 percent.

By contrast, the median home price in Boston and fellow Suffolk County communities of Chelsea, Winthrop and Revere, weighed in at $406,500 after a 3 percent increase.

Downtown Boston, including the South End, Back Bay, and Beacon Hill, led the condo price charge, with a 24 percent increase that pushed the median price to $974,000.

Jamaica Plain and South Boston both saw significant gains in condo prices in November, with prices year to date up nearly 11 percent ($445,000) in J.P. and 12 percent ($557,000) in Southie.

Dorchester and East Boston, which have been hubs of activity for new development as buyers get priced out of other neighborhoods like J.P. and the South End, also saw big gains.

Year-to-date through November, Dorchester’s median condo price has gone up 17 percent, to $344,060, while the median price of an Eastie condo rose 14 percent to $342,750.

Meanwhile, statewide, sales and prices of both condos and homes posted gains in November, posting significant gains with help from a relatively mild fall that helped keep buyers on the hunt and sellers in the game.

Sales of single-family homes across Massachusetts rose 8 percent, to 3,915 in November, reports the Massachusetts Association of Realtors (MAR).

The state’s median home price rose 4.5 percent to $330,000.

Condo sales rose 5 percent, while the median price of a condo posted a 10 percent increase, to $304,000.

“While most people in Massachusetts were focused on raking, getting ready for Thanksgiving and shopping in November, homebuyers stayed focused and once again push closed home sales up,” said 2015 MAR president Corinne Fitzgerald, broker-owner of FITZGERALD Real Estate in Greenfield, in a press release.

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$1M Median Prices In Boston Area Towns

Interesting story from Scott detailing the rise in median prices in metro Boston.

The 9 Boston area towns where median home price has hit $1M

 By Scott Van Voorhis

Boston.com Correspondent

The median price of a single-family home has shot past the $1 million mark in several cities and towns across the Boston area during the first half of 2015, the latest real estate stats show.

Nine communities, from urban Cambridge to bucolic Lincoln, have seen their median home prices hit seven figures as demand for brand-name location combines with a shortage of homes for sale to drive up values.

Concord saw one of the biggest gains, with the median home prices in the historic town hitting $1,050,000 after a 24 percent leap this June compared to the same month a year before, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors reports.

Median prices in Winchester and Newton both rose by more than 20 percent, hitting $1,090,000 and nearly $1.2 million, respectively.

Brookline had the highest median price of any community in the state, weighing in at $1.6 million, followed by Cambridge, Weston and Lincoln, all at $1.4 million, according to MAR.

Wellesley followed at $1.2 million and Belmont at an even $1 million, with Lexington just under the $1 million mark, down at $965,000.

Other cities and towns posted impressive gains as well.

Somerville saw single-family prices skyrocket in June by over 50 percent, to $855,000. Through the first six months of the year, Somerville prices weighed in at a still lofty $621,600, the real estate group reports.

Condo prices in Somerville rose 12 percent through the first half of the year, hitting $552,500.

Bedford saw home prices rise 20 percent, to $785,000 in June, according to MAR.

Overall, sales and prices were up markedly across the state in June, making it the best month since August 2005, back during the last real estate boom, noted Tim Warren, chief executive of real estate market tracker and publisher, The Warren Group.

“We are seeing the early results from a strong spring market,” Warren said in a press release. “It is a remarkable showing after a prolonged slump and a sluggish recovery extending over the past 10 years.”

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Sales Up!

The KCM (Keeping Current Matters) crew is great at visuals. This one represents the general national trend toward rising prices

Sales Up In Almost Every Price Range

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Sales Up In Almost Every Price Range | Keeping Current Matters
The National Association of Realtors’ most recent Existing Home Sales Report revealed that home sales were up rather dramatically over last year in five of the six price ranges they measure.Only those homes priced under $100,000 showed a decline (-10.1%). The decline in this price range points to the lower inventory of distressed properties available for sale and speaks to the strength of the market.Every other category showed a minimum increase of at least 9%, with sales in the $250,000- $500,000 range up 21.2%!

Here is the breakdown:

Percent Change in Sales by Price Range | Keeping Current Matters

What does that mean to you if you are selling?

Houses are definitely selling. If your house has been on the market for any length of time and has not yet sold, perhaps it is time to sit with your agent and see if it is priced appropriately to compete in today’s market.

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Why Prices Will Stay High

Good post by Scott about the effects of continued scarce inventory.

 

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Why home prices are likely to stay high

Boston.com Correspondent

Despite talk of the need for new housing, the number of building permits being issued across Massachusetts has yet to rebound to its pre-Great Recession peak.

Building permit slowdown

Developers took out just 1,051 building permits for single-family homes during the first three months of the year, U.S. Census Bureau stats show.

That represents a 16 percent drop from the same period in 2014 and a 65 percent drop from early 2006, when the real estate market was last in boom mode.

New apartment and condo construction is doing somewhat better. Developers took out permits for 2,370 new units, or roughly double the number of single-family homes, according to Census stats.

Yet the number of total housing units is still 33 percent below where it was back in the early months of 2006.

Tough regulations

And the shortage of listings on the market has been widely blamed for pushing up home and condo prices as demand exceeds supply.

“In theory, 2014 should have been better than 2013, but it wasn’t,” said Jeff Rhuda, director of business development at Symes, a home builder in the North Shore. “In theory, you have a recovering economy, but I think 2015 will end up below 2014.”

Tough regulations in towns and neighborhoods across the Boston area are one reason for the slow recovery in housing construction, especially as it relates to single-family homes, builders contend.

“It is going to get worse.” – Jeff Rhuda, director of business development at Symes

It is also especially hard to build new single-family homes within the Route 128 beltway, where the biotech and tech sectors are booming and demand for new homes is the strongest.

A dearth of developable land combined with local restrictions has resulted in a steady decline in home building in the communities closest to Boston.

In fact, teardowns are now the only source of new homes in upscale communities like Needham, Newton, Wellesley, and Weston.

And with no major game changer in the works in terms of efforts to force local communities to open their doors to more housing, the number of homes being built in the Boston area is likely to only continue to fall, Rhuda contends.

“It is going to get worse,” he said.

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Boston Ranks High In Retirement Livability Index.

Provincetown shares many of these same characteristics! Just saying.

 

Why You Should Stay in Boston for the Rest of Your Life

Gallery 1

Boston may be a good place to retire.

By Megan Turchi @meganturchi

Boston.com Staff

Forget retiring to Florida. Boston may be the place to settle down.

According to AARP’s “Livability Index,” Boston is the second most-livable large city in the United States, falling just behind San Francisco.

Though AARP makes it clear that the index can relate to people of all ages, there are specific applications for the elderly:

“Retired residents on fixed incomes need affordable places to live; those who don’t drive need other transportation options; and those with mobility challenges need accessible transportation and housing. No one wants to be forced to leave their community because of changing income or physical agility.”

And, on AARP’s list of the 10 most livable neighborhoods, Boston’s Downtown Crossing made the cut.

AARP elaborated upon Downtown Crossing’s score calling it, “A shopping district in transition to more mixed use with high-rise residences. Adjacent to Boston Common (and all of its recreational amenities), the theater district and the financial district. Stations for three main rail lines are nearby. Some streets are for pedestrians only.”

With AARP’s “livability index” you can type in an address, state, city, or zip code to get a score that is based on an assessment of seven categories: housing, neighborhood, transportation, environment, health, engagement, and opportunity.

Boston received a score of 65 out of 100 for livability, broken down into the seven categories below. Each score is out of 100.

Housing (80): 86.3 percent of the units in Boston are multi-family and there are 681 subsidized housing units per 10,000 people, which is way above the U.S. median of 124. AARP says that they measure units that are multi-family as elders whose spouses have passed away, single-parent families, childless couples, or people who choose to share housing with roommates may prefer this living situation. But Boston’s housing costs, ($1,455 average per month), which includes taxes, rent, mortgage fees, and utilities, falls significantly above the U.S. average ($999 per month).

Neighborhood (76): In this category Boston ranks above the national average in a slew of metrics: access to grocery stores and famers markets, access to parks, access to libraries, access to jobs by transit, access to jobs by auto, diversity of destinations, and activity density. However, the city’s crime rate is slightly higher than the national average.

Transportation (84): In regards to frequency of local transit service, walking trips, household transportation costs, and crash rates, Boston does better than the United States on average. Maybe not so shockingly, Boston does worse than average in terms of traffic congestion.

Environment (65): Boston ranks well in drinking water quality and air quality, boasting only two unhealthy air quality days per year, below the median U.S. average of eight days. But Boston does fall short in near-roadway pollution and local industrial pollution.

Health (65): 99.8 percent of people in Boston have access to exercise opportunities and 21.7 percent of people are obese, which is below the national average. Tobacco use and the availability of health care professionals are both fairly average. But preventable hospitalization rate and patient satisfaction in Boston both were worse than the national averages.

Engagement (61): This category looked at metrics based on civic and social engagement in the community. Boston ranked very high in Internet access and also fell above the national average of the number of cultural, artistic, and entertainment institutions available. Opportunity for civic involvement and the social involvement index were both about average, while voting rates in the Hub are lower than the national average.

Opportunity (25): This was Boston’s worst ranking of the seven, scoring below average in all of the metrics – income inequality, jobs per worker, high school graduation rate and age diversity.

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Boston’s Record Breaking Development

Great post by Scott at Boston.com

The Numbers Behind Boston’s Record-Breaking Year in Development

Gallery 1

Construction around Boston is in high gear (Pictured here: Milllennium Tower in Downtown Crossing).

By Scott Van Voorhis

Boston.com Correspondent

March 31, 2015 2:53 PM

Boston’s building boom is poised to shift into overdrive over the next few months as two big new tower projects come up for approval at City Hall.

A revised proposal to replace a four-story garage next to the TD Garden with a 46-story residential tower is working its way through the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s vetting process, said Brian Golden, director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

And the first of four towers that will replace the Government Center garage eyesore is also moving towards a final approval vote by the BRA’s board, Golden noted.

The progress on the big projects is the latest sign that the handoff of Boston’s development boom to Mayor Marty Walsh has apparently come off without a hitch.

During Walsh’s first year in office in 2014, the Boston Redevelopment Authority gave a green light to 62 projects across the city totaling more than $3 billion.

So far in 2015, City Hall’s development arm has approved another 16 projects, totaling more than $677 million, according to numbers complied by the agency.

“It quite literally has been one of the most active periods for building in Boston’s history.”

All told, 20 million square feet of new development has been green-lit by City Hall over the last few years but have yet to break ground, representing dozens of projects that are coming soon, according to BRA officials.

“That presents a very promising picture about all the projects that are in the pipeline and that will bear fruit in the coming two or three years,” Golden said.

Meanwhile, the amount of new office, lab, residential, and retail space currently under construction has also grown dramatically.

That number has nearly quadrupled to 15.6 million square feet, up from 4.5 million in 2012, according to Nicholas Martin, the BRA’s spokesman.

Projects that have won the blessing of city officials this year include the $290 million Fenway condo and apartment tower, The Point, and an $85 million plan to transform the Chain Forge Building in the Charlestown Navy Yard into a hotel.

“It quite literally has been one of the most active periods for building in Boston’s history,” Martin said.

The numbers also include thousands of new homes, condos, and apartments, with Walsh, like the late Mayor Thomas M. Menino before him, having pledged to make new housing a top priority.

Overall, the Walsh Administration has racked up numbers during its first 15 months in office that appear to match up favorably with Menino’s record — no small matter given Boston’s longest serving mayor’s intense focus on development issues in the city.

Under Walsh, the BRA signed off on plans for 4,158 residential units in 2014, rising to a total of 5,100 if the first three months of 2015 are included.

By comparison, City Hall’s development arm approved 3,898 residential units in 2012 when Menino was mayor. The $3.4 billion in overall development OK’d by the agency that year was on par with the $3 billion under Walsh’s first year.

Behind Boston’s development boom is a diverse economy that is spinning off jobs in a range of sectors, including high-tech, life sciences, and financial services, real estate experts say.

The Hub’s residential, hotel, retail, and office markets are some of the most highly rated in the country when it comes to interest by real estate developers, a new survey by PwC and the Urban Land Institute finds.

There is also pent up demand for new housing amid steady growth in Boston’s population as an eclectic mix of millennials, young families, and empty nesters rediscover urban living.

The big numbers should put to rest early concerns expressed by some in the business community that Walsh might slow down the pace of development in Boston, notes David Begelfer, chief executive of NAIOP Massachusetts, a trade group that represents developers from across the state.

“Things have been moving along,” Begelfer said. “Boston is in boom time right now and it’s not a bubble but a real boom. It is very rational development.”

 

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Sales Rise In Suburbs – Slow Down In Boston

Interesting dynamics in the Boston and metro Boston markets – from Scott at Boston.com.

Sales rise in suburbs, slow down in Boston.

By Scott Van Voorhis

Boston.com Correspondent

 

boston-skyline*304xx700-467-0-29

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Towns and neighborhoods across the Boston area posted big gains in both sales and prices in February, defying a winter that broke snowfall records and left many businesses reeling.

The suburbs led the way. Several communities are actually ahead of last year’s pace when it comes to home sales, according to numbers released by The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.

Cambridge proved as desirable as ever, with both condo and home sales rising markedly, as the median price of a house in the city hit $1.3 million.

Boston was more of a mixed bag; some neighborhoods posted strong numbers, but others all but fell off the map.

Overall, home sales across Massachusetts rose 4 percent in February, with the median single-family home price for the first two months of the year increasing 5 percent to $316,000, according to The Warren Group.

Condo prices rose 1.5 percent to $294,250, even as sales fell by 6 percent.

The Warren numbers, of course, only tell part of the picture, as some represent sales that were initially inked late last year, or in January of this year (before the storms) but which finally closed in February.

“The continued, sustained snowfall has been an incredible challenge for the region’s housing market,” said Dan Breault, EVP/regional director of RE/MAX of New England in a press statement. “Fortunately, spring is just around the corner and with low inventory and rising prices, we anticipate a busy spring season.”

Still, Greater Boston homebuyers proved to be a hardy bunch.

The western suburbs held up especially well, according to The Warren Group’s February housing report.

Framingham, Marlborough, Natick, Franklin, Medfield, Wayland, Lexington, Concord, Wellesley, and Weston all put in strong showings in February.

Sales so far this year are up by double digits in Framingham (20 percent), Franklin (118 percent), Concord (54 percent), Lexington (14 percent), Natick (15 percent), Wellesley (26 percent), and Needham (18 percent).

The dire cold may have made buyers stingier, as selling prices were down in a number of towns. Notable exceptions included Needham, whose median home price soared past $1 million after a 33 percent jump; Lexington, where the median price hit $875,000 after a 7.4 percent increase; and Natick and Framingham, which saw prices go up by 6 percent.

Quincy and Braintree were the stars on the South Shore, with sales for the first two months of the year rising 28 percent and 15 percent respectively. Median prices in both cities stayed just about even, at $360,000 for Quincy and $356,000 for Braintree.

North of Boston, Medford is off to a particularly fast start in 2015, with sales up 6 percent and median price up more than 10 percent, to $440,000. Sales in Reading are up 80 percent, though the median price fell 9 percent to $438,000.

But for Boston and Somerville, the latest home sales numbers for the first two months of the year had more downs than ups.

Somerville home sales plunged 36 percent, with just seven properties changing hands so far this year, while condo sales were down 14 percent. The median price of a condo dropped 6 percent, to $422,000.

In Boston, both condo and home sales were down in several neighborhoods.

South Boston saw home sales rise by a quarter, even as condo sales fell by 10 percent, while Jamaica Plain saw condo sales plunge by 25 percent, even as the median price rose nearly 20 percent to $426,500.

East Boston put in one of the strongest showings in the city, with condo sales up 46 percent for the year and the median price rising 10 percent to $385,000.

Downtown Boston saw condo sales drop by a quarter through the end of February, while the median price edged down 14 percent to $757,500.

Neda Vander Stoep, a broker in the Back Bay office of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage. “However, with inventory remaining low and plenty of buyers on the sidelines, properties that came on during the February storms were nonetheless quick to sell.”