OnPoint Capital’s newest luxury condo project, located at 57 Saratoga Street in East Boston, was recently featured in the NEREJ! Click here to read the full article.
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In the second half of 2019, we are seeing a bit of a shift in home design trends, of which the most notable is black kitchens instead of the all white kitchens we have been seeing for a few years now. In addition, showpiece bathtubs are a popular design item along with patterns backsplashes and bold print wallpapers. To find out more about recent design trends, check out this article and infographic.
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It is no secret that cities across the country are facing transportation challenges as urban populations grow and Boston is no exception. According to a recent Boston.com article, “Governor Charlie Baker has proposed an $18 billion transportation bond bill that would help fund the T’s 13-year maintenance backlog, as well as expansion efforts.” This is just one effort among many to get Greater Boston’s public transportation to serve more people more efficiently and reliably so less people have to rely on driving in increasingly heavy commuter traffic.
So, what effect, if any, will Boston’s transportation difficulties have on the real estate market?
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We recently had a fun week as we broke ground on our latest luxury condo project in East Boston. Over the course of a few days, we demolished the 2 family home and detached garage that sat on our 5,000 sq ft lot. It will be replaced with 9 condo units, each with a private deck and deeded garage parking space. Click here to check out our video showing all the demolition!
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The FHA plans to back 60,000 additional condo loans each year on top of the roughly 16,000 it already backs. So what exactly does that mean? In short, an FHA-backed loan only requires a 3.5% down payment and they often lend to people with lower credit scores. Both of these things combined will allow more first-time home buyers to enter the market because they don’t need to save as large a down payment or build up their credit history. This is especially true in larger cities across the US where home prices are rising and preventing many from entering the market. Read this article from the Wall Street Journal to discover what experts are saying the pros and cons of this policy are.
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There is no doubt Pats fans (and Pats haters) are going to speculate about Tom Brady’s future now that he has put his Brookline home on the market for $39.5 million. Is retirement near? Who knows. What we do know is that his Brookline mansion is one awesome piece of real estate and you can check out here.
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When you take a look at the luxury condo market in Boston, there is no sign of prices stagnating or dropping anytime soon. A recent market report from the second quarter of 2019 showed that the average sale price of luxury condos in the downtown area is up 22.8% annually and the median sale price is up 21% annually. The report attributes the rise in prices to a decrease in the number of sales which is down 14.9% annually. To read more, click here.
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Roofstock, a California-based company founded in 2014, is offering people a new type of of investment opportunity in which accredited investors can buy partial ownership in single-family rental homes. Since the crash more than a decade ago, people have become more interested in owning rental properties, but that is often accompanied with many headaches being a landlord. Roofstock takes those headaches out of the equation by acting as the property manager and investors are able to enter the rental ownership market at a lower cost. To read more about this interesting idea, click here.
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Despite the cost of rent rising 3% nationally in the past year, 82% of renters say renting is still more affordable than owning a home, according to a recent article from CNBC. This is especially true in major cities such as New York and Washington DC. To find out more about why renters feel this way, click here.
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Boston is facing a major housing crisis due to the lack of housing supply. Rents are on the rise not just in Boston, but in the suburbs around Boston as well and vacancy rates are around 3%. While it is a bad situation for renters in the area, investors from all around the country are looking to take advantage of the market by purchasing multifamily properties. To read more, click here.
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Millennials are in quite a different position than their parents and grandparents were when it comes to the prospect of buying a home. A recent report showed that in 1975, it took 9 years for someone earning the median salary to save up for a 20% down payment on a home (assuming they saved 5% of their income per year) and now it takes 14 years. This change is even more extreme in well-known cities across the US - 43 years in Los Angeles, 40 years in San Francisco, 36 years in New York, and 30 years in Boston. There are many reasons why this is the case such as a scarcity of housing and restrictive zoning laws. To read more, check out this article that summarizes Unisom’s report about the increasing gap between income and real estate prices.
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If you ask any developer in Boston what they think of the zoning approval process, I would guess that one of their first comments would be about how “political” it can be. A recent report by researcher Amy Dain looked at the zoning laws of 100 communities around Boston and found that “over a two-year period from 2015 to 2017, only 14% of multifamily units in the greater Boston communities Dain studied were permitted "by right".” That means the other 86% of projects were subject to the discretion of zoning boards - zoning boards that are often influenced by local politics. For a quick overview of the report’s findings, check out this article. For the full report, click here.
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