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If you ask a townie the changes and popularity of Charlestown you refer to started almost 30 years ago. But realistically more like 20 years at this point. 5 lol, nah.
I don't get it. Are these fake 2 bedrooms? The one is advertised as a 1 bedroom.
Idk why you don’t want believe it but yea these are 2 bedrooms, I very clearly saw two different bedrooms I n the 2nd 2BR ad. There’s more too look at just search for yourself... plenty Ken bedroom below 1400 around eastern MA now.
The rents have cratered. Idk why that ruffles your feathers but I could go to any town and find affordable rents at this point. Framingham is way down in The 1200-1400 range. Cambridge has plenty 2BRS for 1700 and 1BRs for 1500.
As anyone with a modicum of common sense and awareness knows-a good number of people have left the city and a good number of students never came back. With all the amenities closed or at minimum capacity, there was no where for Boston rents to go but way down.
I could show you cheap rents al fay by all you would say is “I don’t understand” there’s nothing to understand.
Charlestown and South Boston have been pricing townies out since the late 90's.
I think many of you commenting on here aren't from the area...which is fine, but you don't really know.
And people dont just pick southie or charlestown because they can't afford back bay-it's that they truly like the area and want to live there. I'd say Charlestown holds more charm than Back Bay...
Idk why you don’t want believe it but yea these are 2 bedrooms, I very clearly saw two different bedrooms I n the 2nd 2BR ad. There’s more too look at just search for yourself... plenty Ken bedroom below 1400 around eastern MA now.
The rents have cratered. Idk why that ruffles your feathers but I could go to any town and find affordable rents at this point. Framingham is way down in The 1200-1400 range. Cambridge has plenty 2BRS for 1700 and 1BRs for 1500.
As anyone with a modicum of common sense and awareness knows-a good number of people have left the city and a good number of students never came back. With all the amenities closed or at minimum capacity, there was no where for Boston rents to go but way down.
I could show you cheap rents al fay by all you would say is “I don’t understand” there’s nothing to understand.
Not what I'm asking. I made a comment that I've seen some landlords try to pass off a 1 bedroom as a 2 bedroom and you quoted my post with a link to two listings. I don't get that connection.
Rents are down most in SF, NYC, Oakland, San Jose, Boston and DC.
Rents are up in Newark Providence and Philadelphia.
The numbers piqued my interest this week after the rental site Zumper released data showing that while rents remained remarkably low (for Boston) compared to this time last year, they hadn’t gotten any lower from November to December for one-bedroom apartments, and had actually gotten a hair more expensive—up by half a percentage point—for two-bedroom apartments. Was this, I wondered, the turning point?
Thankfully, analysts at Zumper assure me that despite the temporary plateau, it’s likely rents will get cheaper before they get more expensive. The real indicator to watch, according to analyst Neil Gerstein, is the city’s “migration rate.” And right now, according to Zumper’s internal data, the city continues to slowly shed renters every month. “The rate at which renters are leaving is still going up,” he says. “Less people coming in, and more and more people leaving, is what we see on our end.”
Other highly expensive cities like New York and San Francisco have seen similar drops in both rents and migration, and no major city has yet been shown to have measurably hit rock bottom just yet.
“The next few months or so I would expect Boston to keep dropping in price,” Gerstein says, with the caveat that a lot could change this summer. “Trends have the potential to completely reverse once the economy’s back online and the vaccine is rolled out and life starts, hopefully, returning to normal for everyone. We could see a huge return to places like Boston and other expensive rental markets and that would have a huge upward pressure on prices later in the year.”
Overall, though, Bull doesn’t expect any abrupt change in prices anytime soon. For one, she says, the city’s rental market is still extremely competitive compared with most other cities. Also, despite the slide in rents, Boston is still one of the most expensive cities in the country. Plus, alternatives to the big city are starting to dry up: Rents in smaller cities near Boston have actually seen rents spike in recent months. According to Zumper’s data, Lynn, Lawrence, and Brockton have seen rents jump by about 20, 15, and 16 percent, respectively.
“I could see [rents] getting a little lower, but not too much lower, because where else are you going to go?” Bull says. “If prices keep escalating on the outskirts of the city, people are going to start looking back inside. We also have a massive housing shortage all through Greater Boston, so this becomes a supply and demand situation. People need somewhere to live, and we don’t have enough housing stock for people to start getting super picky. That’s just the reality of the market we’re in right now. There just isn’t a whole lot of wiggle room.”
The last paragraph tells me there really just isnt any room for population growth in Boston right now. Everything and everyone is maxed out.
That's why more is moving further out. Some people still want to live in urban areas but just smaller urban areas. I have to wonder if the natural gas rebuilding in Lawrence might also have helped them.
I'd also argue that if you rent they generally charge more when you move in/renew during better weather. It's not going to be higher now because it's january.
Now here's something creepy. There's so few people on the red line that ads have been removed. Now this isn't a huge revenue stream for transit authorities but it's an easy sell...until now. https://twitter.com/realStaiti/statu...00590617448448
The thing that gets to me is that Boston pretty much has followed the same mistakes that Gateway cities did generations ago.
1) Rely on one major industry
Pittsfield GE
Springfield The Armory
Holyoke - Paper factories
Quincy - The shipyard (to be fair they have done quite well with redevelopment)
Fall River & new bedford - whale oil and then fishing
lowell, lawrence lynn - Textiles
Taunton - Silver I think...
Brockton - Shoes
etc
Boston - Students
2) when economics changed to allow industries to be performed somewhere cheaper these industries declined
3) Declines led to job losses
4) Job losses led to people leaving
5) People leaving led to properties dropping in price
6) That led to poorer people moving in (can't blame them)
7) Then some and I want to emphasize just some ended up on social welfare systems...
Boston is on #5 by now. If you cannot support say $2,000 rent and it's now $1,500 it is more than just the price but those that can afford it might not always jump at something cheaper. Sometimes affluent people pay more more for things because it limits who has access. Back in the day going to a bar or club that's free is one thing but once you start charging $5,10, $15 then fewer get in. In Springfield Forest Park cleaned up by just charging $3 to drive in. That's all it took.
I'm not against making more affordable housing but if people are just trapped into renting or section 8 their whole lives that's not making generational wealth. My maternal grandmothers house was in the family about 100 or so years. If it wasn't for that being paid off I'm not sure how much different our lives would have been. On the other side there was a two family but unfortunately as the guys died off the maintenance did as well. Add in being hard of seeing and site and this is why sometimes you have to really check up on grandmas house.
Can it be argued that students will come back? Yeah but technically industrial jobs can come back to Gateway cities as well. Yes you can make the argument that there's some uniqueness to the experience. Polartec I still hear is great but it isn't made in malden anymore. I'm not saying that all of academia goes online for everything going forward but it's much more acceptable now. since we know that much of the developing world isn't going to get the vaccine for years the solution for them is to either take the classes online or go to a local university. So then on a domestic level it's hard to argue that someone from say Seattle can't take a bachelors of business at UMass online etc. If we can't legally force people back into the office academia can't really do the same of students.
Boston will always be a hub for medical research and access (although the da vinci surgical system patent ran out but that might not be a concern for a few years). Logan is still the largest airport in the region and unless about 450-500K people leave boston it's still the largest city in the region. I don't think sports can really prop things up like they used to. I grew up in the 80's and remember when we lost all the time. In 2000 it changed. But with time I just stopped watching. We've already "won" a number of times so why bother. Yeah I'll watch the world cup a tad and superbowl but not all the time. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexrei...uffer-in-2021/
It isn't a bad thing to watch other places of the state, region, country and world develop. Perhaps things were just concentrated in Boston for too long.
Charlestown and South Boston have been pricing townies out since the late 90's.
I think many of you commenting on here aren't from the area...which is fine, but you don't really know.
And people dont just pick southie or charlestown because they can't afford back bay-it's that they truly like the area and want to live there. I'd say Charlestown holds more charm than Back Bay...
Conversely, I think many on here are townies and/or aren't looking at it from the transplant perspective. They apply their perspective as it was. Those who are currently living in those areas are applying their perspective as things are now.
It does have a charm that makes it attractive. It feels more like a Back Bay or South End than it does a JP or South Boston, and you can get just a little more for just a little less. And yes, some of us very much look at Charlestown as a Plan B to Back Bay or South End. I can say that because that's exactly how I looked at Charlestown in my house hunting. I spent over a year hunting for the right place, and I can say I went to a LOT of open houses in the Back Bay, the South End, and a few in Charlestown, and I saw some of the same people also looking at those same properties in all 3 neighborhoods, so it's not a stretch to think they were also approaching it from the same angle I was. My realtor even suggested it to me as an alternative.
I don’t think Boston is in some prolonged decline. But I do think the trends we’ve seen more recently will pretty much define the city in the 2020s and it continues to lose some of its distinctness in a more interconnected world. With that I think the upward pressure on rents will cool. More investment properties with proper maintenance but fewer small condo conversions.
Ultimately more of life will be online and internal population growth will be negative, the youth fewer, and the population older. So I don’t see why Boston would be on fire. The Housing Choice Bull passed, and in all likelihood commuter rail stations or areas near them are gonna become by-right multi family housing zones. We will meet governor bakers housing goals but have fewer oriole than originally envisioned. Unless we are fortunate enough to it eatin some middle class families or gain additional skilled immigrants.
Conversely, I think many on here are townies and/or aren't looking at it from the transplant perspective. They apply their perspective as it was. Those who are currently living in those areas are applying their perspective as things are now.
It does have a charm that makes it attractive. It feels more like a Back Bay or South End than it does a JP or South Boston, and you can get just a little more for just a little less. And yes, some of us very much look at Charlestown as a Plan B to Back Bay or South End. I can say that because that's exactly how I looked at Charlestown in my house hunting. I spent over a year hunting for the right place, and I can say I went to a LOT of open houses in the Back Bay, the South End, and a few in Charlestown, and I saw some of the same people also looking at those same properties in all 3 neighborhoods, so it's not a stretch to think they were also approaching it from the same angle I was. My realtor even suggested it to me as an alternative.
That your "realtor suggested" I think speaks volumes as to where you come from. You need to understand the Back Bay/S End is not everybody's cup of tea and that people may have other reasons for choosing Charlestown or Southie beyond a lower price per sq. ft..
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