Archive for March, 2008
March 26, 2008
Ugh…if it isn’t bad enough to live in a city that makes you get up at 6am to watch baseball, but won’t serve you a beer until 8, you gotta come home to this screed on your doorstep. And, yeah, unless your name is Rupert Murdoch, it’s the good paper in town.
Seeing as my space here is limited, I’ll focus my complaints on some recent Globe real estate stories. Number one would have to be the “Best ZIP Codes inside 495” piece. Am I the only one who thinks ZIP is an awfully arbitrary way to go about defining towns and neighborhoods?
I suppose it’s better than telephone prefixes, but still - Back Bay west of Gloucester St. is in the same ZIP as Mission Hill and Ruggles Station? Do these two places look the same to you?
Almost as bad is the Beacon Hill/West End conflation , which leads in nicely to my next gripe - this claptrap on the “efficiency” of high-rises. Citing a 4-year-old New Yorker article rife with inaccuracies, the piece claims that replacing older building with high rises “saves energy, reduces emissions, cuts traffic.”
Yeah, right. Let’s take the historical example of the West End: before the towers, it held 7,000 people, all walking pretty much everywhere. Currently, its population is 4,600, and over 25% of them drive to work every day. Add to that the 2,400 displaced people who’ve got to now drive from Dorchester, East Somerville, Chelsea, or any of the other neighborhoods and towns unsupported by the MBTA and you’ve got a distinct increase in carbon footprint.
Manhattan is one of the densest cities in America. But it’s far from the greenest, and a month-old Popular Science survey backs me up on this. Sunsets at 3pm, constant gridlock, difficult garbage collection; the list of environmental problems brought by extreme density goes on. About the only thing New York has going for it is stellar transit usage numbers, which I feel Bostonians would easily best, if only their transit agency could summon the cash to expand.
Anyway, here are some non-tower residences for your consideration:
373 Comm Ave #603 - $599,000
2 beds, 1 bath, 823 sq. ft.
So plush, you’d never know you were sharing a ZIP code with Mission Hill. But not overly plush - note the sensible kitchen. Too bad the sweeping view is wasted on Bostons lame outdated, non-tower architecture…
20 Beacon St, #3 - $1,895,000
3 beds, 3 baths, 2310 sq. ft.
There’s a political component to this tower debate too, you know. Imagine this luxurious townhouse condo as tower, looming over that stately golden dome. What sort of message does that send, giving people the opportunity to live literally hundreds of feet above the law?
127 Beacon St, #11 - $275,000
0 beds, 1 bath, 277 sq. ft.
Another problem with towers is this thing called capitalism. Turns out, the goal in a capitalist system is to make money, and that you make a lot more money building big, expensive luxury condos instead of more affordable stuff. So if this is your price range, high-end towers put you out of luck.
March 26, 2008
I have two friends who have been informally house-hunting for a very long time. Problem is, even with prices tumbling down in some areas, prices in Boston are still high enough to close them out. So they figure that their only way of getting a toe into the market is to buy a fixer-upper. Half of the couple is handy, so buying a broken-down hovel and lovingly restoring it to chic splendor is not just a fantasy. The challenge is picking a neighborhood and a building where all that work will pay off in the long-term, even while the market gyrates unpredictably in the short-term. That’s a lot easier said than done (a delicate enterprise, a lot like tearing down a load-bearing wall in the fixer-upper I bought a few months ago!) The key is finding a great location and a property with “good bones” — a good layout and nothing obviously askew, like sitting right on the Mass Pike).
So I got to wondering what’s really out there in the way of fixer-uppers. Remarkably little, it seems. You have a better chance of finding a place in need of some work in Brighton than Brookline, but you also run a greater risk of getting less of a return on all your work. (What’s the point of restoring a Victorian on a street filled with student tenements?) In Brookline, it seems like the professionals may be jumping on all the fixer-uppers and turning them into “luxury condos” before normal people can get a crack at them. I didn’t find a whole lot, but here’s what I came up with:
114 Strathmore Road, Apt. 302, $259K, 846 square feet. I’ve had the benefit of visiting this condo. While it looks as if it may have been repainted recently, this unit definitely needs a little attention in the bathroom and kitchen areas (meaning total renovation, from appliances to countertops, to floors, to cabinets.) But the Cleveland Circle location is good, the building itself is decent, the layout is excellent, and a little bit of work in the right places will go a long way to increasing this condo’s value.
48 Wallingford Road, $580K, 3505 square feet. This one is actually listed as a “fixer-upper”. Certainly $580K for a seven bedroom single family home of this size sounds pretty sweet. Looks like wall paper needs to come down, and the kitchen needs to be updated, but if there are no other major problems (and who knows with a 108-year-old home of this size!) then you could be looking at a purchase you would never regret, even in a down market.
41 Park Street, Apt. 303 $298K, 793 square feet. This Brookline condo is also listed as a “fixer upper.” Actually, it looks like you could move right in from the pictures, although the kitchen and bath are probably not the latest in home design. The price isn’t a steal for a unit of this size in need of work. On the other hand, you can’t get much closer to Coolidge Corner.
167 Brook Street, $739,900, 2620 square feet. A five-bedroom house in Brookline Village, this house appears to have the location, but not the good looks. A victim of aesthetic neglect, a little bit of work (like stripping a bedroom of 1970s dark paneling) will go a long way to improving the sex appeal of this place. Hmm…. still not sure about the price for a place that needs so much cosmetic work, though.
Know of any other good fixer-uppers? Let me know!
Image: freedigitalphotos.net.
March 24, 2008
I posted a few weeks ago about our wood stove, and I’d hoped to follow up sooner. But now I understand a common way in which men are irritating.
The folks in our municipal inspections office are pretty easy to deal with — in fact, I’ve found dealing with both Beverly and Salem city governments to be really easy and low-stress. Until I decided to do something they didn’t know a whole lot about.
Almost a month ago, I’m standing in the inspector’s office armed with what I’ve been told is a bulletproof plan to make a heat shield out of copper sheet metal (see pics) that will sit on the wall, so that my “solid fuel appliance” can be set farther back in the corner, preserving precious space in my little house. The guy who told me this stuff is a 30 year installer of wood stoves here in Massachusetts.
You know that dream, where you’re naked in 7th grade and everyone’s laughing at you? The whole office full of guys made fun of me! “You can’t just make something yourself and expect it to pass” and “Why do you think they make pots out of copper…you’ll burn your house down….” The chief inspector told me that he’d accept a course of brick set behind the stove — brick! — as a heat shield unless I showed him something in writing from the UL or the manufacturer.
Doing some research set me back by a week; I’m a busy guy during the school year. When I went back to them, I had documentation on the fireproof pad the stove was set on, the installation manual from Vermont Castings, and documentation from the company that makes the nifty little ceramic spacers you buy at any fireplace store.
Plus, I had the page from the National Fire Prevention Code that says a sheet metal heat shield is over twice as effective as one made out of brick. And some stuff from the Hearth.com forums that says the heat shield is meant to reduce the heat hitting the wall from 300 degrees to about 150, and that wood stoves don’t get as hot as the corona of the frickin’ sun. I walked in with about 30 pages of printer paper, plus my drawings.
The chief inspector was a little sheepish — but I try not to be a jerk when I’m right.
Today I have a functioning wood stove, a signed permit, and…it’s going to be really nice and warm and sunny for a while.
My point is, you can’t depend on inspectors to tell you how to do things, because you can’t depend on them to KNOW how to do things. I don’t mean to put anybody down; when I interacted with them, what I listened to was a kind of know-it-all nay-saying, instead of understanding the way this process works. And they did keep saying “Show me where it says you can do that.” When I did, they were nice and easy to deal with.
What these guys do is read the building code. My guess is they do know a lot about construction — and they read the product manuals and spec sheets. You should too. If I’d known enough to do my research first (and show my work), I’d have saved myself a lot of frustration.
So…voila. The copper heat shield needs a cleaning, and an ornamental molding to cover the screws, but….
I call her “Darth,” my fully armed and operational wood stove.
March 24, 2008
Last week in Brookline, an old Victorian I had written about burned down to the ground (under rather suspicious circumstances, it seems), Brookline bakers reported that wheat prices are cutting into their profits (so Kupel’s has raised the price of a dozen bagels from $6.50 to $8), and Brookline realtors reported that the spring market has officially begun with an influx of new properties on the market and several properties quickly going under agreement. Meanwhile, we also noted a spate of price reductions around town:
143 Beaconsfield Road, Apt. 2, Brookline. Was $679K, changed to $668K. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, 1575 square feet.
26 Linden Street, Apt. 1, Brookline. Was $519K changed to $499K. — Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, 1226 square feet.
11 Waverly Street, Apt. 5, Brookline. Was $725K, changed to $699,999. — Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, 1504 square feet.
23 Westbourne Terrace, Apt.3 Brookline. Was $275K, changed to $269K — One bedroom, one bathroom, 541 square feet.
March 24, 2008
My Upton Street neighbors repeatedly embarrass me in front of the entire city when they voice hollow concerns over the Pine Street Inn purchase of three townhouses on their street. Hope House currently owns and operates the townhouses as a transitional-living facility for up to seventy recovering addicts. It wants to sell all three units to the Pine Street Inn, which will continue using them as a transitional-living facility, but for only thirty-six residents. The sale hit a snag when some whiners decided they no longer want a shelter in the neighborhood. The Union Park Neighborhood Association (UPNA) is up in arms because they weren’t included in any negotiations.
I’m not sure why UPNA members feel like they should be included in any Pine Street Inn business. Even association president Jerry Frank, who moved to Upton Street several years after the opening of the Hope House facility, admitted the association is sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong. According to The South End News, Mr. Frank conceded:
“We’re going to find out how this happened, what the plans are … we want to address the economics of this, although it’s really not our business.”
Hope House used the townhouses in question as transitional-housing facility for over twenty-five years: probably longer than most of these whiney-assed Upton Street residents lived in the area. It’s unforgivable that these people saved a few bucks buying homes near a shelter, and now want to force the shelter out. Maybe they can push the Pine Street Inn onto some other less organized, less educated, less affluent families in some other neighborhood. Again, according to The South End News, Mr. Frank whimpered:
“We want to know why Pine Street Inn persists in pushing here when they know the neighbors object.”
Well, Jerry, the Pine Street Inn may not care that you don’t want it there. Keep in mind, you chose to move in to the neighborhood knowing what was there. Deal with it, Holmes.
Photo Source
Click here for more South End news and posts by Alyk
March 24, 2008
This job isn’t easy, you know. I had been planning to write about price reductions, but then all this other interesting stuff came up. Like the price of the Audubon Park condos increasing after some brisk sales.
Or the possibly impending foreclosure of the Mass Pike. While it would make this lovely Bay Village single-family far more attractive, without the Pike, what’s to keep Back Bay and the South End from merging completely?
And then there’s this report on sexual transmitted diseases, broken down by neighborhood (at right). Should I use it to make unsubstantiated inferences about the sex lives of locals in various locations around Boston? Nah, probably best to stick to price reductions.
328 Dartmouth St #5 - $375,000
0 Beds, 1 Bath, 484 sq. ft.
A bit on the small side, but very cleverly compacted with a loft. Stained glass windows and a heart-of-the-neighborhood location don’t hurt either.
466 Commonwealth Ave #807 - $229,000
0 Beds, 1 Bath, 382 sq. ft.
Even smaller, but perhaps the most glamourous small studio in town. Not exactly what I’d call Back Bay, but closer access to the restaurants, bars and transit of Kenmore are the only real consequences of that.
337 Commonwealth Ave #40 - $895,000
2 Beds, 2 Baths, 1294 sq. ft.
Mwahahaha…the skylight condo keeps reducing in price, down over 10% from its original listing. At less than $700/sq. ft., it’s starting to become a very luxurious bargain.
March 22, 2008
I traditionally kick off my Sunday open house tours with a huge coffee and a bagel or pastry at any one of the great bakeries around town, the South End Buttery. Occasionally, when the motivation strikes, I wander over to Back Bay or hop a train to the North End. One of my favorite places outside the South End is Chinatown’s Eldo Cake House; I love their salty-sweet pork buns.
Although Sunday is Easter, I still plan to make my weekly open-house stroll through the South End, but it will be an abbreviated walk; I snagged brunch reservations at Hamersley’s Bistro. Family get-togethers are always fun, but I have a feeling I won’t be much in the mood for a long walk after eating a huge Easter Brunch. Luckily, a couple of nearby open houses won’t take us far off track.
26 Dwight Street, #2
Beds: 3/Baths: 1.5
SQ.FT: 1300
$/SQ.FT: 585
$759,900
OPEN HOUSE: Sunday, March 23, noon - 1:30
35 Fay Street, #217
Beds: 1 /Baths: 1
SQ.FT: 1060
$/SQ.FT: 656
$695,000
OPEN HOUSE: Sunday, March 23, 1:30 - 3:00
In case you missed it, someone corrected the great deal in the last post: 411 Shawmut Avenue, #1, changed from $313,000 to $434,000.
Photo Source
Click here for more South End news and posts by Alyk
March 19, 2008
My son was just two when we moved to our house that abuts the commuter rail. I was initially a little concerned about living so close to the tracks. My back fence butts right up to Commuter Rail territory. But the trains are very low frequency, they don’t go by a lot and when they do, they’re not very loud on the first two floors of my house. They are moderately annoying when we’re watching TV on the third floor, but that’s why we have a TiVo with a pause button!
But living on the railroad tracks with a preschooler and a toddler is an unexpectedly magical experience. During the summer when they are doing maintenance on the tracks, freight trains and heavy equipment buzz past my house. Last summery they carted trucks full of rails by several times per day. And the effect the train has on my kids, well it’s just magic. I’ll be at my wits end trying to be a responsible parent. “No you can NOT have another cookie.” WAAAHH!! (repeat) (repeat) Then I hear the distant hydraulic whine and I yell “TRAIN!” And they rush to the back windows and hold their breath until the train comes. Nine times out of ten, they will have forgotten what we were arguing about after it passes. Friends come over with their kids and when we’re outside and hear the Park Street crossing start to ring, the kids will scramble up the climbing structure as fast as they can to watch it go by. Each one of them jumping and hollering. It puts them in a good mood.
You might not see it as an amenity at first, but trains have a certain romance to them. Even the MBTA. And you can also sit in your dining room and laugh at those suckers going back out to the ‘burbs while you’re already home for dinner. Not that I would do that. Maybe just a little. You might not see it in the listing, but these Somerville properties are close to the commuter rail –and that is AWESOME.
This house at 23 Vernon Street is in my old neighborhood. It’s a 3 bedroom 1.5 bath listed for $369,900 –A bargain by ANY standards. It’s a HOUSE, not even a condo for that. It’s a fun neighborhood. It’s about a 20 minute walk to Davis –about 10 minutes to the bike path, and another 10 to the T from there. There’s lots of great kid parks. It’s down the street from the Vernon Street lofts if you’re looking for a little “aht” and “culcha” (art and culture for those of you who aren’t from around here.
These condos at 23 park street #4 and and 21 Park Street #4 are listed for $445,000 and $444,900 respectively are adjacent to the tracks and they look out onto Conway Field. These lofts are hip and urban. And you can walk to Harvard, Porter, Union and Inman Square in 15 minutes from there.
There’s two beautiful brand new units for sale at 47 Tufts Street in East Somerville for 288,900 for a 2 bedroom 1 bath unit $293,150 for a 2 bedroom 2 bath unit. And it looks like you might just be able to see the train go by based on it’s location on the map.
Don’t fear the railroad!
March 19, 2008
$11 million dollars? Harrumph. Like that’s even a lot…Back Bay has at least two complete homes (128 Comm Ave and 51 Comm Ave #C-G) on the market for that price. And sure, their backyards might not come with full-size “tea-houses”, but they also don’t come with noisy, smelly commuter rail tracks, either. And with gas at record prices, have fun driving, well, everywhere - unless you plan on using that deep-water dock for sailboat commuting.
Seriously, everywhere you turn, it’s like someone’s trying to out Back Bay Back Bay. I suppose I should be glad that at least the more loathsome aspects of the neighborhood are moving out, too - perhaps you noticed the minor uproar that erupted when some South End mom bragged about not having to clean up her child’s spilled Cheerios in restaurants. At least it brought my new favorite blog back into action.
In all honesty, what’s always gotten me pumped about Back Bay - and Beacon Hill, as well - is the broad range of properties available in a small area. For every million dollar trophy home, there’s a 7 Hereford St. or a 183 Comm Ave; comfortable, comparatively affordable residences in walkable, architecturally gorgeous neighborhoods that offer a staggering variety of services.
There’s less productivity lost commuting, less ecological impact, and more fun stuff to do. Try finding Sonsie and The Other Side each half a block from a home in stuffy old Manchester-by-the-Sea. And don’t forget the changing demographics of this recent economic downturn - move out the suburbs and you may find yourself smack dab in the middle of the same blight your parents fled the city to avoid.
Image: Screenshot from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes trailer. Howard Hawkes, 1953. Public Domain (copyright expired), via Wikipedia.
March 19, 2008
Allston-Brighton has never been particularly flush. It’s always existed as a mostly working-class enclave, made up largely of two-families and mid-rise apartment buildings, with a smattering of single-family homes here and there. More recently, it’s been a student enclave offering affordable housing to BC and BU students.
So isn’t it kind of strange that somehow, Allston-Brighton, seems to be weathering the foreclosure crisis just fine? In fact, according to a recent report by the Warren Group, only two condominiums were foreclosed on in Allston in 2007 and 0 two-family residences. (In 2006, there was one foreclosure on a condo and one on a single-family in Allston.) In Brighton, in 2007, there were two foreclosures on single-family homes, two foreclosures on two-families, and seven foreclosures of condominiums. (This compares to 3 foreclosures total in 2006.) Looks like Allston-Brighton is weathering the foreclosure crisis surprisingly well. In Dorchester, by comparison, foreclosures are in the hundreds.
The question is whether the trend will continue to hold with new developments happening in A-B. First, Boston has just instituted a housing law which will limit the number of students who can room together. Also, several local universities have announced plans to expand on-campus dormitory housing. These changes may cut into the pool of students looking to rent and end up limiting the income potential of “investor’s units” — a problem, perhaps, for overzealous investors. Will these developments push some people into foreclosure? It might. Or, it could be that landlords in A-B bought their cash cows long before the recent run-up in prices. Maybe they never needed to do any weird financing and maybe they’ll continue to rake in the dough, no matter what.
