Archive for September, 2008
September 19, 2008
This weekend, the annual South End Open Studios kicks off the beginning of Boston’s “art season.” If you don’t know what an open studio is, it’s your chance to visit dozens of artists (including me) right where we work, and maybe purchase a little art during your visit for your forlorn walls at home. Traipsing through artists studios is fun — nearly as much fun as traipsing through open houses — and this weekend’s event is just the beginning. From now until early December, an open studios will be held in a neighborhood in Boston almost every weekend, including in Allston-Brighton . (Brookline holds its open studios in the spring.)
Yes, autumn can be tough for the looky-loos among us. Should we spend Sunday afternoon darting from open house to open house, or darting from open studio to open studio?
Take your choice:
71 Parkman Street, #2
Brookline
BEDS:3/BATHS:2
Sq.Ft: 1604
$749,900
Sunday, September 21, 2008 10:30 AM – 12:30 p.m.
4 Kilsyth Terrace, #34
Brighton
BEDS:1/BATHS:1
SQ.FT: 699
$249K
Sunday, September 21, 2008 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM
8 Hamilton Road, #1
Brookline
BEDS:3/BATHS:2
SQ.FT:1286
$559K
Sunday, September 21, 2008 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM.
Sweet Digs Boston Home
Brookline, Brighton Archives
September 19, 2008
If the fall weather holds up, Sunday will be a good day for a short walk to Bay Village. Masa on Tremont Street promises a decent way to begin a walk through the shady (as in no sunshine, not sleazy) streets of Boston’s quietest and coziest inner-city neighborhood. Masa’s Texas Toast with carmelized bananas and dulce de leche sounds amazing.
If brunch includes a pitcher of Habanero-Watermelon Margaritas, we should have a fun afternoon viewing homes and annoying agents.
12 Isabella Street, #6
Bay Village 02116
Beds: 1/Baths: 1
SQ.FT.: 340
$275,000
I can’t wait to see a home in this city for under $300K. The pics make it look surprisingly cute.
129 Charles Street, #2
Bay Village, 02116
Beds: 1/Baths: 1
SQ.FT.: 795
$399,000
1 Bay Street
Bay Village, 02116
Beds: 2/Baths: 2.5
SQ.FT.: 1361
$899,000
This is the only one we’re viewing that breaks half a mil, but it looks like a lot of house for the money.
17 Cortes Street, #4
Bay Village, 02116
Beds: 1/Baths: 1
SQ.FT.: 700
$439,000
Hitting the Links
Boston Sweet Digs Home
September 18, 2008
If only the pun were true; August sales were a little wan compared to July. Of course, the dates on these reflect the date the house was closed on, not the date the purchase & sale was signed. Buying a home generally takes at least 6 weeks in my experience, so these houses sold in midsummer.
If these 3 listings say anything, it’s that new buyers are coming to the market to meet the falling prices, and that’s a good sign for the long term.
If you are looking for a house or condo, it’s a good idea to spend some time poking around recent sales — just check the box under Advanced Search and your neighborhood searches will include past sales. This is the real, raw data that any market estimate is based on, and it’s easy to do a drive-by and see the houses that sold for whatever they sold for…. What I man is, if it seems like a house sold for peanuts, don’t judge the whole neghborhood; you could go over there and see that the new owner is rehabbing the place, and that it was priced accordingly. Etc.
Now eat your data.
3 Horton Court
Salem, MA 01970
Beds: 3/Baths: 1
SQ.FT.:806
$117,900
146 North Street, #1
Salem, MA 01970
Beds: 1/Baths: 1
SQ.FT.:769
$ 169,000
25 Liberty Hill, #3
Salem, MA 01970
Beds: 2/Baths:1
SQ.FT.: 800
$115,000
A Tour Of Beverly In 3 Listings
Boston Sweet Digs Home
September 18, 2008
There’s nothing like a good, old-fashioned political battle, is there? Boston area politics rival Chicago’s for corruption, gossip, and convolution, and the excitement isn’t limited merely to Suffolk County.
Take the dust-up over the state rep seat for the 34th Middlesex District, which includes parts of Somerville and Medford. Incumbent Carl Sciortino had the backing of some important Democrats, and brought a fresh, new outlook to the somewhat conservative (by Massachusetts standards) politics of the 34th.
But as this is a democracy, Somerville Alderman Bob Trane gathered the necessary papers to challenge Sciortino in this fall’s election. Running on a campaign free of lobbyists and special interests, Trane would have been a great opponent for Scioritino on this year’s ballot.
Problem was, Sciortino never made this year’s ballot because some critical paperwork went missing. Some say clerical error, others say foul play, but Sciortino and his most fervent supporters nevertheless mounted a write-in campaign that led him to narrow victory earlier this week.
Bob Trane has been gracious in the wake of his defeat at the hands of the Progressive Democrat “machine”, but he still isn’t done fighting—he’s now taking legal issue with a Somerville Journal editorial cartoon that accused him of sabotaging Sciortino’s paperwork, casting him in the same light as John Buonomo, the Middlesex County Register of Probate who was caught stealing from his own office.
Confused yet? If not, the hills and tree-lined streets around Somerville City Hall might just be the perfect launch pad for your foray into the city’s weird political world.
7 Berkeley Street #1
Somerville, MA 02143
2 beds, 2 baths
1,484 sq. ft.
$437,000
19 Grandview Avenue #B
Somerville, MA 02143
3 beds, 2 baths.
1,922 sq. ft.
$525,000
34-1 Madison Street #1
Somerville, MA 02143
4 beds, 2 baths
3,750 sq. ft.
$528,900
A Brief History of ‘Olde Cambridge”
Boston Sweet Digs Home
September 17, 2008
You’re doing errands in Coolidge Corner, but when you’re finished, you impulsively investigate a little trail off Beacon Street called Marion Path, located just west of all the hubbub of the Corner. At the end of the short path, you find that you have entered a green oasis surrounded by scaled-down residential homes.
Welcome to Griggs Park.
Griggs Park is a 4.17 acre kidney-shaped oasis of nature bounded by Griggs Road and Griggs Terrace. Landscaped with graceful weeping willows and incorporating a little pond, the park is all things to all people: a children’s park, a place to walk and jog, a dog run. The park was built and accepted by the town in 1903 and the surrounding residential properties were developed as a unit by Thomas B. Griggs. Built mainly between 1900 and 1925, the housing is a mix of large single-family homes, two-family row houses, and multi-family dwellings. The park and neighborhood are included in the Griggs Park Historic District on the National/State Register of Historic Places.
These days, it’s not too easy to find houses for sale on either Griggs Road or Griggs Terrace. The residents who live across from this beautiful park know how good they’ve got it. Still, there are a few smaller condos currently availabe in the surrounding area. Such as:
94 Griggs Road, #22
Brookline
BEDS:2/BATHS:2
SQ.FT:1,174
$479K
90 Park Street, #14
Brookline
BEDS:2/BATHS:2.5
SQ.FT:1429
$648K
592 Washington Street, #6
Brookline
BEDS:1/BATHS:1
SQ.FT:495
$243K
Sweet Digs Boston Home
Brighton, Brookline Archive
September 16, 2008
As anyone who’s been stranded on the Kendall/MIT platform knows, Cambridge was initially known as “Newetowne”, and founded with the intent of being the capital of this wild, puritanical experiment known as Massachusetts.
But did you know Newetowne was founded in 1630, around a common currently occupied by Peet’s Coffee and Grendel’s Den? Or that the site was initially selected because it was the closest possible crossing of the Charles River, the entire 8 miles to the east being tidal swamp and marsh?
Of course, six years later, a college came to town, and Newetown became “Cambridge”. The college grew into a university, and over the next 3.5 centuries, bought everything within reach that hadn’t been securely nailed down, including parts of the Mass Pike.
Still, residential owners can be intractable, and plots abound on the periphery of Olde Cambridge. And as with land values buoyed by close proximity to Harvard, it might just be worth having the occasional Porcellian vomiting in your yard.
1172 Mass Ave #10
Cambridge, MA 02138
1 bed, 1 bath
419 sq. ft.
$289,900
54 Trowbridge Street #A
Cambridge, MA 02138
2 beds, 2 baths
1,731 sq. ft.
$769,000
23 Putnam Ave #23
Cambridge, MA 02139
4 beds, 2.5 baths
2,173 sq. ft.
$995,000
Wall Street: It’s 1929. Boston: It’s the Matt Cassell Era.
Boston Sweet Digs Home
Image source: dsearls. cc-by-sa-2.0.
September 16, 2008
My adopted homeland is a strange and wonderful place, where the working class neighborhoods of old lap against the pilings of summer manses, where fishermen and merchant marines share a zip code with the progeny of captains of industries long crumbled in the dust of time. (No extra charge for the melodrama OR the purple prose — now that’s a deal and a half.)
These three listings struck me as characteristic of their neighborhoods, if I spare you a look at the $7 million estates in Beverly Farms. The Farms seems to enjoy some privilege in this town, which I find inherently offensive, but it’s there, nevertheless — they have a public-private fireworks show on the 4th of July, for instance, and a house in the farms worth $7 million assesses for less than half its value while our homes assess for close to 100%.
First, there’s working-class Ryal Side, and a real peach of a house with beautiful views:
87 Kernwood Avenue
Beverly, MA 10195
Beds: 3/Baths:2
SQ.FT.: 1796
$345,000
Then, Montserrat, which bears the same name as the little art college in our town. It has its own train depot 1 stop north of the main one downtown, and any house in the neighborhood is within an easy walk of the Montserrat stop and a brisk-but-not-bad walk from the Depot. Montserrat is pretty, with older historic homes and mostly-nice 20th century architecture, and really convenient — if the bubble hadn’t burst, this area would have taken off next. If you want a commuter’s bargain in an idyllic setting, this could be your new ‘hood.
17 1/2 Pierce Street Address #2
Beverly, MA 01915
Beds: 3/Baths: 1.5
SQ.FT.: 1465
$279,000
Finally, The Farms. It’s pretty up there, and the lots are big, and except for jerks who built fences so the Proles can’t see their ocean views (you know which condo association you are!) it’s a swell place to live. There’s a fruit shop called the Fruitful Basket with amazing bread, cheese, and hand-picked produce that’s worth the premium they charge. The farms has its own natural foods store, wine and spirits shop, and a new Tapas restaurant that I haven’t tried yet.
99 Preston Place
Beverly, MA 10195
Beds: 4/Baths: 3.5
SQ.FT.: 3571
$849,500
It’s What You’re Near
Boston Sweet Digs Home
September 15, 2008
Eastern elites. The ivory tower. In case you’re poorly-versed in election year euphemism—or just confused by Mitt Romney—that’s us. And to be entirely frank with you, I think a little isolation these days is a very good thing.
In case you hadn’t heard, things are a little topsy-turvy. Lehman Brothers, after an impressive 158-year streak of not doing so, looks to be going bankrupt. Merrill Lynch is now owned by Bank of America.
Plus there’s that whole Fannie/Freddy thing. Oh, and AIG is looking for $40 billion in emergency funding from the Fed. So I feel isolation from that sort of chaos can’t be all that bad. But a lot of people also think it can’t be possible.
While State Street and Bank of America, which seem to be doing OK in the recent turmoil, have a significant presence in Boston, there’s no real reason they can’t be exported to less-expensive cities with better weather and less heinous gridlock.
So could this weekend—which the traders I know have described as “scary”—be the beginning of the end for the still-climbing housing costs here in the Hub? Or will Boston continue to demonstrate that strange immunity it’s seemed to have since have since 2004 or so?
Open Houses: Live from the Train!
Boston Sweet Digs Home.
September 15, 2008
Yesterday, The Boston Globe had an interesting article about the difficulties of finding a home in a slow housing market. It seems that even though housing prices dropped in some areas, there aren’t many quality homes on the market at the moment.
According to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, there are actually 22 percent fewer single-family homes and condos for sale now in Massachusetts than in June 2006. In the Boston area, inventory declined even more.
But if you’re out shopping for a home right now, you probably already knew that.
Despite all the screaming headlines about a crashing market, it’s harder than ever to find a place where you’d want to live at a decent price. I bought a two-bedroom condo in Brighton in 2007 and haven’t seen anything better or as well-priced on the market since.
In fact, Redfin shows only 13 two-bedroom condos in the size and price at which I bought over a year ago. Five of these cost more than what we paid. The rest are located much farther out in places we wouldn’t have looked. The few condos on the market in our neighborhood today are listed at higher prices — sometimes much higher — than what we paid. It seems to go against the popular market wisdom of the day, but if we hadn’t made the leap back then, we would be pulling our hair out by now.
In fact, I’d say househunting is a little bit like going grocery shopping these days. Sure, maybe the price of that box of cereal is the same, but the box is only half the size of last year.
September 15, 2008
Learn all about the Old State House preservation. [MetaBoston]- Some discussion about a reasonable down-payment & how a 20% down requirement would change the market. [Boston Real Estate Now]
- Bryant on Columbus pictures. [Boston Condos]
- Another story of the housing crisis. [The Chinatown Blog]
- This is why off-street parking is a good idea. [Allston Brighton Community Blog]
- Sounds like Brighton residents still aren’t happy with Boston College. Are any neighbors and neighborhoods happy with a college next door? [Brighton Centered]
- We need a Don’t-Block-The-Box campaign in Boston to save us from all sorts of traffic-related indignities: gridlock, taxi cabs, delivery trucks, and any other vehicle that stops traffic. If Boston puts out the effort, it should also focus on jaywalkers blocking intersections. [John A. Keith]
- The next big thing in housing: basements! [The New York Times]
- The next big thing in housing: libraries! [The Wall Street Journal]
Stale Listings Need Love, Too
Boston Sweet Digs Home
