Author: Cosmo Catalano
Cosmo Catalano hails from the far west of Our Fair Commonwealth, where red-blooded Massachusetts residents pronounce their Rs (but are a bit lazy with their intervocalic Ts). By day, he strives tirelessly to save the world by exposing the horrific inefficiencies of car-based culture; by night he does whatever he possibly can to afford living in places where he won’t need to drive. Though the urban environment does occasionally grate against his rural-bred sensibilities, Cosmo admits that being able to walk from the bank to the bar is pretty freakin’ convenient.
Recent posts
October 14, 2008
If you read the Somerville papers, or watch Fox25, you’ll know that during his law school days, Barack Obama called the Winter Hill section of town his home. Not that the neighborhood has a prestige that future presidential candidates find irresistible; quite the opposite, a young Obama lived there because it was—and still is—very cheap.
I’d like to say the place is a bargain for the money, but with the closure of the Broadway Star Market there last year, there’s just not a whole lot to do in the neighborhood. People try to find stuff to do, but other than some decent pizza, stained glass, and massive-portion-size Italian, there’s just not that much out there.
Winter Hill does have some great views of the city (and of Everett and Chelsea, in the other direction), but it’s an evil tease view—Obama left Somerville with $400 of unpaid parking tickets due to his car-dependence. City officials say the bus connections weren’t as good back then, but let me tell you: they aren’t great now, either.
In a way, the attitude of the current occupant of Obama’s old apartment sums up the most visible aspect of the neighborhood: it’s a great place to be left alone. Quiet, but close to the city; not bursting with creature comforts, but not skid row, either. The old Victorians and Queen Anne style homes are gorgeous, and come with plots of grass larger than what you might expect to find just over two miles from the Garden.
166 Sycamore St #2
Somerville, MA 02145
4 beds, 2 baths
2,287 sq. ft.
$519,900
31 Adams St #3
Somerville, MA 02145
2 beds, 1 bath
1,074 sq. ft.
$259,000
22 Dartmouth St #1
Somerville, MA 02145
3 beds, 2 baths
1,344 sq. f.t
$335,750
Time for a Lifestyle Adjustment
Boston Sweet Digs Home
October 10, 2008
No question things have changed a bit in the past few months, but when I wrote in August that foreclosures in some of the city’s tonier neighborhoods could be right around the corner, I didn’t mean 60 days around the corner.
And yet there they are, foreclosures in Beacon Hill (actually, this is in Dorchester) and Back Bay, plain as the Golden Dome or the Pru. So, distressed owners and would-be buyers, battling to stay on top of your payments, or trying to find some way to squeeze a new payment in, may I humbly suggest making a lifestyle adjustment?
I’ve heard about the trauma downgrading your spending can incur, but let’s be realistic: either way, you’ll lose the inflated sense of wealth—but if you don’t get into a property you can actually afford, you’ll be giving up your home and credit rating, too.
So say you did it to be edgy. Say you did it for the space. Say you realized the emptiness of your Platinum card life. You could even tell the truth and say you did it to save money. But whatever you say, decide to say it soon, or you’ll be just another foreclosure statistic, saying it’s someone else’s fault to a nation that has become far too preoccupied with their own losses to worry anymore about yours.
Some comparatively humbler open house suggestions suggestions for the distressed upscale owner:
73 Lexington Ave #2
Somerville, MA 02144
2 beds, 2 baths
2,097 sq. ft.
$679,000
Sunday, October 12, 2008 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
131 Willow Ave #2
Somerville, MA 02144
2 beds, 2 baths
1,232 sq. ft.
$535,000
Sunday, October 12, 2008 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM
22 Appleton St #1
Somerville, MA 02144
1 beds, 1 baths
783 sq. ft.
$319,000
Sunday, October 12, 2008 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
Sarcastic Econ Cat Sez: Bailout Bill Working Purr-fectly
Boston Sweet Digs Home
October 9, 2008
O noes! Seems like some CNN editors need to look up the definition of “hubris,” or perhaps “market volatility”. Because that is definitely what we have here: a market with no compass.
Irresponsibly low interest rates–which drove investment firms into the subprime markets in the first place–continue to force people to put their money somewhere other than bank accounts and Treasury bonds.
But scared people with money are almost as bad as scared people with guns; instead of stimulating the economy, panicked investors are tearing it apart. Today’s trade volume: 8,716,329,600, four times average.
Predictably, the response to this has been nationalization, worldwide, and on a broad scale. And highly regulated, nationalized economies are notoriously inefficient. Not the thing you want to see if you’re hoping to regain the 30-some-odd percent losses your portfolio incurred over the past few months. Looks like that bailout bill we “needed” might turn into the Smoot-Hawley Tarriff Act of our generation.
Anyway, if you traded you gold or oil for a house, like I suggested a few months back, you’d have cashed out at the best possible time, and you’d have an investment that paid you dividends every day in the form of shelter, not needing to drive, and potential income from renters or roommates.
I still think a property downtown is a good option. Brokers like to say “buy when there’s blood on the streets,” but you still want to make sure the blood isn’t yours.
295 Commonwealth Ave #6B
Back Bay, MA 02115
2 beds, 2 baths
860 sq. ft.
$659,000
280 Commonwealth Ave #206
Back bay, MA 02116
1 beds, 1 baths
612 sq. ft.
$480,000
76 Marlborough St #4
Back Bay, MA 02116
2 beds, 1.5 baths
1,312 sq. ft.
$829,000
Support Your Local Neighborhood Turkey
Boston Sweet Digs Home
October 8, 2008
So let’s pass on talking about another down day on Wall Street for some lighter news. It seems that Boston’s growing turkey population is really getting ahead in life.
After completing some undergrad work at MIT this spring, it seems the intelligent-yet-delicious birds have now begun pursuing their MBAs at nearby Harvard.
While most at HBS have greeted the new arrivals with open arms, there has been some resistance, including an anti-turkey Facebook group that must be invisible to non-HBS students because I can’t seem to find it.
It’s nothing, of course, compared to the uproar that struck when turkeys attempted to roost in nearby Brookline; the hate speech in that incident culminated in unfounded accusations of attempted murder.
So while Brookline may be Boston’s premier family-friendly neighborhood, do you really want your children growing up in an environment of anti-avian intolerance? Sure, the turkeys may not share your secular humanist views, but they bring much-needed diversity to the region in the forms of white meat, dark meat, and giblets.
So show your kids these birds aren’t just something that ends up on your kitchen table every November, and check out a home in Cambridge. And if you learn to grow to enjoy the presence of turkeys in your neighborhood, remember that there are far better business schools out there than Harvard.
998 Memorial Dr #998
Cambridge, MA 02138
4 beds, 4 baths
2,300 sq. ft.
$1,585,000
987 Memorial Dr #672
Cambridge, MA 02138
3 beds, 2 baths
2,106 sq. ft.
$1,350,000
11 Story St #28
Cambridge, MA 02138
Price:
2 beds, 1 bath
775 sq. ft.
$489,000
Apocalypse Watch: Day 2
Boston Sweet Digs Home
Image: Flickr user cmurtaugh under cc-by-nc-sa-2.0.
October 7, 2008
If there’s a positive spin to put on today’s 500-point Wall Street plummet, it’s that the market didn’t get much lower than the lowest point yesterday. The bad news is that everyone from Ben Bernanke to whoever it is than answers polls on the TheStreet.com think things are only getting worse.
The good news, Boston, is that you don’t live on foreclosure alley. You don’t need either candidate’s economic plan to prop up your home values and preserve your retirement. Yes, there have been a few price drops (a few from Back Bay are listed below), but across the board, homes prices aren’t falling anywhere near as fast as the economy as a whole.
306 Commonwealth Ave #4
Back Bay, MA 02115
2 beds, 1 bath
880 sq. ft.
Original Price: $719,000
Reduced Price: $679,000
280 Commonwealth Ave #206
Back Bay, MA 02116
1 beds, 1 bath
612 sq. f.t
Original Price: $580,000
Reduced Price: $480,000
286 Beacon St #5
Back Bay, MA 02116
Price:
1 bed, 1 bath
1,067 sq. ft.
Original Price: $729,000
Reduced Price: $679,000
Has the Crash Ended the Renter’s Dilemma?
Boston Sweet Digs Home
Image: Flicker user brentdanley, under cc-by-nc-sa-2.0
October 6, 2008
So what does 700 billion dollars buy you these days? Certainly not a whole lot of confidence in the stock market. Fortunately, I’m sure The Decider and his cohort have a similarly foolproof Plan B to head off the continuing financial debacle.
Not that you need any more good news, but historically speaking, big recessions tend to start in autumn months…
But hey, the good news? Heating oil should be cheap this winter, and thanks to a few measures cleverly tacked onto the aforementioned bailout bill, winter ’round these parts should be getting significantly less chilly in the coming years. It’s also worth noting that from Great Depression to the recession of the late 80’s stock market crashes have been phenomenal killers of housing bubbles.
Probably not the news you want to hear if you own a home; definitely not the news you want to hear if you’re trying to sell a home; but potentially excellent news if you’ve been on the sidelines, attempting to rent your way past the bubble. For you, oh champion of risk aversion, it might just be time to cash out that long-moldering CD and crack open a bottle of Clicqout.
Some fresh meat that picked a bad day to go onto the market:
205 Richdale Ave #A21
Cambridge, MA 02140
2 beds, 2 baths
1,097 sq. ft.
$437,000
400 Broadway #2
Somerville, MA 02145
1 beds, 1 bath
640 sq. ft.
$265,000
3 W Cedar St #2
Beacon Hill, MA 02114
2 beds, 1 bath
740 sq. ft.
$539,900
“…at least I have my good appliances.”
Boston Sweet Digs Home
October 3, 2008
Maybe I listen to too much WBUR (although, as someone who writes about and works in Cambridge, I suppose I ought to consider that impossible), but I think Radio Boston host David Boeri dug up a great soundbite from a Dorchester shopper on today’s Morning Edition.
Customer: I’ve been planning this kitchen for four-to-five years, so I saved for my appliances.
David: And your decisions now aren’t affected by your, by whats going on…
Customer: No.
David: …in the world around…?
Customer: Because it’s gonna get better. You just have to be patient. It’s gonna get better, and at least I have my good appliances.
So really, I don’t think I have to say anything more than that. Nice appliances, people. In these times of economic uncertainty, they matter. These open houses have them. The time to buy is now.
249 Beacon St #3
Back Bay, MA 02116
2 beds, 2.5 baths
2,108 Sq. Ft.
$1,599,000
Sunday, October 5, 2008 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
129 Mount Vernon St #3
Beacon Hill, MA 02108
2 beds, 1 bath
975 Sq. Ft.
$865,000
Sunday, October 5, 2008 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
332 Franklin St #701
Cambridge, MA 02139
2 beds, 1.5 baths
1,062 Sq. Ft.
$545,000
Sunday, October 5, 2008 12:30 PM – 1:45 PM
October 3, 2008
The Somerville News recently featured an article about a garage formerly used by notorious (and still uncaptured) Boston mobster Whitey Bulger. Apparently the mob boss—whose persona inspired Jack Nicholson’s character in the Oscar-winning Scoresese flick The Departed—used the place to dispatch rivals, or at least make them offers they couldn’t refuse.
The garage is in Winter Hill (thus the name “Winter Hill Gang“), but more specifically, in Gilman Square. But even with all the depraved stuff that must have gone down under the ominous trap door of that place, the worst crime ever committed in Gilman was not against any one person, but against the neighborhood itself.
Check out the painting of Gilman Square in the from the Early 20th century above. Lush green space, a train stop the foreground, storefronts and apartments. Beautiful, mixed-use, transit oriented development; the sort of place almost anyone would want to live.
But today, Gilman is almost unrecognizable. This is a different angle, but the white building in the old photo is the brick one in the foreground. The most notable aspects of the formerly bustling intersection are a pair of uninviting gas stations, a dreary abandoned warehouse, and the Paddock Family Restaurant.
Fortunately, as the owners of the church that bought Whitey’s old place can tell you, things are looking up for Gilman. The place is scheduled to get a T stop with the Green Line extension to Medford. Hopefully, the abandoned structures, ugly parking lots, and battered pavement will—like Whitey before them—become a dark blotch in the history of this otherwise pleasant neighborhood.
222 Pearl St, #2
Somerville, MA 02145
2 beds, 2 baths
1,200 sq. ft.
$339,000
30 Richdale Ave
Somerville, MA 02145
4 beds, 1.5 baths
1,938 sq. ft.
$149,500
16 Maple Ave #3
Somerville, MA 02145
2 beds, 1 bath
955 sq. ft.
$298,000
Best Place for Boston Singles: Beacon Hill
Boston Sweet Digs Home
October 1, 2008
Would you have imagined that Boston is the 7th best city for singles in America? Yes, even with our miserable winters and lack of romantic outlooks (unless you count the Green Monster), apparently this is a great place for people to find love. Or at least a better place than, say, Indianapolis or New York City.
While I don’t much see the appeal of trying to meet that special someone by screaming in each other’s ears over “Shipping Up To Boston” at some underlit, overpriced Faneuil Hall hole in the wall, but once you’ve got someone who’s piqued your interest, the Hub does have some decent places for real dates.
And personally, I think the best place for heading out to these events—or for stopping in for coffee afterward—is in Beacon Hill. All four T lines at your doorstep, the Common in your backyard, all manner of historic site within a few minutes’ walk, not to mention a few bars…what more could you ask for, oh single Bostonian?
60 Myrtle St #10
Beacon Hill, MA 02114
2 beds, 1 bath
510 sq. ft.
$380,000
145 Pinckney St #204
Beacon Hill, MA 02114
1 beds, 1 bath
625 sq. ft.
$385,000
26 Mt Vernon St #4R
Beacon Hill, MA 02108
1 bed, 1 bath
546 sq. ft.
$409,000
Don’t Quote Me on This, but…
Boston Sweet Digs Home
Photo: flickr user boston wedding photographer lisa rigby under cc-by-nd-2.0
September 30, 2008
These are dangerous times to be a purveyor of good news. Not just because people now take tremendous glee in predictions of doom (see the French Toast Alert System), but because delivering good news on record has a way of coming back to bite you in the butt. For example:
“…we see no serious broader spillover to banks or thrift institutions from the problems in the subprime market…”
- Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Chairman, May 17, 2007.
That having been said, I want to reiterate my personal faith in housing markets in this area, despite any repercussions of Wall Street’s ill-advised flirtation with the mortgage industry. Take a look at the the state’s largest employers, and let’s focus specifically on the city of Cambridge.
The largest employer, MIT’s Laboratory of Nuclear Science, is supported largely by funding from the United States Department of Energy; I think it’s safe to say an icy credit market won’t make too big a dent in their bottom line. The next largest, the Research Laboratory of Science, should be similarly isolated from the market.
The next two largest employers are MIT (its academic portions) and Harvard; one is the foremost research institution in the world, and the other has been described as a 37 billion dollar hedge fund with tax-exempt status. While you could argue that higher rates on student loans and less private sector donation to academic research might hurt their bottom lines, I’d expect to see Angelo Mozilo panhandling in Harvard Square before the Crimson Entity starts cutting jobs.
If someone simply has to suffer from the recent downturn, I’d suggest smaller start-ups in some tech sectors might find themselves strapped for start-up capital. Then again, the state did just send them a billion-dollar check, and reports still find a shortage of appropriately well-trained workers, indicating continued growth.
At any rate, I wouldn’t expect too much shake-up in the value of homes in Cambridge in the near future. There are too many employers, too many services, and too much fun stuff to do.
131 Magazine St #3
Cambridge, MA 02139
3 beds, 2 baths
1,460 sq. ft.
$600,000
87 Bristol St #3B
Cambridge, MA 02141
1 bed, 1 bath
797 sq. ft.
$339,000
54 Lee St #3
Cambridge, MA 02139
3 beds, 1 bath
1,260 sq. ft.
$569,900
The Best Condos in Boston are on Marlborough Street
Boston Sweet Digs Home
