Archive for the ‘Back Bay, Beacon Hill’ Category
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 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 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 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
My bike is down for repairs at the moment, so I’ve been spending a bit of time on T. On a Red Line train from Harvard today, an ad read “The Best Condos in Boston are in Marlborough”.
I didn’t catch the name of the company selling these places, or their website, but it really brought me back to Pamela’s post from earlier today. How much longer are people really going to salivate over the suburban dream?
Sure, refurbed factory condos in the center of Marlborough offer households without children many of the things city living allows: a few services with walkable proximity, a couple interesting shops, and somewhat-diminished carbon footprint from owning part of a building, instead of an entire property.
But while these features even come without some of the less-desirable elements of city life (parking hassles, noise, crime), you’re still stuck in traffic for events in the city proper: the best hospitals in the country, Red Sox games, concerts at the Garden, fireworks and the BSO on the Fourth, New Year’s Eve in Copley Square, tastings at one of the best microbreweries on the East Coast, and plenty more things besides.
Spacious and inexpensive condos from Weymouth to Needham to Marlborough to Lawrence are always tempting, but with the cost of gas going up, and the time I have to deal with hassles going down, a location as central as I can afford is always going to win out.
Having said that, Marlborough Street remains just a touch out of my reach—though a few more down days on Wall Sreet and the duck-and-cover asset management strategy I adopted last August might just get me there.
240 Marlborough #2B
Boston, MA 02116
1 beds, 1 bath
515 sq. ft.
$359,000
371 Marlborough #4
Back Bay, MA 02115
1 bed, 1 bath
843 sq. ft.
$549,000
121 Marlborough St #5
Back Bay, MA 02116
2 beds, 2.5 baths
1,174 sq. ft.
$1,350,000
How It All Began, Almost a Decade Ago
Boston Sweet Digs Home
Photo: flickr user dehub, under cc-by-nc-sa-2.0.
September 25, 2008
If you managed to fight through the fundraising on WBUR this morning, you heard those very words from the mouth of our own State (Commonwealth?) Treasurer Timothy Cahill. He shared that and a lot of other fairly positive, fairly interesting bits of information with with Bob Oakes in this extended interview
Another tidbit from the interview: the Massachusetts State Employee pension fund is down a mere 8% this calendar year. Not only is that well below the losses (20-25%) suffered by the market as a whole, but it’s also better than my own 401k, which dropped 15% since January.
Despite the relatively unscathed state of the Commonwealth’s finances, and unlike many people who limited their market exposure over the past year (myself included), Cahill is 100% behind Henry Paulsen’s bailout plan. He argues that less available credit will hurt small business and education, areas where debt can be a potent economic stimulator.
Most importantly, Cahill said “We’re closer to the bottom. I don’t know if were at the bottom, but were certainly close to the bottom. Once we hit bottom, the markets will start coming back and we’ll start moving up.”
So what better time to buy? Volatile markets are no time to horse-jump between stock investments, and with a looming bailout and a Fed chairman who’s on record saying inflation is good for America, do you really want to keep liquid assets lying around? Especially if you exceeded the $100,000 FDIC guarantee, those bank accounts are better invested in brick and mortar.
Here are some cost reductions from the market-proven neighborhood of Back Bay, just to whet your home-buying appetite.
306 Comm Ave #4
Back Bay, MA 02115
2 beds, 1 bath
880 sq. ft.
Old Price: $719,000
New Price: $699,000
223 Beacon St, #1
Boston, MA 02116
2 beds, 2.5 baths
1,459 sq. ft.
Old Price: $894,000
New Price: $865,000
180 Commonwealth Ave, #A
Back Bay, MA 02116
1 bed, 1 bath
812 sq. ft.
Old Price: $619,000
New Price: $589,000
September 23, 2008
Deval Patrick has taken some heat in his short tenure as Governor of his here Commonwealth. There were the curtains. Then there was the Cadillac. Then there was the $72,000 secretary…for his wife. Not really what the voters want to see from a guy running on a reform ticket, you know?
Then there was the monumental failure of his highly-touted casino plan, which was doubly humiliating, as much of the opposition came from an allegedly friendly legislature. Did I mention he’d already spent a good deal of the money those casinos were supposed to bring in?
But, as Tommy Carcetti would say, a new day is dawning. A day where every construction site from here to West Stockbridge can get its business done without a mandatory, state-funded, overtime-paid on-site policeman. And what’s truly impressive is the political manuvering the Governor did to bring it about.
So a new day under the dome means new listings on Beacon Hill. I mean, what else are you going to do? Lose money in the market? Watch your cash depreciate in a bank account?
47 Chestnut Street
Beacon Hill, MA 02108
6 beds, 4 baths
3,600 sq. ft.
$4,100,000
21 Revere Street, #5
Beacon Hill, MA 02114
2 beds, 1.5 baths
955 sq. ft.
$699,000
100 Chestnut Street, #1
Beacon Hill, MA 02108
2beds, 2 baths
1,373 sq. ft.
$1,395,000
September 19, 2008
Hardship never trickles up. If someone hasn’t coined that phrase by now, I’m taking it.
People wonder at the growing gap between rich and poor in this country. In fact, our current Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson (at right), said he aimed to suture that festering gash when he took the office two years ago. I guess he can pat himself on the back now for a very Bushian “mission accomplished” with today’s bailout plan.
Yes, this bailout will almost certainly cost taxpayers less than the protracted recession and possible collapse that would occur otherwise. But what it won’t do is stop another population of return-hungry fund managers from making similarly idiotic decisions in the future; if anything, it encourages the short-sighted, win-that-bonus culture that brought us here in the first place.
So while we as a nation may suffer less collectively, the people who lost thousands of dollars for millions of Americans still get to the keep the sky-high wages they earned in doing so. This lack of accountability incentivizes irresponsible behavior in the future, while punishing those who saved prudently and limited their market exposure.
I don’t have numbers on this, but I’m willing to bet the average incomes of those heavily invested in financial firms are several orders of magnitude above those squirreling funds away in savings accounts. It’s taxes on those same savings accounts that will keep the firms of rich investors afloat through the current financial crisis.
I love the free market as much as anyone, but as they say in Spiderman, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Irresponsible abuse of lightly-regulated markets leads to catastrophic loss. Intentionally sloppy bookkeeping doesn’t help. And sometimes (IHMO) you’ve just gotta make people pay for their own mistakes.
But no one wants the blood of another Great Depression on their hands, and so the cycle of boom and bust continues. The good news, I guess, is that for those wealthy enough to buy a house in the toniest of neighborhoods, there will likely be someone else willing to pay more a few years down the line. So that having been said, here are some open houses that rich people will continue to be able to afford:
24 Marlborough St #5
Back Bay, MA 02116
2 beds, 1.5 baths
980 sq. ft.
$949,900
Open House, Sunday, September 21, 2008 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM
15 River St #602
Beacon Hill, MA 02108
2 beds, 1 bath
797 sq. ft.
$679,000
Open House: Sunday, September 21, 2008 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM
108 Mount Vernon St #1
Beacon Hill, MA 02108
3 beds, 3 baths
1,640 sq. ft.
$1,595,000
Open House: Sunday, September 21, 2008 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM
And You Thought Politics was Boring
Boston Sweet Digs Home
September 12, 2008
Hello, Boston! I’m coming to you live today from the Amtrak Northeast Regional, 11:05am out of South Station. Gotta love this iPhone tethering thing. Internet from a Beacon Hill roofdeck is one thing; service cruising across the northeast on a train is quite another.
Anyway, I’m gonna be out of town this weekend for a wedding, but that doesn’t mean you can’t scope some of the lovely open houses in Back Bay this Sunday. As you may or may not know, the summer buying season is officially over, meaning prices are down, and your opportunity to snag deals is up!
And, just as an aside, there are few places so close in Boston as pretty as the Comm Ave mall when the leaves start to turn. It’s nothing to match, say, the blood-red maples of Bromley Mountain or the sheer beauty of the Berkshires, but it’s as close as you can get within reasonable distance of downtown.
296 Commonwealth #5
Back Bay, MA 02115
2 beds, 2 baths
1,468 sq. ft.
$1,099,000
Open House, Sunday, September 14, 2008 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
103 Beacon #1
Back Bay, MA 02116
Price:
1 bed, 1 bath
845 sq. ft.
$560,000
Open House, Sunday, September 14, 2008 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
370 Marlborough #1
Back Bay, MA 02115
1 bed, 1 bath
802 sq. ft.
$439,000
Sunday, September 14, 2008 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
Welcome to Townieville, Population: You
Boston Sweet Digs Home
