Allston-Brighton as an Alternative to the Fenway?

A lot of people who can’t afford a condo in neighborhoods like the Back Bay or South End go casting about for reasonable alternatives to city life in other neighborhoods. And there IS a “substitute” for just about every downtown neighborhood you can think of. For example:

• Someone looking for a condo in the North End, where the median sales price of a condo is about $550K, might consider lower-priced Charlestown, where the median condo sales price is only $375K.
• Someone pining away for the cobblestone streets of Beacon Hill (median condo sales price $707K) might take a look at East Cambridge (median sales price $575K).
• How about Jamaica Plain instead of the South End or Brookline instead of the Back Bay? I even know a few Cambridge types who vacated that city for cheaper East Boston.
• And here’s one more: Allston/Brighton instead of the Fenway. The median sales price of a condo in the Fenway is $340K. In Brighton, $248K.

According to a recent Boston Herald article, Allston’s housing market is “growing up” as more young professionals and immigrants move into the area, supplanting absentee landlords and the student crowd. According to Bob Imperato of the Allston Board of Trade who was quoted in the Herald article, “Allston is benefiting because it is surrounded by more affluent communities, (but is) very convenient to the city, affordable and has a nice retail area.” Realtors handling that neighborhood concur, saying they see more owner-occupants purchasing and fixing up two and three-family houses that were once occupied by students.

That’s good news for long-time Allston/Brighton residents who have grown impatient with a sometimes out-of-control student population. And for new residents enjoying Allston’s proximity to restaurants, the T, Cambridge, and the Mass Pike — all for a fraction of what they would pay in the Fenway— it’s also good news.

Here are three of the newest listings in Allston-Brighton:

38 Breck Avenue, #2
Brighton
BEDS:3/BATHS:2
SQ.FT: 1471
$419K

65 Lanark Road, #8
Brighton
BEDS:2/BATHS:1
Sq.Ft: 746
$319,500

79 Parsons Street
Brighton
BEDS:5/BATHS:1
SQ.FT: 1890
$525K

Sweet Digs Boston Home
Brookline, Brighton Archives

Houses Near the Allston Dining Scene

Outside the South End, Allston probably has one of the best dining scenes going in the city. It’s a perfect storm of ethnic restaurants, pubs and brunch places, good take-out and ethnic food shops.

Wait. I changed my mind.

It is THE best dining scene in the city, precisely because it has never taken itself too seriously, it is still affordable, and it has a wider variety of choices than you find most anywhere else. It’s all hip and trendy but not in the upscale way of the South End.

The sheer number of establishments means it’s possible to spend an evening or two just eating around Allston on a restaurant crawl. You can start off at any number of pubs for a drink, move to any number of top-notch ethnic restaurants for dinner, and finish at several places dedicated to desserts and pastries.

And if you want to cook at home, you can run to the Super 88 in Packard’s Corner or check out any one of several ethnic grocers and bakers in the neighborhood.

It’s such a rich smorgasboard that the Allston scene is being noticed beyond Commonwealth Avenue. Boston Magazine, in fact, cited several Allston establishments in its Best of Boston issue, including 2nd Cup Cafe, Deep Ellum, Fun Food Snackery and S&I To Go.

For those who want to live near all the culinary activity, here are a few choices:

15 Parkvale Ave, #3
Allston
BEDS:3/BATHS:1
SQ.FT:815
$279,900

1307 Commonwealth Avenue, Apt. 5
Brighton
BEDS:3/BATHs:1
SQ.FT: 960
$330,000

1409 Commonwealth Avenue, #304
BEDS:0/BATHS:1
SQ.FT: 336
$189K

Sweet Digs Boston Home
Brookline, Brighton Archives

Art or Open Houses? Take Your Pick.

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

On the Market near Griggs Park

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
 

Tell Us Something We Don’t Already Know

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.

On the Market Atop Corey Hill

There’s nothing quite like being atop Brookline’s Corey Hill. If you haul yourself up the incredibly steep Summit Avenue, once you’ve caught your breath, you’ll be rewarded by an absolutely amazing view of the city. On a clear winter’s day when there are no leaves on the trees, you can see stunning views of Downtown Boston, the Charles River, the B.U. Bridge and Cambridge from Corey Hill Outlook Park. You are also suddenly aware of something totally unexpected if you’ve been wandering along one of the numerous footpaths set into the woods lower down on the hill — that is pastoral Corey Hill is set down right smack in the middle of the city.

Here are three cool things about the Corey Hill neighborhood, bounded by Washington Street to the West and Winchester Street to the East:

•  Proximity to Coolidge Corner. Just a quick trip down Summit and you’ve hit all the stores and businesses of “downtown” Brookline.
• Living on the hill is like living in 19th century Boston. You can walk to “town” or the T by using wooded footpaths that run perpendicular to the terraced streets.
• There is an immense variety of housing stock. Just about anything you could be looking for is here, from Queen Anne Victorians, to Brick Tudors, to condos in brick rowhouses, to turn-of-the-century farmhouses, to 1970′s suburban ranch homes.

Right now on Corey Hill, there are several properties on the market, with quite a few available on Mason Terrace — one of the several terraced roads that ring the hill.

207 Mason Terrace, #1
Brookline
BEDS:3/BATHS:1
SQ.FT:1320
$559K

87 Mason Terrace, #5
Brookline
BEDS:2/BATHS:1
SQ.FT: 1150
$449K

97 Mason Terrace, #B
BEDS:1/BATHS:1
SQ.FT: 530
$249K

Boston Sweet Digs Home
Brookline, Brighton Archives

Condos in Brighton: Selling at a Discount

Though prices may be holding up just fine and dandy in Brookline, things look a little choppy in Brighton. I spotted several properties that sold for a loss in July and August, or that were just plain cheap for the square footage and location. In general, prices in Brighton seem to be down about 5 percent from their peak — not an earth-shaking drop by any means, but certainly not showing the resistance of Teflon Brookline, either.

15 Braemore Road, Apt. 5
Brighton
BEDS:1/BATHS:1
SQ. FT: 688
Sold for $218K August 2008
Purchased for $266K in 2004

7 Cummings Road, #4
Brighton
BEDS:2/BATHS:1.5
SQ.FT:986
Sold for $352,400 August 2008
Purchased for $425K in 2004

1992 Commonwealth Avenue, #6
Brighton
BEDS:2/BATHS:1
SQ.FT:933
Sold for $297,500 August 2008
Right now on the market in the same Reservoir Gardens complex is a slightly larger condo that started off above $400K and is now listed at $379,900.

Sweet Digs Boston Home
Brighton, Brookline Archives

On the Market on Fisher Hill

Got a few million dollars to spend on a house? And perhaps you’d like a few acres of lawn, a pool, and several master baths. Ahh…. look no further than Fisher Hill.

With expansive turn-of-the-century homes, curving lanes and majestic trees, Fisher Hill (also known as Brookline Hill, Mount Vernon and Henshaw Hill) is the place to go once you take your high-tech company public or you sell off one of your parent company’s subsidiaries. And it makes sense that this neighborhood is home to the merchant class today; Fisher Hill was named after Francis Fisher, a Boston merchant whose 1852 estate was built at the corner of Boylston Street and Chestnut Hill Avenue.

Bounded by Chestnut Hill Avenue to the West, Boylston Street to the South, and the MBTA tracks to the North, this neighborhood changed little in the last 100 years. From the start, the wealthy residents of Fisher Hill knew what they wanted for their neighborhood; in 1914 they signed a covenant stating “they would not allow the deterioration of their property through the construction of apartment houses, 2-family homes, public garages, stores and hospitals.”

Imagine the horror of a nearby hospital.

Today, Fisher Hill is a neighborhood of single-family turn-of-the-century mansions that sit on smaller lots than in Brookline’s “estate district” on the other side of Boylston. A few of the mansions have been converted into luxury condominiums (Longyear for example) and a few new-construction modernist houses have also been thrown into the mix. One of the nicest things about this neighborhood, which is also home to Newbury College, is that, although it feels remote, it’s right next to Cleveland Circle, the T, and near the Chestnut Hill and Brookline Reservoirs.

Call it estate living, right in the heart of the city.

Here’s what’s on the market in Fisher Hill today:

120 Seaver Street, #E-20
Brookline
BEDS:3/BATHS:4.5
SQ.FT:4,830
$4,850,000

311 Clinton Road
Brookline
BEDS:5/BATHS:6
SQ.FT:4135
$1,995,000

565 Boylston Street, #565
BEDS:4/BATHS:2.5
Sq.FT:2,781
$1,350,000

Sweet Digs Boston Home
Brighton, Brookline Archives

Fall Market Open Houses in Brookline and Brighton

With Labor Day weekend behind us and summer unofficially over, it’s time to turn our thoughts to serious matters— like the fall housing market.

This time of year, sellers sweep away their unwillingness to negotiate because they know if they don’t complete a sale before Thanksgiving, they may wait months for another buyer to come along. On the other hand, buyers who may have spent the spring and summer hunting for houses with a firm upper price limit in mind may also be more willing to yield just a little bit for the right place.  Here’s a sampling of what they’ll find on this first weekend in September:

67 Toxteth Street
Brookline
BEDS:7/BATHS:3
SQ.FT:3988
$1,175,000
O.H. Sunday, September 7, 12 – 2:00 PM

98 Sewall Avenue, #6
Brookline
BEDS:1/BATHS:1
SQ.FT:844
$385K
O.H. Sunday, September 7, 12 – 1:30 PM

12A Eastburn Street,#A
Brighton
BEDS:2/BATHS:2.5
SQ.FT:1420
$485K
O.H. Sunday, September 7,  1:30 – 2:30 PM

Boston Sweet Digs Home
Brighton, Brookline Archive

New in Brighton: The Students Are Back

With the seasonal influx of students, there’s quite a bit happening in Allston-Brighton.

For one, The Boston Globe reported students are flouting the new student tenant law prohibiting more than four undergrads from living together. The Globe’s survey found more than 1000 units of more than five bedrooms listed on Craig’s List, and hundreds more with six, seven and eight bedrooms. Needless to say, these large apartments and houses are being snapped up, but not by retirees. As Harry Mattison notes, it’s unlikely student life will be quelled by the new law since it’s largely unenforceable. The best hope for Allston-Brighton residents looking for some sleep may be the new dorm at BU set to open next year, hopefully housing 960 of the rowdiest undergrads.

Meanwhile, in sad news for students hoping to catch a movie close to home, the Cleveland Circle Cinema will close September 7. According to National Amusements, Inc., the theatre was no longer financially viable. Of course, a lot of that might be from the lack of improvements and renovations for the old theatre, where some screens were smaller than my flatscreen TV at home.

Finally, for those students hoping to have some fun with spray paint on a Saturday night, City Councilor Mark Ciommo has some news: he’s starting a new “Fight the Blight” program to clean up all the messes that students are prone to make — and a few they can’t be blamed for. His new program will erase graffiti, fix broken sidewalks, repaint faded crosswalks, and take care of anything else making Allston-Brighton look like, well, itself. (Just kidding…where’s your sense of humor?)

Also new in Brighton are these three listings:

65 Lanark Street, #8
Brighton
BEDS:2/BATHS:1
SQ.FT:746
$319,500

99 Chestnut Hill Avenue, #311
Brighton
BEDS:2/BATHS:2
SQ.FT:1277
$515,000

234 Parsons Street
Brighton
BEDS:3/BATHS:1
SQ.FT: 1440
$349,900

Brighton, Brookline Archive

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