Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Two of the city's biggest developers recently changed proposals to reduce office space in favor of more residential space.
Boston developers are hot for housing and cool on office space lately—and that could be a good thing for the city. The Abbey Group recently announced a sharp change to its $150 million mixed-use project in Fenway. The original plans, approved by the Boston Redevelopment Authority in November, called for about 100,000 square feet of office space. But the developer decided to scrap all of it to increase the building’s residential count from 210 apartments to 322 units of apartments and condominiums. That announcement follows a similar change in plans from Millennium Partners. The team behind the proposed tower at the former Filene’s site in Downtown Crossing submitted revised plans this summer that slashed proposed office space from 469,000 …
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
A new law would require lenders to enter into government-run mediation before foreclosing on a property.
In the face of a skyrocketing foreclosure rate across the state, lawmakers are trying to make it harder for banks to take back houses. The Senate passed a bill filed by Attorney General Martha Coakley, and passed in a different version by the House in May, that would force lenders to enter into a state-controlled mediation process that could include loan restructuring before foreclosing on a homeowner. The Senate version of the bill will now go back to the House for a vote. In the meantime, a separate House bill that calls for mediation in Boston foreclosures is making its way through the Joint Committee on Municipalities and Regional Government. The fate of that bill could be determined by the one passed by the Senate. South End …
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
George Street and Castle Square developments part of new housing rush in city.
If you know someone who needs a home in Boston, the Boston Redevelopment Authority may be able to help. The agency oversaw groundbreakings on 1,000 new housing units in the last quarter of 2011, and is presently monitoring 3,360 under construction or renovation. The 25 projects under way range from the small—like the six-unit Newbury Street property being constructed in cooperation with Centremark Properties—to the large—like the 500-unit Tremont Street development currently under reconstruction by Winn Development in the South End. “[In 2012], we broke ground on 26 projects, investing $2.4 billion in our city,” said Melina Schuler, a spokeswoman for the authority. “This includes numerous multifamily residential projects.” In the last …
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Do you rent in the South End? Would you buy a home in the neighborhood or move away?
After three decades of government policy aimed at home ownership and a fearsome housing market crash in 2007-2008, renting has become a more realistic option for many individuals and families. In some places, like Boston, Cambridge, Somerville and Chelsea, this is more of the same. In other, more suburban locations, home, condo and apartment rentals are community-wide controversies. At approximately 61 percent, the South End has a lower percentage of renters than Boston in general. Still, far more than half of the livable units in the neighborhood are filled with people who do not own the property. The following chart shows the number of occupied housing units and the percentage of rentals vs. owner-occupied units in each community. The …
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Housing and transportation costs should be less than 45 percent of your income. Are you under that goal?
Housing is generally the largest expense anyone has to deal with, but it's not the only factor you should consider when buying a home. Sure, you may find a cheper home the further you move from Boston, but the transportation costs of getting to and from work everyday offset some of those gains, according to an index compiled by the Center for Neighborhood Technology. The group, funded by the Brookings Institution, developed the Housing and Transportation Affordability Index to examine how transportation costs, when added to housing costs, affects the overall affordability of a community (you can read about the methodology used here). The rule of thumb adopted by the study states that housing is affordable if it's 30 percent or less of your…
walter f
11:49 am on Thursday, October 4, 2012
I agree with Helaine! City bunches too many projects as new when most are just renovations of existing stock.... more ›