“Falling prices and mortgage rates in the mid 4-percent range have made home ownership more affordable for many house hunters. But backlogs in the mortgage process, tighter lending requirements, and appraisals that don’t support the proposed sale prices are some of the obstacles making it difficult for many buyers to close a deal.” – Boston.com/realestate, Rachel McKim
The Boston.com Real Estate section reports that Liberty Mutual is planning to build a 22-story building at the intersection of 3 popular neighborhoods: Back Bay, Bay Village, and South End. Its plan is to breathe new life into a part of town that has lost its appeal and has become nothing more than a passing zone for people getting to downtown Boston.
Well, how will they do that? Other than the building itself, which will most likely attract people just by its sheer size and the nature of its business, Liberty Mutual wants to build a new state-of-the-art park as well as a foot-bridge over Stuart Street.
Good idea? Well, the whole project is gaining a lot of attention, whether it be negative or positive. Some people think it will actually work in the way that Liberty Mutual proposes. However, many disagree. ”‘They’re building a hermetically sealed campus,’ said Shirley Kressel, a Boston landscape architect who has been critical of the project. ‘This will be [Liberty Mutual’s] inwardly oriented private domain in which they’ve incorporated Stuart Street as their service alley.’” (Boston.com/realestate/) Also, some neighbors and public officials believe that the Boston Redevelopment Authority ignored some zoning regulations to hastily approve Liberty Mutual’s plans.
Whichever side may be right in the end, it seems like Liberty Mutual is going through with the plan; so in a few years, expect to see a 300-foot building rising tall out of Columbus Avenue and Berkeley Street!
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It looks like Harvard University has cleared a major hurdle in its bid to expand its campus in Allston. CSX, the transportation giant whose base of operations are based in Allston, has agreed with the City of Boston to move its headquarters to Worcester. By 2012, CSX’s should be vacated from the 80-acre plot of land. Prepare for changes in Allston.
A long-awaited, $100 million deal between the state and railroad giant CSX will move operations from the company’s sprawling rail yard in Allston to Central and Western Massachusetts and add at least seven train trips to the Worcester-Framingham commuter rail line in 2012…
CSX and state and local officials say the agreement could end years of frustration among commuters from Boston’s western suburbs who use the often-late rail line, open a large parcel in Boston for development by Harvard University, and even reroute some commuting pat terns to North Station…
CSX spokesman Robert Sullivan said Allston train operations would be shifted west by 2012. That clears the way for Harvard University to finally assume control of the site. Since 2001, the university has purchased around 140 acres in the area, said spokeswoman Lauren Marshall. After CSX leaves, the university will probably seek to remove easement restrictions, making construction of new university buildings possible….
What do you think? Is this a good thing for Allston?
It’s time for a change–just look at the current state of the economy, or our political leadership’s focus on redistributing wealth rather than creating prosperity, or the idea that government should be continually expanded to address any and all problems. Too often our elected officials put representation of an ideology ahead of representation of the people. We need legislators who embrace their responsibilities under the Constitution and represent the values and needs of their constituents. Our Congress should be of the people and for the people. We need new leadership in Congress and a new voice for Massachusetts.
For too long, voters in Massachusetts’ 4th Congressional District have lacked real choices in November. Incumbent politicians have enormous advantages over challengers and often the result is that incumbents face no challenge or only weak competition. Representative Barney Frank has spent almost 30 years in Congress and it’s time for us to really consider whether he continues to represent our views. Many believe that his positions are far outside the mainstream and, most importantly, he is out of touch with the people of Massachusetts.
SEAN IS A MARINE, BUSINESSMAN, AND LEADER. BE SURE TO CAST A PROPER VOTE IN NOVEMBER!!
The Federal Housing Authority is providing life support to the housing market in Boston and across the country. Yet at the same time, it is enforcing new regulations that will make it far more difficult for working class condo owners to sell their properties to new clients. So, while the deals are out there, be prepared for lots of paperwork and delays:
THE FEDERAL Housing Administration has been busy lately, propping up the housing market. The FHA’s out-sized role in real estate has earned it intense scrutiny on Capitol Hill, where legislators are already choking on the staggering tab Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are sticking them with. To its credit, the agency is moving decisively to repair its balance sheet and avoid a government bailout…
…But in Boston, one recent FHA move is sowing some unintended consequences: It’s threatening to wall off entire neighborhoods in the city and close-in suburbs from the working-class homebuyers the FHA serves. These buyers are running into trouble because of a quirk in Boston’s development history that has left a permanent imprint on the city’s geography….
…Scores of double- and triple-deckers have been chopped up into condos over the past decade. In large tracts of Dorchester, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, Cambridge, Somerville, and Everett, there are few single-family homes, and even fewer buildings with condo associations that have cared to submit themselves to FHA scrutiny. People would rather not wade through a thicket of red tape, if it can be avoided. So, essentially, huge portions of Greater Boston are off limits to homebuyers. That’s because, for working-class home buyers, an FHA loan is all there is…
…Boston’s future as a vital and diverse organism lies with post-grads and young families – groups that would gladly take the city over the suburbs, if only someone would give them a mortgage. The longer urban neighborhoods remain closed to them, the more we invite a lifeless fractured split along class lines, with the rich on one side, the poor on another, and everybody else stuck waiting on the commuter rail.
Over 1 billion people across the globe watch the World Cup every year. And in the greatest moment in American soccer history, Landon Donovan, scored a goal in the final minutes to send the USA to the Group of 16 in the most important sporting tournament in the world. The next match is Saturday at 2PM against Ghana, who knocked the Unites States out of the tournament in 2006. Proper Realty Group wishes the USA the best of luck as they fight on to lift the most beautiful trophy in sports.
The Wall Street Journal provides more proof that the $8,000 Housing Tax Credit worked:
The housing-market boost driven by government home-buyer tax credits has faded, damping builders’ incentives to construct new homes in May. Meanwhile, U.S. industrial production strengthened as a key inflation indicator remained tame in the face of a sluggish recovery. U.S. housing starts plunged by 10% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 593,000 in May, the month after the government ended its home-buyer tax credit.
Single-family housing starts slid 17.2% to an annual rate of 468,000, the lowest level in a year. Permits for new construction also declined, the Commerce Department said. “The plunge in housing starts in May underlines that a sustained housing rebound has yet to get under way,” said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight. “Now the credit is gone, it’s time for the payback.”
The decrease in May starts confirmed fears that a fitful recovery could falter with the April 30 end of a tax credit created early last year for first-time home buyers. The tax relief spurred sales and construction. Even though prices and mortgage rates are low, the job market is weak. “Starts should be soaring at this point of the business cycle,” said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.
But builders are having trouble getting financing, and many buyers are looking to existing homes instead of new homes. Existing homes are cheaper than newly built homes—even more so with the foreclosures that drove down prices. Builders are also cautious about a surplus of unsold homes, including a so-called shadow inventory made up of property withheld from the market because of low prices. When prices climb enough, that inventory will flow into the market.
Still, even though single-family housing starts dropped sharply in May, apartment construction rose. Apartment construction—housing with two or more units—rose 33% to an annual rate of 125,000. Within that multifamily category, groundbreakings of homes with five or more units were up by 38.3%.
In the first quarter, the Boston area had the second-largest home price increase (6 percent) among the 50 metros surveyed, according to CoreLogic data. A report by the Concord Group, a real estate consultancy, projects recovery (or sustainable home sales and price appreciation) in the metro Boston housing market in late 2011, ahead of other areas. Boston, supported by a strong education sector, was hit earlier and less severely by the housing crisis than other places, and the unemployment rate here has stayed below the national average.
Does anyone have any personal stories out there to back up this report? It seems that reports like this and this might contradict the Concord Group’s rosy findings. So, while mortgage rates may be at historically low levels, pessimism from industry leaders, consumers, and home builders has the potential to stall Boston’s housing recovery. Still, being #2 is not that bad. Unless your the Celtics. Live Proper.
The Federal Housing Authority is providing life support to the housing market in Boston and across the country. Yet at the same time, it is enforcing new regulations that will make it far more difficult for working class condo owners to sell their properties to new clients. So, while the deals are out there, be prepared for lots of paperwork and delays:
