Archive for February, 2008
February 24, 2008
This isn’t about a bunch of Colonial revolutionaries dumping tea into the harbor; this is far more significant. It’s about the hallowed grounds of 53 Berkeley Street (also know as 9 Appleton Street).
53 Berkeley Street once housed a Unitarian church, but in 1967, a couple of guys turned it into the Boston Tea Party, creating one of the most important music halls in Rock and Roll history. Based on Boston’s proximity to England, most British Invasion bands played their earliest American gigs at the Tea Party. A good show meant the band could see the rest of America; a bad show sent the boys back to England.
Almost everyone played the legendary hall, including Led Zeppelin, Jeff Beck, and Fleetwood Mac (back when they were British!) The massively-influential Velvet Underground shot an album cover in front of the marquee, and the equally-influential, but long-forgotten MC5 tore the place up.
In 1969, the club moved to Lansdowne Street, where Avalon made its home. The empty space on Berkeley was converted into apartments, and later sold as condos. Only a small plaque on the side of 7-Eleven hints at the building’s former greatness.
9 Appleton Street, #M-2
$459,000
Beds: 1/Baths: 1
SQ. FT.: 830
$/SQ. FT.: 553
February 23, 2008
South End real estate seems to follow a standard: homes closer to Back Bay cost more than their remote counterparts. I have no research to support this point, but it appears proximity to mass transit, large employers, and retail shopping sustain higher prices on the northwest side, while a homeless shelter, a small warehouse district, and the junction of two interstates detract from the less-expensive southeast side. And we have a hospital that hosts the area’s best methadone clinic.
Perhaps something else made the southeast less desirable for residential building and more attractive to light industry. I’d love to hear what the pros have to say… John K, Anthony, any thoughts? Sunshine & Lollipops?
The following price reductions follow my theory:
40 Lawrence Street, #3
New Price: $439,900
Original Price: $449,900
Beds: 2/ Baths: 1
SQ. FT.: 556
$/SQ. FT.: $791
567 Tremont Street, #14
New Price: $439,000
Original Price: $445,000
Beds: 1/ Baths: 1
SQ. FT.: 670
$/SQ. FT.: $655
700 Harrison Avenue, #513
New Price: $449,000
Original Price: $499,900
Beds: 1/ Baths: 1
SQ. FT.: 752
$/SQ. FT.: $597
Photo Source
February 22, 2008
Damn the weather. If you’re thinking about relocating to the North Shore, you have to come up for breakfast. Rent a Zipcar — or take the train, and stop hating on the earth.Marika’s is on Cabot St. near Town Hall, and I highly recommend the pear & almond pancakes and the corned beef hash (fresh, dry….). The cook, Buzzy, is an old Greek man who grinds his own sausage — ’nuff said.The Irish Breakfast at Kitty O’Shea’s on Cabot is pretty good — all of the lovely sausages and puddings, but way, way cheaper than the same deal at The Druid in Inman Square. They make a darned good Bloody Mary, too, you drunkard ;)If you come in through Salem on 114, try a place called “Bite.” They have a Greek sausage that will leave you in fennel heaven all morning. They’re not open on Sundays, though.On River St. in Danvers there’s a place called The Portside Diner that we’ve just discovered. The food is good, but the old stainless art deco diner is worth a trip.The Queen Mother of North Shore breakfast joints is Sugar Magnolia’s on Main St. in Gloucester. 12 miles farther up the coast, Gloucester is a place you need to see anyway — not as convenient as Beverly, but I’d move back up there in a second if I could lose my commute. Sugar Mag’s offers 6 kinds of Eggs Benedict (Irish Bene is the best), a lobster and cream cheese omelet, and carrot cake pancakes with maple-cream cheese butter.Then, check out some open houses:12-1:30 $180 per square foot!90 DODGE St. Beverly, MA 01915Price: $395,0001-3 In my neck of the woods!3 STEWART AVEBeverly, MA 019152-4 PM Have I told you how I feel about bungalows? Montserrat is a beautiful, convenient, and still affordable neighborhood, too. $95 per square foot and almost 3700 square feet!14 DEARBORN AVEBeverly, MA 01915
February 22, 2008
It’s no secret that Boston’s a college town. But many people aren’t aware exactly how college it is. Case in point: Suffolk University. Most people outside 128 would be complete unaware of it if it weren’t for that elevator scene in The Departed, and yet it’s attracted such glitterati as JFK, Rudy Giuliani , and our very own president, George W. Bush.
So imagine my surprise in reading that someone’s trying to move the university out of Beacon Hill. I can understand the frustration some residents feel about the student population, but generally speaking, a nearby college is a net positive for a neighborhood.
BU and Northeastern buoyed the Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood throughout the urban decay of the 1970s, and as loathe as they might be to admit it, Allston and Brighton owe much of their recent resurgence to their student populations. You might also notice the distinct lack of a student population near Hendry Street, Boston’s primary subprime pockmark.
Sure, the Hill has plenty of spacious, luxurious, mature condos. That’s part of what makes it such a desirable neighborhood. But another part is the cozy, timeworn charm of the place. And you don’t get that from spacious condos. You get that from cramped, ground-level studios that aren’t such a hit with the Lodges, Lowells, and Cabots.
So next time you feel compelled to curse the name of Suffolk, keep in mind that the students who rent out places like this help keep the Hill’s less opulent corners from being redeveloped into places like this. So let’s dispense with these ridiculous plans to transplant the university. I mean, what’s next? A scheme that makes it even harder to park?
Image: Suffolk Law School building, pre-1923. Public domain, via Wikipedia.
February 22, 2008
I was walking around my neighborhood the other day when I passed a guy who was in the process of selling a used car to a couple who seemed to be prospective buyers. I overheard him say to his customers that his car, a BMW convertible, would sell for about $60,000 new. That got me to thinking: are there apartments out there that cost no more than, let’s say, a mid-price Mercedes Benz or a Maserati?
Perusing the ads, it didn’t take long for me to find condos in that price range in Brighton. In fact, I found one right around the block from where the guy was trying to sell his Beamer. It’s heartening news for first-time buyers who are tired of paying rent and willing to live in close quarters for a while. It’s also good news for professors and other professionals looking for an inexpensive pied-d-terre in the city. About the cheapest unit out there right now is a 297 square foot studio in Cleveland Circle for $138,500. That officially makes it much less than a Mercedes. There are no pictures of the interior of this unit, so my guess is that it may be in tough shape. But the building is well-maintained and this part of Cleveland Circle has a lot of condominium buildings which means it is not quite as student-ridden as some parts of Brighton. This unit is currently rented for $975 a month, which may even mean that the numbers work out for investors.
If you can afford $10,000 more, there is a 306 square foot studio available on Allston Street for $149,500. I’ve been in this building and can see that the building appears to have a strong condo association. The unit is tiny, but has got a new kitchen and a great location across from Whole Foods, just one block from the B line. It’s currently rented for $1050 a month, which again means the numbers may work for someone looking for an investment.
But can a one-bedroom be found in this price range? Well, almost. Over on Commonwealth Avenue, there’s a 451 square foot studio for sale for $155,000. It’s almost a one bedroom because it’s got a sleeping alcove. Add a little more dough to the pot and you come up with a full-fledged one bedroom for $168,900 — a 477 square foot top-floor, sunny unit that has a great location near the B, C and D lines. Only catch is it needs some work in the kitchen and bathroom. But what do you expect for a condo that costs less than a car?
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
February 20, 2008
So, a quick survey — raise your hands if you screwed up your credit in your 20’s. You in the back — are you just stretching, or should I count you?But you made good, right — or, at least, those debts are so old they can’t affect your credit report or score.Muhahahahahaha….
The way US debtor laws are set up, bad debts older than 7 years are essentially illegal to report. Debts discharged by a bankruptcy court are unambiguously illegal to report. So, what happens when you’re closing on your first — or fifth — house, and that store charge card you defaulted on when you were 19 and lost your job at Barnes & Noble shows up?The credit reporting agencies work for creditors, not debtors. There isn’t a mortgage broker or loan officer in the country who hasn’t sat down at a table to close a loan, and had a deal go sour because something shows up — and usually at the last moment. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been a victim of identity theft, or been forced into bankruptcy because of unemployment or disability, or if you just screwed up. Zombie debt can reach its mouldering hand up through the floorboards, grab you by the ankle, and eat the brains of your — well, you get it. Debt collection agencies are pretty sleazy as a rule, and many of them run afoul of federal law as a part of their mission statements. For instance, they write scripts that let their tele-goons insinuate that they’re going to sue you, or attack your assets, or garnish your wages, or file criminal charges against you, even though they have no right or intention to do those things. They exist to harass and frighten people into paying their debts, which might not be so bad if it weren’t so inhumane. And immoral. And illegal.Practitioners of the dark art of Zombie Debt rely on people’s ignorance of credit law. The old debt shows up at the worst possible time — closing — and the customer pays — sometimes a debt she HAS ALREADY paid in full — or settles, or has to walk away from the table. It’s a bad time for the folks who’ve done all the work to get you to that closing table, including the mortgage broker who now has to be the bad guy.Keeping track of your credit before and throughout your mortgage process is the only real defense you have.If you see Zombie Debt, or get a collection notice, Validate the debt as your first action — a collection agency is NOT necessarily affiliated with the company you borrowed from in the first place, and you should NEVER, EVER give money to ANYONE but the company you originally borrowed from anyway.Make sure you always see all 3 of your reports once per year at www.annualcreditreport.com , though if you’re in the market you should subscribe to a monitoring service that lets you see your report often — and that goes double if you’ve has past credit trouble. (Thanks James, for the correction — freecreditreport.com is a credit bureau subscription service designed to direct you away from the free site to a PAY site. Sleazy, sleazy, sleazy! And it’s run by the major credit reporting agencies, not by Joey Bag-a-donuts!)Validation will kill Zombie Debt, but not fast. But paying a dishonest collection agency perpetuates a cycle of consumer abuse that hurts the real estate market, wastes peoples’ time, and makes a lot of people — buyers, sellers, agents, brokers — miserable.
February 20, 2008
OMG, Boston. Has Gucci ever been good to you. I mean, like really good. Name another designer that’s brought such undeniable cachet to the style of bag that bears your name, and I’ll name you a liar. Even Paris Hilton can’t resist the allure (and BTW, don’t go blaming Gucci for the heiress’s recent trampery in the Hub. We all know whose fault that was.)
Anyway, Boston, it’s time to give back; specifically, by buying stuff at Gucci as much as possible. Or, if that’s too close to the South End for you (though it’s still technically in Back Bay), you can just hit up Needless Markups on the other side of the Pike instead. And what better way to shop at these places than by living near them?
I bet you think it’ll put you back seven figures to bed down walking-in-pumps distance from these two stores, right? Not even! This 21st century condo with the oh-so-hip addy of 1 Huntington Avenue features a not-entirely unreasonable $886/square foot for its 846 square feet, and all that fancy stuff that people move into condo towers for.
Of course, this is still Boston. And perhaps the stylish Bostonian would find themselves more comfortable in this classic loft restoration. Literally overlooking the Copley T stop, this unspeakably roomy property allows you to watch the finish of the Boston Marathon from your living room window, and have one bathroom exclusively for bathing, saving the other entirely for makeup.
But there’s more to fabulous style than dollars and cents, as this almost passably affordable Comm Ave one-bed shows. While it lacks the polish and refinement of the previous two locations, it still presents some fine appliances, a doorman, exposed brick that probably wasn’t the result of rotting drywall, and all sorts of other amenities normally found in far more expensive residences. Kinda the real estate equivalent of the designer knockoff.
image: HK QRC Central Gucci Entertainment House, derived from 港中區中環娛樂行 by Wikimedia Commons user Saiyans16, under the GNU Free Documentation License.
February 20, 2008
Ready for some fresh meat? There’s some out there. And new meat gets tossed into the pit everyday.
Those on the hunt for mid-range condos in Brookline might take a look at these new prospects:
110 CYPRESS ST #104, Brookline, MA 02445
$539,9K, 1219 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms. It’s got hardwood floors, high ceilings and 2 deeded garage parking spaces.
381 POND AVE #2 Brookline, MA 02445
$479,9K, 1,104 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom. Not a bad price for three bedrooms with two assigned off-street parking spaces. The square footage might be tight for three bedrooms, but this unit looks well-maintained and has got front and back porches, plus (my favorite) a dining room.
42A SAINT PAUL ST #1, Brookline, MA 02446
$475K, 1,119 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom. It’s got charm and a great location, but it doesn’t include parking and seems a bit pricey without it.
131 SEWALL AVE #52, Brookline, MA 02446
$329K, 530 square feet, 1 bedroom. The location is great and the price includes one assigned parking space. The unit itself does not have a lot of charm, but a few cosmetic changes would probably do wonders.
2100 square feet.
February 19, 2008
I bet you thought Presidents’ Day was just for cars and high-def TVs, didn’t you? But no - even in the blueblood streets of Boston (as Bob Seger puts it), it seems sellers are primed to take advantage of the fact that people haven’t got much to do in mid-February except buy stuff.
I wouldn’t expect to find “no money down” and “no payments for 18 months”, (although you can score a totally decent APR), but you might want to keep on the lookout for some wily salesmanship anyway. Case in point: the photos for 416 Marlborough Street. Check out the spacious, high ceilings of…the building lobby?
Of course, even with that visual flimflam, the place isn’t really a rip-off. It’s a bit tiny, yes - but the price/square foot is reasonable for the region, and the vibrant neighborhood more than makes up for the cramped kitchen. When you check out the similarly affordable studio down the road at 256 Marlborough, you might think stacking half a listing’s photos with exterior/irrelevant shots is real estate code for “good deal”.
Not that all bargain properties are exclusively marketed in such a fashion. 1 Garden St #9, for example. It doesn’t quite reach the same levels of affordability as the Marlborough properties, but it’s brightly-lit, with a real kitchen and everything. And with an ‘04 sale price of 415k, its current price represents a decidedly uninflated 4.25% increase per year, roughly half the average increase in that time.
image - 2005 US Penny. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
February 18, 2008
Last week, The Community Builders of Boston filed plans with The Boston Redevelopment Authority to build 400 new units in North Brighton/Lower Allston in the neighborhood known as “Barry’s Corner.” About 282 units would be deemed “affordable” while 118 units are slotted to be condominiums. Altogether, there would be 10 4-5 story buildings at one site near North Harvard and Western Avenue. Another 4 10-story buildings would be built near by.
In short, we’re talking about a mini-city — part of Harvard University’s plan to expand to North Allston-Brighton.
Will the plan elevate the neighborhood, (admittedly a bit of a wasteland of auto body shops and fast food restaurants)? Or will it destroy it? I myself am betting that any plans to freshen up Western Avenue will also freshen up Barry’s Corner. Let’s face it, the main business district in this part of town is pretty dumpy. It’s another lost opportunity for a pedestrian-friendly, vibrant neighborhood at the foot of the Charles River. Now, perhaps, Harvard can seize the moment and plan a vibrant, eclectic business district that will enhance the value of the surrounding neighborhood.
If things work out well, these properties in the surrounding neighborhood may actually rise sharply in value in coming years:
4 Everett Square, no. 4, 1642 square feet, $309,000.
28 Brentwood Street, no 1, 751 square feet, $226,900.
205 Everett Street, 2310 square feet, $499,999.
Meanwhile, a new upscale grocery store is coming to Brookline. Just across from Star Market on Beacon Hill in Washington Square. Publick House Provisions will be opening soon, thanks to the owners of the Publick House bar just a block down the road. The gourmet grocer will offer rare and imported beers along with artisan chocolate, imported cheeses, local breads and organic milk.
What do you think? Will the new grocer raise values in an already pretty pricey neighborhood?
Several nearby homes are on the market. Even if home values remain unaffected by the presence of a new upscale purveyor, at least you’ve got a place for last-minute runs for Belgian chocolates.
63 Corey Road, no. 5, 695 square feet, $289,000.
369 Tappan Street, no. 12, 678 square feet, $333,000.
7 Regent Circle, no. 3, 940 square feet, $449,900.
366 Tappan Street, no. 4, 2252 square feet, $999,000
