July 21, 2008
Recent Sales in Brighton and Brookline: A Tale of Two Cities
Everyone (at least everyone in Brookline!) knows that Brookline’s housing prices remained robust throughout the housing downturn. A recent Money Magazine survey placing Brookline in the top 100 places to live in the country certainly didn’t hurt matters any.
But what about Brighton, Brookline’s hardscrabble, hard-living, (some might say hard-drinking) neighbor to the north?
It turns out the housing picture is a whole lot spottier on the other side of the border. Without a stellar school district to act as a price support, average sales prices in the first quarter are down. In Brookline, price appreciation seems as certain as a long wait for the Green Line, even if you bought as recently as 2006, but in Brighton, it’s more dependent on timing and luck, with many more variables coming into play.
Look at Strathmore Road, a leafy lane that begins at Chestnut Hill Avenue and traverses Brighton all the way to Brookline’s Beacon Street. It’s near three branches of the Green Line and just a couple of blocks from the shops and restaurants of Cleveland Circle. Strathmore Road boasts solid, well-tended condominiums mixed in with some well-maintained apartment buildings and a few brownstones that have seen better days. Eliminating location as one variable in determining sales price, here are the mixed results of three sales in the last three months on that street:
93 Strathmore Road, #3
Brighton, 02135
Beds:2/Baths:1
SQ.FT: 904
Sold in June for $318,500. Last owner bought in 2004 for $299K. Price appreciation of 1.6% a year. Reasonable enough.
110 Strathmore Road, Apt. 202
Brighton, 02135
Beds:2/Baths:2
SQ.FT:887
Sold in June for $362,500. Last owner bought in 2006 for $378,000. -2% appreciation per year. Ouch.
84 Strathmore Road, Apt. 2
Brighton, 02135
Beds: 1/Baths: 1
SQ.FT:711
Sold in May for $257K. Last owner bought in 2004 for $214K for an appreciation of 5.1 percent a year. Hey, it’s looking like a better investment than the stock market.
