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Old 03-23-2009, 09:35 AM
 
1 posts, read 2,933 times
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Hi! My girlfriend and I currently have an apartment in Somerville, but she's always wanted a single-family house and would like to buy it now while things are cheap. We'd really like to avoid condo associations if we can. The two big hurdles for doing this: 1) our budget is quite low. We're hoping to spend $200k, although maybe we could go $20k more than that. 2) We are city people, especially me - we want good cheap ethnic restaurants around, and preferably easy access to good public transit. (She works at MIT, so the Red Line is best.) I'm wondering what we can do about this.

I know this limits our options a lot, but it doesn't seem to be impossible. We're happy to get a fixer-upper and put some work into it. So far we've been looking at Dorchester. We found a lovely place west of Fields Corner and we loved the neighbourhood (Asian and Caribbean restaurants, transit, nice park) except for one thing: the street itself looked okay but the surrounding neighbourhood (a couple blocks from Geneva and Bowdoin Streets) seemed really sketchy. We are not huge crime phobes, but when we look at crime maps and see several murders within a few blocks of us (and when a visit reveals lots of high fences and boarded up houses and young shiftless-looking men), then it becomes an issue. We also don't intend to have kids, so good schools are not a concern.

So given all of this, do you have any recommendations where we should be looking? Are there safer parts of Dorchester where we could still conceivably afford a run-down single-family (but that aren't too far out of the way)? Should we be trying to look in other places? Quincy? Roxbury? Medford? Malden? Somewhere on the commuter rail to Porter Square? The Blue Line? The latter seems to have a lot of cheap places, but I wonder if the commute would be too heinous. Any help would be great.
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Old 03-24-2009, 08:28 PM
 
Location: Winnetka, IL & Rolling Hills, CA
1,273 posts, read 4,411,227 times
Reputation: 605
You would not be able to find a detached Single-Family home within the Boston city limits even if you had $10 million. They simply don't exist. Your budget wouldn't allow you to purchase a home even in the outer-areas of Boston.

You might be able to find something, still very small, in a very rough area of Boston or the areas directly northwest.
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Old 03-24-2009, 08:41 PM
 
Location: Newton, Mass.
2,954 posts, read 12,284,202 times
Reputation: 1511
Quote:
Originally Posted by US-Traveller View Post
You would not be able to find a detached Single-Family home within the Boston city limits even if you had $10 million. They simply don't exist. Your budget wouldn't allow you to purchase a home even in the outer-areas of Boston.

You might be able to find something, still very small, in a very rough area of Boston or the areas directly northwest.
For $10 million, they certainly do exist in the city of Boston. There are single family homes in Brighton, JP, Dorchester, etc. There are tons of them in West Roxbury, which is within the Boston city limits though not particularly urban.

I don't know if you can find a single family house in a safe area in, or right near Boston, for $220K, though.
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Old 03-24-2009, 08:51 PM
 
Location: Massachusetts
9,511 posts, read 16,448,668 times
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I don't see how you will find anything at all. I am originally from Mass and the cost of housing in Eastern Mass has always been out of sync with reality. Even if you could find something in a rough area, I imagine it would would be small and in need of much work. Remember even if you found something and had to put thousands and thousands into it, there goes your budget. I don't think you would want to set up housekeeping in some rough area to begin with. Its not worth the bother of owning a home when your safety is in such danger.

You might find yourself joining the thousands of others that have fled to distant cities and towns and commute into Boston because of the costs. That is what many have had to do for decades in order to purchase a home in the area. Would a distant town on commuter rail be an option if that was a way to make home ownership more affordable and safer? I know you want your city life.

I wish you and your girlfriend the best of luck
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Old 03-25-2009, 08:23 AM
 
Location: Boston
1,126 posts, read 4,555,237 times
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hahaha your **** out of luck buddy, wake up and smell the boston COL.
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Old 03-25-2009, 02:13 PM
 
Location: Boston, MA
3,966 posts, read 5,736,813 times
Reputation: 4717
Quote:
Originally Posted by US-Traveller View Post
You would not be able to find a detached Single-Family home within the Boston city limits even if you had $10 million. They simply don't exist. Your budget wouldn't allow you to purchase a home even in the outer-areas of Boston.

You might be able to find something, still very small, in a very rough area of Boston or the areas directly northwest.

Okay, that's far-fetched. You don't need $10 million to buy a single famliy home in metro Boston and there are places that still have single family homes for sale. Boston hasn't suffered that horribly from foreclosures but I'm sure there are some around and one can get good deals from them.

Having said that, this is 2009 and not 1994 anymore. $200k is an unrealistically low price for a single family home in Boston or its inner suburbs. The OP might have better luck with an outlying exurb like Brockton or Lowell that might still offer homes that low in price.

Too bad we're all not in Buffalo, New York. I heard you can get a fine home over there for $200k .
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Old 03-25-2009, 03:15 PM
 
Location: a bar
2,715 posts, read 6,091,451 times
Reputation: 2958
Back in '06 I was looking for condo alternatives and found several in Malden in the 220-240 range. Unfortunately I'm no handyman, so I eventually bought a condo.
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Old 03-31-2009, 09:11 PM
 
9,327 posts, read 21,978,100 times
Reputation: 4571
Quote:
Originally Posted by US-Traveller View Post
You would not be able to find a detached Single-Family home within the Boston city limits even if you had $10 million. They simply don't exist. Your budget wouldn't allow you to purchase a home even in the outer-areas of Boston.

You might be able to find something, still very small, in a very rough area of Boston or the areas directly northwest.
mls.com and realtor.com says ur incorrect
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