Teardowns - spreading like cancer (Boston, Cambridge: short sale, apartments, renting)

[bugelrex]

Originally Posted by City Guy997S

Place wasn't great.....low ceilings made every room look like a basement.

Also shows that the house was on 2 lots, if they can subdivide that is a great score alo

From a risk perspective, I'm surprised the builder didnt decide to build 2 smaller houses instead of one gigantic with a much smaller buyer pool

[TAM88]

Tear-downs are not necessarily a bad thing. One thing that I see in some towns, Needham for example, is they'll take a 2,000 sqf house in a dense neighborhood and replace it with a 3,800 sqf house. Looks out of scale.

[in_newengland]

Originally Posted by TAM88

Tear-downs are not necessarily a bad thing. One thing that I see in some towns, Needham for example, is they'll take a 2,000 sqf house in a dense neighborhood and replace it with a 3,800 sqf house. Looks out of scale.

They're not necessarily a bad thing but more often than not, they are. A lot of the tear downs were well built houses. And the new houses are usually way too big. Too big to be compatible with the existing neighborhood and too big for the average homeowner to want to maintain. Too big to be practical. And what about people who want a starter house, what about people who want a small retirement house? I hope this stops before too long.

[smc733]

Originally Posted by in_newengland

They're not necessarily a bad thing but more often than not, they are. A lot of the tear downs were well built houses. And the new houses are usually way too big. Too big to be compatible with the existing neighborhood and too big for the average homeowner to want to maintain. Too big to be practical. And what about people who want a starter house, what about people who want a small retirement house? I hope this stops before too long.

Give it until the next recession, it will. These homes are going to become maintenence nightmares in 30-40 years. Just look at how poorly maintained 1980s houses have held up.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by smc733

Perhaps, but housing is sitting at ~32% above the long-term inflationary trend. There's a school of thought that those areas that avoided the severe drops last time may be more succeptible this time.

Housing prices track wealth and income, not inflation. In the gold-plated towns, look at the growth of median household income and household net worth. You have a relatively small number of very high income people competing for an even smaller amount of housing stock in those places. You're seeing the reality that the top-1% received most of the income and wealth boost over the last decade.

[bugelrex]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Housing prices track wealth and income, not inflation. In the gold-plated towns, look at the growth of median household income and household net worth. You have a relatively small number of very high income people competing for an even smaller amount of housing stock in those places. You're seeing the reality that the top-1% received most of the income and wealth boost over the last decade.

This is just a symptom of tech being the main job growth engine in boston the past 10 years. Software engineering is sufficiently difficult that the barrier of entry is extremely high.

Its not enough to be just interested but requires so many hours of hard work that is impossible to BS through.. the current culture of education cannot create enough supply of such hard working students causing these salaries to be elevated.

I think tech is sufficiently embedded in the economy (social media, cars, medical, advertising) that I don't see it going away. A recession will temporarily depress salaries, but demand would eventually come back.

We're basically seeing the affects of globalization and off-shoring.. 20 years from now the same will happen with tech being offshored unless both political parties grow a backbone..

[panchilly]

Originally Posted by bugelrex

From a risk perspective, I'm surprised the builder didnt decide to build 2 smaller houses instead of one gigantic with a much smaller buyer pool

The town won’t let them do that.

The most economically viable way to get a return on that land is probably to build a bunch of town houses on it or an apartment building. The won’t won’t allow anything but a single family is there so builders are forced to go luxury

[bugelrex]

Originally Posted by smc733

Give it until the next recession, it will. These homes are going to become maintenence nightmares in 30-40 years. Just look at how poorly maintained 1980s houses have held up.

This is probably very true, any 100 year old house currently in 'somewhat' decent condition is probably going to outlast a "1999 - 2007" and "2014-2019" McMansion because of the 'rush' to knock them out

[TAM88]

Originally Posted by smc733

Give it until the next recession, it will. These homes are going to become maintenence nightmares in 30-40 years. Just look at how poorly maintained 1980s houses have held up.

Curious, in what ways have some 1980s era houses not been maintained well?

[panchilly]

Originally Posted by bugelrex

This is probably very true, any 100 year old house currently in 'somewhat' decent condition is probably going to outlast a "1999 - 2007" and "2014-2019" McMansion because of the 'rush' to knock them out

And the 100 year old house wasn’t built in a rush? The same profit motive existed back then too.

No builder worth his salt would spend any longer than necessary on a project.