Boston Loss of visitors & students will affect the local economy ?!? (to rent, to live)

[chicagoliz]

Originally Posted by bugelrex

If in house teaching is not resumed by Jan 2021, people will finally start to realize how how universities are ripping students off (tuition remains the same)

Perhaps this will finally trigger cheaper tuitions. The government should have stepped in years ago to control the runaway cost

The major things students are missing by not being at college is not the specific in classroom lecture experience. That can be at least somewhat approximated via online lectures with interactive sessions. What they are missing out on is everything else that comes with living in a community with the other students -- the social and philanthropic clubs, the student government, the dorm life, the staying up all night ordering pizza and talking with friends, the leadership development, and the informal and impromptu interactions with professors and administrators and other students.

I feel for the schools, as most of their costs aren't decreasing. Yet, as a parent, I would certainly not be eager to spend $50K++ if my kid is not on campus but sitting in his room on his computer screen, which he could do while taking a class at a community college online.

And certainly, at the very least, the state schools should be getting, and should have been getting all along, increased governmental funding. Someone should be able to attend the flagship state university while paying for it through a part time job and maybe some small loans -- basically the way that it was in the 60s and 70s and even the 80s.

[CaseyB]

If you are awarded one of the Adams scholarships (which isn’t hard), the tuition is free.

[JennaJam]

Originally Posted by CaseyB

If you are awarded one of the Adams scholarships (which isn’t hard), the tuition is free.

Well I would rather pay the tuition and have the fees paid. The tuition free you mention is less than $2500.00 where the fees at MA state universities are in the thousands.
Free tuition is a pittance compared to the fees.

[Urban Peasant]

Originally Posted by Shrewsburried

I was out in Williamstown a few weeks back. It was an absolute ghost town beyond the like-minded people enjoying the relatively empty Clark and Williams properties. Between the shuttered colleges and tapered tourism, I suspect the area will be struggling greatly this year.

I will be heading back out there for a day later in the Fall if the Canadian border remains closed to non-essential travel. It will be great to encounter no traffic on the Mohawk Trail in the middle of a crisp Autumn day but boy it will be sad to see the state of affairs in the already struggling Berkshire Region.

[brightdoglover]

Originally Posted by mdovell

There's an old high school friends that lives in Seattle and has been working for Amazon. He's become more vocal because they've dealt with this a little bit before it went on a national level. He's anticipating working from home for the next year to two years.

Amherst is dead and Cambridge isn't that far behind. Rents dropped in sf and NYC. Boston can be next.
...

Cambridge/Boston will not be dead, in my estimation. The absurd rents now will go down, yes. Many people will still want to work in biotech and other Cambridge stuff and will now be able to live in what is very desirable. The high-end everything might fade. That's a good thing. Rents will go down. That's a good thing.

[id77]

Originally Posted by brightdoglover

Cambridge/Boston will not be dead, in my estimation. The absurd rents now will go down, yes. Many people will still want to work in biotech and other Cambridge stuff and will now be able to live in what is very desirable. The high-end everything might fade. That's a good thing. Rents will go down. That's a good thing.

I can see the dumpy studios and condos that students primarily rented dropping due to less demand with same inventory, but the high-end everything stuff that was dominated by professionals isn't really going to move much. There may be a couple of a percent correction in prices for the next year or two, but sooner or later all of those biotech people you mention are indeed going to want to live close to it all and they aren't going to want the dumpy studios and condos the students lived in. There will still be all-cash bidding wars over the high-end multi-bed/multi-bath units.

[brightdoglover]

Originally Posted by id77

I can see the dumpy studios and condos that students primarily rented dropping due to less demand with same inventory, but the high-end everything stuff that was dominated by professionals isn't really going to move much. There may be a couple of a percent correction in prices for the next year or two, but sooner or later all of those biotech people you mention are indeed going to want to live close to it all and they aren't going to want the dumpy studios and condos the students lived in. There will still be all-cash bidding wars over the high-end multi-bed/multi-bath units.

I think softening at any point has to affect the whole market, no? I don't know that students live in those dumpy places so much as in the past (although I haven't been there in a few years, so you are probably more up to date). After rent control and all ended, a lot of those dumps got rehabbed and shot way up.

And I have never looked at "pedestal sinks" and "subway tile" as stylish ever again.

[mdovell]

The more I read into it....I don't think public schools are going to reopen and universities are probably not either.

Don't you find it ironic that when they said that only essential businesses owuld be allowed to stay open that academia and public education weren't?

anyway...


Public buildings are not always in the best shape. We have various laws, rules and regulations that add to costs significantly.
Annual inspection includes elevators, fire sprinklers, fire detection systems, back up generators. If it's a school building there's CORI checks for all contractors and the state requires insect and pest management plans. The feds add in AHERA for asbestos management for schools. Then you have the 30% value rule where in mass if you improve the assessed value of a building beyond 30% then it all has to come up to code. Then add in a bidding process involving prevailing wages, bonding, insurance etc. Let's not forget that the big dig siphoned off contractors for decades because it was THE big game in town. Anyway..

This makes it harder to maintain public buildings, especially schools. So you add in changes to HVAC systems, airflow, sanitation. Not all schools have cafeterias or gyms or auditoriums and some might not have air conditioning.

Prexisting conditions show that students and teachers won't all be able to come back. If 25% of teachers can't come back what's the point of spending all of this extra precautions if they can just stay at home? Umass amherst wants students to come and spend money at a dorm even though the class is online? I'm on all for online education but let's be serious here if you can do it online why bother showing up for class if that's an option? I saw that firsthand in an economics class. The class went from 25 to 2 in class. The professor gave better notes so I stayed but that was long ago. How can we hire over a million teachers in this country given the licensing process and subject matter expertise? DESE already has implied that instructors and staff might become teachers in their report. We could end up seeing the gym teacher teaching Spanish!

How does this tie into the economy? Well the fact that campuses are largely based and planned around education. If all public schools go online eventually they might say what's the point of a district. The gold plated 128 belt suddenly doesn't look as good anymore. The ticket to harvard appears to be one online school to another online school. Higher ed eliminates the need for in state or maybe even in country because a user is just a user. Education was due for a major shake up. I know some might cry about the experience and having forms of networking but if we really wanted experiences main street would be as vibrant as Amazon. We've been eliminating the physical with the non physical for decades now. Online shopping is the norm and with covid baby boomers might not be able to physically shop anymore.

https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/07...ot-data-shows/

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/13/us-s...lieb-says.html

https://www.masslive.com/coronavirus...port-says.html

[id77]

Originally Posted by brightdoglover

I think softening at any point has to affect the whole market, no? I don't know that students live in those dumpy places so much as in the past (although I haven't been there in a few years, so you are probably more up to date). After rent control and all ended, a lot of those dumps got rehabbed and shot way up.

And I have never looked at "pedestal sinks" and "subway tile" as stylish ever again.

I'd still say most of the stuff in Allston/Brighton is what I'd consider dumpy student rentals. I can't imagine landlords are in any rush to update and replace kitchens and bathrooms with high-end remodels when their rental base doesn't treat such things with a sufficient premium and/or will trash it after a few years. Most renters are looking to get a place as affordably as they can; they won't care whether they have GE appliances and a pedestal sink instead of a Wolf range and marble bathrooms.

There IS a glut of luxury rentals floating around, but are students really snapping up places with $4,000-$8,000 rents? I see these as where the temporary professionals live (residency, temporary relocation, etc), and most of those renters are still going to be around through and after the pandemic.

What I really don't see going down much/at all are the upper-scale/luxury condos for sale. There might be a temporary flattening as a few who barely got in get foreclosed on once they can no longer afford the payments after a layoff, but there's just not enough to go around. As a data point I'm very familiar with, there's a very small number of ~3 bed/~3 bath condos for sale in a Back Bay, and a lot more people wanting to live there than there is inventory. A lot of those buyers also have assets/income that are fairly insulated against the pandemic. Given that right up until now there's at least 5-10x as many people wanting to buy these types of condos as there are condos available, how much can that market really go down?

The less gentrified areas like JP and Southie are more at risk, but even then there's eventually going to be a recovery as the people who can't land in a Back Bay settle for a JP.

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by id77

The less gentrified areas like JP and Southie are more at risk