The real estate boom has gone on long enough that many are asking how much longer it could last. Surely, it is too late in the cycle to invest, right? But especially in Greater Boston, few are pushing the panic button just yet.
Observers still saying they like our real estate market
A member of the paid Forbes Council program recently published his list of the “hottest cities” for commercial real estate investing for this year. He put Boston at number 3.
While market analysts also like Greater Boston in general, he wrote, “The area lacks enough medium-density housing to meet demand, leaving an opportunity for commercial real estate investors to satisfy this need.”
At MarketWatch, a reporter points out that commercial real estate prices continue to skyrocket, but rents have gotten notably soft, raising the specter of “a potential unwind.” The exception to this pattern, according to the article, is multifamily residential real estate.
Finding room for more tenants in a tight market
A recent study of the market by researchers at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) looked at which Bostonians live in which kinds of units, how much they pay and what they’re likely to do next.
They aimed their study at “helping the region to make the best use of the existing housing stock and build the homes we need to meet future demand.”
The team found families with children in Greater Boston to be in a housing crisis, paying an outsized part of their budget to live in overcrowded conditions.
The reasons are many, but the team pointed out that people over 55 years old and living alone or with one other person occupy a quarter of all large units in the area. And young-adult roommates occupy a third of all large rental units.
The team suggests MAPC find ways to encourage not only family-sized units with families living in them but also units that might draw older adults and roommates out of the otherwise family-friend digs they currently occupy.
