Enterprisenews.com – by Danielle McLean
High demand and limited stock have prompted housing and condo prices to soar in the metro Boston area.
Immediately after the housing bubble burst in 2008, prices for homes stalled for several years.
But since 2011, West Roxbury and Roslindale have seen multi-family home prices soar by more than 40 percent. North of the Charles, Cambridge and Somerville multi-family prices have surged around 50 percent during that time. And in metro Boston towns Watertown and Brookline, condo prices rose more than 23 percent.
Areas of Roslindale, especially around Roslindale Village, have also become attractive sites for millennial-aged post-college workers, said David Gold, realtor for the Brookline-based Metro Realty.
In Roslindale, multi-family housing prices increased 40 percent between 2011 and 2014. But with no easy public transport to Boston, the neighborhood remained far more affordable than Somerville and Cambridge with multi-family homes selling on average at $490,000.
Multi-family homes in West Roxbury rose 20 percent during that time and with sales prices at $517,250 on average.
Most of the West Roxbury and Roslindale market consisted of renters, most of who pay $1,500 to $2,500 for a two-bedroom unit, Gold said.
But with low interest rates and a shortage of inventory, when a home in both Roslindale and West Roxbury hits the market, it typically takes a week or two to sell, he said.
“The rental market is strong but not a power house like Cambridge, Somerville or Brookline,” Gold said.
“We started to see some teeth in 2012,” Charles Cherney, vice president of Hammond Realty in Cambridge who sells homes in Somerville and Cambridge. “Now in 2015 we are in the third year of a hot market… The market is trying to catch up for the long periods of stability.”
According to realtors, the surges in prices are due to a number of reasons. Interest rates are low coming out of the recession, buyers are investing in areas close to public transportation to the city, and waves of millennials are moving into the areas. Meanwhile, people wanting to put their home on the market and downsize, are having a hard time finding a place to move to within the same city and within their financial means.
The market has led to floods of buyers vying for limited number of properties hitting the market, forcing buyers in Somerville and Cambridge to fork-up full payments made in cash up front and forgo contingencies such as home inspections when buying a home, Cherney said. Recently, Cherney’s agency sold a one-bedroom condo along Broadway outside Central Square with no parking for about $100,000 over asking price.