Winter in Cold Spring Park
Moving into Newton these days is an expensive proposition. A recent real estate mailing said the following: 2021 sales data is in. The average single-family home in Newton sold for $1.51M in 2021, up 14.4% from the prior year. Ouch!
These prices reflect in part the paucity of available housing in Greater Boston. But it also indicates the continued attractiveness of the Garden City. Its location could hardly be more convenient for those working either to the east in Boston or Cambridge, or to the west between 128 and 495. Or at home. Our schools maintain a solid reputation, the difficulties of Pandemic education notwithstanding. Youth sports programs are vigorous even if our playing fields are sometimes problematic. Newton has lots of green spaces, from Cold Spring Park to Webster Woods. It is a great place to live.
Naturally, those moving into town must have lots of disposable income. To be sure, Newton residents are increasingly affluent. The average household income in the Garden City has reached $151,000. Families looking to buy in, however, must earn more than that to afford houses at $1.5 million. Otherwise, their mortgage payments, with insurance and taxes folded in, would approach or surpass half their income. And many of the homes on the market cost much more than $1.51 million.
Those of us who bought into Newton back in the day are fortunate. The house that I purchased in the spring of 1982 for $125,000 is now worth thirteen or fourteen times that amount. Odds are that a new owner would knock it down, solar panels and all, and replace it with a McMansion costing upwards of $3 million. Or maybe not.
This reality creates a challenge for a community wishing to meet two important and potentially interlocking goals: to increase its housing stock to help alleviate the chronic regional shortage of housing; and to create affordable housing so that a more diverse and economically heterogenous population can live here. Right now any new unsubsidized housing unit in Newton will be expensive given the remarkable demand.
Fortunately, some evidence suggests that flooding the market with housing- even if initially expensive- would eventually lead to lower prices- the free market at work. Recent blogs on Village 14 argue that converting single-unit dwellings to multi-unit could significantly increase the supply. Building those units in village centers and near public transportation might lessen the environmental impact of a growing population in Newton. Over time, in theory, a regional increase in housing stock would drive prices down and make Newton’s population more diverse.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride…What do you think? Do you embrace the two goals mentioned above, and if so, how might Newton achieve them?
Its true, supply will decrease prices. But the dirty secret is that it would take at least 20k new units… close to 50% increase in existing housing.
And dont forget, no sane developer is going to aggressively build during a down market… so reality must be taken into account
Comes with crowded schools, traffic, noise, property taxes etc
The real dirty secret is that there is a conspiracy of homeowners who care more about preservation than the next generation.
They care so much about not doing anything that they are willing to break the law to do it.
The super I have will never let it happen!
They can’t even spell diverse!
Take over free market locations, hong kong, shanghai… housing development as far as the eye can see.
Are prices affordable. Quite the opposite!
Instead of trying to cram everyone into a 10 mile radius of downtown boston. The most obvious solution is to create more job centers in different locations.
I *think* before the dotcom era, this was the model we had. Lots of tech companies scattered over western Mass
This is actually happening – jobs are getting scattered all across the country, and even the world. It will be interesting to see how remote work affects housing.
Speaking as someone whose job it was to do just that for Newton and Needham, it’s just as expensive, complex, and contentious of a process as building housing. But it also requires building housing.
Employers want to be attractive to employees, especially now. Yes, you can have remote employees, but if you want them to gather with any regularity, you need to locate in a place that they can get to. A trip to Nonantum or Watertown from South Boston, by car, could take more than an hour most mornings. I recently spoke with a company that is located in Bedford because their engineers all live north of the city. Waltham was one traffic jam too far. TripAdivsor solved this by, essentially, building their own transportation system. That’s also what many companies in Silicon Valley have done. Smaller businesses don’t have that luxury.
So the solutions to both problems are remarkably similar: make it possible for people to get to work easily, either by having more places to live nearby (within 30 minutes or so), and/ or the transportation system that helps get them there in that time.
While it is nice to dream up these scenarios and increase the tax base for politicians to spend wildly, the reality is it will kill our schools and what makes this area so desirable. I don’t want to be Wellsley or Weston, but I don’t want to live in Brookline, Waltham or Watertown either. Let the towns with already bad zoning rebuild themselves first and then if they are still short we can look at ruining Newton.
Yes, building more dense housing will ruin the appeal of Newton. That’s why Brookline, Cambridge, and Somerville all have such low real estate prices. Their density is a turnoff.
I don’t think Dan’s comment was all about the “Benjamins”
While your property value is so high, you might want to get a reverse mortgage because you’ll need it to pay your electric bill for heat and cars and everything else in your house.
Housing prices are up all over the country, even in the Midwest, where prices are relatively less than the coasts.
I’m with Bugek on this, I would say you cannot build your way out of this. Probably need to burst the bubble, which this might be.
I recall that banks are still allowed to slice and dice mortgages into derivatives. That was never corrected after the previous bubble. Could we get another crash like that? Is it time to short the banks again?
I’d like to think not, but “people” are, well, , and never seem to learn from the past.
@Dan: How many more wildfires, floods, heatwaves, tropical storms, famines does our planet need to endure before it’s Newton’s time to do something?
Kicking the can down the road got us into the situation we’re in today. Expecting other communities to carry this burden for us, got into the situation we’re in today.
Newton has ten train stations but zoning laws that prohibit anything but single family homes from being built nearby. Making it easier for people to live close to transit and local jobs won’t fix everything. But waiting won’t fix anything.
Greg,
Your climate change angle has beeb debunked.
The entire world locks down for covid and only resulted in 6% decline in emissions.
So even if every single resident in newton did not commute, its contribution would be 80k/7billion = 0.00114%
The contribution from zoning change would be 0.0000114%. Science matters
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00090-3
@Bugek: I hope you’re enjoying life in your alternative reality. I won’t be engaging with you or anyone who believes climate change isn’t real. See ya.
You completely read the science i posted. Climate change is REAL. clearly the solution is not found is reducing commutes as the science has shown with covid.
Climate change is real but the solution is not high density housing.
The solution involves upsetting the newton chamber of commerce
– ban beef sales
– ban plastic water bottles
– ban throwaway fashion merchandise
And in case i wasnt clear: climate change is real, its justn unfortunate you are using it to push your agenda
Newton should absolutely promote high density housing for many reasons, but climate change is not one of them. Not because it’s not a threat, but because there’s no reason to think Newton’s housing policy can reduce the world’s – or even Newton’s own – emissions. You don’t need to be a science denier to acknowledge that. Who says people buying new, air-conditioned luxury condos are living a sustainable lifestyle? Do we even know that the new residents in Newtonville are spending less time in their cars than anyone else? Do we know where they would have lived if those projects had not been built? Maybe in a more modest dwelling consuming less electricity or staying a few more years with their parents. Again, I fully support those projects for economic and cultural reasons, but the way some people pat themselves on the back thinking they’re making a big difference is absurd.
@Greg, I think you are the one in an alternate reality. Roughly 1/3 of the world’s population lives in 2 countries who are not doing much of anything to better climate change. “Its time for us in Newton to solve the world’s problems” is a bit ridiculous.
We can try to take incremental steps, but we should not diminish our quality of life for one second worrying about climate change.
Although if you figure out how to make China or India ban cars, nips, leaf blowers, etc etc, please let me know. Thanks!
Greg – see the recent online movie / article in the NYT. Farming to feed the 8 billion people on the planet emits 1/3 of greenhouse gasses. The myth that economists have of forever increasing consumption/production is what’s leading the planet off the rails. The earth is finite, but humans seem to think otherwise. If we make it to 10 billion, and start to come down, then economists warn of population shortage which will harm economic growth.
Sure public transport usage will decrease emissions (assuming the production of steel to make the rail cars and tracks are factored in) but it has been stated by more than one source that the pandemic ( I haven’t been driving from Newton to Southborough for the last 2 years for instance) reduces emissions by single digits as Bugek says.
It’s going to be hard to create a “Babar” the elephant type society where everyone conveniently has a job that they can get to via public transportation. People change jobs frequently, and one year they may have a job where then can take advantage of the T, and the next year maybe not. As well as the recent Boston Globe article that many offices in kendall square still have only less than 50 percent employees returning, and ridership on the T is way down (Emily has posted tweets of her taking the Commuter rail largely empty lately).
I think the push to denser housing has some laudable social(ist) goals. Government incentives (not free market) to increase density may have a small effect on carbon reduction. It may have a tiny effect on housing prices. But to some extent, I believe it is feel good stuff.
Here’s a link to a reputable source on the food production/climate change/land use issue
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0594-0
Greg – you’ve got all the answers as we can see here. Instead of shouting at everyone about how right you are (we won’t say bullying bc that is for trump people and he’s not responsible for all the worlds problems anymore), why don’t you close your computer and knock on doors of houses with window units still in (they are electric though) and help them take them out and close their freaking windows. That would save a lot more energy…
I’ll work on your plan to have Newton reverse the rest of the world pollution. We can let China, Russia and India do whatever they want and here in Newton we can divide all our houses, fire up plants in China, ship over Containers full of some cheap solar panels for our 5 hours of sunlight, then we can all get new roofs (because we have to grease the solar guys buddies), put our previously good roofs in landfill, then strap on some solar and in 10 years we can put those in a landfill because they are broken or obsolete. All the while we will feel really good about ourselves though… I think we will make a big dent!
climate fighter Greg should push for outlawing gas-powered leaf blowers, lawn mowers. Boston is already pushing for it: Not sure if this conflicts with the Chamber of Commerce. Love to see this advocated on the front page of Newton Chamber of Commerce
“30 minutes of a gas-power leaf blower produce as much air pollution as driving a Ford F-150 from Texas to Alaska. 1 hour produces smog-forming pollution equal to driving 1,100 miles.”
https://www.universalhub.com/2022/councilors-consider-outlawing-gas-powered-leaf
With bigger fish to fry — such as PROPERTY TAX RELIEF — City Councilors are hanging their hats on ridding plastic straws and nips and plastic bottles from Newton’s businesses and restaurants and liquor stores. Get real! Plastic bottles of water have existed for decades BECAUSE of polluted drinking water systems, which prompted State Legislatures to enforce construction of water filtration plants. So, plastic bottles AIN’T GOING AWAY as they’re very necessary.
Rid onerous PROPERTY TAXES and then Newton will be truly progressive and in touch with the problems confronting homeowners who’ve resided here for decades. Retirees want to stay in their homes so their children can return along with grandchildren to visit.
Renters, too, will then be much-needed participants within their community as well as harbor options from Boston’s otherworldly rentals. Cambridge lost renters in droves since Facebook and Google set up shop. A few of my friends happily rented together a three-bedroom for years in the Vassar Street neighborhood (near M.I.T.), but relocated OUT of Massachusetts upon their $1,400 monthly rent soaring to $3,300 by the sleazy greedy landlord after announcements arrive that Google was coming to Cambridge.
The above is the REALITY facing most Americans. And it IS in our backyard.
I agree with you about property taxes being too high, especially for seniors and others on fixed incomes. In fact, it is becoming increasingly difficult for someone who already owns a home to stay in their abode with property taxes increasing each year. Newton’s commercial tax base is relatively small and as long as it stays that way, property taxes will be the primary way for the city to raise revenue.
I’ll have to disagree here about how high our property taxes are. I have been paying taxes here since 1982, and my real estate taxes have basically increased by a factor of 2 1/2 (I pay about $12,000/year). Yet my property’s value has increased by a multiple of at least 12. If my house were in Wellesley and other communities nearby, I’d be paying higher taxes than in Newton.
True, our tax rate may present a serious challenge for seniors on fixed income, and they should get relief. Most of Newton’s residents, however, especially the power couples moving in who are purchasing houses for $1.5 million or higher, can well afford to pay our current property taxes for the services the city provides.
A related issue: we do need more income from white collar industry and the private sector. Half of Wells Avenue, a business park on the Needham line, lies dormant. I’d love to see businesses, especially tech and biotech, set up shop in the Garden City and increase our tax revenues. How do we accomplish this?
“power couples moving in who are purchasing houses for $1.5 million or higher, can well afford to pay our current property taxes for the services the city provides.”
You would shocked to learn how thinly stretched parents are to provide their kids access to good schools.
Those who can comfortably afford higher property taxes can simply write an extra check to city hall. Don’t expect others to be as fortunate
.. now a high density tax on developers… mmmmmm
A lot of this is outlined in the city’s economic development study. Unfortunately, when it comes to commercial revenue, we would need some major changes to make even a dent in the residential tax burden. We’re talking about building an entirely new Wells Ave. or two of “The Square” in Chestnut Hill. There are also limited locations in Newton in which to build that kind of thing, mostly along highway exits. So we’re talking about Riverside, West Newton, Newton Corner, and Route 9. Finding the right combination of size and access is difficult.
One possibility is Washington Street, but the community didn’t like the idea of putting in tall buildings along that corridor. Over at Riverside, the project has been scaled back since it was first proposed, greatly reducing our opportunity at an increased commercial tax base.
It’s true that we do occasionally lose small commercial lots to residential development, but those are minor compared to both what we need and the potential elsewhere.
“building an entirely new Wells Ave”: This many actually happen sooner than you think. A developer just purchased a huge chunk of Wells Ave, for which they paid (according to the Tab) around $200M. I would assume they are planning a massive development project.
From what I’ve read, their plan is to update the property around efficiency, but I haven’t heard about any major expansion. Any expansion would be limited by the single access point and its car-based design.
Yes, please bring down the value of my Newton house.
I bet all Newton homeowners want that too.
@Jim – HA. well said.
Why in the world would we enact any policy to LOWER our home values. Many people work hard for many years to be able to afford to move to Newton. Not everyone has a “right” to live in Newton any more than they have a right to live anywhere.
Ever heard of the concept of a starter house? What about a starter town? Why do people think they have a right to affordable housing in the town of their choice just because they request it? That is insane. No, we dont need more affordable housing. No, we cannot build affordable housing. There is a townhouse on sale on Beacon st right now for 2.85 million. So yea, lets put multiple units on previously single family lots and hope and pray they sell, each, for less than the house that was there prior. **Spoiler Alert – THEY WONT**
Of all the major and minor issues that concern me, either because we face them today or that we might in the future, falling home values in Newton don’t even move the needle. It’s only going to happen if there’s a national or global downturn like 2008. There were less than 300k housing units for sale last month in the entire US. By what mechanism would values fall?
I believe one of our only solutions to new affordable housing in Newton is actually to explore new models of housing that separate investment from shelter. Limited equity home ownership models do that while at the same time not impacting existing owners. In a constrained market, profit taking swamps affordability. And it’s hardly just developers; they are just one player in the market, as are owners. There are plenty of ways for people to invest money. Shelter is shelter, and we aren’t building enough shelters to even keep up with population growth.
Actually, many of the cynical comments on this thread point out underlying truths: gas-powered leaf blowers are terrible polluters that spew greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, not to mention dangerous particulate matter; beef-producing agriculture is a huge contributor to climate change and a tremendous waste of resources; automobiles contribute about a fourth of greenhouse gases in the US; electric cars will help only if the electricity they use comes from sources with low or no greenhouse gas emissions. If most cars continue to run on engines burning gasoline, climate change will never get reversed.
I have wrapped lots of topics, each raised in your comments, into a brief space here. We still need to address, however, the need to create more housing in our rather tight market. How might we provide more homes so that we can attract the workers we need for the Massachusetts economy?
First off let’s focus on reusing what we already have instead of creating more waste and more pollution. Then we can work on a different set of incentives to encourage construction of moderate priced housing instead of only satisfying the luxury market. I’m afraid that Western Europe is light years ahead of us when it comes to housing. Ask yourself why.
Reuse. Shopping malls, hotels and schools are all prime candidates for reuse.
There is a shortage of housing or a shortage of affordable housing 1hr commute to downtown boston in a safe neighborhood with good schools?
The average home price in Springfield, MA is only 230k. Either stop cramming all the jobs in downtown boston or lobby for more remote job or build a high speed rail from western Massachusetts
Bugek, there’s a third option to address the housing situation. Change the zoning near existing train stops to allow multifamily housing. Huh, I wonder if anyone has had that idea already?
Unless those units are price restricted, the only result will be $2M townhomes walking distance to the T. Those are prime A locations
Government isn’t in charge of where businesses want to set up even in a completely free market. There’s no invisible hand planning this stuff out, or at least not a very powerful one. Second, municipalities do have a vested economic interest to attract businesses (taxes, investment, and local jobs). That will always work against regional grand plans. It isn’t ideal from any number of perspectives, but it is reality.
And it isn’t like less developed parts of the state are necessarily hankering for more housing starts. Housing isn’t keeping up with population across the US. That’s a fundamental problem.
Hi Mike, The free market isn’t free. Yes all of the tax breaks, loopholes and tax credits are “free” but the government can and should influence markets for the greater good. Obviously the state is more powerful than municipalities and should encourage economic growth outside of the existing metropolitan areas. Isn’t that one of the reasons why 128 and 495 were built?
“Stop cramming all the jobs in Downtown Boston.” I’ve been a corporate site selection consultant for 30 years. Companies move where they do because it makes business sense to them. They want to be near or in vibrant urban centers because of the access to talent, transportation nodes (airports, transit), major institutions, and other companies. This concentration drives innovation and commerce.
We in greater Boston are a victim of our own success (economic innovation attracting more of the same) while also failing to plan for how we are going to support it (housing, additional mass transit).
Remember also that this is a national and even global context. A misguided and ill-considered attempt to move “jobs” from Boston to Springfield may actually more successfully move them to Indianapolis instead.
And that is inherently bad … Why? Why (quantitatively speaking) is a bigger Boston economy inherently better than the current size economy?
Is there an absolute size of economy the Boston is aiming for or is it merely a question of its size relative to other alternatives?
The model has worked quite successful in silicon valley (outside SF downtoown). The jobs are distributed across several towns. sunnyvale, mountain view, palo alto, san mateo, san jose, cupertino.
Think about it, Boston gets all the revenue but refuses to fix its own expensive housing… what does Newton get other than crowded schools, traffic and higher property taxes? If Boston was serious, they would increase height limits and impose an ‘investment tax’ for flippers, they could increase affordable unit contruction to 50% etc
ie… until Boston is serious about the issue, don’t expect others to fix their mess
Bugek – I’m pretty sure you’re starting to argue that housing costs in the Bay area (and traffic) are reasonable because jobs are distributed?(?)
I’m arguing that funneling all jobs into a single location is unsustainable. The reason why housing/traffic is expensive is because engineers can be paid 400k in their 20-30s… which attracts millions to live there. No amount of housing could ever be built to sustain that demand
Boston can relieve the pressure by distributing job centers, as they did in the 90’s before the internet craze.
Boston is not showing any seriousness in solving housing affordability in their own backyard. They get to benefit all the business revenue but are not addressing the problems it comes with
“The jobs are distributed across several towns. sunnyvale, mountain view, palo alto, san mateo, san jose, cupertino.”
In my experience, it also means that traffic is terrible whichever direction you go. I’m not sure that’s something we want to emulate. The area’s public transit and walkability are terrible, subpar public schools, and the pricetag on housing is substantially higher than here. Plus the hideousness of El Camino Real.
It would all be a serious downgrade. Except I do envy the area’s lack of ice storms after this week.
Boston’s issues are our issues. We leave in a region where municipal boundaries are permeable membranes. Yes, Boston’s problems are our problems, just as Boston’s amenities, infrastructure, institutions, culture, sports, shopping, and all the things that we have easy access to are ours as well. This greater Boston region is home to all of us, and just as things that happen here affect us, so do we all have a responsibility.
I’m also not sure what you mean about Boston distributing job centers in the 90’s. There was a great degree of development along 128 at that time, but that was in part because the inner suburbs signaled (through zoning) that they were amenable to the development and the municipalities were still close enough to the urban core and everything that it could support. Again – these locations made business sense to develop as employment centers, and the municipalities (Waltham, Burlington, Needham) set up the regulatory framework that set forth a predictable framework.
Agglomeration is a term often used in this context – put simply people, businesses, and activities want to be near each other (within reason) because it makes interactions easier. It make relationships work, it makes commerce work, it makes innovation work. No, we don’t have to grow forever, but the fact that more people want to be part of it and more companies want to be in the Greater Boston sphere mean that something is working right.