Topping Off ceremony at Alloy (at Assembly Row, Somerville)

New apartments going up everywhere in Greater Boston

(click to enlarge)

Rents still likely to stay high

BY TOM ACITELLI  DEC 7, 2016, 10:00AM EST

Above is a detailed map of residential projects in the Boston area either under construction, planned, or recently completed.

The map comes courtesy of real estate marketing concern the Collaborative Companies and is drawn from internal data as well as from information from the City of Boston.

The gray bars represent apartment projects. No surprise that such projects seem to dominate the map: The region is in the mist of years-long apartment-building boom that may or may not be slowing.

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Sue Hawkes on the state of new construction in Greater Boston

Boston Agent (BA): Tell us about how Boston’s construction market is doing this year?

Sue Hawkes, owner of
The Collaborative Companies.

Sue Hawkes (SH): It’s the largest construction boom that we’ve seen in the history of Boston, frankly, and it’s due in no small part to the perceived value of the the local economy. We’ve really struck a balance between the market’s barrier to entry and the return on investment. It’s finally tipped the other way, so much so that in the last three or four years – with regard to the development cycle –rental permits have given way to condominiums.

Obviously, up until the last few years, financing condominium projects was more challenging. That was pretty true almost everywhere, except maybe New York and San Francisco. That’s certainly switched now. It’s changed entirely. We now have a large development cycle that’s inclusive of condominiums, as well as the rentals. Some would argue that we’ve got an over supply of rentals. I think that it’s not so much the over supply that might be the issue but the required price point for the rentals that are being built can only be satisfied by the highest end consumers.

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2016 PRISM Awards: Sales Person of the Year: Associate

2016 PRISM Awards: TCC does it again!

Fenway’s tallest building more than halfway done

Pierce Boston currently stands at 18 stories

BY TOM ACITELLI OCT 6, 2016, 11:00A

Construction of the Pierce Boston condo-apartment tower at 188 Brookline Avenue in Fenway has reached 18 floors, putting it more than halfway to its 30-floor height.

When it’s done, the approximately 340-foot tower will be the tallest building in Fenway—a not-unimpressive feat given the amount of construction in the neighborhood lately—and one of the tallest buildings in Massachusetts, period, west of Back Bay.

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Nearly half of Assembly Row's condos sold a year before opening

Rendering courtesy of the Collaborative Companies

BY TOM ACITELLI  @TOMACITELLI SEP 7, 2016

The 122 units that comprise the Alloy Residences in Assembly Row are the only condos in that sprawling Somerville development-as-neighborhood (or neighborhood-as-development, take your pick).

And those sole condos are proving especially popular. The Alloy will not be move-in ready until around this time next year, but the Collaborative Companies, the marketing firm charged with selling the condos, says more than 45 percent have been spoken for during barely eight weeks of pre-sales.

What’s more, some condos have traded for more than $1,000 a square foot. Such a sum would be notable anywhere in Somerville. In Assembly Row, along the Mystic, it’s positively historic.

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