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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Foreign buyers at Millennium Tower show that Boston is on a world stage

DAVID L. RYAN/GLOBE STAFF

Bingyi Chen, a Chinese immigrant who lives in Concord, has bought at least 16 units at the new Millennium Tower for $15.6 million — all in cash.

By Tim Logan GLOBE STAFF  AUGUST 30, 2016

For proof that Boston has become a luxury housing mecca for wealthy people from around the world, look no farther than Downtown Crossing.

At the high-end Millennium Tower, buyers have come from Greece, Hong Kong, and the Middle East, scooping up condos two or three apiece. There’s a real estate executive in San Francisco who markets luxury US properties in Asia, and claims on her website that she’s sold 7 percent of the tower — roughly 30 units.

And then there’s the recent immigrant from China, Bingyi Chen, who lives in a modest townhouse in Concord and has bought at least 16 condos on behalf of investors in his native country, according to property records and his real estate agent. He paid $15.6 million in total. All cash.

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The Collaborative Companies joins largest brokerage in U.S.

Posted by Marilyn Jackson on Aug 4, 2016 in Blog about Boston Real Estate, News

The New England operation of NRT LLC, the country’s largest real estate brokerage firm, has acquired the assets of The Collaborative Companies in Boston, headed by Sue Hawkes, president and chief operating officer. The Collaborative Companies is a full-service residential marketing firm, which will continue to conduct business under its name.

Hawkes will continue as managing director of TCC, located in Park Plaza. It has 30 employees.

TCC presently is involved in development projects totaling more than $1 billion. They include condominiums at Ink Block in the South End, the Pierce in the Fenway, Telford 180 in Allston, Trinity Stuart in the Back Bay and the Alloy at Assembly Row in Somerville. TCC also is involved with Redbrook, a development of single-family homes and townhouses in Plymouth, and Black Birch in Concord, an adult community.

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Arquitectonica's Pierce Boston tower to feature apartments aimed at young tech entrepreneurs

Sales have officially launched for apartments inside this skyscraper in Boston by New York firm Arquitectonica, amid a "boom" in the city's luxury condo market created by its growing tech scene.

The Pierce Boston residential tower is currently under construction in Boston's Fenway neighbourhood.

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Fenway Center to move forward

Fourteen years after he began planning a major development in the air over the Massachusetts Turnpike at Kenmore Square, developer John Rosenthal says he is finally ready to start work. Construction would commence with the part of the project that would sit on firm ground. On Wednesday, Rosenthal and his development partners said that they have raised $230 million in financing and expect to soon begin construction of two apartment buildings on parking lots near Fenway Park. That would be the first phase of the long-delayed Fenway Center, a nearly $600 million complex that will include three other structures over the turnpike between Beacon Street and Brookline Avenue, including a 27-story tower. The project has long promised to accelerate the transformation of Kenmore Square.

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A Look at Boston’s First Sky Cabanas

A PIERCE BOSTON SKY CABANA
PHOTO COURTESY OF SAMUELS & ASSOCIATES

These pricey pods are perched atop Pierce Boston in the Fenway.

A good view of the Boston skyline is priceless, right?

In Pierce Boston‘s case, it’s a mere $300,000 or so. The luxury apartment complex that’s slated to be completed in 2018 just began marketing a new feature to its future residents—sky cabanas.

The precious rooftop space of the 30-story tower is being divvied up: one side will offer an outdoor pool and lounge, and the other will contain 12 glass-enclosed spaces. While these spaces are called sky cabanas, they’re not actually huts with roofs. Instead, the 150- to 250-square foot cubes offer open-air, sweeping views of the city.

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Want a rooftop cabana near Fenway? That’ll be $300,000

The Pierce Boston building at Boylston Street and Brookline Avenue
will offer 12 open-air decks to condo buyers. Each will run more than $300,000.
HANDOUT; KEITH BEDFORD/GLOBE STAFF

By Tim Logan GLOBE STAFF  JUNE 21, 2016

For $350,000, you can buy a four-bedroom house in, say, Framingham, or a condo in Dorchester.

Or, if you are among a select few, you can buy a 16-by-16-foot patch of roof deck in the Fenway.

In the latest salvo of “Can you top this?” by luxury real estate developers, Samuels & Associates is selling something straight out of South Beach on the roof of its Pierce Boston building that is under construction: “sky cabanas.”

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Here’s who bought the Millennium Tower’s penthouse

A rendering of the penthouse on the 60th floor of
the Millennium Tower in Boston.
HANDEL ARCHITECTS

By Tim Logan GLOBE STAFF  JUNE 16, 2016

The buyer of the most expensive condominium in Boston is a South Shore boy turned billionaire who renounced his US citizenship nearly two decades ago for tax purposes, meaning he can’t live full time in his $30-million-plus penthouse.

The 13,000-square-foot unit atop the 60-story Millennium Tower in Downtown Crossing is under contract to John Grayken, an investment fund manager whom Forbes magazine recently dubbed one of “the robber barons of the new millennium” for his long track record of profiting from delinquent mortgages and other battered financial assets.

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A year and a half before opening, Pierce Boston condos 30% sold

Catherine Carlock
Real Estate Editor
Boston Business Journal

Pierce Boston broke ground in the Fenway seven months ago, and even before the building opened a sales office, its condominiums were 30 percent pre-sold.

The 30-story luxury residential building will be a mix of 109 condos and 240 apartments when construction wraps up at the corner of Boylston Street and Brookline Avenue in 2018. It's the among the first new luxury properties in the neighborhood in years, and will be the tallest tower in the Fenway.

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Samuels’ Fenway Condo Tower Is 30 Percent Sold Before Completion

More than 30 percent of the 109 condominiums in the $300 million Pierce Boston tower have been pre-sold more than a year before its projected completion date. Asking prices begin at $1 million for luxury condos in the 30-story complex at the corner of Boylston Street and Brookline Avenue in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood.

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Black Birch Model Grand Opening Event

Over the weekend, Black Birch had their VIP and Grand Opening which was a great success!

Ribbon Cutting

Guests toured our elegantly appointed new models and enjoyed local fare from Woods Hill Table, while taking in all the details of our single family and carriage homes.

New Homeowners

Black Birch Team

Hot property: 197 Union Square in Somerville

View images of 197 Union Square in Somerville on BostonHerald.com.

TCC 2015 Facts and Figures Report

TCC 2015 Facts and Figures Report

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