7th heaven for Hub real estate market
Boston jumped three spots among the hottest real estate markets, even surpassing tech sweet spot Seattle for investor interest, coming in seventh place in a national survey.
That’s the upshot of a new forecast from nonprofit Urban Land Institute and accounting firm Pricewater house Coopers, which polled industry professionals on real estate market prospects for 79 U.S. cities.
Focus group participants indicated that “investment opportunities are seen as being readily available in Boston for 2019.”
The annual report unveiled yesterday cites Boston’s younger workforce, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) job market, sustainability efforts and redevelopment for the climb. Boston was the most favored market when it comes to investors’ demand and local public-private investments.
“Our population is approaching 700,000 for the first time since the early 1960s,” Mayor Martin J. Walsh said in a speech at a ULI event Tuesday. “It’s growing by close to 10,000 people every year.”
Neighborhoods such as Downtown, Back Bay and the Seaport have seen explosive growth in new condominiums and retail storefronts. “In all, $9.3 billion of development is in construction. This year, we’ve already added another $6.4 billion to the pipeline,” Walsh said.
Susan Piracini, a Coldwell Banker real estate agent in Boston, agrees with the findings and says sales over the past few years have been red hot.“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Piracini. “There’s cranes popping up and new buildings all over the city. And it doesn’t seem to be stopping.”
Piracini said that some of the clients she works with desire livework-play communities, where the residential buildings offer an incredible amount of amenities. “Beautiful clubhouse, swimming pools, retail stores within walking distance and higher-end finishings,” she said.
The ULI report outlined issues to watch in 2019 including cybersecurity risk, infrastructure, insurance and immigration, commenting that the “draconian approach to border security is a massive self-inflicted wound with immediate negative economic consequences.”
In the survey, Dallas-Fort Worth was rated No. 1, with New York/ Brooklyn close behind in second place. Raleigh, N.C., Orlando, Fla., Nashville, Tenn., and Austin, Texas, came in ahead of Boston.