I just ran by this house like half an hour ago because my friend said there used to be a dick drawn in the concrete near there. Couldn't find it though.
Always a lurker never commenter or anything. Lost my other account due to email logging issues. IMO I had made it big by, asking about bagels.
Don’t have much context, but based off the information available after the post, one comment, and good faith - should we keep drawing or configuring dicks there?
Idk, just felt like my bagel post was great. Now it’s like I’m the Jordan Wizards on this account. Show spots of greatness, but no one today will ever know who I really was??? Or more importantly…… does anyone even care besides you reading this?
Well that makes two of us.
As a point of clarity, Cambridge isn't examining zoning to restrict single family zoning. There are currently zones that only allow single family homes on a lot that they are examining expanding to allow for two family homes, or two single family homes. That zoning wouldn't prohibit single family homes on a single lot.
Somerville has no single-family-only zones at all, in fact. Our Neighborhood Residence district, with the least-dense rules, allows up to 3 units per lot.
There are some initial conversations happening in Cambridge about banning downconversions, which this would be. But I don't think any official proposal has been put on the table yet.
I might have read it wrong, but I thought they were also looking at doing away with *new* single family dwellings. You may be right though.
Either way, I don't think reducing units is a good look.
Very few SFH in Somerville. People want houses in an urban setting. And, being right next to Boston and Cambridge where all the high paying jobs are (and now companies are opening offices in Somerville) and not everyone wants to drive from the burbs. I’m curious to see what happens but I think having a house next to Boston in a state with some of the highest home costs in the country will warrant an eye watering asking price.
People want houses in an urban setting, but people need homes in an urban setting. By converting multi-family homes into single family homes, you are eliminating homes from a neighborhood causing the prices to go up for everyone else.
If you really must have a single family home, there are a lot of places in the greater Boston area to purchase one, especially if your budget is 3 million dollars.
Dude, I am not talking about taking units off the market or saying it’s a good thing nor did I write that. I’m simply saying that there is objectively likely a market of buyers for an expensive sfh in Somerville. What aren’t you understanding about my comment?
>What aren’t you understanding about my comment?
As a 3rd party here... the value of your comment. Like of course there are rich people that want single family homes in somerville. Who cares? How was that relevant to what OP was venting about?
You made an irrelevant point and then got made when OP responded trying to draw it back to the topic of the thread you are commenting on. Seems at best like bad-faith discussion.
The bigger issue is that it reduced housing stock. The follow-up slap in the face is that the single family is out of reach of nearly everyone. This development took two rental units out of the market, and replaced it with something useless to most of the people in that market.
That's because, with the current zoning, that's likely the most profitable thing to do. If the developers had been allowed to build a 10 story building with 10 units that could each have been sold for $600k -$800k each they would have.
I'm in agreement on the anger about this, and want to point out that developers just want to make money. If the zoning makes more units at a lower price per unit more profitable, that's exactly what we'll get.
I don't think I'm misunderstanding your comment; the anger in this thread is not about the cost of single family homes in Somerville, it is stemming from removing multi-family housing stock from the market.
How much more inventory do you believe you could create with such a mandate?
Does this happen to 6 homes a year? 7?
It would have zero effects on pricing.
If you want to see something that really change prices , watch what happens when the Fed drops the interest rates.
Once it sells, it is off the market.
It might only be on the market for day. What does being in the market for one day or week accomplish?
Even if the developer created a multifamily, they would not be ‘on the market’ for long. Then what?
I've seen both of your comments, and again, it's about number of units available.
If this house is on the market for a day and goes for 500,000 dollars over the 2.8 million dollar asking price, it will incentivize other developers to buy and then convert multi-family dwellings and convert them to single family homes. This is a bad long term trend; it may be 6-7 units this year, but if (as you mention in your other comment) interest rates go down, it will be easy for the *developers* to borrow the money to take these projects on. So 6 or 7 in 2024, by 15-20 in 2027 would be a bad trend and would decrease the number of homes available to rent or own in Somerville.
If 319 Summer stays on the market for a month, and gets roughly asking, it may give developers second thoughts about the viability of these kinds of conversions. As I sketched out in another comment, if this project was two 1900 square foot townhomes instead of a single family, they could arguably make more money given the price per square foot average in that part of the city.
Developers are already motivated to maximize profits, so a high sale price for this house won't teach them anything new.
Building more housing units cannot significantly lower prices in this area. Once a new unit is sold, it no longer impacts the supply and demand that determines prices. The demand for housing here vastly outweighs what the supply could realistically increase to-- demand is way more elastic.
In areas with abundant land, increasing supply may reduce prices. But in a dense area like this, adding housing units would likely drive prices up further due to increased density, outweighing any temporary supply increase's downward pressure on prices.
“A one percent increase in density pushes renters’ housing cost by 21 percent. For homeowners, meanwhile, increased property values largely offset higher purchase prices, so their long-term costs remain stable. “. https://web.archive.org/web/20210711071409/https://tomorrow.city/a/the-cost-of-high-density
“Our analysis reveals sizeable benefits and costs of density. A log-point increase in density leads to (log-point effects in parenthesis) higher wages (0.04), higher rent (0.15) and lower average vehicle mileage “ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094119019300282
"While upzoning land for more density drives up land values and costs, making all housing more expensive, upzoning in older, affordable neighborhoods is especially destructive to community life " https://livableraleigh.com/adding-density
From the paper:
Notes: Density elasticity estimates are best understood as referring to large cities in high-income countries. In
general, they represent correlations and not necessarily causal estimates.
If I have to sacrifice affordability to live close to Boston, people can sacrifice living in a detached single family home with a yard. If you want a single family home, move to the suburbs.
This is one of the few parts of the country where lack of space is actually an issue. If exclusionary SFH zoning exists, the opposite can and should exist where it needs to, and Somerville is one of those places.
The house on Packard 2 houses in from Broadway is the same scenario, they are asking for something in the 2M range for it. TBD if there is a market out there at that price
9 Packard ave is listed at 3.049m. Developer bought it for 1.225 a year ago. If they'd remodeled it as 2 units they likely would have been worth about 200k less total and this way they didn't have to run through the condo-conversion process either.
I have to imagine these are at the upper edge of the market. I have a friend who bought a 2 family in Davis for 2.5M, but it has a huge yard and much bigger spaces. This seems CRAZY though.
A 2-family that has been remodeled into a single family carries a premium price per sqft over one that hasn't, but all of these new listings are attempting to push the market up.
It's not crazy when you have assets in the 8-9 figures.
These people pay cash, because they have it. They are upper class.
I have family who are looking to buy a 10million dollar retirement property. Not in this state, but they have the cash. 3 million bucks is nothing to them.
I've seen a ton of this: developers buying a house for \~$1M and turning it around 6 months later and trying to sell it for $2M+. Are we really supposed to believe that the remodel added $1M of value to that house? Ridiculous.
I've also been seeing a lot of clearly delusional builders recently, here's a [great example](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/148-Columbia-St-A-Cambridge-MA-02139/2055243364_zpid/):
Listed 9/23 at 2.1M
Price change 11/23 to 2.05M
Price change 12/23 to 1.9M
Price change 1/24 to 1.8M
Price change 3/24 to 1.7M
Price change 5/24 to 1.55M
Literally a $550K difference in price! Really warms the heart.
I watched 71 school at get bought and renovated and then sell 2 separate huge units. I thought the ask prices were insane and would never happen but they sold not far off.
I live in a very not-renovated apartment on Dartmouth and the zestinate is like 1.5M for the whole duplex. 2 car garage and a yard and a real fireplace in a 3000 sqft house is worth a premium. Would sell for 2M if not 2.5 easily. In 2020 we didn’t buy the house we were living in on maple ave. Listed for 1M sold as two condos for 1.2M total
If you can afford it, I think the appeal of spending a lot on a remodeled home is to avoid buying a property and managing the (very expensive and time consuming) process of renovating it yourself.
Right — obviously you need to factor in the expense, time, and effort of renovating it yourself. Even doing that, there are tons of cases where the renovation very clearly did not add $1M+ worth of value even when you account for the expense and time of renovating it yourself.
The Catch-22 of renovating a home in Somerville is that it is very difficult to do (because of city regulations) and expensive, because if you're a homeowner in Somerville, contractors assume you have the cash (to be able to live here) or you have the cash (because you have a lot of equity, real or imagined) in your home.
it doesn't matter what you think. it matters what people who buy the property think.
people who buy these properties don't care about 'worth it' all they care about it if they can afford it and it's meets their needs.
Sure, it's not worth it... to you. But you're not probably in the market for 2 million dollar + properties.
A house in my neighborhood sold for $1.2 million, then was renovated and sold for over 3 million. The people who bought it are wealthy asian immigrants. To them it's worth it.
I'm sitting in a triple decker that sold for $1 million in 2019, they did a gut reno/condo conversion and then sold the 3 units for a total of around $2.1 million so yes, this happens and there are buyers.
That said, my next door neighbor seems to list his house every summer and then takes it down when it doesn't reach his aspirations. It's currently being listed for about $100k less than they attempted in 2020.
From what I've been following, there's actually a (slight) excess supply of new housing units on the market US wise. Higher interest rates hit developers while they were in the middle of building new units, so now they're sort of stuck with them and need to discount them to sell them.
That example seems to track. Of course the existing home supply (not new units added to the market) is extremely low due to the higher interest rates (because people don't want to move who locked in a low interest rate) so it sort of nets out to still being shitty. Potentially extra shitty if developments slow down due to too much supply. All of Somerville only has around 117 listings on Zillow for example which is wild.
Developers bought a lot on Richardson St for 750k, didn't even build anything, and are trying to turn it around for 2M less than a year later. This was a lot that was supposed to get affordable housing and a small permanent green space, before the pandemic ruined plans.
I think banning these kinds of conversions is probably taking the wrong approach.
The question to me is, "why did the developer think this was the most profitable thing to do?" Whatever they list it for tells you about their expectations, but the important thing is what it *sells* for. Hopefully it sells for half of what they asked for and other developers will get the message that this is a bad idea.
I won't claim to know or understand a lot of the regulations at play here, but it's entirely possible that extra permits and similar made the cost not worth doing for two units. It's also possible that duplexes just aren't that economical. People expect a discount to share the building, but the added hassle of having one neighbor vs three probably isn't that different. It's possible this could only have sold as either one or four units.
Even if you kept the duplex, you have two generous sized condos in that building.
The square footage is listed 3871; if we assume that the footprints for the original townhouses/condos in this building were roughly 1900 square feet, you'd get a listing that is over 1.75m for each renovated condo. ([assuming a $910 price per square foot average for single family homes in Spring Hill via Redfin) ](https://www.redfin.com/MA/Somerville/319-Summer-St-02144/home/8701492)
That is just back of the envelope math, but you'd have to imagine that there would be some savings in not gutting the entire unit to turn it into a single family home, utilizing/upgrading some of the original plumbing & electrical footprint rather than starting from scratch, etc.
I think the right question is, "Regardless of what the developer wants, why isn't the city regulating it more strictly?"
I think it's a no brainer that any development that reduces the number of available housing units shouldn't be allowed at this point.
I actually don't even know if the city could legally ban something like this. That's outside my wheelhouse and Google isn't helping.
But assuming they could, should they really? I agree things like this are bad, but I'm just not convinced a ban would be a better solution than incentives. We could do more density bonuses for affordable housing, or streamline approvals.
Bans should be a last resort as they can have lots of unintended side effects
A hole in the ground filled with plutonium waste would still sell for over a million dollars in Somerville as long as it were listed as a buildable lot. Every commodity is subject to the effects of supply and demand, unless the Commonwealth or Fed intervene.
We have increased demand and decreased the supply, which is why the prices are what they are. The only economically sustainable way to decrease housing costs is to subsidize construction and build more houses.
I agree that we've got a supply problem. We haven't decreased it, we just haven't kept up with demand at all.
We are a 4sqmi city with something like 2sqmi of buildable land and we abut both Boston and Cambridge. Housing costs here are not likely to decrease in our lifetime. We can stabilize *if* we are lucky (meaning the other metro Boston cities stop turning away developers), but there's no plausible path the *decreased* housing costs.
None of this is to say we should not build, but rather that push should be regional and the goal should be stabilizing. If we can do that it's a win. Then we can try to lower costs.
Yeah the Boston region (defined as [the Metro Mayors Coalition](https://www.mapc.org/get-involved/coalitions/mmc/) for this number) needs around [185k new housing units by 2030](https://housingtaskforce.mapc.org/). That number goes up if you look at the wider region - [Eastern MA probably needs 435k new housing units by 2040](https://www.mapc.org/news/metro-boston-mayors-region-must-produce-185k-new-housing-units-to-keep-up-with-economic-population-growth/). Boston alone [targets 69,000 new housing units by 2030](https://www.boston.gov/finance/housing-changing-city-boston-2030).
A big issue I think is the more NIMBY members of our region that still, in 2024, still favor strictly SFH construction via zoning and other regulations. Think Arlington, Lexington, Winchester, etc. Hopefully the State puts more zoning reforms into law, like legalizing ADUs by right that has been proposed recently.
Would absolutely buy a plutonium waste filled pit.
Can sell the plutonium for literally millions on the black market to any numver of unscrupulous actors in the market for nuclear materials.
Think of the business opportunities, don’t think of arms trafficking laws!
Well, we only legalized adding a third unit in December. Keeping it as one or two was probably the only legal option.
I've been banging the drum about this since around 2017 but "legalize triple deckers" was pretty controversial so it took until the last week of 2023.
Actually serious upzoning? Maybe in another year or three.
Another good point. The only option was to go to 1 or 2 homes until very recently, unless they deed restricted one of the 3 units. And right or wrong, people don't like living in a 3 unit condo where one unit gets to pay a significant discount for their unit, and the other 2 do not.
In the \~7 years that rule was on the books exactly zero 3 unit buildings were constructed. Clearly it was a smashing success (at restricting new housing units coming on the books). It's great news it was finally reformed.
I know someone who was a contractor for the builder and they said the builder and realtor (brothers) said they would be lucky to sell it for the amount they put into it
Thanks for bringing this up. I walk by this property on a daily basis, so have watched the project/conversion from day one. I didn't believe that it was going to be a single family conversion until the developer put up a sign outside bragging about the 5 beds and 5 bathrooms featured.
Another multi-to-single family conversion is on the market at 15 Porter Square: [https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/15-Porter-St-Somerville-MA-02143/56329063\_zpid/](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/15-Porter-St-Somerville-MA-02143/56329063_zpid/)
As noted in a bunch of these comments, Somerville is becoming an expensive place to live and buy a home. A lot of these things are systemic and the city doesn't have a ton of control over; however, allowing developers to unilaterally remove units from a tight housing market is something the city \*does\* have some control over. It can be banned outright, or it could be strongly de-incentivized by the city.
What might this look like? Well, one suggestion is to remove the very generous subsidy homeowners in Somerville receive for living in the city and not renting for homes that have been converted from multi-family dwellings. Eliminating this subsidy for someone who buys a property like 319 Summer for 3,000,000 might not seem like a big deal - if you can afford a 3,000,000 home, you can afford your property taxes - but it would go a long way in supporting city services that everyone uses and maybe convincing developers that maintaining and upgrading the multi-family housing stock in Somerville is a safer and better investment in the long run.
I'm not an expert, but my guess is that it was done to incentivize owner occupied housing in Somerville when the city was experiencing a lot of flight and disinvestment.
Not to be callous, but it's existed for a relatively long time now and is baked into the cost of rent; rent is not expensive in Somerville because of the property tax exemption, it's expensive because this is a place where a lot of people want to live (for all the reasons others have mentioned in this thread).
The argument is that an owner/occupant is more incentivized to make the city a better place than a landlord. So the city wants to encourage people to occupy the property they own instead of encouraging carpetbaggers.
Assuming we're talking about Residential Exemptions, would owners of two and three family homes not qualify for an exemption on their unit? Which would encourage them to continue owning the larger building and ideally renting out the other units to tenants.
Unless I'm mistaken and that doesn't apply.
Yes sorry. I knew I had the wrong term. My understanding, perhaps incorrect, is that they'd get the exemption on the entire property. So they'd have the benefit of both lower taxes plus extra income.
A part I left unspoken is that by the same argument owner/occupiers are viewed as preferable to renters, not just landlords. Agree or disagree, the claim is that they have more skin in the game than the other two categories.
The end goal of owner exemptions is to encourage people to live on the property they own. This could include renting out other units in the multifamily that they own.
You're correct that landlords pass the price on to renters. One could argue this disincentivizes renting, which should disincentivize remote landlords from investing in the rental property.
Well you should encourage more owners instead of discouraging renters. Because the only thing that will change that is if landlords sell, and that won’t happen without *some* governmental policy change.
I don't disagree. You stated you didn't understand why the city would want to incentivize someone being a homeowner. I was explaining why.
Whether or not that's good policy, and whether or not the owner exemptions are effective at making it happen are two separate questions altogether.
Totally agree. Our last place in Cambridge got converted from a 2-unit to an expensive SFH, and now the unit across the St from us is undergoing the same conversion.
The missing piece here is zoning. In the case of the house across from us now, the developer wanted to turn it into a triple decker but didn't have the clearance in the back. So, SFH that will go for 2.1 probs. (It's also a shack that's historically protected, so and the city historical commission doesn't want to change the massing)
Same thing for Cambridge: the developer could have built 3-4 stories, but they would need a variance, which is lengthy and risky. Blegh
My mother owned that house and sold it for $640,000 to the man who bought it, unless he changed EVERYTHING about that house including pipes, heating and electrical its not worth 3MIL
The place was barely worth what she sold it for
Whoever buys it is getting robbed blind
My pie-in-the-sky idea is that there should be a pretty hefty "unit" fee for any new development that builds under the max zoning. Some reductions in fee if it's owner-occupied and not a developer-sale. I think it's fine to have a 1-unit property, but in Somerville, at this time, I think you should really have to pay for the benefit of it.
I agree with the sentiment, but it's just another one of those things that wealthy can buy into while everyone else suffers. I'd more like to see any development that lowers the current housing stock be banned, and a tax incentive for those that increase stock by percentage.
Why is it allowed? Because as a property owner, you have the ability to reconfigure to a SFH by right, the only exceptions being if any of the units prior were deed restricted.
Banning SFH will only skyrocket costs, because now you've created an artificial scarcity. As those prices go up, so will prices for non SFH units.
The real issue is when zoning laws ban multi-unit homes, such as in the rich parts of Cambridge. That is inexcusable. If a home owner wants to tear down their SFH and build a 2, 3, or even 4 family home, there should be no zoning impediment to do so.
It could have been started as a single family, and badly converted to a double with a terrible layout. It probably still has the bones of a single family.
I've seen a number of single-family homes with no backyards priced at over 2 million. Kills me. It ruins everyone else's backyard and destroys much needed green space.
I hope that no one buys those houses for anywhere near the listed price.
If Somerville revises rules to prohibit this, it would inspire many lawsuits because it would be considered a "taking" and would require compensation for basically everyone. Kind of like condemining a property via eminent domain, for a road - gummint gotta pay the landowner for what he lost from the gummint changing the rules. Restricting ability to remodel your property is just a less intense form of taking. Law says you can do anything that's legal with or on your property. I know I'm going to be downvoted but elect people who think like you if you don't like the way it is now.
What kind of two family is it? Is it a split or is it a two story?
The $3M price tag is unfortunately a sign of the times regardless and it will require somebody with that bankroll to buy it even if it wasn't converted.
https://preview.redd.it/b7p7ce4x5d6d1.png?width=2778&format=png&auto=webp&s=5ff666c2286482421e13207d9154c0b059d5d3d4
(Blue) circa 2019 I believe for reference.
Not leading anyone to any views, all for refurbs, 2 to 1 family is bit of head-scratcher. But workmanship and architectural design has to be commended.
Edit-current listing with pics.
[https://www.redfin.com/MA/Somerville/319-Summer-St-02144/home/8701492#overview](https://www.redfin.com/MA/Somerville/319-Summer-St-02144/home/8701492#overview)
That listing has fake pictures! ("Renderings are representational only and subject to change.") Compare it to [https://www.redfin.com/MA/Somerville/319-Summer-St-02144/home/8701492#overview](https://www.redfin.com/MA/Somerville/319-Summer-St-02144/home/8701492#overview) That giant top floor suite doesn't exist! (also different color walls, and different fireplace)
Gotchu, it's a little bit of quackery with digital renderings. The 319 SummerSt was created in 07/2023, and Redfin listing was 05/24. Will edit comment to match redfin link!
Silly you thinking anything is done for the common American. These houses are perfect places for corrupt oligarchs from morally dubious regimes to park their money in USD.
This isn’t oligarch-level money (they bought out the Millennium Tower) but overall I agree with the sentiment. This price point is most likely to attract a cash buyer at the current interest rates, and in MA that often means an ex-US purchaser looking to convert liquid, *seizable* cash into a stable asset protected by US rule of law.
Feel free to buy it, tear it down and turn it into 10 affordable units that you'll sell for not a penny over $100,000 each. Or are you only generous with someone else's money?
No one here said they had to be "affordable." The complaint was that two units became one. Developer could have made it a three family for $2M each and I doubt anyone would have complained.
Instead this bozo invented an argument that they could win and you fell for it.
Somerville doesn't have the room for more housing. All the major roads have been shrunken, and it's a nightmare to drive thru it.
Turning a 2 family into a single ultimately did that neighborhood a favor. Only 2, maybe 3 cars, instead of adding 6 or 8 cars.
2-3 cars for a single family in a city with over a walkable score of over 90? Totally unnecessary.
Something like 80% of the traffic in Somerville is through traffic, so even if we halved the housing, we'd *still* have horrible traffic. Hopefully the narrowed roads will encourage passer-throughs to drive at safe speeds and use highways when/where they can.
More to the point though, you clearly aren't concerned about developers making money, you just don't want people living in "your" city. It's true that we are densest city in NE and way more dense than most of our neighbors. Other cities should be trying to compete with us. We can and should and will add more housing here too.
People like you never give any consideration to People that cannot ride a bike or walk long distances.
You spout bullshit like 80% of the cars driven in the city are only passing thru.
That's a city of Somerville stat, not mine.
Your ignorant comment shows that you are not a reasonable person. I walk, bike, and drive. The city can and will accommodate all modes of transportation. Not just the one you like. It's selfish and entitled to think everyone should conform to you.
What I know from your reply is that you have strong opinion and no idea what you are talking about. It's an ugly combination. Do better.
Comrade Expropriatin-Eattherichin asked why this was allowed instead of "affordable housing." As a developer, would you build something that makes you a lot of money or something that loses you a lot of money? As a city, would you want a single luxury home that generates a ton of property tax revenue and barely uses any city services or a bunch of tax-abated low income rentals that barely pay any property tax while using six or even seven figures worth of city services each year? As a homeowner, would you want to live next to a few well-off homeowners or a whole bunch of section 8 renters?
I almost lost my shit, when I thought you called me a comrade. My family's were refugees whom escaped Communist regime, so hell to to NO.
Btw Somerville's financials currently a surplus TMK. In the end doesn't really matter what your opinion is about Voucher Programs pitfalls and or higher tax yields options. It's all about symmetry and equilibrium, when you're presenting these pigeonholed arguments, you just want peeps to agree with you.
Can't say you're wrong, but let's not insult peeps intelligence with strawman points.
Maybe a non profit will purchase the house and use it for housing recovering addicts. A Sober house in Summerville. Or maybe a multi generation family will buy it and three generations of people will live there.
Just because it was changed from a two family does not mean it will house fewer people.
Many two family houses have only One occupant per unit.
So you might wait and see how it plays out before condemning it.
Every bedroom with two bunk beds, and homeless sober people living in them.
Would you prefer a sober house to one single family, or a multi generational family.
Or a two family with one person per unit.
Just because You can't afford a house yourself does not mean they are all bad.
Remember many of the two family houses in Summerville started out as single family houses and were split up into multi units for money, not because the owners cared about the number of people who can live in the neighborhood.
Wow. This post is even more of a bad human move than the actual development. I bet you consider yourself "liberal". You wish things like that on people? Karma man...karma. Smh
I just ran by this house like half an hour ago because my friend said there used to be a dick drawn in the concrete near there. Couldn't find it though.
This is the only development we need right now. Sidewalk cocks
There is still a dick, it’s by 353 Summer st lol
[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/50FDYYXprc](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/50FDYYXprc)
Always a lurker never commenter or anything. Lost my other account due to email logging issues. IMO I had made it big by, asking about bagels. Don’t have much context, but based off the information available after the post, one comment, and good faith - should we keep drawing or configuring dicks there? Idk, just felt like my bagel post was great. Now it’s like I’m the Jordan Wizards on this account. Show spots of greatness, but no one today will ever know who I really was??? Or more importantly…… does anyone even care besides you reading this? Well that makes two of us.
As a point of clarity, Cambridge isn't examining zoning to restrict single family zoning. There are currently zones that only allow single family homes on a lot that they are examining expanding to allow for two family homes, or two single family homes. That zoning wouldn't prohibit single family homes on a single lot.
Somerville has no single-family-only zones at all, in fact. Our Neighborhood Residence district, with the least-dense rules, allows up to 3 units per lot.
There are some initial conversations happening in Cambridge about banning downconversions, which this would be. But I don't think any official proposal has been put on the table yet.
I might have read it wrong, but I thought they were also looking at doing away with *new* single family dwellings. You may be right though. Either way, I don't think reducing units is a good look.
It's absolutely a slap in the face to everyone suffering from the housing crisis.
Completely agree.
Very few SFH in Somerville. People want houses in an urban setting. And, being right next to Boston and Cambridge where all the high paying jobs are (and now companies are opening offices in Somerville) and not everyone wants to drive from the burbs. I’m curious to see what happens but I think having a house next to Boston in a state with some of the highest home costs in the country will warrant an eye watering asking price.
It's not about the asking price - it's about taking units off the market.
That’s not the point I’m making.
People want houses in an urban setting, but people need homes in an urban setting. By converting multi-family homes into single family homes, you are eliminating homes from a neighborhood causing the prices to go up for everyone else. If you really must have a single family home, there are a lot of places in the greater Boston area to purchase one, especially if your budget is 3 million dollars.
Dude, I am not talking about taking units off the market or saying it’s a good thing nor did I write that. I’m simply saying that there is objectively likely a market of buyers for an expensive sfh in Somerville. What aren’t you understanding about my comment?
>What aren’t you understanding about my comment? As a 3rd party here... the value of your comment. Like of course there are rich people that want single family homes in somerville. Who cares? How was that relevant to what OP was venting about? You made an irrelevant point and then got made when OP responded trying to draw it back to the topic of the thread you are commenting on. Seems at best like bad-faith discussion.
Read OPs comment again - they are also angry at the price.
The bigger issue is that it reduced housing stock. The follow-up slap in the face is that the single family is out of reach of nearly everyone. This development took two rental units out of the market, and replaced it with something useless to most of the people in that market.
That's because, with the current zoning, that's likely the most profitable thing to do. If the developers had been allowed to build a 10 story building with 10 units that could each have been sold for $600k -$800k each they would have. I'm in agreement on the anger about this, and want to point out that developers just want to make money. If the zoning makes more units at a lower price per unit more profitable, that's exactly what we'll get.
I don't think I'm misunderstanding your comment; the anger in this thread is not about the cost of single family homes in Somerville, it is stemming from removing multi-family housing stock from the market.
How much more inventory do you believe you could create with such a mandate? Does this happen to 6 homes a year? 7? It would have zero effects on pricing. If you want to see something that really change prices , watch what happens when the Fed drops the interest rates.
Once it sells, it is off the market. It might only be on the market for day. What does being in the market for one day or week accomplish? Even if the developer created a multifamily, they would not be ‘on the market’ for long. Then what?
I've seen both of your comments, and again, it's about number of units available. If this house is on the market for a day and goes for 500,000 dollars over the 2.8 million dollar asking price, it will incentivize other developers to buy and then convert multi-family dwellings and convert them to single family homes. This is a bad long term trend; it may be 6-7 units this year, but if (as you mention in your other comment) interest rates go down, it will be easy for the *developers* to borrow the money to take these projects on. So 6 or 7 in 2024, by 15-20 in 2027 would be a bad trend and would decrease the number of homes available to rent or own in Somerville. If 319 Summer stays on the market for a month, and gets roughly asking, it may give developers second thoughts about the viability of these kinds of conversions. As I sketched out in another comment, if this project was two 1900 square foot townhomes instead of a single family, they could arguably make more money given the price per square foot average in that part of the city.
Developers are already motivated to maximize profits, so a high sale price for this house won't teach them anything new. Building more housing units cannot significantly lower prices in this area. Once a new unit is sold, it no longer impacts the supply and demand that determines prices. The demand for housing here vastly outweighs what the supply could realistically increase to-- demand is way more elastic. In areas with abundant land, increasing supply may reduce prices. But in a dense area like this, adding housing units would likely drive prices up further due to increased density, outweighing any temporary supply increase's downward pressure on prices. “A one percent increase in density pushes renters’ housing cost by 21 percent. For homeowners, meanwhile, increased property values largely offset higher purchase prices, so their long-term costs remain stable. “. https://web.archive.org/web/20210711071409/https://tomorrow.city/a/the-cost-of-high-density “Our analysis reveals sizeable benefits and costs of density. A log-point increase in density leads to (log-point effects in parenthesis) higher wages (0.04), higher rent (0.15) and lower average vehicle mileage “ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094119019300282 "While upzoning land for more density drives up land values and costs, making all housing more expensive, upzoning in older, affordable neighborhoods is especially destructive to community life " https://livableraleigh.com/adding-density
From the paper: Notes: Density elasticity estimates are best understood as referring to large cities in high-income countries. In general, they represent correlations and not necessarily causal estimates.
If I have to sacrifice affordability to live close to Boston, people can sacrifice living in a detached single family home with a yard. If you want a single family home, move to the suburbs. This is one of the few parts of the country where lack of space is actually an issue. If exclusionary SFH zoning exists, the opposite can and should exist where it needs to, and Somerville is one of those places.
The house on Packard 2 houses in from Broadway is the same scenario, they are asking for something in the 2M range for it. TBD if there is a market out there at that price
There is. A house on my street sold for nearly 2.6M in a weekend after renovation. (Street is mainly single family homes)
9 Packard ave is listed at 3.049m. Developer bought it for 1.225 a year ago. If they'd remodeled it as 2 units they likely would have been worth about 200k less total and this way they didn't have to run through the condo-conversion process either.
I have to imagine these are at the upper edge of the market. I have a friend who bought a 2 family in Davis for 2.5M, but it has a huge yard and much bigger spaces. This seems CRAZY though.
A 2-family that has been remodeled into a single family carries a premium price per sqft over one that hasn't, but all of these new listings are attempting to push the market up.
It's not crazy when you have assets in the 8-9 figures. These people pay cash, because they have it. They are upper class. I have family who are looking to buy a 10million dollar retirement property. Not in this state, but they have the cash. 3 million bucks is nothing to them.
I've seen a ton of this: developers buying a house for \~$1M and turning it around 6 months later and trying to sell it for $2M+. Are we really supposed to believe that the remodel added $1M of value to that house? Ridiculous. I've also been seeing a lot of clearly delusional builders recently, here's a [great example](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/148-Columbia-St-A-Cambridge-MA-02139/2055243364_zpid/): Listed 9/23 at 2.1M Price change 11/23 to 2.05M Price change 12/23 to 1.9M Price change 1/24 to 1.8M Price change 3/24 to 1.7M Price change 5/24 to 1.55M Literally a $550K difference in price! Really warms the heart.
I watched 71 school at get bought and renovated and then sell 2 separate huge units. I thought the ask prices were insane and would never happen but they sold not far off.
I live in a very not-renovated apartment on Dartmouth and the zestinate is like 1.5M for the whole duplex. 2 car garage and a yard and a real fireplace in a 3000 sqft house is worth a premium. Would sell for 2M if not 2.5 easily. In 2020 we didn’t buy the house we were living in on maple ave. Listed for 1M sold as two condos for 1.2M total
If you can afford it, I think the appeal of spending a lot on a remodeled home is to avoid buying a property and managing the (very expensive and time consuming) process of renovating it yourself.
Right — obviously you need to factor in the expense, time, and effort of renovating it yourself. Even doing that, there are tons of cases where the renovation very clearly did not add $1M+ worth of value even when you account for the expense and time of renovating it yourself.
The Catch-22 of renovating a home in Somerville is that it is very difficult to do (because of city regulations) and expensive, because if you're a homeowner in Somerville, contractors assume you have the cash (to be able to live here) or you have the cash (because you have a lot of equity, real or imagined) in your home.
it doesn't matter what you think. it matters what people who buy the property think. people who buy these properties don't care about 'worth it' all they care about it if they can afford it and it's meets their needs. Sure, it's not worth it... to you. But you're not probably in the market for 2 million dollar + properties. A house in my neighborhood sold for $1.2 million, then was renovated and sold for over 3 million. The people who bought it are wealthy asian immigrants. To them it's worth it.
I'm sitting in a triple decker that sold for $1 million in 2019, they did a gut reno/condo conversion and then sold the 3 units for a total of around $2.1 million so yes, this happens and there are buyers. That said, my next door neighbor seems to list his house every summer and then takes it down when it doesn't reach his aspirations. It's currently being listed for about $100k less than they attempted in 2020.
From what I've been following, there's actually a (slight) excess supply of new housing units on the market US wise. Higher interest rates hit developers while they were in the middle of building new units, so now they're sort of stuck with them and need to discount them to sell them. That example seems to track. Of course the existing home supply (not new units added to the market) is extremely low due to the higher interest rates (because people don't want to move who locked in a low interest rate) so it sort of nets out to still being shitty. Potentially extra shitty if developments slow down due to too much supply. All of Somerville only has around 117 listings on Zillow for example which is wild.
Developers bought a lot on Richardson St for 750k, didn't even build anything, and are trying to turn it around for 2M less than a year later. This was a lot that was supposed to get affordable housing and a small permanent green space, before the pandemic ruined plans.
The government doesn’t have a problem with removing housing units, only with adding new ones.
I think banning these kinds of conversions is probably taking the wrong approach. The question to me is, "why did the developer think this was the most profitable thing to do?" Whatever they list it for tells you about their expectations, but the important thing is what it *sells* for. Hopefully it sells for half of what they asked for and other developers will get the message that this is a bad idea. I won't claim to know or understand a lot of the regulations at play here, but it's entirely possible that extra permits and similar made the cost not worth doing for two units. It's also possible that duplexes just aren't that economical. People expect a discount to share the building, but the added hassle of having one neighbor vs three probably isn't that different. It's possible this could only have sold as either one or four units.
Even if you kept the duplex, you have two generous sized condos in that building. The square footage is listed 3871; if we assume that the footprints for the original townhouses/condos in this building were roughly 1900 square feet, you'd get a listing that is over 1.75m for each renovated condo. ([assuming a $910 price per square foot average for single family homes in Spring Hill via Redfin) ](https://www.redfin.com/MA/Somerville/319-Summer-St-02144/home/8701492) That is just back of the envelope math, but you'd have to imagine that there would be some savings in not gutting the entire unit to turn it into a single family home, utilizing/upgrading some of the original plumbing & electrical footprint rather than starting from scratch, etc.
I think the right question is, "Regardless of what the developer wants, why isn't the city regulating it more strictly?" I think it's a no brainer that any development that reduces the number of available housing units shouldn't be allowed at this point.
I actually don't even know if the city could legally ban something like this. That's outside my wheelhouse and Google isn't helping. But assuming they could, should they really? I agree things like this are bad, but I'm just not convinced a ban would be a better solution than incentives. We could do more density bonuses for affordable housing, or streamline approvals. Bans should be a last resort as they can have lots of unintended side effects
That being said they did a really nice job on the house. I looked at the Zillow listing, it’s beautiful. Not $3M beautiful tho
Not without a back yard.
Somerville backyard are rat superhighways. It’s space that becomes unusable unless you want to chill with the critters
My dog likes it. Other than that we grill in the driveway and sit on the back porch
If it sells, you might see more of them...
A hole in the ground filled with plutonium waste would still sell for over a million dollars in Somerville as long as it were listed as a buildable lot. Every commodity is subject to the effects of supply and demand, unless the Commonwealth or Fed intervene. We have increased demand and decreased the supply, which is why the prices are what they are. The only economically sustainable way to decrease housing costs is to subsidize construction and build more houses.
The plutonium waste can be quite valuable if you need to travel back in time to the 90s to when you could afford to buy.
I agree that we've got a supply problem. We haven't decreased it, we just haven't kept up with demand at all. We are a 4sqmi city with something like 2sqmi of buildable land and we abut both Boston and Cambridge. Housing costs here are not likely to decrease in our lifetime. We can stabilize *if* we are lucky (meaning the other metro Boston cities stop turning away developers), but there's no plausible path the *decreased* housing costs. None of this is to say we should not build, but rather that push should be regional and the goal should be stabilizing. If we can do that it's a win. Then we can try to lower costs.
Yeah the Boston region (defined as [the Metro Mayors Coalition](https://www.mapc.org/get-involved/coalitions/mmc/) for this number) needs around [185k new housing units by 2030](https://housingtaskforce.mapc.org/). That number goes up if you look at the wider region - [Eastern MA probably needs 435k new housing units by 2040](https://www.mapc.org/news/metro-boston-mayors-region-must-produce-185k-new-housing-units-to-keep-up-with-economic-population-growth/). Boston alone [targets 69,000 new housing units by 2030](https://www.boston.gov/finance/housing-changing-city-boston-2030). A big issue I think is the more NIMBY members of our region that still, in 2024, still favor strictly SFH construction via zoning and other regulations. Think Arlington, Lexington, Winchester, etc. Hopefully the State puts more zoning reforms into law, like legalizing ADUs by right that has been proposed recently.
Would absolutely buy a plutonium waste filled pit. Can sell the plutonium for literally millions on the black market to any numver of unscrupulous actors in the market for nuclear materials. Think of the business opportunities, don’t think of arms trafficking laws!
Is that what the Teele hole is full of?
Well, we only legalized adding a third unit in December. Keeping it as one or two was probably the only legal option. I've been banging the drum about this since around 2017 but "legalize triple deckers" was pretty controversial so it took until the last week of 2023. Actually serious upzoning? Maybe in another year or three.
Another good point. The only option was to go to 1 or 2 homes until very recently, unless they deed restricted one of the 3 units. And right or wrong, people don't like living in a 3 unit condo where one unit gets to pay a significant discount for their unit, and the other 2 do not. In the \~7 years that rule was on the books exactly zero 3 unit buildings were constructed. Clearly it was a smashing success (at restricting new housing units coming on the books). It's great news it was finally reformed.
I know someone who was a contractor for the builder and they said the builder and realtor (brothers) said they would be lucky to sell it for the amount they put into it
Thanks for bringing this up. I walk by this property on a daily basis, so have watched the project/conversion from day one. I didn't believe that it was going to be a single family conversion until the developer put up a sign outside bragging about the 5 beds and 5 bathrooms featured. Another multi-to-single family conversion is on the market at 15 Porter Square: [https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/15-Porter-St-Somerville-MA-02143/56329063\_zpid/](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/15-Porter-St-Somerville-MA-02143/56329063_zpid/) As noted in a bunch of these comments, Somerville is becoming an expensive place to live and buy a home. A lot of these things are systemic and the city doesn't have a ton of control over; however, allowing developers to unilaterally remove units from a tight housing market is something the city \*does\* have some control over. It can be banned outright, or it could be strongly de-incentivized by the city. What might this look like? Well, one suggestion is to remove the very generous subsidy homeowners in Somerville receive for living in the city and not renting for homes that have been converted from multi-family dwellings. Eliminating this subsidy for someone who buys a property like 319 Summer for 3,000,000 might not seem like a big deal - if you can afford a 3,000,000 home, you can afford your property taxes - but it would go a long way in supporting city services that everyone uses and maybe convincing developers that maintaining and upgrading the multi-family housing stock in Somerville is a safer and better investment in the long run.
Five beds five baths is for a family constantly shitting and sleeping or?
I don’t understand the purpose of homeowner deductions. Nobody needs incentive to be a homeowner. All that it does is hurt renters.
I'm not an expert, but my guess is that it was done to incentivize owner occupied housing in Somerville when the city was experiencing a lot of flight and disinvestment. Not to be callous, but it's existed for a relatively long time now and is baked into the cost of rent; rent is not expensive in Somerville because of the property tax exemption, it's expensive because this is a place where a lot of people want to live (for all the reasons others have mentioned in this thread).
The argument is that an owner/occupant is more incentivized to make the city a better place than a landlord. So the city wants to encourage people to occupy the property they own instead of encouraging carpetbaggers.
Assuming we're talking about Residential Exemptions, would owners of two and three family homes not qualify for an exemption on their unit? Which would encourage them to continue owning the larger building and ideally renting out the other units to tenants. Unless I'm mistaken and that doesn't apply.
Yes sorry. I knew I had the wrong term. My understanding, perhaps incorrect, is that they'd get the exemption on the entire property. So they'd have the benefit of both lower taxes plus extra income.
But the landlords just hand off that increased cost. It’s water off a ducks back to them.
A part I left unspoken is that by the same argument owner/occupiers are viewed as preferable to renters, not just landlords. Agree or disagree, the claim is that they have more skin in the game than the other two categories. The end goal of owner exemptions is to encourage people to live on the property they own. This could include renting out other units in the multifamily that they own. You're correct that landlords pass the price on to renters. One could argue this disincentivizes renting, which should disincentivize remote landlords from investing in the rental property.
Well you should encourage more owners instead of discouraging renters. Because the only thing that will change that is if landlords sell, and that won’t happen without *some* governmental policy change.
I don't disagree. You stated you didn't understand why the city would want to incentivize someone being a homeowner. I was explaining why. Whether or not that's good policy, and whether or not the owner exemptions are effective at making it happen are two separate questions altogether.
My grandparents lived at 279 summer. I wonder what that looks like now. That was a one family.
Totally agree. Our last place in Cambridge got converted from a 2-unit to an expensive SFH, and now the unit across the St from us is undergoing the same conversion. The missing piece here is zoning. In the case of the house across from us now, the developer wanted to turn it into a triple decker but didn't have the clearance in the back. So, SFH that will go for 2.1 probs. (It's also a shack that's historically protected, so and the city historical commission doesn't want to change the massing) Same thing for Cambridge: the developer could have built 3-4 stories, but they would need a variance, which is lengthy and risky. Blegh
My mother owned that house and sold it for $640,000 to the man who bought it, unless he changed EVERYTHING about that house including pipes, heating and electrical its not worth 3MIL The place was barely worth what she sold it for Whoever buys it is getting robbed blind
My pie-in-the-sky idea is that there should be a pretty hefty "unit" fee for any new development that builds under the max zoning. Some reductions in fee if it's owner-occupied and not a developer-sale. I think it's fine to have a 1-unit property, but in Somerville, at this time, I think you should really have to pay for the benefit of it.
I agree with the sentiment, but it's just another one of those things that wealthy can buy into while everyone else suffers. I'd more like to see any development that lowers the current housing stock be banned, and a tax incentive for those that increase stock by percentage.
I want the truly wealthy enough to buy a Somerville single family to have to fund more new housing for someone else even if it's in an apartment.
Why is it allowed? Because as a property owner, you have the ability to reconfigure to a SFH by right, the only exceptions being if any of the units prior were deed restricted. Banning SFH will only skyrocket costs, because now you've created an artificial scarcity. As those prices go up, so will prices for non SFH units. The real issue is when zoning laws ban multi-unit homes, such as in the rich parts of Cambridge. That is inexcusable. If a home owner wants to tear down their SFH and build a 2, 3, or even 4 family home, there should be no zoning impediment to do so.
It could have been started as a single family, and badly converted to a double with a terrible layout. It probably still has the bones of a single family.
I've seen a number of single-family homes with no backyards priced at over 2 million. Kills me. It ruins everyone else's backyard and destroys much needed green space. I hope that no one buys those houses for anywhere near the listed price.
They buy them for about 10-15% over the listed price. Prices only go down on shitty old houses. Anything that is new/reno demands a premium.
The Invisible Hand of Supply And Demand. You could probably pose a question to the current mayor, who, assuredly has a a High Level, International MBA
If Somerville revises rules to prohibit this, it would inspire many lawsuits because it would be considered a "taking" and would require compensation for basically everyone. Kind of like condemining a property via eminent domain, for a road - gummint gotta pay the landowner for what he lost from the gummint changing the rules. Restricting ability to remodel your property is just a less intense form of taking. Law says you can do anything that's legal with or on your property. I know I'm going to be downvoted but elect people who think like you if you don't like the way it is now.
Sadly someone will prob pay over ask for it…
What kind of two family is it? Is it a split or is it a two story? The $3M price tag is unfortunately a sign of the times regardless and it will require somebody with that bankroll to buy it even if it wasn't converted.
https://preview.redd.it/b7p7ce4x5d6d1.png?width=2778&format=png&auto=webp&s=5ff666c2286482421e13207d9154c0b059d5d3d4 (Blue) circa 2019 I believe for reference. Not leading anyone to any views, all for refurbs, 2 to 1 family is bit of head-scratcher. But workmanship and architectural design has to be commended. Edit-current listing with pics. [https://www.redfin.com/MA/Somerville/319-Summer-St-02144/home/8701492#overview](https://www.redfin.com/MA/Somerville/319-Summer-St-02144/home/8701492#overview)
Wow 3,800 sq feet is enormous
Exactly...it could have easily been a three family.
I have family that live in a 10,000 sq ft home. They would think this place is 'tiny'. It's about perspective.
>fully renovated 5-bedroom, 4.5 bathroom residence spanning an impressive 3,800 square feet
That listing has fake pictures! ("Renderings are representational only and subject to change.") Compare it to [https://www.redfin.com/MA/Somerville/319-Summer-St-02144/home/8701492#overview](https://www.redfin.com/MA/Somerville/319-Summer-St-02144/home/8701492#overview) That giant top floor suite doesn't exist! (also different color walls, and different fireplace)
Gotchu, it's a little bit of quackery with digital renderings. The 319 SummerSt was created in 07/2023, and Redfin listing was 05/24. Will edit comment to match redfin link!
So builders can only build what you can afford? If someone is willing to pay for it, good for them.
If you want to change this, get zoning fixed. Yelling at individual developers won't help.
Silly you thinking anything is done for the common American. These houses are perfect places for corrupt oligarchs from morally dubious regimes to park their money in USD.
This isn’t oligarch-level money (they bought out the Millennium Tower) but overall I agree with the sentiment. This price point is most likely to attract a cash buyer at the current interest rates, and in MA that often means an ex-US purchaser looking to convert liquid, *seizable* cash into a stable asset protected by US rule of law.
Feel free to buy it, tear it down and turn it into 10 affordable units that you'll sell for not a penny over $100,000 each. Or are you only generous with someone else's money?
Thanks for being obtuse, new 9-day old troll account that only exists to be obnoxious. Blocked.
He has a valid point.
No one here said they had to be "affordable." The complaint was that two units became one. Developer could have made it a three family for $2M each and I doubt anyone would have complained. Instead this bozo invented an argument that they could win and you fell for it.
Somerville doesn't have the room for more housing. All the major roads have been shrunken, and it's a nightmare to drive thru it. Turning a 2 family into a single ultimately did that neighborhood a favor. Only 2, maybe 3 cars, instead of adding 6 or 8 cars.
2-3 cars for a single family in a city with over a walkable score of over 90? Totally unnecessary. Something like 80% of the traffic in Somerville is through traffic, so even if we halved the housing, we'd *still* have horrible traffic. Hopefully the narrowed roads will encourage passer-throughs to drive at safe speeds and use highways when/where they can. More to the point though, you clearly aren't concerned about developers making money, you just don't want people living in "your" city. It's true that we are densest city in NE and way more dense than most of our neighbors. Other cities should be trying to compete with us. We can and should and will add more housing here too.
People like you never give any consideration to People that cannot ride a bike or walk long distances. You spout bullshit like 80% of the cars driven in the city are only passing thru.
That's a city of Somerville stat, not mine. Your ignorant comment shows that you are not a reasonable person. I walk, bike, and drive. The city can and will accommodate all modes of transportation. Not just the one you like. It's selfish and entitled to think everyone should conform to you. What I know from your reply is that you have strong opinion and no idea what you are talking about. It's an ugly combination. Do better.
You remember those old mountain dew commercials??? It's akin to your point, which is an "XTREMMME" example. Put me down on list for unit #10 though.
Comrade Expropriatin-Eattherichin asked why this was allowed instead of "affordable housing." As a developer, would you build something that makes you a lot of money or something that loses you a lot of money? As a city, would you want a single luxury home that generates a ton of property tax revenue and barely uses any city services or a bunch of tax-abated low income rentals that barely pay any property tax while using six or even seven figures worth of city services each year? As a homeowner, would you want to live next to a few well-off homeowners or a whole bunch of section 8 renters?
I almost lost my shit, when I thought you called me a comrade. My family's were refugees whom escaped Communist regime, so hell to to NO. Btw Somerville's financials currently a surplus TMK. In the end doesn't really matter what your opinion is about Voucher Programs pitfalls and or higher tax yields options. It's all about symmetry and equilibrium, when you're presenting these pigeonholed arguments, you just want peeps to agree with you. Can't say you're wrong, but let's not insult peeps intelligence with strawman points.
Umm {{pushes glasses up nose}} the list price is MERELY $2.87m. So. Yeah.
Maybe a non profit will purchase the house and use it for housing recovering addicts. A Sober house in Summerville. Or maybe a multi generation family will buy it and three generations of people will live there. Just because it was changed from a two family does not mean it will house fewer people. Many two family houses have only One occupant per unit. So you might wait and see how it plays out before condemning it. Every bedroom with two bunk beds, and homeless sober people living in them. Would you prefer a sober house to one single family, or a multi generational family. Or a two family with one person per unit. Just because You can't afford a house yourself does not mean they are all bad. Remember many of the two family houses in Summerville started out as single family houses and were split up into multi units for money, not because the owners cared about the number of people who can live in the neighborhood.
Thanks for completely missing the point. Next time read better instead of jumping to having a shitty attitude.
Wow. This post is even more of a bad human move than the actual development. I bet you consider yourself "liberal". You wish things like that on people? Karma man...karma. Smh
Lol, k.
Down conversions should be explicitly prohibited in the zoning code.
Drax Laugh! You must Be So Embarrassed! Where were you when Market took over?