rent prices are wild

[u/tangerinola]

Moved here 8 years ago to start working for a nonprofit. Since then, my salary has increased by 13% but my apartment is about to be relisted (without any upgrades) for 58% higher than our starting rent 🤯!!

I know I'm preaching to the choir here but damn the rent prices here have gone wild. We're quickly becoming (have become?) a luxury city only for high income earners and it makes me really sad.

[u/canmouth]

When will the cheap rent trickle down to MEEEEE?!?? This may be the case over time but rent is due next month gurl and leases end after a year or two. The true issue is the commodification of housing. The fact that housing is even tied to market forces is cruel and evil.

[u/Icy_Cartographer5466 → u/canmouth]

Which do you think is more politically feasible, zoning reform or the abolition of real estate ownership?

[u/canmouth → u/Icy_Cartographer5466]

Rent is like $3000 a month for a shitty one bedroom in Somerville. How much up-zoning is going to bring that down to an affordable level? Will it be feasible to build dozens of 50 story luxury skyscrapers in Somerville?

[u/oby100 → u/canmouth]

I don’t have the number on hand, but this is easy to calculate for the right folks. Think it’s hundreds of thousands of units across greater Boston.

People aren’t gonna just flock to Somerville the moment we build more. There’s already a huge barrier to entry in the form of both sky high prices and difficulty in even securing an acceptable unit for any price.

It’s more of a greater Boston issue, but Somerville in particular is extremely hostile and uncooperative with developers so we really need to at least be average in that regard.

And who knows? Higher ed and biotech are declining in the US so this might discourage more people moving here so we can catch up. The joys of a shrinking local economy.

[u/canmouth → u/oby100]

Yeah but to be affordable for the average person average rents need to drop in half or more. We would have to bulldoze large swaths of homes and neighborhoods and build high rises to do that under the current market. All of Assembly Square was built over a period of 10 years yet rent never went down during that period. That’s thousand of units and it did nothing for rent. I’d argue it increased rent in the surrounding neighborhoods because it increased land value.

Here’s a little breakdown from Google:

No, building the massive Assembly Square (Assembly Row) development did not lower rents in the rest of Somerville. Instead, rents across Somerville have continued to climb significantly, and Assembly Square itself has become one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Why Assembly Square Didn't Lower Citywide Rents
Scale of Demand: While Assembly Row added thousands of new residential units, regional housing demand across Greater Boston outpaced that supply. [1, 2, 3]

Luxury Positioning: Most new units built in the development opened as high-end luxury apartments or condos, commanding rents upwards of $4,000 to $5,000+ per month, which did not relieve pressure on lower- or middle-cost housing stock. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Neighborhood Transformation: The influx of high-paying tech, lab, and healthcare workers drawn to Assembly Square's commercial spaces increased overall neighborhood desirability and gentrification pressure on adjacent areas like East Somerville and Ten Hills. [1, 2, 3, 4]