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Guest
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 Posted: Wed May 31, 2017 9:44 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| Guest wrote: | Sure. To name a few Natick, Milton, Canton, Andover, Swampscott, Marblehead, Norwell, Melrose.
If you've got a smart kid and raise him to be a good student, he can go to any college he wants from any one of these schools districts.
Lots of happy, successful, well-educated people come from these and other places. |
Acton, Arlington, Mansfield, Wayland... many good schools in MA. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2017 5:35 pm GMT Post subject: |
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And if you *don't* have kids, you get to pay taxes through the nose for the schools if you want to live in one of these communities but it all works out because the town will take care of you when you're old, right? 
(said the person with no kids and no chance of any).
(joke, no intent to offend). |
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Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2017 7:09 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| Anonymous wrote: | | Guest wrote: | Sure. To name a few Natick, Milton, Canton, Andover, Swampscott, Marblehead, Norwell, Melrose.
If you've got a smart kid and raise him to be a good student, he can go to any college he wants from any one of these schools districts.
Lots of happy, successful, well-educated people come from these and other places. |
Acton, Arlington, Mansfield, Wayland... many good schools in MA. |
And Arlington is a mere 10 miles from downtown! |
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Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 8:38 pm GMT Post subject: |
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And Arlington is a mere 10 miles from downtown! |
I have nothing to against Arlington, and I do agree there are so many towns with good public school systems around MA, and the home prices there are at least 30% less than those popular first tier rich towns.
I guess there is this sick idea of only settling for the best, and everything else is not worth considering. It is like some folks would only buy Apple Iphone for $1000, and will not considered any other phones that would run 99% as well as iphone, yet cost less than half of an iphone. Using Arlington as example, it has always been considered lower tier compare to its next door neighbor Lexington and Belmont. There are similar situations everywhere, like Wayland is lower tier against Weston, Natick is lower tier against Wellesley etc.
Home is the biggest purchase most people would do in their lives, and paying more and/or way more for the best of the best do have its logical stand. Also a good public school system is not just depending how much resources the town provide its schools, but also about how much resources parents provides to their kids in that town. Rich towns in general means more resources given from parents to kids, that is what makes kids in those schools prosper better in general.
Once you realized this formula, then you can do your own calculation of which town's home price is worth it or not worth it.
Last thing I would like to point out is, home price went up crazy in towns with good public school system because private school tuition went off the chart in the last 15 years. Same as our healthcare system, lack of international competition and still being considered the best in the world attract global demand. Higher demand means higher price.
So unless something change in our educational system to help our citizens, this type of craziness will continue with no end. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 10:34 am GMT Post subject: |
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| Anonymous wrote: | | Quote: |
And Arlington is a mere 10 miles from downtown! |
I have nothing to against Arlington, and I do agree there are so many towns with good public school systems around MA, and the home prices there are at least 30% less than those popular first tier rich towns.
I guess there is this sick idea of only settling for the best, and everything else is not worth considering. It is like some folks would only buy Apple Iphone for $1000, and will not considered any other phones that would run 99% as well as iphone, yet cost less than half of an iphone. Using Arlington as example, it has always been considered lower tier compare to its next door neighbor Lexington and Belmont. There are similar situations everywhere, like Wayland is lower tier against Weston, Natick is lower tier against Wellesley etc.
Home is the biggest purchase most people would do in their lives, and paying more and/or way more for the best of the best do have its logical stand. Also a good public school system is not just depending how much resources the town provide its schools, but also about how much resources parents provides to their kids in that town. Rich towns in general means more resources given from parents to kids, that is what makes kids in those schools prosper better in general.
Once you realized this formula, then you can do your own calculation of which town's home price is worth it or not worth it.
Last thing I would like to point out is, home price went up crazy in towns with good public school system because private school tuition went off the chart in the last 15 years. Same as our healthcare system, lack of international competition and still being considered the best in the world attract global demand. Higher demand means higher price.
So unless something change in our educational system to help our citizens, this type of craziness will continue with no end. |
Great schools might justify the high prices in some towns, but it doesn't explain the high prices in areas with average schools like Cambridge, Somerville, Charlestown and South Boston, I think the bigger reason is the redistribution of wealth to the top 20% - households with more than 200k annual income and net worth of over 500k in US. The numbers are probably higher for a high income area like Massachusetts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/opinion/sunday/stop-pretending-youre-not-rich.html?_r=0 |
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Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 1:46 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Great schools might justify the high prices in some towns, but it doesn't explain the high prices in areas with average schools like Cambridge, Somerville, Charlestown and South Boston, I think the bigger reason is the redistribution of wealth to the top 20% - households with more than 200k annual income and net worth of over 500k in US. The numbers are probably higher for a high income area like Massachusetts. |
The 4 towns/cities you listed are pretty much urban area with MBTA accessable. That is a bit different than those suburb towns we have been talking about. You pay the top dollars to live in urban areas with all the city excitements right at your finger tips. Therefore school system is not the main reason why these areas are expensive. People live there tend to be younger, such as students and young professionals. Families tend to move out of those area once they have kids.
With that said, let's review each of your 4 towns to see why they are expensive.
1. Cambridge.
Cambridge resident pay the lowest property tax in the world, thanks to harvard and MIT and all the Bio tech companies pay for the taxes. So lower tax mean lower maintenance of your property, meaning higher price. Then there are other factors like close to downtown, a lot of working opportunities, high demand for rent from students and professionals etc.
2. Somerville
Somerville just get infected by Cambridge price hike, because it is right next to it, which means high paying people who work in Cambridge and can not afford cambridge, Would more than likely consider live there. Home price in Somerville is not as expensive as cambridge, but if SFH in cambridge cost 1.5 millions, you can't expect much less price on similar houses less than 1 mile away in somerville. This is the class example of second tier town affect I mentioned in earlier post.
3. Charlestown
unique half island close to downtown, with MBTA accessable. This is very rare area that is isolated from the world, yet very quickly you can get to work and all the city excitements in downtown. Need me to say more?
4.South Boston
This is the new uprise area beneift mostly from the seaport development. With all the new office buildings coming up, south boston suddenly become hub right next to downtown. What i can see is south boston will eventually become like soho area in NYC. |
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Guest
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2017 3:43 pm GMT Post subject: |
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Please don't confuse urban schools with "bad schools".
Just because city schools service a disproportionately large minority
and immigrant population doesn't mean the schools aren't good, or that
a good education isn't available.
Boston Latin is arguable the best school in the state (public or private). |
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Guest
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| Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2017 5:16 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| Guest wrote: | Please don't confuse urban schools with "bad schools".
Just because city schools service a disproportionately large minority
and immigrant population doesn't mean the schools aren't good, or that
a good education isn't available.
Boston Latin is arguable the best school in the state (public or private). |
Boston Latin would be the worst example to use. Its an exam school, only the best and brightest can pass so therefore it 'automatically' becomes a good school no matter what the minority population.. it also encompasses the entire Boston .. big wide wide of diversity |
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Guest
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2017 5:33 pm GMT Post subject: |
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I said a good education is AVAILABLE.
If you have a smart kid, he'll get in. |
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Tony Boston
Joined: 12 Dec 2018
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2018 12:10 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| Richthofen wrote: | | Basically, we saved for 10 years. |
| Quote: | | I didn't lose any during the downturn that I didn't later gain back. |
What a good example of personal financial management. Looking back I see I've made some mistakes and today do not have any savings. |
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guest1
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 6:56 pm GMT Post subject: |
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The problem isn't being able to afford monthly payments. The problem is the greater leveraged risk. The higher the mortgage, the higher likelihood it may financially ruin you if you are underwater. A 20% correction on $300k you can brush off, a 20% correction on $1.5 million, you can't easily cover.
Furthermore, you will need ever higher earners to make any profit from a $1.5 million home. At a certain point, incomes at the very top are limited. Everyone clusters around the bell curve.
Boston's high housing costs are a problem for sure. I can't imagine my own kids being able to afford a house here. They are not slackers, they have good college degrees and work very hard. It's sad. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Fri Jul 19, 2019 4:45 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| Anonymous wrote: | | As always, personal expenses make or break these calculations. I have household income over $260K, no way would I go for a $1M house. That's insane. But then, I also have a kid in daycare ($2000/month) and I'll probably have a 2nd kid in daycare in less than 2 years. And don't forget retirement investing, $18,500/year to max out one 401(k). I just bought an $800K house with $340K down. |
Yeah, this is pretty personal. You need to figure out what you want to tolerate for debt-to-income. You can assume your income will go up over time if you like, but I advise against it. The bank will gladly lend you much more than you should accept 
In our case, we used just a single income to decide on our housing spend, we now make more than twice that (north of 400k). As tempting as it is to scale-up based on this extra income, neither of us are comfortable taking on that additional risk, so we'll pretend we're still poor kids and stay put.
Meanwhile, I know my neighbors don't think that way, and as such are far closer to the line, and that's driving condo prices crazy. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Fri Jul 19, 2019 5:28 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| Anonymous wrote: | | Quote: |
And Arlington is a mere 10 miles from downtown! |
I have nothing to against Arlington, and I do agree there are so many towns with good public school systems around MA, and the home prices there are at least 30% less than those popular first tier rich towns.
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... and make sure you pick a place you're OK with staying in for 10 years at whatever price you are at. In my opinion that makes Arlington nice, since you have a great deal of commute options, and it's family friendly (and getting more so with the new HS).
Arlington prices are deceptive though. They are quite high on a square footage/quality basis. Especially true for East Arlington (where I live). You don't get a lot for that 1M really. If you can even find a single, they'll go over ask, and need work. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Sat Jul 20, 2019 10:08 am GMT Post subject: |
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| guest1 wrote: | The problem isn't being able to afford monthly payments. The problem is the greater leveraged risk. The higher the mortgage, the higher likelihood it may financially ruin you if you are underwater. A 20% correction on $300k you can brush off, a 20% correction on $1.5 million, you can't easily cover.
Furthermore, you will need ever higher earners to make any profit from a $1.5 million home. At a certain point, incomes at the very top are limited. Everyone clusters around the bell curve.
Boston's high housing costs are a problem for sure. I can't imagine my own kids being able to afford a house here. They are not slackers, they have good college degrees and work very hard. It's sad. |
I don't think you understand the difference between someone who buys a 300k house and someone who buys a 1.5 million house. The 300k house buyer lives from paycheck to paycheck and has a net worth of less than 30k. The 1.5 million dollar house buyer makes at least 400k per year and has a net worth of at least 1 million. Who is in a better position to survive the next downturn and not lose their house?
It's easier to walk away from a 300k house with 10k down FHA loan. No one will walk away from a 1.5 million house with 300k down jumbo loan.
In the Boston area, most buyers are in the top third of the bell curve. The bottom two thirds are renters because they can't afford to buy. Most people are renters. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 2:25 am GMT Post subject: |
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| Anonymous wrote: | | guest1 wrote: | The problem isn't being able to afford monthly payments. The problem is the greater leveraged risk. The higher the mortgage, the higher likelihood it may financially ruin you if you are underwater. A 20% correction on $300k you can brush off, a 20% correction on $1.5 million, you can't easily cover.
Furthermore, you will need ever higher earners to make any profit from a $1.5 million home. At a certain point, incomes at the very top are limited. Everyone clusters around the bell curve.
Boston's high housing costs are a problem for sure. I can't imagine my own kids being able to afford a house here. They are not slackers, they have good college degrees and work very hard. It's sad. |
I don't think you understand the difference between someone who buys a 300k house and someone who buys a 1.5 million house. The 300k house buyer lives from paycheck to paycheck and has a net worth of less than 30k. The 1.5 million dollar house buyer makes at least 400k per year and has a net worth of at least 1 million. Who is in a better position to survive the next downturn and not lose their house?
It's easier to walk away from a 300k house with 10k down FHA loan. No one will walk away from a 1.5 million house with 300k down jumbo loan.
In the Boston area, most buyers are in the top third of the bell curve. The bottom two thirds are renters because they can't afford to buy. Most people are renters. |
This is why in the last downturn 10 years ago, the upper middle class towns
didn't get hit with forvlosures. The working class towns had a lot of
forclosures and short sales |
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