In greater Boston, the rent is too damn high, and it’s only heading higher. The Globe splashes today with news that rents in and around Boston have hit another record high. Rents in the city have jumped 7 percent over the past year, to an average of $1,881. Inside I-495, rents are averaging just under […]
Housing
Posted inEconomy, Health Care, Opinion
Pairing social services with housing saves money, improves lives
It is a rare and precious thing in government when “doing good deeds” coincides with sound fiscal responsibility and actually saves money. Just in the last few weeks Beacon Hill legislators unanimously approved and Gov. Deval Patrick signed a bill that will help the Commonwealth’s most vulnerable populations meet their housing needs and avoid moving […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
What’s up with the sales tax?
Sales tax receipts normally behave like you’d expect them to: They rise when the economy is expanding, and fall when unemployment spikes. Data from across the country show that, historically, sales taxes track the business cycle closely. Over the past decade, though, the Massachusetts sales tax became decoupled from the state’s economy. Some revenue has […]
Posted inEconomy, The Back Story
Essex official wants to sue over mortgage mess
(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1”; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’)); John O’Brien is a national folk hero to anti-foreclosure activists. The Southern Essex Register of Deeds has garnered national attention by accusing big banks of acting like a “criminal […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics, The Download
Going ‘Freddie’ in Florida
The Republican presidential primary entered a new and brutal phase when it rolled into Florida yesterday, with Mitt Romney going sharply negative on the suddenly re-resurgent Newt Gingrich. Romney is trying hard to link Gingrich to Florida’s depressed housing market via Freddie Mac, the bailed-out mortgage company that paid Gingrich $1.7 million to act as […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
Coakley’s foreclosure gamble
We’ll know as soon as this week whether Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley was right to walk away from a national foreclosure settlement, or whether that decision will leave Bay State homeowners out in the cold. The Wall Street Journal reported today that HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and Iowa AG Tom Miller hope to complete […]
Posted inEconomy, Education, Politics, The Download
From American Dream to “American Scream”
“Occupy” protesters with tents pitched in city parks and loud marches in scores of US cities have been beating a drum figuratively — and sometimes literally — about the economic angst Americans are feeling at a time when those at the very top are doing better than ever. Long before anyone descended on Zuccotti Park […]
Posted inEconomy, Education, Health Care
97.4
the bay state economy expanded by more than 10 percent last decade—8 percent growth on a per capita basis after accounting for inflation. It’s not the Massachusetts Miracle, but given that we were nearing the peak of the tech boom in 2000, and in 2010 we were barely emerging from an even bigger bust, these […]
Posted inEconomy
Out of reach
Jeffrey Goldstein lived the American Dream growing up. His father joined the postwar exodus from the city, and got his own piece of land out in the suburbs. Like many families in the postwar real estate boom, Goldstein’s father was the first in his family to own a piece of the rock. For Goldstein’s father’s […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
40B debate, cont’d
Voters settled the latest battle over the state’s affordable housing law last November when they soundly rejected a ballot question that would have repealed the 42-year-old statute known as Chapter 40B. But the debate over the law apparently never ends. In the summer issue of ArchitectureBoston, which is devoted to all things government-related, Chris Walsh […]