BOSTON—Investment has been intense in the multifamily arena in Greater Boston for some time. However, a recent phenomenon in the city is the lack of new condominium product and a sense that some developers may be mulling converting their projects from rental to condo.
Daniel J. Bailey III, director of the law firm Rackemann, Sawyer & Brewster in Boston, tells Globest.com that another trend taking place in Boston seems to indicate that the supply of luxury apartment units in the city is starting to catch up with demand.
Bailey will be the moderator of a “Boston's Multifamily Focus” panel discussion at RealShare Boston 2015 being held on Wednesday, July 22 at the Omni Parker House in Boston. The half-day event, which is expected to attract approximately 250 attendees, will also feature presentations from industry leaders and panel discussions on the outlook on investment and finance in Greater Boston and the Biotech Real Estate Boom in the region.
He shared that recently the other members of the upcoming RealShare Boston multifamily panel held a “kick-around session” to go over possible areas to be discussed at the event. “I think the consensus is that certainly the luxury apartment market in Boston itself is showing signs of saturation,” Bailey says.
Some of the new developments that are coming on-line are beginning to offer free rent to attract tenants, he adds. “A couple of the brokers and the lenders were saying—they see it before the attorneys do—is that the hot market or the market that is attracting the most attention now is more the (rental apartment development) close to Boston suburbs on a train line that makes it easier to get into the city—the nicer suburbs where you can get the entitlements for multifamily.”
In the for-sale sector, Bailey says he and the other panelists agree, “The condo market is insane because there is no inventory,” Bailey says. “There is a fair amount in the pipeline, but it is still a year away from delivery.”
One of the topics Bailey expects to explore with the other panelists at RealShare is the lack of workforce housing in the city and Mayor Martin Walsh's plan to add 50,000 new housing units in the city by 2030.
Participating along with Bailey in the Boston's Multifamily Focus panel will be: Simon Butler, vice chairman/partner, CBRE; Andrew Chaban, CEO, Princeton Properties; Paul Donahue, senior vice president, Bellwether Enterprise, Andrew Gnazzo, managing director, Walker & Dunlop and Tim Thompson, sales manager, Boston, Marcus & Millichap.
Further information, including registration and sponsorship opportunities, can be found at RealShare Boston 2015. The event begins at 7:30 a.m. with registration and a networking breakfast and concludes at 12:30 p.m.
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