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A Publication of The Warren Group SAFETY FIRST
Inadequate Protection NAR Survey Finds Majority Of Agents Don’t Take Proper Safety Precautions BY JIM MORRISON BANKER & TRADESMAN STAFF
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hile real estate sales can be an exciting, even glamorous job, it can also be dangerous. An agent is often alone in an empty house with prospective buyers; sometimes those houses are isolated or remote. And yet if last year’s NAR member safety report is an accurate summary of the industry, very few agents are taking basic precautions to protect themselves. “I want people to be proactive, not paranoid,” said Realtor Safety Training Expert Tracey Hawkins, of Kansas City, Missouri. “I tell them, ‘Your job description is to meet strangers in empty houses.’ I teach them how to avoid dangerous situations and how to get out of them if they can. My goal is to give agents the tools they need to stay safe in realistic situation.” The 2016 National Association of Realtors (NAR) member safety report, based on a survey of 58,077 Realtors with 3,091 responses, found 39 percent of Realtors experienced a situation where they feared for their personal safety or the safety of their Continued on Page 8 MIDYEAR OUTLOOK
Cambridge Domino Effect Benefits Boston Spurs Tech Migration To Downtown BY STEVE ADAMS BANKER & TRADESMAN STAFF
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rish drugmaker Shire Plc’s continuing expansion in Kendall Square is the latest confirmation of Cambridge’s desirability among the life science crowd looking to set up shop in a supercluster of industry peers. As Cambridge bursts at the seams, the implications are just as big for Boston’s commercial real estate market. Creative and tech companies squeezed by East Cambridge’s shrinking options and rents approaching $80 per square foot have crossed the river and revitalized the comparatively affordable class B office market in neighborhoods like Fort Point and Continued on Page 9
COMMERCIAL INTERESTS
CALL TO ACTION ON HOUSING REFORM Advocates Testify That Local Zoning Burdens Working Families
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BY SCOTT VAN VOORHIS BANKER & TRADESMAN COLUMNIST
eport after report from our region’s top housing experts have pointed to the indisputable connection between the dearth of new construction and Greater Boston’s ever higher home, condominium and apartment prices. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh is pushing ahead with ambitious plans to create tens of thousands of new condos, homes SCOTT VAN VOORHIS and apartments, while Gov. Charlie Baker has been selling off surplus state land for new housing. Yet the interim report card is in and it’s not all that encouraging. The fact is all these efforts to spur new residential construction and lift Greater Boston and Massachusetts as a whole out of its self-inflicted housing crisis appears to have barely moved the needle. Consider the testimony recently delivered at the State House by a top
executive of one of the Bay State’s top developers of affordable housing. Eliza Datta is regional vice president of The Community Builders, a nonprofit developer that has preserved or built more than 12,000 below-market units over the past 50 years. In appearance before the Joint Committee on Housing, Datta spoke on behalf of a bevy of long-stalled bills aimed at trying to cut through the tangled web of local zoning rules in suburbs and towns across the state that often effectively bar all housing except for McMansions. And Datta offered some sobering reflections on where we stand right now when it comes to coming to grips with our now decades-long housing crisis. Massachusetts ranked a low 41 out of 50 states – 50 being dead last – in adding new housing from 2010 to 2013, she noted, citing Census figures. The total supply of housing in the state – new condos, homes and apartments minus those converted to other uses or torn down – grew by just 5,300 units during the same peContinued on Page 3
A Decade Of Underbuilding Yields Overpriced Homes
2007 | $345,000 2008 | $305,000 2009 | $285,000 2010 | $295,000 2011 | $285,000 2012 | $290,000 2013 | $322,875 2014 | $331,825 2015 | $340,000 2016 | $345,000 2017 | $347,000 Median prices are for single-family homes; 2017 year to date through May Source: The Warren Group
CONTENTS
By The Numbers ������������������������������������������������������� 6
Commercial & Industrial ���������������������������������������� 10
Opinion ��������������������������������������������������������������������� 4
Banking & Lending ��������������������������������������������������� 7
Classifieds ������������������������������������������������������������� 12
In Person ������������������������������������������������������������������ 5
Residential ��������������������������������������������������������������� 8
Records Section ������������������������������������������������������ B1