Property taxes in Boston continue to decrease, with a 2009 tax rate of $10.69 per $1,000 of assessed value, down from last year’s $10.97 per $1,000 of assessed value. Assessed values appear to be staying steady, which equates to a decrease in an absolute sense for taxes paid by downtown Boston homeowners. Additionally, residents who maintain their Boston home as their primary residence qualify for a residential exemption, lowering tax bills by as much as $1,500+ per year. For an up to date example of how to calculate taxes for your condo, as well as a historical look at tax rates in Boston, visit our newly updated Boston property taxes article.
Boston Condo Blog Gets Upgrade
October 16, 2008 By
We’re excited to announce that the Boston Condo Blog received a significant upgrade recently. We added a host of new features and content types on top of a clean and easy to navigate homepage. After listening to a lot of reader feedback, we attempted to incorporate as many of your suggestions as possible in an effort to make daily visits to the Boston Condo Blog more enjoyable and information rich.
In revamping the site, we focused much of our attention in the following areas.
Look and Feel – The redesigned homepage represents a single portal where you can quickly scan all the activity on the Boston Condo Blog. The homepage brings all of our featured stories, videos, blog posts, user comments, and information pages into a central place. A quick glance over the page should catch you up on the latest headlines in the Boston real estate market, and allow you to easily dive deeper into what interests you.
Navigation – We attempted to consolidate navigation across the site so that it takes you less clicks to get to what you actually want to see, and inherently, absorb a greater breadth of information because it’s more intuitive and less time consuming to move around. For instance, in the right-hand sidebar, we’ve added a user friendly feature that gives you one click access to the most popular posts, our latest stories, user comments, tags, and a subscribe (both via rss and now email as well) button – all of these are available without reloading or being taken to a new webpage.
Featured Articles – A centerpiece for the new site are three featured articles that rotate through a flash-based viewer accompanied by a photo and a story excerpt. Our featured articles aim to provide deeper content than some of our traditional blog posts, leverage exclusive photos, and attempt to provide a unique angle on Boston real estate stories. In the future, you might even see prominent and recognized voices in the real estate community contributing articles into this area of the site.
Advertising – The Boston Condo Blog has grown significantly in popularity over the past year, mostly because of the deep and rich exclusive content and photos that we provide to daily readers. We’ve gone out and built a portfolio of advertisers, and will continue to do so, encompassing what we think is appropriate, reputable, and complementary to the Boston Condo Blog and what our readers have come to expect. We’re excited to see this area of the site grow, and we think it will be a good fit for both readers and advertisers.
Professional Photography – In a constant effort to raise the bar in providing solid content to our readers, we’ve partnered with Aaron Leclerc, a professional photographer based in New England, to provide professional photography for our featured articles and blog posts. By bringing Aaron into the fold, we’ve energized some of our stories with unparalleled photography, and look forward to further contributions of exclusive high-quality photos from Aaron.
Video – Moving forward, you’ll see more and more video here on the site – we now have a dedicated category for it, and a homepage viewer for the most recent clips. The homepage viewer will, again, lessen the number of clickthroughs that a reader has to make to get to content that interests them. Our Boston condo videos will give viewers a different look at Boston real estate, one that oftentimes cannot be captured in still photography, regardless of how good it is. Video will be a fun and innovative way to see more of the real estate market in Boston.
The changes are somewhat all encompassing across the site, and represent a significant step towards a more sophisticated and informative (more than simply a blog) Boston real estate destination on the Internet. We thank you for the continued readership of the Boston Condo Blog, and we’ll continue to listen to reader feedback in an effort to make this site the premier Boston real estate related website.
Rose Kennedy Greenway Inaugural Celebration
October 3, 2008 By
From our friends at Onein3 Boston comes an announcement of the inauguration event at the Rose Kennedy Greenway this weekend, Saturday, October 4th, 2008 from 11:00 am to 8:30 pm. 50,000+ people are anticipated to attend this free celebration along the new mile-long park.
Over 100 different shows, exhibits and program partners providing entertainment throughout the day – a four story ferris wheel, musical acts, public art displays, dance troupes, and more. Fun for all ages.
Take the T to either North or South Station and go from there. For more information visit either of the following sites:
- www.hellogreenway.org
- www.rosekennedygreenway.org
Free Audissey Guides Public Garden iPod Tour
October 2, 2008 By
Audissey Guides, a locally owned and operated self-guided MP3 audio walking tour company, has recently released a free iPod tour of Boston’s historic Public Garden. The new tour features 18 separate sections that will take you through the entire Public Garden.
You can download the free audio tour directly to your PC in a zip file, or download it straightaway into you iTunes. Audissey Guides has also made tours of Fort Point Channel and the Harborwalk available free of charge – see their homepage for more details.
Download the free Audissey Guides Boston Public Garden iPod Tour
Art Show at 1850 South End
September 18, 2008 By
The 1850 will host an Open Studios Art Show this weekend, part of a yearly tradition that draws over 15,000 art enthusiasts and local spectators alike to the South End art scene. This year, as part of a continued focus on art and architecture, the 1850 Lofts South End development is converting 6 residences to art studios for the weekend.
- What: The Art Show at The 1850 for Open Studios Weekend
- Where: The 1850 Lofts, 90 Wareham Street, Boston, MA 02118
- When: Saturday and Sunday, September 20th & 21st, 11am-6pm
- Who: Eight artists will showcase their work in six loft spaces.
Refreshments and appetizers will be available. As well, while viewing the art, there will be an open house at the development on Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM for the remaining for sale condos in the building, with units starting at $365K.
Boston Ranked as Adventure Town
September 3, 2008 By
Quite often, MSN puts together various real estate related reviews of cities across the country, and their latest put Boston at the head of the class for the top 12 next great adventure towns and America’s most walkable big cities.
Boston ranked 11 out of 12 in the next great adventure towns in America survey, where MSN says just a few years ago, Bostonians were knee-deep in the $15 billion construction chaos that was the Big Dig. But these days, the new Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway has made the inner-city waterfront more accessible (and appealing) than ever, with a 15-acre strip of parks designed for everything from yoga to concerts.
Interesting to note that last year the Environmental Protection Agency gave the Charles River a B++, good enough to do the once unthinkable: backstroke alongside the scullers.
Boston ranks third on MSN’s list of most walkable US big cities, behind San Francisco and New York. One of the comments that we hear most often from clients, especially those from out of town, is how easy it is to walk across Boston.
Boston, Massachusetts real estate professionals on ActiveRain.com
Boston Real Estate Under $100K
June 19, 2008 By
As we’ve discussed before, one of the easiest ways to get into the downtown Boston real estate game is to purchase a deeded parking space – Boston real estate under $100K. Three have been multiple new deeded (i.e. you would own the space) Boston parking spaces that have hit the market over the past several weeks. For more details, use the contact us link at the top of this page.
- 1 Nassau Street (The Metropolitan) – Chinatown. Price: $35,000 ($95 HOA).
- 2 Rollins Street (Rollins Square) – South End. Price: $45,000 ($50 HOA).
- 44 Prince Street (44 Prince Street) – North End. Price: $100,000 ($50 HOA).
- 425 Newbury Street (Somerset Garage) – Back Bay. Price: $89,000 ($0 HOA).
Cheruiyot Wins 3rd Straight Boston Marathon
April 21, 2008 By
Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya won his fourth, and third straight, Boston Marathon today with an unofficial time of 2:07:46. This year’s marathon was quite different from last year in only one aspect, the weather. Last year’s 2007 Boston Marathon risked cancellation due to extreme cold / snow / rain conditions, while the 2008 running enjoyed sunny skies and temperatures in the low 50s.
Rare Boston Albert A. Pope Building Condos Available
April 16, 2008 By
One of the most sought after buildings in the northern part of the South End is the Albert A. Pope Building, a 25-unit boutique luxury development with the high-end Mistral Bistro on its ground floor – some refer to this development as the Mistral Condos.
As of this week, there are now two units available in the building, including one corner unit with multiple exposures. Unit 603 is a 1,508 square foot two-bedroom two-bathroom listed at $1,049,000 ($695 per square foot), while the multiple exposure unit 404, is a 1,873 square foot two-bedroom two-bathroom listed at $1,350,000 ($720 per square foot). Both units include one deeded garage parking space.
Readers recently inquired whether the Clarendon Back Bay would eventually block the view of the Hancock Tower from the Pope building, and by the looks of the below picture of the Clarendon job site taking from the Pope Building, the answer to that question is, yes – eye level views will be blocked, but you will obviously still see the Hancock Tower in the background above the 33 story Clarendon.
Former Boston Hard Rock to be Office Space
March 18, 2008 By
The former Boston Hard Rock Restaurant that once sat at 131 Clarendon Street was purchased in conjunction with the new adjacent condo development called the Clarendon Back Bay, and will be converted into Class A commercial real estate.
To us, the building looked like a potential fit for a boutique condo development, but it will go down a different path. There will be no connection between the Clarendon condo development and the soon to be commercial property.
The Boston hard Rock Restaurant has since moved to the Faneuil Hall area at 22-24 Clinton Street after 17 years in the Back Bay.
Keith Munsell 
