Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings • Hacker News Board

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#31

Post by beastman82 » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 9:45 PM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #21

steveBK123 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

more supply = more competition, no?

I have never seen more supply of apartments make existing rents go down. I had a friend's rent go up 25% in one year in an area that has seen a huge amount of apartment buildings go up. That's not rational. The companies that own these apartment buildings care about nothing more than more money and know that they'll be able to find someone to pay the exhorbant prices.

Supply and demand is the oldest, most obvious economic relationship in existence.

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#32

Post by vkou » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 9:45 PM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #21

steveBK123 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

more supply = more competition, no?

I have never seen more supply of apartments make existing rents go down. I had a friend's rent go up 25% in one year in an area that has seen a huge amount of apartment buildings go up. That's not rational. The companies that own these apartment buildings care about nothing more than more money and know that they'll be able to find someone to pay the exhorbant prices.

Prices in his area went up, because of gentrification, but it relaxed demand in other parts of the city.

Even if prices in other parts went up, they would have gone up even more if there had been no construction.

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#33

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 9:45 PM UTC

beastman82 wrote: post #25

tiedieconderoga wrote: post #18

It's a fine idea if good candidates for conversion can be found, but shouldn't they fix up their dilapidated public transit system before inviting more density into their urban core? Just today, one of their rail cars caught fire at an elevated station, and their broken fire suppression system did nothing but flood the ground floor when the firefighters tried to use it. Wu's push for more housing density along the ci…

These are not mutually exclusive

[deleted]

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#34

Post by steveBK123 » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 9:46 PM UTC

hardwaregeek wrote: post #27

mlyle wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is necessary because many office floorplans are huge with modern HVAC and when converted into residential you end up with either undesirable or illegal apartments due to lack of windows/egress/etc. Couldn't you just wall off the middle? I mean, you do get another set of windows on the inner courtyard, but it seems expensive to perform such major surgery on a building.

But you effectively get another set of apartments that have interior windows. Sure they’re not gonna have a great view but they’re still rentable apartments

Depending on what you do with the interior, they can actually be great apartments. Much quieter than street facing, put a nice little courtyard in the center.. etc.

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#35

Post by fasthands9 » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 9:46 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #28

tiedieconderoga wrote: post #18

It's a fine idea if good candidates for conversion can be found, but shouldn't they fix up their dilapidated public transit system before inviting more density into their urban core? Just today, one of their rail cars caught fire at an elevated station, and their broken fire suppression system did nothing but flood the ground floor when the firefighters tried to use it. Wu's push for more housing density along the ci…

If you're going to hold solving the housing crisis hostage to having proper public transit infrastructure, we're never going to solve the housing crisis.

Yeah. I realize there are tax breaks in her bill but in theory getting more people living in these dense areas will raise ridership on the subway a lot and raise taxes as a whole - which would pay for things like repairs which the OP complains about.

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#36

Post by steveBK123 » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 9:46 PM UTC

mlyle wrote: post #14

steveBK123 wrote: post #7

There was a cool OddLots episode recently where they talked to a guy who does Office to Residential work and some of the complexity. One thing he talked about, which I didn't know anyone did, was to actually cut through the ceiling/floorplate of buildings to basically "donut" them. This is necessary because many office floorplans are huge with modern HVAC and when converted into residential you end up with either und…

> This is necessary because many office floorplans are huge with modern HVAC and when converted into residential you end up with either undesirable or illegal apartments due to lack of windows/egress/etc. Couldn't you just wall off the middle? I mean, you do get another set of windows on the inner courtyard, but it seems expensive to perform such major surgery on a building.

Depending on local laws.. windowless apartments are illegal. windowless bedrooms are illegal. etc.

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#37

Post by tapoxi » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 9:47 PM UTC

tiedieconderoga wrote: post #18

It's a fine idea if good candidates for conversion can be found, but shouldn't they fix up their dilapidated public transit system before inviting more density into their urban core? Just today, one of their rail cars caught fire at an elevated station, and their broken fire suppression system did nothing but flood the ground floor when the firefighters tried to use it. Wu's push for more housing density along the ci…

Boston isn't in charge of the MBTA, the state is, and the MBTA is mostly in a poor state because it was saddled with debt from the Big Dig.

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#38

Post by thrill » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 9:47 PM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #21

steveBK123 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

more supply = more competition, no?

I have never seen more supply of apartments make existing rents go down. I had a friend's rent go up 25% in one year in an area that has seen a huge amount of apartment buildings go up. That's not rational. The companies that own these apartment buildings care about nothing more than more money and know that they'll be able to find someone to pay the exhorbant prices.

"know that they'll be able to find someone to pay"

So, you're saying the demand remains greater than the supply?

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#39

Post by favorited » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 9:48 PM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #21

steveBK123 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

more supply = more competition, no?

I have never seen more supply of apartments make existing rents go down. I had a friend's rent go up 25% in one year in an area that has seen a huge amount of apartment buildings go up. That's not rational. The companies that own these apartment buildings care about nothing more than more money and know that they'll be able to find someone to pay the exhorbant prices.

Your rent is only going to go down if you move. Your landlord knows you're willing to pay the current rate, they're not incentivized to lower it.

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#40

Post by fasthands9 » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 9:49 PM UTC

mlyle wrote: post #17

mholm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this as good as I'm imagining? Almost feels like any office developer would be looking at their offices and thinking about it, even if they're currently rented.

Property taxes are a big expense, but not as big as the debt on the construction costs. And you end up with massive additional construction costs for fewer square feet to lease. So you only can do this if your bank decides to agree to take a haircut... which only happens if the bank is convinced you have no other options. Reducing the property tax provides a sweetener that you and the bank can share to make it slight…

I could imagine edge scenarios (not sure how common) where office buildings that happen to have residential friendly layouts do this first. Perhaps if that happened it would both raise demand for non-residential space (more people living nearby) and lower supply of commercial prop avail.