Stop the insanity!

Boston's rental market is richer, tighter, and more out of control than ever. What's the price for the city's neighborhoods?

by Jason Gay

Eddie Colbeth wants out of his apartment. His place is great, but he's tired of his roommates, who he says can be slobs. "One of them can't hit the garbage can, the other can't hit the toilet," Eddie says.

A 35-year-old jewelry designer with a 9-to-5 in high tech, Eddie figured he'd make an attractive roommate candidate. He's mature, reasonably neat, and personable. Even better, he can pay up to $750 a month for a room, more than most of the students, recent grads, and young professionals who perennially flood the Greater Boston rental market in mid-to-late summer.

But after two months of searching, Eddie's still looking. He's answered at least 60 roommate-wanted ads. He's seen some deals and some dumps. He's personally interviewed for 15 potential situations, repeatedly answering the same dumb lifestyle questions -- "What do you like to do for fun?", "What is your standard of cleanliness?" -- without so much as grimacing. But so far he's got nothing.

"It's been exasperating," Eddie says. "It's like prepping for a job interview with a blindfold on. You have no idea what people are looking for."

---

Also, Michelle Chihara hits the pavement
with a Back Bay real-estate broker.

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So tonight, with his options running out, Eddie has come to the "Roommate Rendezvous," a once-a-week mixer at Cambridge's Real Estate Café where people looking for rooms gather with people who have room openings. About 20 people have shown up for tonight's event: the need-a-rooms wear red nametags; the outnumbered need-a-roomies wear blue ones. A few people make quiet chatter. A table's worth of pizza and chips goes largely untouched. If someone threw on "Stairway to Heaven," you'd swear you were at a junior-high-school dance.

Everyone seems to be thinking: Well, it's finally come to this. I'm standing in a real-estate office with a bunch of total strangers, wearing a nametag and praying something good happens. I can't believe it.

Believe it. Eddie is far from alone. Boston's rental and roommate markets are tighter, costlier, and uglier than ever. Finding a place to live has become a high-stakes game of musical chairs, with thousands of people competing for a shrinking pool of available spots. And for those needing homes before September 1, the music's about to stop.

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Looking for affordable housing in this market is a real abhorrent situation. I find the real possibility of this Sunday having no roof over my head, no place to sleep, no way to communicate with other people, nothing. I'm experiencing a lot of terror and despair, a lot of shame and embarrassment.

-- A., Cambridge

We started looking for a two-bedroom in mid July for mid August or September 1. Most of the real-estate agents we called didn't even have two-bedrooms available, never mind in our price range. We were finally taken to a two-bedroom outside of Davis Square for $1300, nothing included. The landlord wanted a complete financial profile before we could even see the place.

-- S., Brighton

I had a girl walk in the other day with her father, from Saudi Arabia. She said she would pay up to $1800 for a one-bedroom if it was within walking distance to BU. If we couldn't find one, she said she would just live in a hotel.

-- Real-estate agent, Boston

Horrible. Repulsive.. Humiliating. Consuming. Expensive. Greedy. Sad. Manipulative. Pathetic. Futile. Paranoid. Hellacious.

Next year's hot neighborhoods Nothing says "booming real-estate market" like the emergence of pseudo-neighborhoods -- goofy names cooked up for local pride that usually do little more than exaggerate prices. New York City, of course, has TriBeCa (Triangle Below Canal), SoHo (South of Houston), and even DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). Now Boston has some pseudo-neighborhoods of its own. In recent months, we've been hearing local tongues rattle off names like -- ewww -- SoWa (South of Washington Street) and SoBo (South Boston). In the interest of beating local real-estate agents to the punch, we've come up with some pseudo-neighborhoods of our own. So go forth and gentrify! NoCaDa Where is it? The North Cambridge area near Davis Square. Extends north and south of Mass Ave between Porter Square and Arlington. What's there? Davis Square and its trendier-than-thou eateries and movie theater, plus the Minuteman Bike Path. Walking distance to Route 2. Rox4Jox Where is it? The Lower Roxbury neighborhood adjacent to Northeastern University's athletic facilities. What's there? A state-of-the-art university gym, a track, fields, and Matthews Arena for hoops and hockey. The MFA and Mass College of Art are nearby, so plenty of nerds to wedgie. Dalíwood Where is it? The region of triple-deckers and two-families surrounding the intersection of Beacon, Kirkland, and Washington Streets on the Cambridge-Somerville border. Home to Boston's most famous Spanish restaurant, Dalí. What's there? Uh, Dalí. And some other good places to eat, like Noodles, Evoo, Panini, and Thai Hut. Close to Harvard and Union Squares. Back Bay West Where is it? The Neighborhood Formerly Known as Kenmore Square. What's there? Once home to discos and a methadone clinic, it's now a cozy collegiate enclave with a Barnes & Noble, luxury apartments, and, coming soon, a BU hotel. Easy access to Green Line, baseball, fistfights. New Hampshire Where is it? The stretch of Hampshire Street in Cambridge near the Kendall Square Cinema. Recently renovated. What's there? Good movies, fine dining, a few places to play pool, and an excellent secondhand clothing store (the Garment District). Just steps from mysterious Kendall firms synthesizing cutting-edge biohazards.

Just a few of the pleasant adjectives used to describe Boston's rental market, circa 1999. The traditional August-to-September rush is about to close, and available stats and anecdotal reports suggest that this has been one of the harshest rental- and roommate-finding seasons in the city's history. Few neighborhoods have been spared from skyrocketing rents and swarms of anxious hopefuls looking for places. And almost every part of the city is experiencing an exodus of renters who have been priced out of their homes.

"The good thing is that people are looking at all the neighborhoods in Boston right now, from Dorchester to East Boston; from South Boston to Allston-Brighton," says Tom Philbin, spokesman for Boston's Department of Neighborhood Development. "The problem is that we may be losing not only low-income people, but moderate-income people who simply cannot afford to pay rent. And that's never a good thing."

High rents are the most obvious factor in today's rental sweepstakes. According to the Department of Neighborhood Development, which monitors home sales and rental prices in daily newspapers, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Boston is now $1450 -- 75 percent higher than in 1995, when the average rent was $825. This continues an eight-year trend in which rents have increased annually in virtually every Boston neighborhood. The city's current vacancy rate is between one and two percent, putting it in the company of San Francisco and New York City.

"It isn't what it used to be," says Robert Thomas, a 23-year-old hip-hop artist and Jamaica Plain native who's looking for a place come September 1. "Everything has gone up. And unless you know someone, you're probably not going to get a deal."

The same conditions apply to Boston's neighboring cities -- comparable rent increases have occurred in Cambridge, Somerville, Medford, and Brookline, among others. And several other troubling trends have emerged:

Rents are up everywhere, but the biggest jumps are occurring in places where, until recently, prices had been generally stable and affordable. Some of Boston's neighborhoods have always been expensive, but this year nearly every part of the region has seen prices and demand increase. For example, city data through the first quarter of this year show that while rents in the Back Bay/Beacon Hill neighborhood rose three percent between 1998 and 1999, rents in Jamaica Plain leapt more than 25 percent, from $950 for a two-bedroom in 1998 to $1200 in 1999. Dramatic jumps have also occurred in South Boston (up 20 percent, from $1000 to $1200) and Dorchester (up 15 percent, from $825 to $950).

Rising rents have led to a shortage of available units.With prices so high, tenants who would otherwise move are opting to stay. Others are choosing to buy, and some landlords are converting rental properties to condominiums. These developments have created an unprecedented bottleneck. The flood of September listings that usually hits Boston just didn't materialize this year. On the first Sunday in August 1998, there were 400 Back Bay/Beacon Hill apartments listed in the Boston Globe classifieds. This year at that time, there were 158 listings, a drop-off of more than 60 percent.

Students, too, are feeling the pain.Traditionally, students have been blamed for many of the city's rental-housing woes. But as young professionals continue to move into the city, they are taking over some of the neighborhoods historically occupied by undergrads, forcing the students out. One example is Allston-Brighton, which has been dominated by BU and BC students for eons but is now home to a growing number of diploma holders. "Students either have to ante up or move further away from the university," says Craig Mack, BU's director of off-campus housing.

The roommate à gogo is crazier than ever.To save money, many choose to live with roommates, but those hunting for roommate situations say the competition is extraordinarily fierce. This summer, it's not uncommon for more than 50 people to inquire after a single room, and for potential roommates to try to outbid each other. The proliferation of roommate-finding services (particularly on the Internet) can be helpful, but it can also be confusing, as dozens of entrepreneurs look to make a score. Says Al Norton, general manager of Matching Roommates in Brookline: "Five years ago, when I told people I worked in the roommate business, they said, 'What a good idea.' But now, they've heard not only of us, but of a lot of other [companies] and the Internet."

The end is not nigh.Some tenants are practically praying for an economic recession, believing it will stabilize out-of-control prices, tilt the market back toward the renter, and even bring some rents down. But some experts believe the current situation is tied to factors other than the economy and could be recession-proof. Worse, new zoning bylaws and density-phobic neighborhood organizations could make the construction of much-needed affordable housing a long shot.

This last development is especially daunting. When the economy is soaring, a tight real-estate market is often seen as a tic of prosperity. This view is often accompanied by the belief that when the economy takes a downturn, everything will become calm again. This certainly has been true in the past -- Boston real estate was white-hot in the mid-to-late '80s, too, but slowed to a crawl during the recession of the early 1990s.

But times have changed. More people want to live in the city, and something has to give. Maybe it's you.

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I place classified ads [for a newspaper], and a woman called and asked if $1000 was "enough" to rent one bedroom in a three-bedroom apartment in Brookline . . . She justified her asking price by [talking about] supply and demand and free market. I couldn't believe $1000 for a room. There are plenty of other people who call in and say one price, ask if it's too high, and then raise it. They all try to get as much from people as possible.

-- A., Cambridge

Last May, I went to a realtor near Teele Square [Somerville] with two potential female roommates. The realtor showed us a third-floor place right near Teele for June 1. Nice place; we liked it. My roommate stays behind to meet her boyfriend so he can see the place; roommate #2 and I go back to fill out applications. Roommate #1 is waiting outside potential apartment building; second-floor residents start catcalling and whistling at her from their balcony. She comes back to the realty office, expresses her concern, and the agent says, "They're a family. Don't worry; you know how teenage boys are." We express greater concern, and she calls the owner of the building to find out the family's deal. Turns out we were about to rent a place above a two-floor private home for wayward boys.

-- C., Somerville

Renting always had its drawbacks, of course. It's unpredictable. You can overpay. If something goes wrong, you must rely on a landlord to fix it, which can yield dubious results. Your roommates can turn out to be psychotic. There are reasons, after all, why people buy.

But why has renting an apartment in Boston morphed from a mildly aggravating experience into a Blair Witch-esque nightmare? If you just saw the rent on your two-bedroom in JP spike from $950 to $1200, or if you've spent the better part of August driving around with a real-estate agent who makes Linda Tripp look like a trustworthy confidante, what or who do you blame?

Tips for smarter hunting by Ben Geman The three fastest ways to part with money in Boston: burn it, use it as confetti, or move to a new apartment. If you're relocating, you're probably going to have to pay more than you'd like -- but there are some ways to lessen the burden. Here are a few. Abandon the T -- sort of On those icy winter days, the last thing you'll want to do is hoof it a mile to get to the train. But the earth will heat up again, and those days will get fewer and further between. Keep that in mind when looking for a new pad. Why? Because apartments considered "off" the train lines can be good bargains, and if you can tolerate some chilly walks in January and February, you may save a little cash. Look for an affordable place in Harvard Square and you're hosed. But look for one in, say, Lower Allston -- across the river and only a mile away -- and you may be in luck. At worst, you're facing a bus ride to the T. Isn't that better than subsisting on peanut butter and jelly for the foreseeable future? Don't be wishy-washy with realtors A lot of people desperate to rent in the city eventually do find a place they can afford. They just adjust their definition of "afford" to the point where life's little frills -- entertainment, health insurance, food -- tend to fall by the wayside. One way to ensure you'll overpay is to walk into a realtor's office without a firm price in mind. On the other hand, here's what might happen if you're firm -- and lucky. You (anxiety-ridden yet hopeful): My buddies and I are looking for a three-bedroom place. We want to spend $1600 or less. Are those lollipops for customers? Realtor (eyeing prey): I don't think we have anything that cheap. We have this nice one, second floor of a triple-decker, hardwood floors, for $1850, and another a bit farther from the train for $1700, and . . . You (strapping on the resolve): No, we talked about it and we really can't go higher than $1600. Even at that price, we're all skipping lunch until March. Realtor: Hmm, let me check the book. (Note: this is realtor code for "they're not kidding about the price.") Okay, we do have one listing that just came in for $1600. Use those research skills The newspaper real-estate section has two kinds of listings: ads from realtors, who will require you to pay a fee, and ads from owners, which cut out the middleman. The first kind of ad will be marked with an "R.E." It's the other kind that you want to look for. And a good place to find those near-mythical owners-without-realtors is through smaller community papers with classified sections. Also, don't forget to visit your target neighborhood and tour laundromats, coffee shops, and telephone poles in search of homemade roommate ads. The Harvest Cooperative Supermarket, with locations in Cambridge and Jamaica Plain, also displays fliers. If you see a building you like, it doesn't hurt to call the management company directly. The name and number are usually posted on the outside of the building, or in the lobby. Even if companies normally rely on realtors to rent out their apartments, some will rent to tenants directly. Finally, local colleges and universities have housing offices for students, replete with listings that may not appear elsewhere. If you're daring, sneak in using a friend's expired ID, or just act confident when you stroll past whatever lookout is posted. Be an entrepreneur Let's say you've made some progress in your hunt. You find an apartment owned by a nice person asking just a bit more than you can afford. You may be able to talk down the price by offering to help out here and there. Paint a shabby room -- or, if the landlord lives on the premises, promise to walk the dog on occasion. Maybe even volunteer to bust out the rake in the fall and the shovel in the winter. If that doesn't work, put up a few signs offering a reward for anyone who can find you an apartment within your range. A bounty of, say, $200 offered up-front is a lot less than you'll pay in realtor's fees. Move in with Mom and/or Dad Odds are they're still fond of you.

There's no single answer. Sure -- much of it's the economy, stupid. With unemployment low and the Dow charging upward at a record clip, there are a lot of people with a lot of money out there. Many of them don't blink twice at plunking down 20 Benjamins a month for a two-bedroom -- and not just in the Beacon Hills, West Cambridges, and Brookline Villages of the world. The cash is flowing in places such as Mission Hill, East Cambridge, and Somerville, too. Places that were once considered bargains -- South Boston, Lower Roxbury -- are no longer necessarily so. "South Boston is already gone -- that's an expensive neighborhood now," says Robert Einhorn, a veteran Boston real-estate agent.

There are other factors. The home-buying market is hot, too, and more long-time homeowners are selling their properties or converting them to condominiums, which takes more rental units off the market. And, of course, Boston and Cambridge continue to feel the aftershocks of rent control's end in 1994, when thousands of previously below-market-value units saw a "correction" in prices.

But Boston's current rental madness isn't just about money, and it isn't just about losing rent control. It's also about lifestyle. Over the past few years, there has been a genuine resurgence of public interest in city living. The city has played a large role in this recovery, taking steps to improve its public safety and its infrastructure, and even trying to rehabilitate its butt-awful public schools. It did some old-fashioned recruiting of its own: a little more than two years ago, Mayor Tom Menino's office launched an aggressive television advertising campaign with the slogan "Boston: It's all here," designed to lure suburbanites back to urban climes.

And they are coming back. More and more outsiders are thinking of the city as an attractive place not just to visit, but also to live. Recently married couples who might have fled to the doldrums of the Route 128 beltway are now arriving in force in neighborhoods such as JP, Brighton, and South Boston.

"People are now back for a second look," says Boston Department of Neighborhood Development spokesman Philbin.

Some neighborhoods have become phenomena unto themselves. Take Somerville's Davis Square. Four years ago, Davis -- a region encircled by Porter Square, North Cambridge, and the campus of Tufts University -- was a generally affordable neighborhood for working-class families, elderly people, grad students, and artists. Residential property was a hodgepodge of classic Victorians, apartment buildings, and triple-deckers in various states of repair. The downtown was interesting, with a good second-run movie theater, a few cool bars, and some decent places to eat. It was a nice place to live, but it was Somerville -- often derided as "Slummerville" -- and rents were cheap. If you paid more than $500 a month for a room, you were getting snookered.

But these days, Davis Square has buzz. There's been an influx of younger professionals, couples with children, and post-rent-control refugees from bordering Cambridge, who are drawn by the neighborhood's funky charms, cheaper rents, and Red Line access. Those Victorian homes and triple-deckers are being remodeled by the dozen, and the downtown now has three independent coffee shops, a recently expanded froufrou restaurant, and a soon-to-be Starbucks. It's hyped in national magazines as a hip place to be, and almost nobody says "Slummerville" anymore. In fact, mention the fact that you live in Somerville these days, and you're more likely to be met with a giddy "Ooooooh . . . I love Davis Square!"

And everyone's looking to catch the wave. Landlords are charging (and getting) $2500 for three-bedroom apartments. Real-estate agents have redefined "walking distance to Davis Square" as any property from Alewife to Melrose. The buzz has crept to Porter and Union Squares as well. And people who would have collapsed in fear if they found themselves in Somerville five years ago are now tripping over each other for the chance to do so. "People call and say, 'Do you have anything in Davis or Porter? I would really love to live there.' They all want that neighborhood," says Al Norton of Matching Roommates.

But there's always a disconnect between the people who first make a neighborhood desirable and the people who later want to live there. That becomes clear when you're sucking on a $3 latte in Davis and looking at laser-printed posters advertising $650-a-month rooms. It's evident when people who moved into South Boston in 1997 are already telling you the neighborhood "ain't what it used to be." New people and new money don't just quietly settle in a neighborhood. They change it.

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I live in a three-family house in Teele Square. Each apartment has two bedrooms, large kitchen, living room, dining room, small pantry, small bathroom, and small spare room that's too small to be legally considered a bedroom, although many tenants have used the spare room as a third bedroom. Up until about 1980, rent for any of the units was about $500. Until 1985, each apartment was occupied by a family with children. By 1989, the last family had moved out and the childless had taken over; rent immediately jumped to $750. Right after rent control was abolished, everyone seemed to want to move to Somerville and rent increased to $900; in 1998 (right after the Utne Reader foolishly named Davis Square a hip place to be) two units went vacant around the same time and both were quickly filled for $1200 a month -- though given the number of people who responded to each ad, I think the landlord could easily have charged $1500 per apartment and still found good tenants. Today, the house that was home for 11 kids, five parents, and one grandparent just 15 years ago is home to a lesbian couple, two male roommates, and a single displaced New Yorker.

-- S., Somerville

One of the things I like about Cambridge is the small-town-ness of it and the mom-and-pop-shop-ness of it. Ironically, I want a Home Depot close to my house because you can find everything you want there and you can find a place to park.

-- a new Cambridge resident, a 32-year-old computer consultant, as quoted by the Cambridge Chronicle

There's no question that, in many respects, the revitalization of Boston's neighborhoods and surrounding cities is a positive development. Few urban areas around the country wouldn't love to have a real-estate and rental market like Boston's.

But what's the price of popularity? In the short term, it can be measured in dollars -- a studio that cost $750 a month in 1997 now goes for $1150, and so on. The long-term effect is more permanent. As new people move in, old people move out, which can change everything from a neighborhood's property values and businesses to its political priorities. A recent issue of the Cambridge Chronicle quoted a 25-year-old newcomer (who had just bought a $170,000 condo with her husband) complaining about the city's homeless population. "When you're taking people around, it's embarrassing," she griped.

Even well-intentioned new residents can drive out the very things that originally drew them to a neighborhood -- namely, diversity and affordability. Consider Cambridge's Central Square, a hotbed of home sales and business development. "A new breed of Cantabrigian is moving in and displacing the types of Cantabrigians who lent the city a lot of its character -- its mishmash of political beliefs, ethnicities, languages, everything," says State Representative Jarrett Barrios, whose district spans the east end of Harvard Square on through Central Square and MIT. "The city is less diverse, less varied, and in some ways less interesting than it was five years ago."

Not everything new is bad, of course. Knee-jerk complaining about yuppies and the G-word -- gentrification -- is tiresome. Neighborhoods shouldn't wallow in crime and neglect for the sake of preserving low rents and a coolness factor. And it's important to note that many of Boston's best neighborhood success stories (such as the improvements to the Blue Hill Avenue business district, sponsored in part by the city's Main Streets program) weren't just the byproduct of a better economy, but the result of hard work by people who grew up there.

The key, of course, is to allow as many people as possible to share in a neighborhood's reclamation. And this is an area where Boston and its neighboring cities are still lacking. There simply aren't enough affordable living places around here these days -- and sometimes the opposition to creating more comes from the very neighborhoods that are in need. For his part, Barrios says that a city's legitimate interest in controlling growth and density often conflicts with its obvious need for affordable housing.

"We have a personality disorder when it comes to housing," says James O'Reilly of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board. "Everyone laments the lack of housing, but no one wants to support the construction of new housing."

Efforts are under way to change this. Cambridge now requires new housing developments larger than 10 units to set aside 10 percent of the units for affordable housing -- not a solution, but a start. Universities such as BC, BU, and MIT are building large-scale dormitories to take students out of residential neighborhoods (BU's new Twin Monsters on the Charles will provide 819 beds). Boston mayor Thomas Menino has pledged to expand both low- and middle-income affordable housing, but his efforts have been stymied by diminishing state and federal funding.

Philbin, the Department of Neighborhood Development spokesman, acknowledges that without outside support, the city is hamstrung. "We have to think creatively with the [state and federal] money that we do get, and get the private sector involved," he says.

In the meantime, the city rental market is turning into a land of the haves and the have-nots. If you're already safe and secure in your own place, chances are that the crunch isn't the biggest of issues for you. Maybe you still have a wicked deal. You're still shacked up in the same Harvard Square two-bedroom you've been in for years, paying $500 a month. You don't know what it's like out there.

It's rough.

And that leads us back to Eddie Colbeth. Tonight at the Real Estate Café, Eddie meets a woman who tells him she is looking for someone to fill a room in a group house in Arlington.

And it's not just a house. It's a mansion estate on Spy Pond owned by a world-traveling eccentric who insists that the property be rented to creative people at below-market rents. The room that is available is 12 by 16 feet, with wood floors and a working fireplace. The rent is $425 a month.

You could slap Eddie upside the head. It sounds too good to be true. He exchanges phone numbers with the woman at the Café, and a couple of days later he goes to see the place, meets the potential roommates, and guess what -- they like Eddie! He does the deal. On September 1, he becomes a resident of Arlington.

But Eddie hasn't forgotten his brothers and sisters on the front lines of the rental war. As he writes in an e-mail explaining his good fortune: "Maybe someone else who feels trampled on and burned out will get some hope from this."

Maybe.

Jason Gay can be reached at jgay[a]phx.com.

Christine Hopkins provided research for this article.