Shana Orczyk used to share a drafty 800-square-foot apartment in Boston’s student-friendly Brighton section, splitting $1,400 in rent with a roommate. To get to her job downtown, she hopped on the subway.
These days, the 27-year-old investment analyst is happy to be moving into a place she can call her own — although her decision to buy a $240,000 town house 50 miles southwest of Boston means a longer commute and being farther from the conveniences of urban living.
No, I can’t justify living in Uxbridge, no matter how high home prices get in Boston.
You are insane to live an hour and fifteen minutes away.
Ms. Orczyk says the reasons she moved out there are “the housing prices, the parking, the traffic, the noise”.
Ugh.
If you are going to move that far away, in order to buy, I would suggest somewhere on the commuter rail. I mean, be logical.
An hour and fifteen minutes, and you can be in, what, Plymouth? Worcester? Providence, RI?
The story is pretty good, and covers a lot of ground.
I have to say, however, that no one has ever shown causality between high home prices and demographic shifts. You can’t just say that high home prices led people to move. You just can’t! Prove it.
A report this month by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. found four counties that ring Boston all showed declines in 25- to 34-year-olds from 2000 through 2004, with the sharpest drop — 13.2 percent — in Norfolk County. Statewide, Massachusetts’ 25- to 34-year-old population fell 4.8 percent, while that group grew by 0.5 percent nationwide.
Instead, as I’ve pointed out, the drop in people in that age group was made up almost exclusively by women (at least in Suffolk County, according to US Census Bureau statistics), and, there were other factors at work, including a large increase in the unemployment rate! People moved because they couldn’t find jobs, not because of the high cost of living!
Or, at least that’s my take.
Complete article: High real-estate costs in Boston force young adults far from city – Associated Press, by way of WHDH-TV
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