You Got Into College, Now Here’s A $1M Condo
Congrats on getting into Harvard. The keys to your million-dollar townhouse are in the envelope.
Congrats on getting into Harvard. The keys to your million-dollar townhouse are in the envelope.
A growing number of parents are buying condos in Boston and across the country for their college-student kids, a new nationwide survey by Coldwell Banker finds. In fact, 40 percent of agents have reported seeing an increase in the past two years.
While parents from China and other Asian countries are taking the lead in buying college crash pads for their kids, affluent parents across the Boston area and the country are also snatching up prime real estate for their university-bound children as well.
And for some parents, only the very best will do for their budding scholars.
Ed Feijo of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Cambridge recalled a million-dollar deal last year involving parents of a Harvard student.
The parents, both Newton doctors, snapped up a 2,000 square foot, completely renovated townhouse in Harvard Square, complete with its own garage, for just over a million, for their Harvard-bound son.
“They liked the convenience aspect – they wanted their kids to be in close proximity to where they are going to school,’’ Feijo said.
Feijo estimated that as many as one of ten buyers in Cambridge are parents hunting for condos or townhomes for their children, some of whom aren’t even out of high school yet.
He noted running into one eager father, who, having just completed a tour of Harvard with his 14-year-old daughter, proceeded to tour a million-dollar townhouse in anticipation of her eventual admission at the university.
Other parents are buying for their kids on a budget, looking for something safe and convenient, rather spectacular.
Coldwell Banker’s Rich Hornblower just sold a one-bedroom condo in Brighton to parents from the New York area, who bought the 747-square-foot unit for their daughter attending graduate school.
“I wish my parents had done that when I went to BU,’’ Hornblower said enviously.
Certainly parental anxiety may be helping fuel the trend. A large swath of Boston homes are run-down, overcrowded and poorly maintained student rentals.
But financial considerations and temptations are also pushing some parents to buy.
Rents in Boston have been on a tear – it could cost as much, if not more, to rent a two-bedroom apartment for $2,200 a month than to simply buy a condo given rock-bottom interest rates, Hornblower calculated.
Some parents also see an opportunity to make an investment that could help shave a few dollars off their tuition bills.
The average Boston condo price has jumped more than 71 percent since 2000, hitting $752,000 by the end of last year, reported Otis & Ahearn, a downtown Boston condo marketing, brokerage, and research firm.
Parents who buy for their kids can look forward to selling their Boston condos three or four years down the road and making a tidy profit, Hornblower noted.
He pointed to a Brookline condo near Boston University snapped up by parents for $310,000 a few years ago that was recently resold for $390,000.
Or if they choose not to sell, they can still make money by renting the unit out, a lucrative prospect given the rents have been rising right alongside condo prices.
But in some cases, the parents aren’t just buying for the kids – they are planning to move in themselves after their children have graduated from college and moved on.
That’s the case with the couple who bought the million-dollar-plus townhome in Harvard Square. While for the moment it is some of the most expensive college housing in Cambridge, a few years from now it will be their dream urban retirement home, Feijo said.
“Once they decide to retire, they want to move close to the city and Cambridge seems like the best spot,’’ he said.
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