phantom tollbooths in Davis Sq. ...

[an-art-worker.livejournal.com]

apropos of nothing and not a serious proposal but I was thinking about sales taxes last night, the discussion of tolls on 93 south and something to do with all the border violence going on in the world these days. Suddenly I had this image of tollbooths/checkpoints on the roads entering Davis Sq. Weird but interesting to speculate on.

The growth in popularity of the sq. has brought higher rents and housing prices, higher prices in stores and bars and general gentrification. The city of Somerville and the property owners benefit but the residents don't. Would be interesting to have a toll that went to offset the costs of gentrification to people who actually live here.

Comments

Re: You can't eat market value!

[komos.livejournal.com]

Curious. I was under the impression that real estate was the most stable investment by far. I also find it hard to believe that a house will drop half of its value in the course of a few months - which my 401k did immediately following 9/11. It's since stabilized, to be sure, but it did certainly raise an eyebrow.

Re: You can't eat market value!

[turil.livejournal.com]

Real Estate is pretty stable, but the bubble that caused the skyrocketing values in the past decade here was an anomoly. If you buy low and sell high, then you're good.

And I'm sorry to hear about your 401K! I know nothing about such fancy things, and just assumed that they were stable investments like my own retirement fund (with a fixed interest rate).

Re: You can't eat market value!

[komos.livejournal.com]

Generally speaking, real estate values may slow and possibly stagnate, but it's rare that they will outright decline without some significant triggering event.

Re: You can't eat market value!

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

The stock market goes up at a fairly steady 10% a year when looked at over a long enough time span, but is susceptible to enormous fluctuations over a period of a few years, particularly if you're aggressively invested. This makes it a fine way to invest for retirement when it's still several decades away, but you need to shift to less stock markety things, or at least much more conservative stocks, as retirement nears. Some people found this out the really hard way during the dotcom bust.

Re: You can't eat market value!

[rmd.livejournal.com]

for most people, "owning" real estate actually means "owning a small piece of it and then paying the bank over 30 years for the rest of it"

real estate doesn't have to drop by half to screw you up. it just has to drop by enough that those folks who have loans outstanding on properties can't pay off the loan with the money they'd make selling the house.

if you can't afford to keep it and you can't afford to sell it... what do you do?

Re: You can't eat market value!

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

rmd (unsurprisingly) nails it on the head.

Re: You can't eat market value!

[komos.livejournal.com]

Which would be great, except that the scenario described doesn't apply at all to yours. The value of your properties has gone up, not down, and you've indicated that you don't want to sell, not that you can't.

Re: You can't eat market value!

[artic-monkeys.livejournal.com]

you rent out half of it. And then pay for the other half yourself. With the hopes of restoring it back to a single family one day. Unfortunately that would mean less rentals.