Real Estate Search Blog

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal explores the growing trend of parents buying property in college towns for their son or daughter to live in while attending school. In today’s real estate market, a mortgage for a single-family home in Boston can be cheaper than the cost to rent an apartment or to live in a dorm. The Boston Globe even noted that housing prices continue to fall while “renters feel no relief” – rents remain the same or increase. At public and private universities nationwide, room and board has increased 5% since last year, averaging $7404 per school year for public universities and $8595 for private. With many families struggling to pay rising college fees, a change in housing options can provide huge relief on monthly expenses.

A search through Boston real estate listings pulls up a three-bedroom, one bath condominium on Grant Street in Boston. Close to the UMass Boston campus, this listing would be ideal for a student and a few roommates. A monthly mortgage payment could cost under $2000. To compare the benefit of owning a home to renting an apartment, parents could use Google Maps’ rental search feature to browse apartments listed around UMass Boston. It can cost anywhere between $1500 and $1800 for a 2-bedroom rental, or between $750 and $900 to rent one of the bedrooms. By purchasing a condominium, parents could rent out the two other rooms and cover part of the mortgage each month. The cost to house their son or daughter would be less than the area’s average monthly rent. The parents would be saving money in the short term. Thinking more long-term, a college town has a recession-proof demand for apartment rentals. After graduation, the family could continue renting out the property to college students or to a family.

Buying property in Boston offers relief for families struggling to keep their student in college. The short-term advantages are just as valuable as the long-term benefits.

Not everyone who buys Boston real estate does so to live in the property. For some, the potential of getting that income from what the right Boston rentals can bring is the goal. That said, you will need to do some bookkeeping and keeping your financial records straight is a necessity.

Property and Tenant Records For Those Boston Homes

There are some solid recommendations that you need to follow and the first has to do with organization. For each of the properties that you rent out, it’s advisable to keep two sets of documents for each rental property that you own. If the place is a Boston condo, the experts suggest that you keep three sets. They should be divided as follows.

1. Information that is related to the purchase of the property. This would include the offer to purchase and the deeds to the property. As well, you’ll need to keep the records for all the things that have been bought for the place like carpets and furniture.
2. Information relating to the tenants. This would include their application forms and references, as well as notes about any telephone conversations that you’ve had with them.

When the tenants finally move out, you need to keep the documents that are related to them for about a year and keep all the information on the Boston real estate that you’ve rented in a fireproof place for safe keeping.

From time to time, professionals are going to find themselves transferred to a new location – at least for a certain period of time. If you find yourself in that situation and you are going to be relocating to Boston, shouldn’t you be able to get a sense of what type of rental properties are going to be available?

Those who are looking for the chance to focus on finding a Boston condo to rent – as well as those who are looking for affordable Boston real estate to buy in the event that they keep coming back to the area – are going to want to make sure that they are in a position to get the information that they need. They’re going to want to make sure that they are able to do more to learn more about the communities in Boston like Allston, the South End, Brookline, Brighton, Mission Hill, the Back Bay and the Fens, the North End and Beacon Hill.

The more that you are able to learn about the different parts of the city in which rental real estate is available, the easier a time that you will have finding a Boston area home to call your own – if only for a short time.