It’s a balmy fall day in Dorchester, and a few blocks from the Fields Corner T stop, a crowd of people streams into a three-story house.
From the sidewalk, it’s clear that 15 Draper Street is a big-time fixer-upper: it has peeling paint, a visible hole in one porch, and ominously creaky stairs. But the price is a major draw: $559,000 for a three-family home, at a moment when similar properties routinely list for $800,000 or more.
"There’s a lot to be fixed in there, but the price is good," a woman says after leaving the property's open house. "I think it’s something people can work at it and fix. It looks fine."
She doesn't want to share her name, but she says she’s a medical assistant who currently rents in Dorchester and that finding a home she can afford to buy has been a struggle.
"For me right now, it’s been three months already," the woman says. "It could take a year, so I don’t know yet. It’s kind of tough right now in Boston. Really tough. The price is really up."
To break into the housing market, she's hoping to do what countless Bostonians have done before — buy a multi-family home, live in one of the units, and rent out the rest to make money and cover her costs. But if she sets her heart on this particular property, she may be disappointed.
"I’d say, 98 percent this is going to be won by an investor," says Sandeep Aroroa, who's sizing up 15 Draper as an investment property.
Arora says that listing the home at a strikingly low price is a marketing strategy, aimed at sparking a bidding war between cash buyers who won’t haggle with the seller.
"People don’t want to deal with the headache after the fact," he explains. "The offer is accepted and [buyers] will come out, 'Oh, by the way, this is unsafe, that is unsafe, we want to get [the house] de-leaded.' No."
"When you have such kind of a low price, investors will put all cash. They’ll just say 'as is,'" he says. If you are competing against cash offers with no contingencies, he continues, and "you put 40 percent down, you have no chance of getting the property."
And as Arora tells it, the Dorchester housing market is likely to keep getting hotter.
"Even two years ago, this place you could get it easily for $350,000, maybe $400,000.... The way things are changing here, people are saying maybe Amazon might come. It's still a neighborhood that’s affordable and gives you positive cash flow. That’s why a lot of investors are coming to the Dorchester area."
As those investors drive up prices in Dorchester and across Boston, the two mayoral candidates are proposing contrasting fixes. Mayor Marty Walsh is stressing the need to maximize supply: he wants to build 53,000 new units by 2030, which he says will reduce pressure on the city's existing housing stock and stabilize rents. Walsh has also beefed up the city's Inclusionary Development Policy, which forces developers to build and fund affordable housing.
Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson, who's challenging Walsh, says the city's current policies don't go far enough. He says that, if elected, he'd require that 25 percent of units in larger new developments are set aside for affordable housing. Jackson also says that the city's affordability standard needs to be shifted to focus on lower-income rather than middle-income residents. A Jackson administration, he adds, would also embrace rent control and a new housing voucher program for lower-income Bostonians.
As that debate unfolds, the investors currently flocking to Dorchester seem to be shutting out would-be home buyers of modest means. Vienna Rothberg has what she calls a good job in higher education. Right now, she’s living with her sister nearby. After touring 15 Draper Street, she sounds dispirited.
"It looks like it’s not owner-occupied," Rothberg says. "There are a lot of things that are instructive about what not to do."
She adds that she's been looking for a home in Boston for about two years.
"It’s hard, because we’re competing with people who have a lot of money and absolutely no interest in the neighborhood," Rothberg says. "They come in, they spend a lot of money on the house, they leave.
"I could buy a really junky place and work on it — I’m handy — but I’m not expecting to buy something beautiful ever," Rothberg says. "I’m expecting to make it beautiful."
There's another side to this story. For longtime residents, Dorchester’s newfound desirability is a financial boon. Case in point: Vienna Rothberg’s sister, Sierra, who paid about $270,000 for her single-family home back in the early 2000’s.
"When we bought our house, people said, 'You’re crazy to buy it for that amount,' and that was 15 years ago," she says. "As far as I know, I’m pretty sure it near double what we bought [it for]. It’s definitely appreciated."
According to realtor Craig Galvin — who’s from Dorchester, and is a listing agent for 15 Draper — heightened demand has brought other benefits, too.
"For the longest time here in Dorchester, we complained that we haven’t had the businesses here to service the people that live here," Galvin says. "Now Dorchester has a ton of good, cool, homey, neighborhood-feeling restaurants. Now what will come is the stores and supermarkets.
"That’s the greatest turnaround I’ve seen in Dorchester, is that people want to be here, and people that aren’t here are jealous of the people that live here."
That's a feeling that could intensify as people who’d like to call Dorchester home discover that they can’t.
