Searching for a home in Boston can be a daunting task if you live abroad. Mondoboston.com exists to help introduce international buyers to Boston and the home buying process. Use our site to find out more about the logistics of house buying in the United States. Catch up on neighborhood news, surf our links to other Boston real estate websites, and check out our featured house listings. Our neighborhood descriptions can help give you a feel for each downtown neighborhood, and our picks can help you find the best places to find the important stuff in life… like a loaf of crusty bread or a decent wedge of cheese. Ultimately, should you decide you need a realtor, we can even help you find a professional who can work with you in your search for a place to call home.

As usual, the restaurant scene in the South End is changing, just as predictably as the seasons. One of the big changes is a new Stephanie’s restaurant taking over the former Tremont Street space of the popular, reasonably-priced Garden of Eden restaurant. A lot of South Enders aren’t thrilled by the change. The Stephanie’s currently located at 190 Newbury Street in the Back Bay is quite a bit more expensive than the old Garden of Eden restaurant, which was always a nice won’t-break-the-bank option for brunch and lunch.

In addition, a new restaurant called Circle is opening up in the space formerly occupied by Bob’s Southern Bistro, at 604 Columbus Avenue. Word on the street is that Circle will have a menu focused on contemporary French cuisine. Quite a change from the soul food that was once served at this location. With dinner menus priced between $20 and $35, the restaurant seems to follow the continued gentrification of the South End restaurant scene, even into the territory beyond Massachusetts Avenue.  (The owner of the old Bob’s restaurant, by the way, opened up a new enterprise in the South End last year called The Beehive, a combination of bar, restaurant and live music club located in the Cyclorama building at 541 Tremont Street.)

Finally, Thai Village, another Tremont Street restaurant has closed its doors. The restaurant was frequented by South Enders looking for good, cheap alternatives to the House of Siam, the South End’s other Thai restaurant. No word yet on what will replace Thai Village, but if the other changes in the South End are any indication, any new restaurant is likely to be more expensive than the one it is replacing.  

It’s been a while now that parents have been investing in small condos for children attending a local university in lieu of paying ever-higher dorm costs. But last week, The New York Times noted another phenomenon: more parents are buying second homes in towns where their kids are attending college. And this time, they are doing it for themselves.

According to the Times, “many want front-row seats to watch their family athletes perform. Some seek a gathering place for football games or family holidays. Others long for a retreat that is also a possible place to retire with the amenities of a college town — and why not the one where they have children attending?”

“Our brokers told us story after story about this happening,” said David Siroty, a corporate spokesman for Coldwell Banker Real Estate in the Times article. “Parents buy a place to visit when their son or daughter is in school, and then they become a part of the town, they have friends there, they love the vibe of a college town — the culture, arts, sports.”

An interesting question for Boston — where a record number of international students will be attending Boston University this fall —  is whether this phenomenon might also include the parents of foreign students attending area colleges.

According to realtors, parents are more likely to invest in real estate in a town with very high hotel room rates, or where it is notoriously difficult to find rooms during certain times of the years. On the other hand, it is unlikely that the parents of foreign students would consider a second home for retirement purposes, or as a place to gather during family holidays. It is more likely that such buyers would buy a second home to serve as a city pied-a-terre, or as an investment property once their kids are out of school.

Keeping that in mind, it’s a fair guess that parents of foreign students might also be considering doing the same thing. Stay tuned for updates.

We’ve written before about Boston’s great potential as a hardcore biking town. The city is compact, and although there are a few big hills, there aren’t too many steep slopes that can’t be avoided. Yes, it’s true that Boston’s cold weather makes biking impractical (or at least very, very cold) through several months of the year. But on the other hand, there are many other months where hopping on a bike to go to work or run a few errands is entirely preferable to sitting in traffic on jammed roadways, or fighting for a seat on the T. And if you live downtown in central Boston, so much the better for biking.

So that’s what makes the latest news so great: last week, Mayor Thomas Menino held a press conference to annouce the opening of new bike lanes around Boston. The new lanes run down Commonwealth Avenue between Kenmore Square and the Boston University Bridge, down Ruggles Street near Northeastern University, down Perkins Street in Jamaica Plain, and around the South Bay Shopping Center in Dorchester. In additon, the city is installing 250 new bike racks around town to offer biking commuters a place to park their wheels. Maybe the best news of all is that the city is considering adopting a bike sharing program like the one that Paris has made a huge success. Washington, D.C. has already started its bike sharing program, so there’s no reason Boston can’t too. The goal of biking advocates is to create a comprehensive network of bike paths that would allow biking commuters a safe, clean commute all the way from Chestnut Hill into downtown Boston. Maybe one day, the city may even consider putting the Green line trains underground and turning the resulting street-level space into a network of bike paths that are safely tucked away from cars. 

Boston University is not the only school to see an increase in foreign students. Across Massachusetts, between 2003 and 2006, the percentage of foreign freshmen in universities grew by an average of 2.6 percent.

Reasons for the increase, according to experts: a weaker dollar and more international recruitment, including more discussion of offering financial aid packages to foreign students. Some of the biggest countries for recruitment are China and India, where a burgeoning middle-class has made finding local colleges and universities much more competitive.

Will the huge increase in foreign students effect the Boston real estate market? It’s likely. Some parents of foreign students may buy “kiddie condos” for their children while they’re attending school — especially as the dollar remains low and housing prices flatten out in many neighborhoods. Some wealthier parents may also decide to buy small apartments for themselves for frequent visits to see the kids, or even, perhaps, to take the jump into buying investment properties. Finally, some students who attend Boston University are likely to stay in town after graduation, inevitably plunking down a little change for local real estate as they filter into jobs in the local high-tech, pharmaceutical and medical sectors.

Are foreign buyers turning away from Boston real estate?

Nationally, according to a report released last week by the National Association of Realtors , that could be the case. For the 12 months ending May 2008, only 26% of 4,000 American real estate agents surveyed across the country had at least one foreign client. In 2007, in a similar survey, the proportion was much higher–32%. In both years, about half of the clients eventually bought a home — usually as a vacation home or investment. Those that didn’t buy, according to agents’ reports, were discouraged by the cost of the property (54%), immigration laws that prevent foreign nationals from living in the United States year-round (27.4%), and property taxes (24.2%).

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a piece on this subject advising sellers who hope to attract foreign buyers to put more thought into pricing homes. The WSJ urges sellers to include more market data in listings, including recent price trends in a zip code and/or rental receipts for a property in the last few years.

 ”Even though many buyers are well off and can pay cash for a home,” writes June Fletcher in the WSJ’s House Talk, “they’re typically not planning to spend a fortune (the median is $297,400). And many plan to rent it out at least for part of the year, due to immigration restrictions. On average, foreigners plan to spend 2.6 months on average at their overseas abodes.”

Here on the local front, housing prices in downtown Boston are indeed high, and they don’t appear to be dropping, either. The latest reports actually show some minimal increases in Boston housing prices in the most recent months.  While there’s no firm data on how many foreigners are buying residential real estate in the city, anecdotally at least, several realtors have told me that a significant percentage of their buyers come from abroad. Many have a local tie of some sort, and many more are attracted by the recent fall of the dollar against other currencies such as the Euro. Compared to many European locales, Boston real estate remains competitive and might even be considered a bargain.

 Boston also has an advantage among foreign buyers because of the importance of the academic and high-tech sectors in the area. Some of the new buyers coming into town have ties to one of the universities, or are perhaps sending children to attend a local college. Others are working in the computer, scientific or medical fields and spend at least part of the year here for that reason. Foreigners who buy in Boston are not generally buying a vacation home.

Given all this, odds are that Boston will continue to attract its particular brand of foreign buyer, even while shakier markets like Phoenix, Florida and Nevada experience decreased interest.

“While the U.S. economy may have already entered into recession, the same cannot be said for Boston. The city is fairing far better than other metro areas and thus far in 2008 remains active. The healthy market fundamentals established in 2007 are mostly unchanged, as positive absorption offsets the arrival of new sublease space. In the second quarter, Boston experienced 166,740 square feet of positive net absorption which helped counteract a negative first quarter, bringing the year-to-date total to a positive 20,942 square feet.  The South Boston Waterfront and the Financial District saw the largest transactions of the quarter.”

Lately, there have been news reports on several other trends in downtown Boston. First, downtown condo sales have been falling because there are not enough large condo projects coming online to meet demand. Second, Boston housing prices have increased, even as the rest of the country experiences sharp declines. According to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, home prices increased 1 percent in May from the previous month, following a 0.1 percent gain in April. These were Boston’s first monthly price increases since July 2007.

 Could a brisk commercial market, a limited condo supply and steady or rising housing prices mean that the downtown market has weathered the housing slump unscathed? Stay tuned.

Read the full Jones Lang La Salle report here.

Kaara, our coffehouse correspondent recently visited a new cafe in the Brookline area. More cookie than coffee, this new cafe is perfect for those who have a sweet-tooth. Here’s her report on: 

 Tatte Pâtisserie and Café

Recently opened in the St. Mary’s neighborhood of Brookline (right after Kenmore Square on the green C-line trolley),  Tatte Pâtisserie and Café is a small location dotted with outdoor tables and chairs. The café specializes in the owner’s handmade cakes and cookies, many made with nuts, such as the funky rectangular “nut boxes,” piled high with pistachios, cashews, and walnuts, and what the bakery calls its “roses.” The American-style coffee and brioche are good, if a little denser than their French cousins. While the Brookline café is its only storefront, Tatte has stands at several local farmers’ markets, such as the Tuesday and Friday market in front of Trinity Church at Copley Square.
Tatte.com
Tatte Pâtisserie and Café, 1003 Beacon Street, Brookline (C-line St. Mary’s stop), (617) 232-2200Hours: Monday—Friday, 7am-8pm; Saturday, 8am-8pm; Sunday, 9am-5pm 

Who hasn’t had the dream of living in a huge open space, with enormous windows, high ceilings, and an open industrial-style kitchen? You would dress in black all the time. Your neighbors would be artists and filmmakers. You would throw lavish parties.

Well, that’s definitely the loft dream but plenty of people are making that dream a reality.

New “loft-style” developments are indulging buyers’ desires to live in a big open space, but with the added twist of private, enclosed bedrooms. Dozens of these “loft-style” buildings have hit the market, especially in Chinatown (Lofts Avana), the South End (285 Columbus Lofts, Art Block, D-4, 700 Harrison, The Penmark), and downtown Boston  (FP3, 210 South Street). There are also plenty of loft-like buildings being built or converted in neighborhoods outside downtown — The Waterworks in Chestnut Hill, the American Brewery Lofts in Jamaica Plain, and the Lofts at 36A Street in South Boston, to name a few. These join dozens of other lofts or “loft-like” projects spread throughout the Boston area, Cambridge, and into the distant suburbs.

But what if you’re in search of something that is not just “loft-like” but actually a loft? Not a modern building built to look like a loft, but an old industrial building that has been turned into a place you could call home?

Well if authenticity is your priority, admittedly, there’s less to choose from, but you’ve still got options. Several projects around Boston are in fact old industrial buildings that have been reconfigured for residential use. The Waterworks in Chestnut Hill, for example, was a steam-powered pumping station for the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. The American Brewery Lofts  was actually an old beer plant, while the Schoolhouse in Lower Mills was of course, an old school, and the Penny Savings Bank formerly a bank. 

However, aside from these individual projects scattered around Boston, if you are in search of an authentic loft in an old industrial building, than you need to look to certain areas of the city: in particular, the Fort Point Area.

Originally a district of warehouses and factories making wool, soap, iron, glass, elevators and beer, the Fort Point district had its heyday in the 1920s. By the 1940s, however, most of the area’s factories relocated outside the city. By the 1970s, hundreds of artists had taken over some of the old abandoned buildings and turned them into studios. With the arrival of the artists, the neighborhood became hip, and ultimately, real estate developers moved in to turn the artists studio lofts into residential lofts for the well-heeled. Because of its history as a warehouse district, Fort Point remains the best place to look for a truly authentic loft with all the trappings.  Some of the most popular buildings in the neighborhood are at 21 Wormwood Street, 35 Channel Center and 33 Sleeper Street.

 Beyond Fort Point, another good place to look is the Leather District in Downtown Boston. Specifically, Atlantic Avenue, Beach Street, Lincoln Street and South Street  offer former industrial and commercial buildings that have been converted into airy lofts. Outside of downtown, look for lofts in Chelsea, Somerville, Lynn and East Boston.

What’s the advantage of an older loft conversion over a new “loft-style” apartment? Style, for one. True lofts don’t have the “cookie-cutter” feel of ”loft-style” apartments. In addition, many loft-style apartments are actually pretty small, and the whole point of a loft is SPACE. There is a downside, however, true lofts, also come with inconveniences — less privacy due to no enclosed bedroom, sometimes acoustical problems due to lack of sound insulation between floors, and sometimes, darkness due to deep layouts. After a few years of living with these problems, some loft-dwellers choose to move back to “loft-style” apartments. Yes, they get windows and wide open spaces, but also a private bedroom, too!

Where to look for lofts:

Boston Lofts
A Boston Loft
Findlay & Co Lofts
Lofts Boston.com

Last week, The Boston Globe reported a 15 percent decline in sales in the downtown condo market.

 But not for the reasons you might think.

Sales didn’t slow for a lack of buyers. Instead, according to the report, sales in downtown real estate slowed simply because there was less out there to buy.

“Currently, there are very few large condo projects with multiple units listed for sale. That’s in sharp contrast to previous years, when dozens of projects were hitting the market, feeding buyers’ demand for full-service buildings with concierges and underground parking,” writes Kim Blanton in the Globe article.

Condo supply peaked in 2006 at about 1,800 condos. Currently, there are 1,250 properties for sale - roughly the same as in June 2007 - in the 12 neighborhoods tracked by the Listing Information Network, which includes the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Charlestown, the North End, and the South End.

Interestingly, sales prices are still on the rise. The average price of a Boston condo surged 8 percent, to $697,837, driven by sales of new, more expensive units with luxury amenities, according to LINK.

If you missed the story, read it here.