Boston

Live, Work and Play: Where to Maximize Take-Home Pay and Job Opportunities

Where we live has an enormous influence on how we balance the competing demands of living, working and playing. We all (well, most of us) need to work, and communities with stronger labor markets widen our options. We all need a place to live, too, but housing is more costly in some places than in others. And our capacity for play comes out of everything left over from the fruits of our labor after taxes and housing costs – the price we pay to live in a civilized society.

Aaron Terrazas • Mar 16 2017

Savings on Auto-Pilot: How Much Less Could Driverless Car Commuting Cost?

Thanks to ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft, the cost of getting a door-to-door ride of a few miles today is less expensive than ever. And looking ahead, switching to a driverless system could eliminate roughly two-thirds of the current cost of a typical Uber ride (even using very conservative assumptions) – helping pave the way for a dramatic re-imagining of public transit planning and affordable community development.

Alexander Casey • Mar 08 2017

Local Opportunities: Finding Relatively Affordable Housing, Even in Largely Unaffordable Markets

Some of the metros with the best job prospects are also the ones with the least affordable housing, making it difficult for new residents – especially renters – to get a toehold in the housing market. But even within these very expensive metros, pockets of relative affordability do exist at a city level, offering some hope for new residents and would-be job seekers.

Sarah Mikhitarian • Jan 27 2017

December 2016 Market Report: What Could Flattening Rents Mean for 2017?

A months-long streak of accelerating home value growth was met with an equally long stretch of flattening rents to end 2016, a trend with interesting implications for the housing market as a whole as attention turns to the busy 2017 home shopping season to come.

Svenja Gudell • Jan 19 2017

October 2016 Market Report: Change is Coming. Really.

Svenja Gudell • Nov 29 2016

Going Green: Cities with Large Carbon Footprints Are Hot Spots for Eco-Friendly Home Tech

As it turns out, cities with the most homes for sale that advertise eco-friendly amenities – think solar panels, double-paned windows and energy-efficient appliances – are also the cities that need those amenities most, because their carbon footprints tend to be larger.

Svenja Gudell • Nov 15 2016

Q3 2016 Market Report: High Demand Continues to Put Pressure on Home Values

Now three-fourths of the way through 2016, the trends we’ve seen shaping the market throughout much of the year – namely, high demand for homes to buy and low supply of homes for sale, which have conspired to push up prices – look firmly entrenched.

Svenja Gudell • Oct 20 2016