Can a condo auction save Longwood Towers?
I’ve always had a love for old homes and old buildings.
Growing up in Massachusetts, with history all around, I thought everybody shared that passion.
Of course, the last four decades have disabused me of those notions.
Sure, some people like old homes, but many more prefer to skip the hassle and jump right into new construction. That’s why it carries a premium.
All of which brings me to the Globe's story on the pending auction April 4 of 40 units at Longwood Towers in Brookline, next door to the hospitals and labs of the Longwood Medical Area.
Let’s just say the partially revamped, 1920s apartment complex faces some pretty serious challenges.
First there’s the sales history, or lack thereof. Even if all 40 units slated to go on sale at the auction are spoken for, that’s still leaves more than half of the 249 units in the complex sitting unsold.
Then there’s the seemingly never ending renovation project. I remember a round of work back in the late 1990s when the big national apartment company that owned Longwood was looking to spiff the place up and boost rents.
An owner or two later, that morphed into a plan to convert the complex into luxury condos. An Atlanta company bought Longwood for $103 million in 2005, only to run out of money part way through a $30 million upgrade.
Not good.
The new owners by default of the Tudor-style complex are taking a page from a playbook that has worked pretty well during the early, milder days of the current recession – the pre September crash days.
By holding mass auctions, a couple downtown luxury projects were able to clear out a big block of unsold units.
Granted the developers took a hit, having to offer relatively bargain prices, but they likely wound up losing less money than if they had held on months or years more, fruitlessly trying to sell their units in a declining market.
However, last condo auction at a major project in our area was back in 2006 on Broad Street in downtown Boston,
So the upcoming auction at Brookline’s Longwood Towers represents a test drive of sorts for the auction concept in this new, and much grimmer, market.
After all, with a flood of foreclosed units on the market, and more to come, why take part in such an auction? While some units will have minimum bids of nearly 60 percent below their initial listing prices, $199,000 for a studio still sounds pricey.
Of course, it’s also a bit of a referendum on new construction versus old construction. A lot of the new luxury stuff downtown is brand spanking new.
By contrast, the Longwood was of the first luxury complexes in New England when it was built in the 1920s.
But while that may appeal to history buffs like me, I’m not sure that’s the ticket for attracting buyers in today’s high-end condo market.
I guess we’ll just have to wait for the auction next month to see.
