Rich students are a primary driver of the increase in the cost of housing in Boston

Do we really think 20 year olds without jobs should be living in ultra luxury apartments?

There’s a rarely talked about aspect of the rental market issue in Boston that I feel needs to be addressed. By no means is this the only driver nor probably the primary one, but it is still a part that should be discussed. I am not basing this on a study so I do not have a source, but that is simply because such a study does not exist. This article is basically meant as a hypothesis calling for a study. Let me also say I think the lack of new housing is a much larger issue than this and is much more important to address.

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I’m recently divorced. As such, I didn’t feel like buying a place immediately. So, as a person of means, I rented the nicest place I could find which was in an ultra luxury apartment building in Cambridge.

The prices were shocking. Even for the Boston area these were out of control. And what you got for the price was very little. One building (not mine but the same price range) has a 1br, 598sqf, for $4,015 a month. Want a 2br? That 1,084 soft will cost you $6,580 per month.

But, I was willing to pay the prices because I had lived in San Francisco so long they still didn’t seem so much to me.

So I moved in and quickly noticed the strangest thing. Almost all of the residents of the building were in their 20s. Even more, they were students without jobs.

Over time, I’ve observed the entire building of incredibly high end apartments is full to the brim of undergrad and graduate students from their early 20s to their early 30s, without a job, paying outrageous amounts of rent.

Furthermore, the building feels like one giant dorm. Every time you take the elevator, at least one person gets on not to go to the lobby, but another floor, frequently dressed in Pajamas or other relaxed clothing. And the number of very obvious “rides of shame” I have seen has been hilarious. And the nightly, loud parties are out of control! Every floor seems to have at least one. Despite being a luxury building, when I walk my dog in the morning, the elevator frequently has trash, condom wrappers, and other such detritus in it.

Now, as a hard working 39 year old who has to work very hard to earn money to afford such luxury, it boggles my mind that young students are living in such a place without even having a job. When I was their age, I lived in the rattiest, cheapest apartments I could since I was working near minimum wage jobs.

There appear to be two types of students. For sure, there are a lot of international students. My understanding is that little financial aid is given to these students so in general, they come from very wealthy families. So that at least explains how they can afford it.

My only other guess with the remaining students is that they too come from wealth or are sharing an apartment, although even sharing is expensive and having been in some of these student’s units, so far I have yet to meet one with a roommate.

So as far as I can tell, this building is filled with students whose rent is paid for with their parents’ money. Similarly, I’ve visited friends in neighboring buildings and it’s exactly the same story. Dozens of buildings filled to the brim with outrageously privileged young men and women living the epitome of luxury that most Bostonians could only dream of.......all off of their parents money.

And here’s why it’s a problem.

First of all, the very fact that they are able to afford such expensive housing drives up prices. That’s an easy one.

Second, these kids are what is called “price inelastic.” Since they are not the ones paying, they do not care what the price is. They just want the “best” place they can get. I have heard them talking in the elevator. It’s all about which building you live in and they all have rankings about which is “the highest status”. Even a girl I dated who was a student at Sloan when I was looking at apartments tried to steer me to “which is the right building where all the popular people live.” Although it was so outrageously expensive I didn’t even look twice.

But the fact these kids don’t have any part of payment means they are not sensitive to price and care much more about, like I said, being in the “cool” building. Which means these buildings can basically charge as much as they want which not only drives up their prices, but drives up all the prices of surrounding properties and all of Boston as a whole.

According to Boston.gov, there are 150,000 college students in Boston. Now, how many can afford to live in these buildings? I don’t know but it’s enough that every one of these buildings are essentially giant dorms. I am 39 and only know one person older than me in the entire building. And they’re moving asap because they cannot stand the culture.

Most of these buildings were of the very few projects to make it through Boston’s insane red tape around building new construction and instead of going to hard working residents, these units are going to students paying with their parents’ money.

Ultra wealthy students are a significant driver of Boston’s rent issues yet it’s almost never discussed. I’m not quite sure what the solution should be but one should be that student loans cannot be used to pay for housing above a certain price as I’m sure a lot of these students are here on loans which then subsidize their ability to purchase otherwise unaffordable housing.

We need to at least start a discussion about why places like Kendall Square is overridden with students living in luxury housing that your average Bostonian could only dream of while most Bostonians are increasingly having trouble finding any affordable housing at all.