Unreal estate

Allston-Brighton is a Boston neighborhood that’s a combo blue-collar, college student, and twenty-something enclave. It’s near Boston College and Boston University, and for years those BC and BU students have been driving up the price of renting a flat in a three-decker or in one of the interesting old apartment buildings there, forcing many of those blue-collar families out of their hood and into wherever. It’s my belief that, at one point of another, 90% of the folks who lived in Boston during their late teens or twenties lived in Allston-Brighton. I know I did, not in a cool old three-decker, but in some ugly boxful of shag-carpet flats that was thrown up in the 1960’s.  The one saving grace, other than price, was proximity to the T. It was mostly okay, because it was temporary. I lived there while working as a waitress to make the money to travel through Europe. Every other place I’ve lived in Boston (including while I was in college) had some old, funky factor. This was my one-and-only “modern” shag-carpet residence.

Of late, the area has been turning into the place to be. New Balance HQ is there. So are a lot of other businesses, including one of my clients. There’s a new train stop at “Boston Landing.” And both the Celtics and Bruins have opened fancy new practice facilities right at the train stop. And I won’t even get into Harvard University’s hoovering up property there, which has been going on for ages. (Harvard Business School is actually not in Cambridge, it’s in Allston-Brighton.)

Anyway, with all the new business-y and sporty stuff going up in Allston-Brighton, it’s become something on an “it” place to be.

And the price of housing, of course, reflects this.

If you guessed that this crumby and crumbling little green house – all 1,200 square feet of it, a quick walk from Boston Landing  – is on the market for $800K, well, you ought to go on The Price Is Right.

Photos of the home’s interior weren’t available on the listing. But the city described the space as being in “average” condition, noting that it has no air conditioning and a “semi-modern” kitchen. [Listing agent Jeff] Similien said he hasn’t been inside himself but noted, “It’s not in great condition.” (Source: Boston Globe)

Condition, smondition. That crumby and crumbling little green house has got “teardown” written all over it.

However, potential buyers likely wouldn’t move right into the home. The listing touts the property as “ideal for developers or contractors” to “tear down and rebuild new condos, town homes or three family home.” The property spans about 4,000 square feet and is zoned for a three-family home, according to the listing.

So the owner will likely get the $$$ he’s looking for.

Real estate sure is crazy around here, but at least it’s for real.

In Genesis City, a plot that was purchased for $13K went for $200K a short while later.

Genesis City, you may well be asking yourself. I sure was. But now I know that Genesis City is:

…a digital metropolis [investors are] hoping will eventually become a major hub for virtual-reality commerce. (Source: Bloomberg)

Virtual-reality commerce, you may well be asking yourself. Here’s an example. Ryan Kurtzman owns 58,000 square feet of virtual property in Genesis City:

Kunzmann, who does tech support for a property management website, says he intends to turn one of his larger stretches into a virtual museum or art gallery. “There’s a lot of great art out there that people don’t get to see,” he says. “Especially if you don’t live in a big city.”

Admittedly, this may not be the best example.

After all, you don’t have to live in Paris to google “Mona Lisa”, or Chicago to see an online version of “American Gothic.” So why would you want to buy virtual art, or pay admission to a museum that wasn’t, say, the Louvre or the Art Institute of Chicago? Maybe this is just me, who remains slack-jawed about so much of the digital universe (and that includes crypto-currency which this megilla is, of course, based on).

The early adopters haven’t built much on their plots yet, but they’ve already divvied up Genesis City into themed neighborhoods, including ones modeled on Las Vegas, cyberpunk fiction like Blade Runner, and—this being the internet—a red-light district. What’s there so far looks like a piecemeal mash-up of video game aesthetics and projects in need of developers. “Once virtual reality becomes a mass movement, and we’re heading in that direction, we’ll come to a critical mass of users that will need a platform to discover content,” says [Geneisis City co-creator Ari] Meilich. Besides VR headsets, visitors will be able to use web browsers to view the plots.

I for one am going to take a pass on the VR mass movement. I really don’t want to live in a Blade Runner world, virtual or real.

Give me that crumby, crumbling dump in “Boston Landing” any old time. I’m sure with a bit of elbow grease and a few trips to Home Depot, I can flip it into something worth well over a million. Or I can just hang on to it. You gotta live somewhere, and however advanced virtual reality technology becomes, you won’t be able to sit in it with your feet up, eating Girl Scout cookies and drinking tea, and wondering what in the world the world is coming to.