7 BIG BOSTON REAL ESTATE STORIES TO KNOW THIS NOVEMBER

A legal fight, a stalled skyline, a steep office discount, and a few signs of where the market may be headed.

More than 750 approved homes in Dorchester are caught up in a legal battle. Boston’s newest skyscraper project could be one of its last for years. And a downtown office tower just sold for 68 percent less than its owner paid for it.

This month, seven stories help explain where the market may be headed. They range from new housing proposed next to a Chelsea Market Basket to condo buyers finding more room to negotiate, plus a state effort to bring back the affordable starter home.

1. A LEGAL FLIGHT COULD DELAY 754 HOMES IN DORCHESTER

At 75 Morrissey Boulevard, a development approved for 754 homes is now at the center of a lawsuit. The developer, Copper Mill, is suing the site’s owners, POB Capital and Pactolus Private Wealth Management, over a dispute involving their development partnership.

If Copper Mill sounds familiar, it is also the developer behind a proposed 26-story tower in Davis Square, on the block that includes The Burren. That project would have brought about 500 apartments to the square, but Copper Mill walked away from it in August.

The Dorchester project received BPDA Board approval in August 2025, with plans that include 150 income-restricted homes. Copper Mill alleges the owners undermined their agreement. Those are allegations in a lawsuit, and they have not been tested in court.

When you hear that Boston approved hundreds of homes, it is reasonable to assume they are on their way. But there are several steps between a rendering and somebody getting their keys. The ownership has to be sorted out. The financing has to come together. The project has to get built.

A proposal, an approval, and an active construction site tell you very different things. This project could still move forward, and a lawsuit does not automatically end it. But it does add uncertainty to a substantial amount of planned housing.

2. COULD SOUTH STATION TOWER BE BOSTON'S LAST NEW SKYSCRAPER FOR A WHILE?

South Station Tower may be one of the last additions to Boston’s skyline for several years. That is the outlook described in a new Boston Globe report, which looks at the 51-story tower and the difficult market it is entering.

The building combines offices with Ritz-Carlton branded condos. But the bigger story is what comes after it.

For years, it felt like you could leave Boston for a few months and come back to another tower. Now the economics are much harder. Construction is expensive, financing is expensive, and office demand has changed. Even when a project has permission to rise, the expected income still has to justify the cost.

So when we say this could be the last new skyscraper for a while, that is an outlook. It is not a city ban on tall buildings, and it does not mean every construction project around Boston has stopped. It means the next major tower may be harder to start than the ones we got used to seeing.

What this means for buyers

It is tempting to conclude that fewer new condos will make existing ones more valuable. I would be careful with that leap. A slowdown in future construction does not erase the homes already for sale. Buyers still compare prices, fees, layouts, and locations.

For the city, the bigger question is where the next wave of homes and investment will come from.

One site to watch

Related Beal recently purchased the Motor Mart Garage on Stuart Street with its partner, Freeport Equity. That property already had approval for a 20-story condo tower that was never built. The new owners have not announced a specific redevelopment plan. For now, they say they will keep operating the garage and retail space while exploring future residential and mixed-use development.

Could a new tower eventually rise there? Possibly. A purchase is not groundbreaking, but it does put a site with significant development potential into new hands. Boston’s skyline is not finished yet.

3. AN OFFICE TOWER'S PRICE DROPS 68%

At 100 Summer Street, a 32-story office tower went through a foreclosure auction on October 27. Rockpoint, the existing owner, submitted the only bid: $260 million.

The property had sold for $806 million in 2019. That is a 68 percent difference.

An existing owner buying back a property through foreclosure is more complicated than a buyer negotiating a discount, and the auction price does not reveal the owner’s full financial outcome. But it is a striking example of the pressure on older office properties. If a building earns less than expected, or faces expensive work and refinancing, what a buyer can justify paying changes quickly.

This helps explain how an office tower can be repriced dramatically while Boston-area home prices are still up year over year. A business deciding how much office space to lease and a household deciding whether to buy a home are making very different decisions.

For Downtown, the question is what happens next. Can the owner attract tenants? Invest in improvements? Find another use that works financially? Housing conversions can be part of that conversation, but an office building does not automatically become a good apartment building because its price fell. The layout, windows, plumbing, and cost of the work all matter.

This auction is not a housing conversion announcement. It is a reason to keep watching how Downtown adapts, because what happens inside these buildings affects the businesses and streets around them.

4. MARKET BASKET COULD GET SOME NEW NEIGHBORS

Market Basket is involved in a proposal for 162 homes and about 39,000 square feet of retail near its Chelsea store. The concept involves two parcels on Second Street, with shops below and apartments above, close to commuter rail service.

For many people in Massachusetts, living near Market Basket is already the entire sales pitch. But the real estate story is what happens when land around an established business can support more uses. Put homes near a grocery store, add other businesses, and more everyday errands can happen close to home.

For anyone comparing neighborhoods, those ordinary details matter. How far would you be carrying the groceries? What can you get done without moving the car?

This is still just a proposal, so there are no finished apartments to tour yet. But it is a useful example of how Greater Boston could add housing around places people already use. You do not always need a brand new neighborhood. Sometimes the opportunity is making better use of the land around an existing destination.

5. BOSTON CONDO BUYERS FIND MORE BREATHING ROOM

If you are trying to figure out whether Boston has shifted toward a buyer’s market, the first question is what property type you are looking at.

Figures from the Greater Boston Association of Realtors for September show single-family homes had roughly 2.7 months of available supply. Condominiums reached 4.3 months. Condos that sold averaged 57 days on market, compared with 43 days for single-family homes. Sellers received about 96.3 percent of their initial list price on condos, compared with 98.5 percent on single-family homes.

That does not mean you can automatically knock a set percentage off every listing. Some properties hit the market overpriced, others needed updating, and some carry monthly association fees that call for a moment of silence. Overall, though, the data points toward more leverage for condo shoppers.

When a unit sits, it is worth exploring what concessions may be reachable:

• Purchase price
• Closing credits
• Necessary repairs
• Your preferred timeline

For sellers, understanding local competition is critical. A buyer viewing your condo may have five other tours booked that afternoon. Someone looking for a single-family home in a specific suburb may be waiting for one property to come up. Those are two very different market environments, so broad statistics show the trend, and then the exact properties you are competing against tell the rest of the story.

6. MASSACHUSETTS WANTS TO BRING BACK THE STARTER HOME

Everyone talks about how expensive it is to buy a home in Massachusetts. But there is another question behind those prices: why is so much of what gets built either a $5,000-a-month apartment or a house that costs $2 million? Where is the new construction for someone who wants something smaller, simpler, and less expensive?

The state has launched a program called Move-In Mass to test whether building differently could help. MassHousing is making up to $10 million available to developers using modular, manufactured, or other cost-effective construction methods to produce starter homes. Applications are due in February.

The idea is to build more of each home in a factory and then bring it to the site, rather than doing everything outdoors from scratch. In Massachusetts, where the weather regularly disrupts construction schedules, you can see the appeal.

The funding comes mainly through low-cost construction loans that developers repay as homes sell, which allows the state to reuse the money. At least 20 percent of the homes must be affordable to qualifying first-time buyers earning no more than 80 percent of the area median income.

This is a small pilot, expected to produce about 20 homes at first, and 20 homes will not fix the Massachusetts housing shortage. What matters is whether these projects can show a way to build homes at a lower cost that other developers can repeat. Most buyers do not need 4,000 square feet. But they do need options that actually exist.

7. THE MBTA IS CONSIDERING FALCONS TO DEAL WITH PIGEONS

Not every story this month is about housing, but this one is too good to skip. The MBTA has been exploring whether trained birds of prey could help manage pigeons at its stations.

According to recent reporting, the T asked professional providers how a program might work at locations including Tufts Medical and JFK/UMass. The goal is to use trained birds to discourage pigeons and other nuisance birds from hanging around. Bird droppings also create cleaning and maintenance problems and can damage infrastructure.

It matters because the station experience affects whether people want to use public transportation, and transit access is a big part of what makes a neighborhood desirable. Whether the falcons make it past the research phase is still an open question.

THE BOTTOM LINE

These seven stories have very different timelines. Some affect what you can negotiate on a home today. Others could change a neighborhood over the next several years.

If you are planning a move, understanding what is happening around a property can be just as useful as understanding the property itself.

Thinking about buying or selling in Greater Boston?

My team and I help people buy and sell throughout Greater Boston, including people relocating from across the country and around the world. Reach out and we’ll help you figure out which neighborhoods, housing options, and commutes fit your life.