Posted on Feb. 20th, 2015
The question regarding if the Olympics 2024 will influence the real estate market in Boston area will only be answered when the event comes. However, a lot are already looking for the possible impacts of the Olympics in the real estate market as the city of Boston is said to host the event.
Boston real estate enthusiasts cannot help but assume that Olympics will do well for Boston as it has been a usual scenario that host cities of Olympics benefit from the event. As previous host cities have heighten their investment rates and house prices, they assume that the same thing will happen to Boston.
It is the less-developed and smaller cities such as Athens and Barcelona that have been observed to benefit the most from hosting such event, while in developed cities like Atlanta and Sydney, the aftermath of such event are quite not good. Baker further added that after the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, everything went right for the city. The event resulted for good things to happen in the city. To prove a point, the city has completed renovating their waterfront which really encourages a lot of tourism to come and visit the city. Major investments were achieved by the city. The Catalonian city, where Barcelona is part, has become a world stage of for some of the most prominent Spanish cities.
Five years before the games, Barcelona has seen a large increase in their property prices of 130%. The same increase happened to property prices to later Olympics games in Sydney (2000), Athens (2004) and Atlanta (1996) where prices of house rose by more than the federal average in the 5 years prior to the Games.
House prices in Sydney increased by fifty percent between 1996 and 2000. However, this increase is not attributed to Games but rather influenced by the general market of Sydney. Baker said that it is still the development of infrastructures that are given credit with the increase of property prices. For instance, if a city is on the move for development, the immediate investment surge means the city can still enhance those things which have long discouraged people from moving, visiting and investing in the area. Once the reputation, services, transport and amenities all improve, it will not be surprising that people express their interest to invest or buy a property in the area.
As a conclusion, Baker said that even though the Olympics undoubtedly has impact on property prices, other important factors such as general market trends and inflation has good influences too. So, for Boston, they must not put all the impact to the Games for there are a lot of other important factors that can significantly help to increase prices of Boston real estate.