"Why are millennials living at home? Housing costs and student debt, for starters" by Katheleen Conti Globe Staff June 19, 2018
As he opens the next chapter of adulthood, Gabriel Howson, 22, who graduated in May from the University of Southern Maine, has landed a $16-an-hour job at Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s shipping and receiving department, while he looks for a job in real estate investment.
He has also moved back to his parents’ home in Dorchester — part of a new twist on the so-called boomerang trend that has come to define a generation of millennials, but now they’re moving back in greater numbers, and for a different reason than a decade ago, when employers weren’t hiring because of the recession. Today, younger millennials in Greater Boston are graduating into a robust economy, but a blisteringly hot housing market makes it difficult for many to spread their wings.
With Boston-area apartment rents so high, Howson doesn’t earn nearly enough to go out on his own. Temporarily staying at home, he said, will allow him to save money and — more urgently — start whittling away at $75,000 in student loan debt.
Another record high: Student debt loan in America this year hit $1.5 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve.
What happens when that CDO bubble pops like the MBS $hit?
“With rents continuing to climb and pretty serious competition, it makes living with mom and dad to pay off that debt — for a year, or two, or three — seem like a good investment,” said Sarah Mikhitarian, a Zillow economist. “It helps your savings cushion.”
It also requires patience on the part of parents who might have been looking forward to becoming empty-nesters.
Monica Beato-Howson said she is not charging her son rent but will probably assign him a household bill to pay, “so he can learn responsibility.”
He isn't already?
She and her husband, who both work at hospitals, have a full house: Their 27-year-old daughter and her 4-year-old daughter also live in their three-bedroom home. Beato-Howson said her daughter, who works at a doctor’s office in Cambridge, commuted to college and has lived with them since.
Let me guess, you got him the job.
Having grown children at home can be challenging, but Beato-Howson said she won’t set a deadline for them to move out. “Hopefully, they’ll find their way on their own,” she said.
For recent grads, moving in with Mom and Dad may be fiscally prudent, but it’s also a reminder that they’re not truly independent, said Jessica Alves, who moved back home to Dorchester last fall to finish her last semester at the New York Institute of Technology remotely after her financial aid ran out. She completed her course work in December but officially graduated last month. “To be completely honest, I wish I was in my own space,” said Alves, 26, who recently started working at Boston accounting firm RSM.
Like Howson, Alves is not paying rent. She’s on an aggressive $2,000-a-month payment schedule to wipe out her tuition balance by July, in addition to paying her cellphone and credit card bills. Her goal is to live at home for two to three years and save enough money to buy a triple-decker in Dorchester where she can live and rent out the other units, but with the housing market showing no signs of slowing down — some triple-deckers in Dorchester have recently sold for $1 million — that’s starting to look more like a fantasy scenario.
Always was, and how insulting.
“There’s a possibility I may have to drop my plan and have to figure things out. It’s something that I think about quite often and it gives me anxiety,” Alves said. “It puts a lot of pressure on recent grads to kind of fall back and stay with their parents maybe a couple more years after graduation, whether they like it or not.”
They have pre$criptions for that.
As a whole, millennials age 25 to 35 are living with their parents longer than Gen X-ers and baby boomers before them, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. The issue received more attention recently because of the case of a 30-year-old New York man whose parents sued to evict him after he refused to move out of their home.
Why must the ma$$ media take the most extreme cases and make them seem normal?
“It’s fascinating that people in their 30s are still relying on mom and dad largely because housing has gotten so unaffordable,” Mikhitarian said.
Howson — who is aiming to move out of his parents’ place in a year — said he feels none of the so-called failure-to-launch stigma that earlier generations of postgraduation young adults faced. Many of his friends also are living at home while they work to save money, he said.....
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Wanna go house shopping?
"The number of single-family homes for sale in Mass. dropped again in May" by Katheleen Conti Globe Staff June 27, 2018
Sales of single-family homes in Massachusetts dropped to their lowest levels for the month of May since 2016, underscoring how a persistent lack of homes for sale is redefining what traditionally has been real estate’s busiest season, according to data released Wednesday by a tracking firm, the Warren Group.
The nearly 5,300 single-family homes sold last month in Massachusetts marked a 2.1 percent decrease over the same time last year, according to Warren. Another set of data released Wednesday by the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, which tracks a smaller pool of transactions, showed a 4.5 percent dip in sales for May. And with fewer homes on the market, prices continued to climb.
The dearth of inventory continued in May, as the number of single-family homes and condos for sale hit record lows for the month, according to the MAR. Predictably, most homes that hit the market were quickly scooped up.
Looking ahead to June — typically the most active month for home sales — Warren Group’s chief executive, Tim Warren, said there is a good chance the trend of lower sales will continue, while prices will keep rising — a bad-news combo, particularly for first-time buyers.....
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Related: Massachusetts home prices set new record
That's no surprise, given that the persistent lack of homes for sale has been increasing prices this year.
Look what someone left on the doorstep:
"Activists protested last Friday outside Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s home in Alexandria, Va., and at the residences of other senior DHS personnel. A photo of DHS press secretary Tyler Q. Houlton was posted online by one verified Twitter user who wears a ‘‘Punch More Nazis’’ T-shirt in his profile, while another user posted Houlton’s home address. ‘‘This is what Tyler looks like, just in case anyone sees him in a restaurant in DC or something,’’ the user wrote in a tweet that received nearly 6,000 ‘‘likes.’’ Some critics of the Trump administration defend the practice of targeting the DHS officials, saying they hold those individuals personally responsible for carrying out immigration policies they consider repugnant and immoral. Over the weekend, a charred, headless rodent carcass was left on the doorstep of a senior DHS staffer in the Washington metro area, according to an official at the agency....."
Found it when I was going for a jog:
"‘The man chased me and he grabbed my wrists’: Terrified jogger describes kidnapping attempt" by Jerome Campbell and John R. Ellement Globe Staff June 19, 2018
BRIDGEWATER — The woman who escaped an abduction attempt early Sunday morning described the encounter in court documents that were made public Tuesday.
According to her account in court papers and given to Bridgewater police, the woman was jogging in the 400 block of Pleasant Street at 7:35 a.m. Sunday when an orange SUV pulled alongside her. A man got out, walked behind the SUV, and approached the woman.
“An older man with short grey hair approached me,’’ she wrote. “I turned to run away from him and toward the house nearest me.”
The escape effort was not successful.
“The man chased me and grabbed my wrists,’’ the woman wrote. “We struggled & fell to the ground.”
A prosecutor said the man tried to pull the woman into his SUV. The woman said that during the struggle, the man indecently assaulted her as she “continued to fight to get away and scream for help.”
A neighbor came outside and saw the woman struggling with the man and started walking toward them, the woman wrote.
“Eventually, the man attacking me went back to his vehicle & drove toward Rt. 24 on Pleasant street,’’ she wrote.
Police said a passing driver witnessed the attack and followed the driver while calling 911. The woman also called the police, and had taken a photo of the attacker’s vehicle, which she gave to police.
A short time later, police arrested Gordon J. Lyons Jr., of Bridgewater, and charged him in the attack.
Prosecutors said that Lyons crashed his orange Hyundai Santa Fe 6 miles away in West Bridgewater shortly after the woman was attacked. He was rushed to Boston Medical Center where he was arraigned from his hospital bed Tuesday afternoon on charges of kidnapping, use of force against another person, and assault and battery. A not guilty plea was entered on his behalf.
His court-appointed lawyer, Shannon Hinegardner, held a bedsheet in front of his face during the hearing, and Brockton District Court Judge Edmund Mathers granted her request that Lyons undergo a psychiatric evaluation. He is being held without bail.
“Based on my conversations with him, I have some concerns about his competency,” Hinegardner said.
Lyons, 57, was convicted of rape in 1978 in Barnstable Superior Court, according to prosecutors.
The woman, who did not require hospitalization, identified Lyons from an RMV ID photo as the attacker, according to Assistant District Attorney David Cutshall. She obtained a harassment protection order against Lyons in Brockton District Court.
The Globe is withholding the woman’s name because she described being indecently assaulted during the incident.
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Meanwhile, outside in the parking lot:
"‘She was going through a lot of pain, a lot of suffering’" by Evan Allen Globe Staff June 26, 2018
WEST BOYLSTON — It was a spot that Robert Chisholm knew well: The old senior center in West Boylston, where he’d come to countless meetings, talked with friends, and dreamed of a new senior center and the billiards room that might go inside it, and he likely knew that, early on a Monday afternoon, the parking lot would be empty. Private. Familiar.
It was there, in the back of 127 Hartwell Street, that police found Chisholm, 78, and his wife, Dolores, 79, at around 2:30 p.m. Monday. Both had been shot. Dolores was dead; Robert died at the hospital. Investigators found letters at the home they shared.
Both had suffered from health problems, said Barur Rajeshkumar, a friend of Robert’s, but recently, Dolores had been getting worse and worse. It was her heart, Rajeshkumar said. Robert was driving her to the hospital almost every day.
Worcester County District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. said Monday that there was no risk to the general public.
Family members of Robert and Dolores Chisholm could not be reached for comment Tuesday, or declined to speak.
Neighbors at the complex on Hillside Village Drive where they lived were shocked to learn that the lovely couple had died so violently. Robert was a fixture in his yard, always filling his bird feeders. He loved wood working. Dolores was beautiful, said one neighbor, and very kind. They seemed to have a big, loving family.
“I just talked to him the other day,” said the neighbor, who gave his name only as Kach. “Just shooting the breeze.”
Another neighbor, who declined to give her name, said Robert often drove his wife to medical appointments.
“Very nice people,” the woman said. “As far as I could see, they were just a normal, married couple.”
Robert Chisholm had made and installed small handrails on other residents’ porches to give them something to hold on to as they walked out their front doors, neighbors said.
Robert Chisholm was active in town government, officials said, serving as an appointed board member for the Facilities Implementation and Strategic Planning Committee. He had served on the Council on Aging for a short time and still came to the meetings. He was passionate about getting the new senior center built, and wanted to put in a billiard room for tournaments.
Chisholm had recently run for Board of Selectmen, but local news accounts say he withdrew his candidacy in May......
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Related: Neighbors mourn elderly couple found shot to death inside car in West Boylston
Also see:
"Dwight Clark, known for ‘The Catch,’ dies at 61" by Josh Dubow Associated Press June 05, 2018
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Dwight Clark won two Super Bowls with the 49ers during a nine-year career that ended in 1987. He memorably pulled down the winning touchdown pass from Joe Montana in the NFC championship game against the Dallas Cowboys following the 1981 season, a play remembered simply as ‘‘The Catch.’’
It’s considered one of the most significant plays in NFL history and sent the Niners to their first of five Super Bowl titles in a span of 14 seasons.
The play happened on Jan. 10, 1982, when the upstart 49ers hosted the Cowboys in the NFC title game. With the 49ers facing a third down at the Dallas 6 with less than a minute to play, coach Bill Walsh called ‘‘Sprint Right Option.’’
Montana rolled out and retreated under pressure from Ed ‘‘Too Tall’’ Jones and Larry Bethea before lofting the ball toward the back of the end zone. Clark leaped to make a fingertip catch over Everson Walls and the 49ers went on to win the game 28-27 and then their first Super Bowl two weeks later against Cincinnati.
Clark memorably wore a fur coat to the parade.
‘‘Start of a dynasty,’’ said former 49ers president Carmen Policy, who later hired Clark as general manager of the Cleveland Browns. ‘‘I don’t let myself go down the road of what would have happened if he doesn’t make that catch? As Joe Montana says, what would have happened if I didn’t throw that pinpoint pass perfectly angled to be in the only spot where he should catch and no one else would be able to interfere with it, but without that play, I wonder where we would have been.’’
In attendance that day, was 4-year-old Tom Brady, who grew up cheering for the 49ers and has gone on to win five Super Bowls with New England.
Clark suspected playing football might have caused his ALS.
The team said he died Monday surrounded by friends and family.....
I think that is how we would all like to go.
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