Opinion
Columnists, guest columns, op-eds and editorials published in Banker & Tradesman and its special sections.
Guest Columns and Op-Eds
From high officials to lone operators, read a diverse cross section of perspectives on the issues facing the Massachusetts real estate and banking industries today.
Pitches for op-eds and special section guest columns should be directed to managing editor James Sanna at jsanna@thewarrengroup.com.
Pursuing a Balance of Perspectives in Boston Development
Rather than viewing development as a zero-sum game, in which every win represents someone else’s loss, the conversation needs to shift to collaboration.
Communities Already Own a Key Tool to Help Alleviate Housing Crisis: Municipal Property
Municipalities throughout New England have long struggled to create opportunities to help alleviate the region’s severe housing crisis, without realizing potential solutions may already be within their control.
Job Flexibility Keeps Workers from Feeling Hopeless
Research shows when employees don’t have control over their work schedules, it’s not just morale that suffers – mental health takes a hit too.
AG Gets Serious About Enforcing MBTA Communities Law
The attorney general’s lawsuit suggests that she will not wait to find out whether the loss of access to specific state funding programs will eventually persuade Milton to adopt compliant zoning.
Mass. Money Transmission Bill Protects Consumers, Levels Regulatory Playing Field
Massachusetts residents send billions of dollars every year using money transmission platforms like Venmo, PayPal and CashApp – but with zero state consumer protections.
Cambridge Should End Exclusionary Zoning in 2024
Beneath a facade of inclusivity and progressivism lies an ugly truth: Cambridge is not open to everyone. But the City Council should not settle for a surface-level fix.
Massachusetts Can’t Retreat on Housing Reforms
The push to build more housing in Massachusetts has reached a critical point. Gov. Maura Healey can’t give in to a vocal minority that wants fewer families to call the state home.
Housing Debate Clouded by Vague Language
Perhaps if we got more granular about what we mean when we say “affordable,” we would have more success creating affordable homes and talking with each other rather than – at best – past each other.
Letter to the Editor: Eviction Sealing Bill Hurts Good Renters
It would cause landlords statewide to raise application minimums for income, credit and other screening metrics. It would ignore the clear alternative to the problem of discrimination based on past evictions.
Be Bolder, Think Bigger to Solve Our Region’s Housing Crisis
Even if every possible new unit is built under the MBTA Communities reforms, we’d just end up right back where we are today, without housing policy in place to support the sustainable long-term growth of this region.
What’s Next for the Spring Market?
Whether you’re a brand-new agent or a 40-year veteran, I sat down with market intelligence expert Rick Sharga to get the answers you need to cope with what’s ahead.
Letter to the Editor: Federal I-90 Grant Deserves Celebration
The recent news that Massachusetts will receive a $335 million infrastructure grant for the Allston Multimodal Project is a massive victory for the Greater Boston economy.
Editorial Cartoon
Cartoonist Peter Paul Payack lampoons and reflects on the people, trends and ideas in the Massachusetts real estate and banking industries.
Banker & Tradesman’s Editorial Cartoon: A Short FAQ Document
Bankers are grappling with complex changes to Community Reinvestment Act regulations.
Banker & Tradesman’s Editorial Cartoon: New AML Regs
Uncle Sam is keeping an eye on finance fraud and money laundering.
Banker & Tradesman’s Editorial Cartoon: If at First You Don’t Succeed
WeWork founder Adam Neumann, broadly blamed by commentators for the company’s failure, is reportedly trying to buy the company back as it limps into bankruptcy.
Banker & Tradesman’s Editorial Cartoon: Game Time
Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll and Housing Secretary Ed Agustus are suiting up to lead two new panels intended to find new housing reforms that can boost home construction.
Editorials
Editorials are the opinions of this newspaper alone, and do not reflect its reporters or columnists.
Pay Attention to Train Electrification
The dream of frequent, electrified suburban trains in Greater Boston has long seemed perennially on the horizon. Could this time be different? Indications are, yes. And housing developers should start keeping an eye on the project.
Pull Together to Fix Downtown Boston
Is Boston headed for a fiscal cliff or a fiscal hiccup thanks to falling office utilization? Two things are for sure: no one should take fears of a calamity lightly, and everyone should use this threat as an occasion to fix what’s long been broken.
Sun Belt Wins, Mass. Loses in Housing Construction
Massachusetts politicians should look at Raleigh, North Carolina with a mixture of anger, envy and fear: Anger and envy that that metro has outpaced us in housing construction by miles, fear that it will help them steal our jobs and prosperity.
Scott Van Voorhis
Commercial Interests
Columnist Scott Van Voorhis analyzes the commercial real estate market, state politics, housing and more with the perspective of a journalist with 40 years’ experience covering businesses in Massachusetts.
Boston Mayor Shocks Real Estate with Office Tax Rate Hike
The scale of Mayor Michelle Wu’s planned massive hike to tax rates on office, lab and retail buildings comes at a terrible time. And she seems to be ignoring an important alternative strategy.
Stop. You’re Making It Worse
Recent hoopla about soft landings aside, the Federal Reserve’s drive to bring down prices has made immeasurably worse what was already the most expensive item in Americans’ budgets: the cost of housing.
To Get Real Housing Production, Let’s Break Out the Carrots
It’s become increasingly clear that the MBTA Communities housing law is no silver bullet. So why not make new housing a profit center for towns and suburbs, rather than a perceived drag?
It’s Two Steps Forward, One Step Back in Fixing Our Biggest Problems
The last week shows progress is likely to be two steps forward and one step back given decades of neglected maintenance at the T and the NIMBY backlash to the Healey administration’s housing plans.
Lew Sichelman
The Housing Scene
Syndicated residential real estate columnist Lew Sichelman has been covering real estate for more than 50 years. He is a regular contributor to numerous shelter magazines and housing and housing-finance industry publications.
Setting the Record Straight on the NAR Settlement
The reporting on the recent $418 million settlement with the National Association of Realtors and several large national brokerage companies has been so atrocious that I must jump in.
Put Your Listings to the Nose Test
Nothing turns up buyers’ noses faster than a smelly house. They walk in, stop, take a whiff and are ready to turn around and leave. Some won’t even go beyond the front door.
Which Comes First? A Buyer’s Dilemma
Young people have many options when it comes to homeownership – perhaps too many. Should they get married first or buy their first home? Buy a dream car or a house? Find a dream house or a dream mortgage rate?
Foreign Firms Make Inroads on U.S. Homebuilding
As federal and state authorities continue to clamp down on foreign investments in American businesses and real estate that could pose a risk to national security, some foreign entities are expanding into American homebuilding.