Condo Conversion in Lowell

Our colleagues at the Suffolk County Registry of Deeds have often spoken of the widespread conversion of many of Boston’s traditional three family homes into condominiums. This Sunday’s Globe real estate section corroborated this phenomenon with a front page story about such conversions and how they are driven primarily by the high cost of real estate. While many middle income families cannot afford $600,000+ for a home, single family or otherwise, many can afford the $300,000+ that one of these condos sell for. It seems that a similar trend has arrived in Lowell. While most of the condominium-themed publicity in this area has been of downtown office buildings being converted to expensive residential condominiums, there has also been a significant number of small-in-number-of-units condominiums created recently. The following statistics are based on the number of Master Deeds recorded in the recorded land section of the registry (the first step in creating a condominium is to record a Master Deed). From 1996 to 2000, we recorded a total of six – yes, only six – Master Deeds. That five year total was exceeded in 2001 when seven were recorded. A spike occurred in 2002 with 22 while 2003 saw a slide to 15 Master Deeds. Last year was the breakthrough year, however, when 41 Master Deeds (an average of 3.4 per month) were recorded. The pace this year is more intense. To date, 17 Master Deeds have been recorded, a pace of 4.5 per month. Of these 17 condo developments, one has 31 units, one has 27 and another has 12. Ten of the developments only have two units (one has three units, one has four, and two have six). Certainly with the large number of 2-unit condo developments, there is a clear indication that the trend of converting multi-family homes to small condominium developments has arrived in Lowell.