The Good News
Now renting in Woonsocket: affordable units w/ riverview; beloved diner opens for lunch
Costing $7 million, WNDC’s new Heritage Place offers 43 affordable multilevel apartments, wired for high-speed Internet access, with an enviable view of the Blackstone River rapids. Retail spaces (neighborhood small businesses preferred) occupy the ground floor. Also on site: Champ’s Diner, an historic Woonsocket landmark, restored to service.
The Not-So-Good News
Bubble? What bubble? Home prices still swelling, with no pins in sight, say the feds
Despite dire warnings that the real estate market can’t climb much higher, experts see nothing but more steep appreciation in 2005, said a syndicated report in the Providence Journal in June 2005. Last year Rhode Island had a 17.1 annual gain in home values, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. In 2005, the pace is expected to be around 8 percent. This on top of a soaring five-year increase in median home prices totaling 110.08 percent. In the same five-year period Rhode Island’s median family income rose only 9.53 percent, forcing more and more working families out of the starter-home market.
