Boston Condo Conversion Ordinance: A Cost and a Clock

Take a vacant Dorchester three-family that closes this month. Under the rules in force today, an investor can record a master deed, renovate, and have three condo deeds on record by next summer. Under the proposal now sitting in the Boston City Council’s Committee on Government Operations, that same empty building would wait a full year between preliminary and final conversion approval, so the first deed lands in late 2027 at the earliest. The city would also want proof that anyone who lived there in the past twelve months was paid.

That is Docket 1711 in one building. It is not a ban on converting a two- or three-family to condos. It is a cost and a clock. The owners it hurts are the ones whose pro forma only works if the conversion happens fast, and the owners it barely touches are the ones who bought a building that carries itself as a rental. My advice to anyone holding, buying or selling a non-owner-occupied two- or three-family in Boston is the same: underwrite it as a long-term rental first, and treat the condo exit as an option you may not get to exercise on your own timeline.

Here is what the proposal says, what state law already did in 2024, how many buildings it really reaches, and what the math looks like on one Dorchester three-family under three different timelines.

What Docket 1711 would do, and what it can’t do yet

Docket 1711 is titled “An Ordinance Amending and Extending Protections for Tenants Facing Displacement by Condominium or Cooperative Conversion.” It was filed in September by Council President Liz Breadon and Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata, whose District 1 covers East Boston, Charlestown and the North End, and announced with State Senator Lydia Edwards on September 23. It was referred to the Committee on Government Operations, which has not posted a hearing date as of this writing. Nothing in it is law yet.

Boston’s condominium and cooperative conversion ordinance applies today to buildings built before December 1983 with four or more rental units. Docket 1711 would extend it to non-owner-occupied two- and three-family buildings built before December 1, 1983. The sponsors’ release lists the pieces that matter to an owner:

• A two-step permit. The Mayor’s Office of Housing grants preliminary approval. Inspectional Services issues the final permit only after the tenant protections are satisfied.
• A one-year wait for vacant buildings between preliminary and final approval.
• A 12-month look-back. If a unit was occupied in the previous twelve months, the owner owes that tenant’s rights even if the tenant can’t be found, and an unclaimed relocation payment goes to the Mayor’s Office of Housing.
• Relocation payments on the existing ordinance’s scale, which today is $10,000 per unit, or $15,000 for tenants who are 62 or older, have a disability, or have low or moderate income.
• A right of first refusal so tenants can buy their unit where that is possible.

Two cautions before you plan around any summary, including this one. First, the press accounts don’t agree on the notice period for protected tenants. Universal Hub describes one year of notice and two years for protected tenants, while Hoodline describes the existing ordinance’s one-year and five-year lease extensions. The filed text runs about 18 pages in the council packet, and the committee will amend it. Second, the base ordinance itself is on a short leash. In December 2025 the council extended its sunset by only one year, to December 31, 2026, to buy time for exactly this debate. My read is that the council has to act on the ordinance before year end anyway, which makes a hearing this fall likely rather than hypothetical.

The state already reached your building in 2024

A lot of owners hear about Docket 1711 and assume two- and three-families have been untouched until now. They haven’t. The 2024 Affordable Homes Act, Chapter 150 of the Acts of 2024, changed the 1983 state condo conversion law in a single sentence. Section 57 struck the word “buildings” from the small-building exemption in Chapter 527 and replaced it with “owner-occupied buildings.”

That one edit means the exemption for buildings with fewer than four units now applies only if the owner lives there. A non-owner-occupied two- or three-family anywhere in Massachusetts is covered by the state law today. An owner-occupied one is still exempt, and the Boston proposal keeps that same line. The Metropolitan Area Planning Council counted the effect: about 124,400 two- and three-family buildings holding 287,200 homes are newly covered, which brings the statewide total under the law to roughly 720,800 units, about half of all multifamily housing in the state.

The state layer is mostly a notice clock. Tenants get at least one year of notice before they must vacate, and two years if they are 62 or older, have a disability, or earn below 80% of area median income. They get a 90-day right to buy their unit on terms no less favorable than the public gets. The relocation payment is small: $750, or $1,000 for protected tenants, a figure set in 1983 and confirmed by MassLandlords’ summary of the statute. Boston’s layer is where the permit, the wait and the real money come in.

“Built before 1983” is almost every building you would buy

The December 1983 cutoff reads like a limit. In practice it isn’t one. I pulled every Boston two- and three-family that closed through MLS PIN from October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026. There were 500 of them: 263 two-families and 237 three-families. 476 of the 500, or 95.2%, were built before 1983. Only 24 were newer.

Most of the stock is much older than the cutoff. Two out of three of those buildings (335 of 500) list a year built between 1900 and 1929, the triple-decker era. MLS year-built fields on old buildings are often rounded, which is why 1900 shows up so often, but the only line that matters here is 1983 and it isn’t close.

The neighborhood split tells the same story. The four neighborhoods where Boston’s triple-decker trade is concentrated are all in the high 80s or 90s.

So the cutoff isn’t the real filter. If Docket 1711 passes in anything like its filed form, the question for almost every Boston two- or three-family is simply whether the owner lives in it.

How big the conversion trade actually is

The city’s own count is modest. Over roughly two and a half years through May 2026, 101 pre-1983 two- and three-family buildings were converted, creating 317 condo units and removing 244 rental units. East Boston accounted for 17 of those buildings, 70 condos and 42 lost rentals. The condo count runs ahead of the lost rentals, so some of those buildings were partly vacant or owner-occupied going in, or gained units along the way.

That works out to about 40 conversions a year. Against it, 476 pre-1983 two- and three-families sold in Boston in the last twelve months. Conversion is a minority strategy. It still matters more than its share, because the conversion buyer is usually the one who can pay the most for a building that needs everything. Their exit is three retail condo sales, not one rent roll.

The retail side of that trade is large. In the same twelve months, 879 Boston condos sold in buildings listed as having two or three units, and 709 of those were in buildings built before 1983. That is a floor: 3,963 of the 7,192 Boston condo sales in the window don’t record a building unit count at all. Among condos in three-unit buildings citywide, the median sale was $672,000. In two-unit buildings it was $858,500.

Dorchester shows the spread most clearly, because it has the deepest sample on both sides. The bottom quarter of Dorchester three-family sales closed at or below $1,121,250. The top quarter of condos in pre-1983 Dorchester three-unit buildings closed at or above $612,500. Three of those is $1,837,500.

One Dorchester three-family, three timelines

Here is the same building run three ways. The prices and rents come from the MLS figures above. The rest are my assumptions, stated so you can swap in your own:

• Purchase at $1,120,000 with 25% down and an interest-only investor loan at an assumed 7.5%, plus 1% in buying costs.
• Renovation of $100,000 per unit, paid in cash.
• $34,000 in conversion soft costs: an assumed $30,000 for plans, survey, master deed and legal, plus the city’s current $1,000 per unit conversion fee and Boston’s $500 per unit Tregor excise on every condo after the first.
• Sale of three units at $612,500 each, less 5% commission and the state deed excise of $4.56 per $1,000.
• Carrying cost of about $6,588 a month: interest, the Dorchester median tax bill of $11,256 a year, and an assumed $4,800 a year for insurance.
• Rent of $9,850 a month while tenanted, the Dorchester three-family median from listing-reported rents (57 sales), less 10% for vacancy, water and repairs.

Path A, today’s fast exit. The seller delivers the building vacant, and the investor renovates and sells all three units within nine months. Profit is about $212,800.

Path B, vacant under Docket 1711. The investor files for preliminary approval at closing and renovates during the mandatory year, but can’t record final conversion until it ends. Sales land around month 17 instead of month 9. Eight extra months of empty carry cost about $52,700. Profit falls to about $160,000.

Path C, tenanted under Docket 1711. The building comes with three tenants. They get a year of notice, and they pay rent during it, so the rent covers the carry and leaves about $27,300. Then the investor pays $30,000 in relocation, or $45,000 if all three tenants qualify for the higher amount, renovates and sells. Profit is about $195,100 to $210,100, but it takes 21 months.

Two things jump out. The relocation money, the number everyone quotes, is not what hurts most. On the tenanted path the rent nearly pays for the year and the dollar profit barely moves. What hurts is time. Profit per month of hold falls by more than half on both Docket 1711 paths, and every added month is a month the condo market can move against you. A 5% slip in condo prices over the longer window takes the vacant path from $160,000 to about $73,200.

The second thing is the look-back. Today, “delivered vacant” is how a conversion investor skips the tenant question. If the 12-month look-back passes as filed, a seller who empties a building in the months before a sale could leave the buyer owing relocation for units that were occupied within the year. Path B could end up carrying Path C’s relocation bill too.

Underwrite it as a rental first

Now run the same Dorchester building as a plain hold. At the neighborhood median price of $1,225,000, 25% down and an assumed 7.5% on a 30-year amortizing loan, principal and interest are about $6,424 a month. Add $938 a month in taxes, $400 for insurance and 15% of rent for vacancy, water and repairs, and monthly outflow is about $9,240. Against the median listing-reported rent of $9,850, the building clears about $610 a month.

That’s thin, but it is positive, and it’s the number I care about first. A three-family that carries itself at today’s rent and today’s rate can absorb a year of permitting, or a hearing that drags, or a condo market that softens for a season. Docket 1711 changes that owner’s timeline. It doesn’t change their solvency.

The investor who gets hurt is the one whose spreadsheet has no row for “hold.” If the building only works because three condo deeds record by month nine, then the purchase was a bet on the calendar, and the city is proposing to take control of the calendar. Before you write an offer on any non-owner-occupied two- or three-family, run it through our investment property calculator with real rents and your real rate, and see whether it stands on its own. If it does, the conversion is upside. If it doesn’t, Docket 1711 is a risk you are taking on whether it passes or not, because the state’s one-year notice already applies to that building today.

What sellers of two- and three-families should expect

If you’re selling a non-owner-occupied two- or three-family in Boston, expect fewer conversion buyers and sharper ones. The buyers who stay in will price the wait, the relocation and the look-back into their offers, and the ones who were stretching on a fast exit will drop out first. That pressure lands hardest on the buildings that need the most work, since those are the ones conversion buyers pay up for.

Three-families already trade with less slack than two-families. Over the last twelve months the median Boston three-family closed at 96.1% of its original list price after 31 days on market. The median two-family closed at 99.5% after 23 days. A thinner buyer pool for the bigger buildings would widen that gap, not close it.

The buyer who sits outside all of this is the owner-occupant. An owner-occupied two- or three-family is exempt under both the state law and the filed Boston proposal, so a buyer who plans to live in one unit isn’t pricing in conversion rules at all. For two-families in particular that pool is real. FHA financing on three- and four-unit buildings has to pass a self-sufficiency rental income test under HUD Handbook 4000.1 that two-family purchases don’t face.

A few practical points for sellers:

• Don’t empty the building on the theory that vacant sells better. If the look-back passes, a recently emptied unit may carry a relocation obligation to the next owner, and buyers’ attorneys will ask.
• Have a clean rent roll and twelve months of occupancy history ready. Leases, move-in and move-out dates, and anything you know about whether a tenant would qualify for the higher payment.
• Price for the buyer who will hold. Then let a conversion buyer beat it if they can. Our seller net proceeds calculator will show you what each price nets.

The right of first refusal in this proposal is a condo conversion rule. It isn’t the same thing as the tenant opportunity to purchase proposals that come up at the State House. I covered those separately in what TOPA would mean for multifamily sellers.

Buyers and owners mid-conversion: what to do before the hearing

If you are partway through a conversion right now, call your attorney this month, not after the hearing. Pin down where you stand under the state law’s notice clock, whether your master deed is recorded, and how the city’s transition rules might treat a project in progress. The filed text and the final ordinance can differ on exactly those points, and you want your position on paper before the committee starts marking it up.

If you are under agreement on a non-owner-occupied two- or three-family with a conversion plan, ask your attorney now about how the P&S treats a change in law before closing. Get the seller’s occupancy history for the past twelve months. Ask how owner-occupancy would be measured and when, because that is the line the whole proposal turns on, and the filed summary doesn’t settle it.

If you are buying a condo in an existing two- or three-unit building, this doesn’t change your unit. Your bigger questions are about the association itself, which I wrote about in why small Boston condo associations struggle to find management. More on small-building condos is in our condo living guides.

And if you own one of these buildings, testify. The Committee on Government Operations takes written comments at ccc.go@boston.gov; reference Docket #1711 in the subject line. Hearing notices post on the city’s public notices page with the staff contact for virtual testimony, and in-person speakers are asked to bring fifteen copies of anything written. Testimony that helps councilors is specific: what a preliminary and final permit would cost a single small owner in legal fees, how long Mayor’s Office of Housing reviews take today, what a one-year vacant wait does to a construction loan.

That is the strongest version of the critique already in circulation. Banker & Tradesman columnist Scott Van Voorhis argued on October 4 that the review and approval process assumes an owner who is a professional real estate firm with enough revenue to pay for a lot of legal work, and that for small landlords “one size definitely does not fit all.” That’s one columnist’s view. Whether you share it or not, the committee will hear from tenants and advocates. It should hear numbers from small owners too.

My read for Boston two- and three-family owners

Docket 1711 doesn’t stop anyone from converting a triple-decker in Dorchester, East Boston, South Boston or Jamaica Plain. It adds a permit, a payment and, for a vacant building, a year. The state already added a notice clock in 2024, and that part is law today.

For a building that carries as a rental, none of that is fatal. It moves the exit and trims the return. For a building bought on the assumption of a nine-month flip, it changes the deal, and the time to find that out is before you sign, not at the hearing. More on how we look at small multifamily is in our investment property guides.

If you own or are looking at a Boston two- or three-family and want the rental math and the conversion math run side by side on your actual building, reach out. I’m happy to pull the comps and rents and walk through it with you.

Sources

• Sen. Lydia Edwards: New proposal before Boston City Council would expand protections for tenants of 2- and 3-family buildings (Sept. 23, 2026)
• Charlestown Patriot-Bridge: New proposal before Boston City Council (Oct. 2, 2026)
• Universal Hub: Boston councilors to consider extending tenant protections to triple deckers and two-family homes
• Hoodline: Boston condo conversion ordinance expansion targets triple-deckers
• Boston Policy Institute: Green Sheets preview of the 9/16/26 City Council meeting (Docket #1711)
• Banker & Tradesman, Scott Van Voorhis: Does Boston want to keep small landlords from converting to condos? (Oct. 4, 2026)
• Citizen Portal: Council extends sunset for condominium conversion tenant protections by one year
• Massachusetts Legislature: Chapter 150 of the Acts of 2024 (Affordable Homes Act), Section 57
• State Library of Massachusetts: Chapter 527 of the Acts of 1983
• MAPC: 2024 change to condo conversion law doubles number of protected rental homes
• Sen. Will Brownsberger: Protecting tenants in the Affordable Homes Act
• MassLandlords: A look at the Massachusetts Condo Conversion Act of 1983
• City of Boston: Condominium and Cooperative Conversion Ordinance
• City of Boston: 2025 condominium conversion ordinance update (2025 filing)
• Mintz: The Funding Loan Act of 1982 and the origins of Tregor stamps
• Law firm summary: Updates to the Boston condominium conversion ordinance (2021 amendment)
• HUD: Single Family Housing Policy Handbook 4000.1
• BMN Boston analysis of MLS PIN closed sales, Boston, October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026 (500 two- and three-family sales; 7,192 condo sales)