Breaking: Hill Estates, Belmont’s Largest Residential Complex, On The Block

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Photo: A seven story multi-story apartment building at the Hill Estates

The owner of Hill Estates, the largest residential complex in Belmont with 396 rental apartments and townhouses, has placed a “For Sale” sign on the landmark property.

Listed by the Boston office of Dallas-based CBRE Capital Markets, the property built by the DiGiovanni family in the mid-1960s consists of a mix of five—and seven-story mid-rise buildings, two-story direct-entry townhomes, and garden-style buildings. It is located on 14.7 acres off Brighton Street and is bordered by Little River, Little Pond, and the MBTA commuter rail line. Also part of the sale is a 1,600 square foot commercial space fronting Brighton.

A little more than 300 of the housing units are apartments—two-thirds of which are 1,000-square-foot two-bedroom, one-bath flats—located in one of the four multi-story buildings. Nearly all of the townhouses are also two-bedrooms (there is a single three-bathroom), averaging 1,415 square feet. There is limited indoor parking with most vehicles located on local roads within the complex.

The Hill Estates has long been seen as one of the rare market-affordable housing options in the area.

Family-owned since opening its doors nearly 60 years ago, the DiGiovanni clan has not had the financial pressures of partners to max out rents. While the buildings are showing their age, the living units have been periodically updated and are considered by one Belmont Realtors as “a really great value for those not seeking high-end housing.”

The residents are an eclectic and diverse group: students living in apartments, young couples, many first generation American families with small children, and older folks who are priced out of homes and unable to afford upscale retirement communities. On weekend afternoons, the hallways are filled with smells of homelands and ethnic favorites, while you can hear several languages spoken in the common laundry.

While the DiGiovanni family has not commented on the sale, CBRE is touting the property as being primed for a “renovation program” followed by a big rent increase.

The numbers say it all: rents today at the Hill Estates average $2,239 or about $2 per square foot. Compare that to the average $3,800 rents are fetching for Belmont apartments at the most recent new development: rents at Royal Belmont off Route 2 for a 1,101 sq ft two bedroom, two bath flat is $3,900. With apartments in neighboring communities such as Arlington, Lexington, Watertown and North Cambridge achieving rents $1,300 to $1,800 higher than those in the Estate, there is “additional support for a new owner to push rents,” proclaims CBRE.

In addition, Belmont’s housing market will buttress rate hikes on future rents as those wishing to live in Belmont don’t have many affordable options.

“With the combination of increasing home prices and interest rates, the cost to owning has never been higher with single-family home prices averaging $1.7 million, amounting to a 14 percent increase over the last three years and a 54 percent increase in the all-in cost-of-living since 2022,” noted

Due to the size of the complex, likely buyers will likely be one of the big players in the apartment REIT market such as, for example, Equity Residential and AvalonBay Communities.

Residents Give Good Tidings (and Coffee) to Town Crews Working Christmas

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Photo: Brighton Street on Christmas Eve.

It was already a cold and dank Christmas Eve afternoon as the sun was setting on two crews from Belmont Water Department’s Distribution and Maintenance services.

After spending hours digging up Brighton Street next to the Hill Estates seeking a major water main leak, the workers discovered the break was not in the 10-inch main but a six-inch pipe – bearing the date “1888” – on the other side of the street.

“It occasionally happens that our best guess is wrong,” said Mike Bishop, the Department of Public Works’ Water Division manager on Tuesday, Dec. 27. It would mean filling in the first trench and dig a new one in the dark hours before Christmas.

Around the same time, homeowners on Washington Street called the town to report a “geyser” of water was gushing out of a manhole cover directly across from the entry of the Chenery Middle School.

‘That turned out to be an eight-foot long slit in a 10-inch main,” said Bishop, likely caused by air in the system introduced into the pipe from recent work along Common Street.

“That pocket of air was just looking for a weak point in the system,” said Bishop.

Two major breaks at the same time which just happened to be on Dec. 24th.

“Unfortunately we can’t predict when these will happen. We just have to send the crews out and get the job done,” said Bishop.

As the employees began breaking up the street for the second time, word got out among those living on Pond Street, Hill Road and Brighton Street of those workers preparing for a long night to provide town services.

First one, then another and still more came by to drop off coffee, pastries, food and a “thank you” to the half-dozen or so digging for a pipe in the dark. The Brighton Street work was completed just before St. Nick flew into Belmont around midnight.

When the crews came to make the repairs on Washington in the late morning of Christmas Day, residents from around the site stopped to wish them Merry Christmas and leave off gifts of food and drinks.

For Bishop, the response of residents was gratifying.

“It was phenomenal,” he said of the gestures of good will.

“It’s the little things that go a long way for the crews,” said Bishop, who used social media to thank the town folks.

“Sometimes [the employees] don’t see how appreciated their work is. But this one time that [residents] just coming by did a lot of good.”