Commenting on Zaremba's tax-abatement sales pitch, local scribe Roldo Bartimole ponders whether buyers should beware of their landlords increasing rents or purchase prices to compensate themselves for passing on tax abatements:

"My suspicion is that you will be taken on the price of the purchase. The developer, passing the abatement on to the buyer, will merely up the price of sale. In other words, some, possibly most, of that abatement savings will be slipped onto the cost of the condo or home."

Is there a way to measure this? Would a comparison of building cost per square foot on similar buildings in similar markets, one with and one without tax abatements, give us some answers?