Housing restrictions and low construction mean high rents for Massachusetts
There’s a lot of construction in certain Boston neighborhoods, but not as much for the rest of the state.
It is hard to look at the Boston skyline without noticing the variety of cranes, especially downtown and in the Seaport.
According to a recent Boston Globe report, there is $7 billion in construction currently underway in the Hub, but most of it is taking place in just a few neighborhoods.
As a new Boston Globe story details, housing construction across the rest of Bay State is happening much more slowly, leading to high housing costs.
Statewide there will be a total of about 14,000 housing permits issued in 2015, which isn’t even close to the 24,500 permits during peak time before the recession.
The Globe writes:
“About half of the 13,000 housing permits issued so far this year in Greater Boston are in just three cities: Boston, Chelsea, and Everett. And many of those units, especially those in downtown Boston, are luxury units well beyond the means of working- and middle-class residents.’’
A recent report from The Boston Foundation describes how the high cost of development in the Boston area is one reason why many of the new developments in the Boston area are luxury buildings and unaffordable for working and middle-income families.
Another housing barrier statewide, according to the Globe, is that cities and towns often oppose development for fear that new families will flood overburdened school districts with new students.
All of these factors leading to lower numbers of residential construction lead to something else: high rents.
In a new report, Zillow notes that a higher supply of rental units has eased rent appreciation nationally.
But Boston was a bit of an exception.
The Hub’s Zillow Rent Index rose 7.4 percent in the past year to $2,239 in October, faster than the average rise in prices nationwide.
Read the full Boston Globe story here.
Related: Massachusetts towns and cities where homes are selling really fast
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