freedraw t1_j7m56jt wrote
The people making $129k household income did not buy their house in 2023. They likely bought in 10, 20, 30 years ago. If you look at most of these towns, there's barely any housing stock even on the market. Owners aren't yet willing to take the hit the mortgage interest rate increases gave to their property values, even if the house is worth ten times what they paid in the 80s or whatever. Even owners who want to downsize and stay in the area aren't because the smaller homes and condos people would normally downsize to are in extremely short supply.
Basically, if you didn't already get into the market a while ago, you're screwed for the foreseeable future here. $129k isn't 3br house money in Greater Boston anymore unless you win an affordable housing lottery. It's 2br apartment in a triple decker income now. The issue is fixable, but much of the power to change things is in the hands of people with a vested interest in not doing that.
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>The report by a national nonprofit called Up For Growth found Massachusetts needed to build 100,000 additional homes per year to keep up demand in recent years. It also found the shortfall doubled between 2012 and 2019.
We've built less and less homes every decade since the 80's, even as we kept adding more and more jobs.
Starrion t1_j7pdpab wrote
The only thing we can build in a lot of greater Boston at this point is multi family. There simply isn’t any open land left inside 95, and not much left inside 495. It may be time to look at converting some low performing commercial space into large condo developments.
Significant_Shake_71 t1_j7qba26 wrote
From what I’ve been reading, there are still plenty of towns who have been fighting development and trying to preserve vacant lots and golf courses that have long since close down. So there’s still are places to build especially in the 495 towns but they keep fighting it tooth and nail. They even keep electing town officials who promise to fight back against further development if elected.
3720-To-One t1_j83xqa8 wrote
NIMBYism is a disease
freedraw t1_j7pz1o6 wrote
Which is why single family zoning needs to be eliminated in greater Boston.
Mighty-Rosebud t1_j7po9yt wrote
Devens has so much land and so many unused buildings. I have zero insight into what it would cost, but turning those buildings into affordable housing seems worth investigating.
SuzyTheNeedle t1_j7n90yx wrote
The home shortage is nationwide and has been for a very long time. I'd go so far as to say the early 2000s.
freedraw t1_j7neco8 wrote
Yes it’s nationwide, but it’s much worse in the greater Boston area than most major metros save SF and NYC.
SuzyTheNeedle t1_j7nqzry wrote
It’s awful. We lived on the Outer Cape. Rent was insane IF you could find a place. Year round was even worse. At the time the cheapest single family in town was a year down for 350k on barely enough land for the building and a parking spot. Came up to SW NH and got a home for half that that want a tear down and had .2 acres.
freedraw t1_j7nzluv wrote
Oh, the cape is in a terrible bind. The entire economy is geared toward tourism, but the residents refuse to allow anything to get built where all those restaurant/hotel/retail workers can actually afford to live. This article from the Globe recently about Barnstable residents trying to stop an old closing golf course from being turned into apartments makes it clear how bad the NIMBYism is there.
SuzyTheNeedle t1_j7pccc6 wrote
What they need are dorm-style accommodations, on the bus line so people can get to town to work. They've had opportunities to do that out where we were in Provincetown. Nope. The Air Force Base would be perfect except for the (so I'm told) pollution/toxic nature of the area. The old school atop the hill would have been great. Heck the development between Cumberland & Stop & shop could have been dorm style but they chose apartments. Not the best use of square footage IMO. But hey build that shiny new police department! The problem in Ptown is too many very wealthy 2nd (and 3rd) homeowners and VRBOs. There's not much left for the townies. We left after looking to buy back in '13 because we started to sense that our landlord wanted to cash out.
Everyone is clutching their pearls while they bitch about restaurants & bars being understaffed OR they're bitching because the kids from eastern block countries are "taking 'murican jobs" (not true). Meanwhile seasonal workers live in what's available, often really run down with questionable sanitation/hygiene facilities and sketchy as hell. I'm thinking of that "motel" in Truro that I believe was shut down a while back. The dark dirty secret of tourist towns. But hey, gotta have that Cosmo right?
mullethunter111 t1_j7ngdgc wrote
What’s the fix?
freedraw t1_j7nlta1 wrote
The biggest issue is zoning laws created decades ago to keep the suburbs segregated by limiting multi-family housing. Zoning being under local control means those who already own property in all these towns to have all the power to approve or prevent new housing, particularly multi-family housing. And the expense of building here means developers are mostly building huge, luxury houses because they can't make a profit off building starter homes on the limited real estate available. We've taken some baby steps with the law requiring suburbs to zone for multi-family housing near commuter rail stops, but the NIMBY pushback has been fierce. (Weston in particular has been going apeshit.). What we need is for the state to take more control of zoning away from localities. What Gov. Newsom has been doing in CA to tackle the same problem recently is probably a good example to look to.
Things like rent control and affordable housing lotteries are red herrings. The only thing that's going to fix the problem is increasing the supply...by a lot.
thomascgalvin t1_j7npyu8 wrote
Zombie apocalypse. Nothing else will have a big enough impact.
ggtffhhhjhg t1_j7qdiaw wrote
The NIMBY people want this housing built out by Worcester and those people are no different.
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