2024 Greater Boston Housing Report Card
Part I: Core Metrics
- Demographics & Economic Trends
- Supply
- Prices, Rents, & Affordability
- Subsidized Housing
- Instability
- State Policy Round-Up
Part II: Opportunity or Obstacle
The Use of Public Land to Build (and Block) Affordable Housing
AUTHORS
Core Metrics
Peter Ciurczak, Boston Indicators
Aja Kennedy, Boston Indicators
Lucas Munson, Boston Indicators
Luc Schuster, Boston Indicators
Obstacles or Opportunity
Katherine Levine Einstein, Initiative on Cities at Boston University
Maxwell Palmer, Initiative on Cities at Boston University
Danielle Mulligan, Initiative on Cities at Boston University
EDITORS
Sandy Kendall, The Boston Foundation
Soni Gupta, The Boston Foundation
DESIGN
Mel Isidor, Isidor Studio
Friends,
I can’t tell you how eager I am for the day when I can introduce an annual edition of the Greater Boston Housing Report Card with cheer and good news and a vocabulary free from crisis, emergency, and shortage.
Unfortunately, we are not there yet. Another year’s analysis shows Greater Boston with a continuing mismatch between supply and demand. The chronic underproduction of housing units continues with some old and some new causes. Population and demographic trends—such as the formation of more, but smaller households—keep upward pressure on demand. Meanwhile, economic trends put a high cost on downsizing for seniors, making for a sluggish market. The Core Metrics section of the 2024 Report Card clearly illuminates these and more factors at play in our challenging housing landscape.
We are not without cause for hope, however. Rents, while trending ever upward, have paused their ascent so far in 2024. Mortgage rates have inched downward and some foresee lower rates yet on the horizon.
In addition, we are seeing more expansive thinking among housing advocates, researchers, developers, and policymakers about how to ameliorate our current reality. Efforts on zoning reform continue, but new approaches that go beyond zoning are under review at all levels. The Partnership to Close the Racial Wealth Gap is looking at mortgage assistance for first-time buyers; Mayor Wu is arguing for downtown commercial space to be used for housing; and a recent Boston Indicators report highlighted a new push to examine building codes to allow greater multifamily efficiency, to name a few.
This Housing Report Card follows suit in exploring new avenues, with a Special Analysis that looks at how publicly owned land could be used to ease our housing crunch. Researchers found all too frequently it was leveraged for opposite purposes—to stop new development. While disappointing, this finding is extremely useful, setting us up to make recommendations for improving our housing development ecosystem.
We must pursue those improvements, not only to house all who live here—valued lifelong residents, brave new arrivals, and everyone between—but to ensure they live in decent homes that they can afford without sacrificing essentials like groceries. When we make housing an appealing part of a satisfying life in Greater Boston rather than an obstacle to it, we will make this the place more people choose to live, bringing their energy, skills, and creativity to strengthen and enrich our community.
M. Lee Pelton
President & CEO
The Boston Foundation
Explore the Report
Part I: Core Metrics
In Part I of this year's report, Boston Indicators highlights the current trends in price and supply, in the context of a region that is aging, with smaller household sizes and growing disparities between the highest- and lowest-earning households. Coupled with relatively slow increases in housing supply, the scenario results in continuing high prices and pressure on lower-income buyers and renters.
Part II: Public Land: Opportunity or Obstacle?
The special topic in the 2024 report examines a possible opportunity for siting new housing in Greater Boston – thousands of acres of publicly-owned land that is unused, vacant and not set aside for conservation. A research team from Boston University's Initiative on Cities examines the issue, and finds that while using public spaces could generate tens of thousands of new housing units, local processes and housing opponents can often use the system to block new housing development, sometimes spending millions in the process.
Interactive Charts
MBTA Communities Compliance Map
This map will be regularly updated to track how the 177 MBTA Communities are faring in their efforts to approve and implement zoning changes to meet the requirements of the MBTA Communities Act.
