Northeastern University

Housing

Announcement - October 26, 2009

Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2009

This year's housing report card, The Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2009: Positioning Boston in a Post-Crisis World, moved beyond the content of our previous publications and focused additional attention on the foreclosure crisis and its impact on housing affordability in the Commonwealth.

Our research shows that while home prices have fallen dramatically in Greater Boston, competitive metropolitan areas have faced even steeper declines in home values. As a result, Boston has become less affordable, relative to other cities, for both homeowners and renters. Therefore, although housing prices have declined, the housing affordability issues facing Greater Boston have been exacerbated over the last year.

There is, however, good news for the region as well. It appears as though the national and regional economic recession has neared an end and there are some indications that home prices in Greater Boston have bottomed out.

Download the report by clicking here.

Background on Our Work in Housing

Since its founding in 1999, the Dukakis Center has been deeply involved in research, evaluation, and policy projects related to affordable housing as well as the impact of housing on economic development. Its first major report, "A New Paradigm for Housing in Greater Boston", set the stage for this work, laying out in detail both the moral responsibility and the economic necessity of expanding the supply of affordable housing in the region.

This seminal research reviewed the trend in housing prices and rents, estimated the gap between housing supply and demand, focused attention on the role of zoning and local building codes in restricting development, and suggested a range of policies to augment supply to make housing more affordable to meet a goal of increasing housing production by 38,000 additional units by 2007.

With funding from The Boston Foundation and the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA), the Center has produced a lengthy, fact-filled Greater Boston Housing Report Card covering current market conditions, housing production levels in the region, rents, housing prices, and public spending on housing. This report and the annual conference used to release it has kept the housing issue in the public spotlight leading to tangible action to meet the housing goals first set out in the New Paradigm report.

The Center's research in housing led in 2005 to the creation of the Commonwealth Housing Task Force (CHTF), a broad coalition of business and civic leaders, housing advocates, and developers. With the support of this coalition, the Dukakis Center was charged with producing model legislation that could meet the housing needs of the Commonwealth. Based on the housing policy developed at the Center, Massachusetts enacted two new laws, Chapter 40R and Chapter 40S, making it possible for municipalities in the state to garner state funds in return for re-zoning land for transit-oriented, affordable "smart growth" housing construction. The Dukakis Center continues to work with the Commonwealth Housing Task Force, the state's Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, and the state legislature to provide timely reports on housing progress in the state.

At the local level, the Center created the World Class Housing Collaborative, bringing together faculty and staff from Northeastern with community leaders to consider ways of improving housing conditions in local neighborhoods. It conducted a Developers' Clinic to provide training for individuals who wish to consider producing small housing projects in their communities.

Other housing research undertaken by the Dukakis Center includes a series of analyses of affordable housing needs in local communities (Weston, Malden, Everett, and Medford), an extensive evaluation of the Maverick Gardens HOPE VI project in East Boston, an evaluation of the Home Funders project established by philanthropic organizations in Greater Boston, and a study of university-community partnerships devoted to housing production.

Housing Research Team: