I want to thank everyone who responded to my first post on “Abundance.” People made thoughtful comments and also pointed me to some helpful resources. In this post, I share how that exchange has helped clarify my thinking.
The “Abundance” conversation is very broad — it can go in too many directions, so it’s important to discuss it within a specific context. This post focuses on housing in Massachusetts. (For more of my thinking on housing issues, listen to this 38 minute podcast or browse my housing outline.)
My Housing Big Picture
The following narrative distills my previous thinking:
- Many renters and some homeowners are suffering a price squeeze. Too many young people are leaving the state. We need to build more housing in Massachusetts.
- The numbers show that only a small fraction of our housing need can be met with subsidized housing, so we are dependent on market rate developers.
- Market rate housing development capital is mobile. Potential investors in housing production have options — they can build in Massachusetts, or Tennessee, or France.
- Zoning restrictions, building codes, and other regulations make Massachusetts an expensive and risky place to build. If we want to attract housing development, we need to make Massachusetts a place were it is easier to build. From an affordability and an environmental perspective, our best path is to build apartment buildings in areas well served by public transportation and/or near jobs. So, my affirmative agenda is to streamline apartment production.
- True, this doesn’t the offer the immediate relief so many are asking for: it took us 100 years of restrictive zoning to get to where we are and even if we get everything right legislatively over the next five years, it will take us decades to rebalance supply and demand.
- In the short run, we want to do all we can to help people stabilize their housing situation: The recent Affordable Homes Act includes important positive measures for tenants. Also, I have made housing aid (RAFT, MRVP) a priority in my budget requests and we have substantially increased funding through the past few budget cycles. I am also hopeful that we will shortly pass legislation to limit the burden of broker fees on tenants. As we work to help people in the short run, we need to be cautious about measures that could harm housing production.
Adjustments to My Housing Big Picture
Here are some gaps and weaknesses in my narrative that the response to my last post have helped me appreciate:
First, the rise in housing prices may primarily reflect supply and demand factors that we cannot control.
Supply is a function of many cost variables, some of which are nationally or internationally determined. Our local regulations may make only a small relative difference in the supply curve. Conversely, increased personal income available for expenditure on housing may be raising the demand curve and that may be the primary cause of rising prices. How these factors interact to drive housing prices up is a subject of debate among economists. The best economic evidence that our focus on local supply constraints may be myopic is that housing prices have been rising even in markets where regulations are limited. See Supply Constraints do not Explain House Price and Quantity Growth Across U.S. Cities, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2025. The local observation that there are many units permitted but unbuilt in Greater Boston tends to support the idea that zoning constraints are certainly not the only factor and possibly not even the biggest factor contributing to high prices.
We should humbly admit that housing prices depend on factors outside our legislative control, but that should not dissuade us from working on the factors that we can control. There are lots of reasons to create more opportunities to build apartment buildings in the suburbs: housing for seniors wanting to downsize, housing with a lower carbon footprint, housing for local workers, housing near transit, etc. And there are lots of reasons to believe we can streamline our regulations to lower housing production costs. For example, subsidized housing units, which are subject to even more rules and requirements than market rate units, are costing about $800 to $900 thousand to build these days in Massachusetts as compared to $500 to $600 thousand per market rate unit. Progress on zoning and other regulations may not result in regional reductions in housing prices, but we can create some more opportunities for people to be housed and redress a history of intentional policies of exclusion.
Second, it is fair to criticize the Abundance argument generally as “neo-liberal.”
“Neo-liberal” has became a pejorative term for blind faith in the power of markets to deliver desirable outcomes. In the housing context, it is indeed too simplistic to suggest that if we just get out of the way, the market will build the housing we need. Serkins and Sitaraman make an argument for a Post -Neoliberal Housing Policy in a very recent paper. There are lot of ideas in the paper, which is a good survey, but the gist is that we should not only loosen regulations, but use regulations to affirmatively drive the housing construction we want.
How much we can accelerate production remains to be seen, but our Massachusetts approach to housing already involves much more than getting out of the way. Affirmative measures need to be part of how I talk about the issue. For example, zoning can be a positive force for increasing density. We can standardize construction models to streamline permits. We can encourage year-round, offsite manufacture of housing components. Some ideas in this spirit appear in our recent Affordable Homes Act and more appear in the recent report of the Governor’s Commission on Unlocking Housing Production.
An additional concern with a simplistic market approach is the issue of affordability. With construction costs high, new housing units are only affordable to people with higher incomes. For lower income renters, new market housing production only offers indirect help as tenants move up, vacating older less expensive units — a process referred to as “filtering” or pejoratively as “trickle-down.”
Massachusetts does better than many states at providing government support for the lowest income renters, those meeting the definition of “Extremely Low Income.” In fact, in a recent presentation at the American Community Survey Data Users Conference, I’ve argued that we are doing much better than the survey data shows for the lowest income renters (see my panel talk starting at 1:18:40).
However, where we are failing is for the next tier up — the “Very Low Income,” the working poor. Our subsidized housing construction programs necessarily rely on federal tax credits, but these credits channel new affordable units to people making 50% or more of area median income, above the working poor level. Right now, all we can do for the working poor is trickle-down; available federal programs do not give us a good way to target relief to them. This is a central continuing concern for me. It makes an argument for being proactive about driving new unsubsidized production at the lowest possible price point — not a new idea in Massachusetts, but one that needs consistently to be part of how I talk about the issue.
Third, we need to keep an eye on oligopoly power in the housing market.
There is no question that national investors have been buying housing in multiple markets. They have no allegiance to local well-being and are entirely profit driven. In some instances, they displace existing tenants through larger rent increases. One of the ironies is that over-regulation of housing favors big property owners — small landlords cannot afford to hire lawyers to handle the regulatory complexity.
However, I’m not convinced that outside investors are an important part of our housing price challenge in Massachusetts. The economics are complicated. There is a standard metric of when market power is too concentrated, the HHI Index. It is not obvious that the HHI framework is a good one for the housing market, but when one applies that framework to the data from studies of institutional investment in local real estate, there is no market in which concentration approaches oligopolistic levels. In Atlanta, the most concentrated market in the country, we can use Figure 6 in this GAO report to put a likely upper bound of 625 on the HHI there — well below the danger level of 1000. See also this similar critique of the market concentration argument; or apply HHI computations to this article lamenting concentration among home builders in Dallas (not close to danger levels). While concentration may not be a problem yet, we definitely need to watch for collusion through rental marketing platforms, an issue that has begun to surface in Massachusetts.
Summary
So, thanks again to all who helped me clarify my thinking on the housing big picture. I remain centrally concerned to remove barriers to apartment production, but we also need to emphasize our proactive measures to accelerate housing production. Coming back to the top level Abundance argument, I think we have to have the same kind of conversation about our strategy in other areas — there are many areas where people (inside government and outside government) feel their productivity diminished by regulatory complexity. In each of these areas, we need to contextualize the general “neo-liberal” deregulation argument, recognizing its partial validity, but also its incompleteness.
This is a continuing conversation and I very much welcome more discussion.
One thing about calling something a “crisis” is it allows our antidemocratic tendencies to kick in.
Has there been any progress on implementing some of the recommendations from the Unlocking Housing Production Commission report? Some of their recommendations, like removing mandatory parking minimums on residential development or allowing multi-family units by-right, could help housing development in some of the more NIMBY communities in the Commonwealth.
S.962, one of three bills supported by Abundant Housing MA, seems to include a lot of these recommendations. It may not be a silver bullet to address the high cost of housing, but hopefully it helps!
Not yet, but I’m very hopeful that we’ll do more on housing in this session.
“NIMBY” is an ad hominem, a dehumanizing slur and unfortunate debate term. Why is the far left so dependent this coercive name-calling?
Is social justice really to be found in building more units and antidemocratic market distortions? Aren’t we simply cementing a greater scale of injustice by reckless growth?
Bill Clinton was my first Democratic vote and I have only ever voted for Democrats, but 10/7 opened my eyes to the moral vacuity of the Party. Going forward to save the state from Democratic Socialists it essential to vote Republican.
“Abundance” isn’t about loosening process, it’s about stepping away from democratic norms.
I’m not certain there is a Democratic Party left to save.
Fred,
NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) is an acronym, more descriptive than pejorative. It has also spawned its opposite, YIMBY (Y = Yes).
Two things, both true: We seem to be unable to afford to build affordable housing, which is what’s so badly needed. Developers are willing and eager to built market-rate housing, which far too many people can’t afford.
The “reckless growth” you describe is unjust, but so is allowing homelessness.
I assume that by 10/7, you mean Israel and Gaza. However, I have no idea what “moral vacuity” you refer to.
There are many Democrats. There are few if any “Democratic Socialists”. I suggest you worry less about saving Massachusetts from socialism and worry much, much more about saving the US from Republicans, who seem determined to destroy this country as rapidly as possible.
The use of NIMBY is as a coercive slur. One could have only wished that the YIMBYs opted for a democratic path and put the modifications to the MBTA Communities Act to a vote in affected communities instead of doing the deed at three a.m. on a room on Beacon Hill. The argument that The Diktat is only changing zoning and isn’t forcing localities to build one iota on that land is specious; zoning is the bulwark to preserve democracy in its most granular form short of speech and voting. Democracy is an obstacle to Progressives and the erosion and trespasses against democracy will only accelerate with precedents like The Act.
When we subtract the obligatory mouthings from my fellow Democrats following the 10/7 invasion and massacre we were left with relative silence. I wasn’t expecting Dems to abandon a Two State Solution condemning Israel to a half life of imperfect sovereignty, but I was expecting a smattering of speechifying defending the West against a deathcult that dogs us and has us cowering, self-censoring and appeasing assaults on liberty.
The Democratic Socialists (read Progressives) have a force multiplier and that is silence from Democrats.
Agreed
What is going on with the lawsuits that Belmont residents have brought forward against building in Belmont Center and Cushing square ??? Ruining Belmont is not an option!!
Not sure I have the context for this comment.
Ruining unique old localities is the plan. Every hundred new units added brings us closer to the crisis the Progressives are working doggedly to precipitate.
What vitality did “Cushing Village” bring that wasn’t there already? A Starbuck’s? Nope. We had a much better, cozier Starbuck’s layout in the former Friendly’s building. Nothing but more litter (which I chalk up to Uber using the neighborhood streets they crisscross as trash cans)
Thank you for your comments about supply and demand with regard to housing costs. I just about lose my mind during town planning meetings when enthusiastic and well-meaning folks (and most developers) maintain with great certainty that if we just build more apartments/housing, prices will come down. Decades of data from inside the 128 loop, as well as personal observation, show this to be anything but the case. Providing housing that is affordable across several income tiers generates a Gordian knot of complexity, and I appreciate that you don’t insult us with a simplistic presentation.
Will
A very thoughtful presentation. The legislative details are in your wheelhouse. Seems to make sense to me. I think that those of us who think the solution is multi family housing need to stress the significant benefits that living in such a building provide. Because they will be located near public transit, your commuting cost and time wasting is significant. The reality that close by neighbors allow a social element that for the most part, can be very helpful in terms of support for everything from school transport to grocery shopping, social interactions to sport involvement. Kids can have more friends, etc. yes I know all neighbors are a positive experience but because there are many next door neighbors one can pick and choose in a much larger universe than single family neighbors. I think communicating this aspect of multi unit housing will change to optics for the better. I know this from having lived in both types of buildings Good luck.
Multiple things can be true. I agree we don’t have enough incentives for housing as is. A few things your post doesn’t mention but should be covered. Metro Boston has one of its lowest vacancy rate in 20 years https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/1llinu1/boston_metro_area_vacancies_among_lowest_in_20/
Next the MBTA and better transportation across the CW is a part of this. Improving connections, reliability, and speed will make people consider more housing options.
Finally zoning reform doesn’t have to be just making big projects easier. Banning parking minimums and allow property owners to upzone from single family to up to say 4-6 units without a variance would create a lot of housing stock across the state.
Right — proactive zoning measures can help, not just relaxing zoning.
Along these lines, I found Stephen Jacob Smith’s opinion piece about the cost of elevators in the U.S. illuminating: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/08/opinion/elevator-construction-regulation-labor-immigration.html. Elevators cost 3-4 times more in the U.S. than in European countries, for many interwoven reasons.
Also, fwiw, I agree that rising household incomes — along with variability in the quality and perceived quality of public schools and other public services — is part (though certainly not all) of the issue with housing costs. Back in 2004, Elizabeth Warren (yes, that Elizabeth Warren) and her daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi wrote compellingly about positional goods and housing costs in “The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke.”
Double incomes are definitely part of the equation.
Will,
Thank you for your follow up and ongoing work towards transparency, good government, and abundance. What happens when developers edge out long term residents and homeowners from public meetings and meaningful public participation for new developments in historic neighborhoods to ignore community demands for healthy, livable, people friendly housing under the guise of meeting housing needs in inappropriate ways?
Under the guise of building housing and meeting the MBTA Communities Act, developers are currently lobbying some city councils for removing or reducing requirements for 20% affordable housing for new luxury developments under the MBTA Communities Act Exclusionary Zoning requirements. This is the first attack on direct community requests from both individuals and residents who have organized to form community groups. Developers are lobbying and ignoring residents and community concerns about a lack of housing appropriate for families, disruptions and encroachments to residents during demolition and construction, ignoring all environmental and public health standards through bypassing traditional zoning requirements including proposing impermeable lot coverage of 95%, and making proposals without any meaningful participation of the community nor any public health, public safety, environmental, or civil engineering studies from air quality to winter traffic to shadows to hydrology/groundwater, to engaging any professional engineer to plan around antique aspects of historical and residential aspects of the built environment infrastructure including service lines. Such actions put the cart before the horse. We cannot thrive in an environment if we destroy the conditions needed to support a good quality of life for the long term residents who have built communities and for those who may join it when new housing is built. We need further leadership for residents and constituents when developers are pushing against public health and public safety to control and push deregulatory agendas and stack committees and councils to be pro developer explicitly labeling both environmental standards and the community itself as barriers at a time families, seniors, and other vulnerable members of our communities are under great pressure. We request your urgent support to ensure abundance in our towns and cities do not force residents (especially seniors) out of their homes, reduce the value of their home, or make light of the work required for families to get on the property ladder and build a nest egg where most residents and families do not have the affluence nor abundance to develop their own properties to invest in their own communities where they live, work, and play. As my neighbor reminds me, crises are when we lose rights.
Please help us by not allowing developers to exploit residents who have invested heavily for decades (from buying a home to nonprofit and volunteer endeavors and more). Such developers have resorted to labeling the seniors, families, and vulnerable populations who need help the most as themselves being “barriers to housing” alongside science-based environmental rules and sensible, tried and tested zoning regulations. How can we be sure that the law will be implemented in our state as intended without destroying decades or generations of family wealth including for BIPOC residents in a way that doesn’t allow developers to build and ignore the zoning process and ask for forgiveness after forcing residents out of their homes under the guise of emergency and crisis rather than listening and fostering understanding for mutual benefit towards abundance? What happens when developers exploit BIPOC communities and formerly redlined neighborhoods yet again by targeting these groups in proposals for demolishing historic neighborhoods where a legacy of covert racism has lead to a legacy of disinvestment at the same time as lobbying city councils? Current residents asking for more greenspace, more than 20% affordable housing, and mandatory fire escapes for new neighbors living in new luxury developments (with only studio apartments) is not NIMBYism.
Thank you,
M
This is the conversation we have to have. We have to find ways forward through this conversation.
Crises need not lead to loss of rights. They get our attention. Then, the conversation that Klein and Thonpson captured and that Will terrifically applied locally can pull us along to the compromises that have to be made.
The logical conclusion is Progressives don’t believe that BIPOC deserve, or require the benefit of the spacious, leafy middle-class neighborhoods that was the cradle to generation past.
I don’t understand your section header stating that “it is fair to criticize the Abundance argument generally as “neo-liberal”,” or why you seem to equate the Abundance argument with de-regulation. From my reading of the discussion of housing issues in Abundance, measures you suggest as an alternative to deregulation, such as zoning to increase density, standardizing construction models to streamline permits, and encouraging offsite manufacture of housing components, aka, modular housing, sound like exactly the kind of things that the Abundance viewpoint supports. I don’t know how many times Ezra Klein has had to explain that the Abundance approach does not call for government simply to “get out of the way” of the “free market,” but requires a strengthening of state capacity.
Fair enough. I’m sure Klein does not have simplistic view. I think his views do tend to be oversimplified.
Will, your data indicate the short to medium run constraint is zoning and permitting on multi-family development. With construction costs at around $600/sqft, a $500K to $600K market rate unit on average is between 1 and 2 bedrooms. The only way to keep the cost down for a buyer is to build units on the smaller side and 1-2 BR is about the minimum. Costs are unlikely to fall significantly so what the market can best deliver for less expensive housing is dense development of smaller units. This might involve a cultural adjustment by younger buyers. Many boomers like myself shared a bedroom until our parents could afford a 3 or 4 BR instead of a 1 or 2 BR.
Yup. And the irony is that the trend has been to larger units.
Will
Please continue to provide thoughtful presentations like this. We are lucky to have a state senator who thinks through issues so thoroughly. But one factor in driving up housing prices you failed to mention is real estate taxes. They are going to present an increasing problem especially in cities like Boston that depend so heavily on real estate taxes revenues, but where commercial building values are falling steeply. Unfortunately most officials fail to admit/face the impending problem and choose instead to increase spending (and associated tax increases) at a rate that is certain to make housing even less affordable.
If you’re not going to invest heavily in subsidizing new apartment buildings, we can maximize the potential of our existing areas AND allow for healthy aging-in-place by encouraging “co-housing zones”. Note: I just made that up. But seriously, if neighbors could be induced to care for other neighbors, the karma payback would be enormous. And just maybe the “over-housed” elders (I hate that term!) would be more willing to share their space on that basis. Why should neighbors take others to the grocery store? Walk their dogs? Etc? As I said, the karma payback would be terrific. We’ve lost so much living in our little silos. Make neighborhoods into neighborhoods again! That wouldn’t cost a dime. And just maybe, encourage some property sharing (even allowing ADUs) would result.
Thank you. This is the kind of thing that individuals can choose to do. Hard for government to drive this, but I love it.
Another excellent piece. I have recently moved to Evanston Illinois but I continue to read your articles. Evasnton is currently having a serious debate on this same subject. Maby you could come to Evanston and give a seminar. Thank you again for your intelligent insights.
Thank you for the kind words, but I’m sure I couldn’t teach much to people there who are trying to work things through.
Good stuff Will. I hope that Beacon Hill takes some inspiration from CA’s recent reform of the CEQA that loosens the restrictive environmental review standards for infill housing. I saw some good points about that in the housing report linked, and I hope that there can be some big changes around MEPA review. It’s ironic that the state, in signaling out ‘Environmental Justice’ communities (like Brookline…) has only made it harder to build housing in disadvantaged places. I’d also love to see the YIMBY Act (S.962), a clean zoning reform bill pass. On Affordable Housing, I think leaders need to be clear that ‘Inclusionary Zoning’ is not a silver bullet, and can in make it even harder to build. Esp with high rates, tariffs etc, IZ requirements can make it fundamentally impossible for builders to build *any* units, affordable or otherwise. Towns and cities should make it easier, not harder and more expensive to build.
I am very grateful for the residential exemption I receive on my real estate tax for living in Boston. Many other towns and cities in Massachusetts do not have this.
Be cautious of updating too much on Louie, Mondragon, and Wieland (2025) (“Supply Constraints do not Explain House Price and Quantity Growth Across U.S. Cities”). It is a working paper; it hasn’t been published yet. There are already some concerns about its interpretation. For example, here are two early peer reviews: Furth and Wiebe.
Furth (2025) (https://download.ssrn.com/2025/4/23/5227968.pdf):
“Louie et al. (2025) use total income to measure demand for housing. But total income is mostly determined by population growth, which is co-determined with housing supply growth, which is jointly determined by supply and demand for housing. Thus, what they call demand is in fact the equilibrium of supply and demand. An analogy: *number of sales at taquerias* would be an excellent predictor of *the number of tacos sold*. But we wouldn’t include it in the demand function for tacos.”
Wiebe (2025) (https://michaelwiebe.com/assets/supply_constraints/supply_constraints.pdf)
“LMW models housing demand as a function of population and average income. However, supply constraints are a key determinant of population growth: newcomers are less able to move into a city that restricts the construction of new housing. Hence, LMW does not have exogenous variation in demand. Accordingly, the empirical results are uninformative about the role the housing supply constraints.”
I’ll be interested to see if significant changes are made to Louie, Mondragon, and Wieland when it is published.
As a footnote, I wouldn’t cite this as “Supply Constraints […], NBER”. NBER just runs a service for hosting preprints, like arXiv in the physical sciences. NBER isn’t the author, nor the authors’ primary institution, and doesn’t condone the contents. Cite it as Louie, Mondragon, and Wieland, or just Louie et al.
Thank you for this. Well taken. My main take away from the economic discussion is that housing prices and housing production can both fluctuate for a lot of reasons. We can’t draw a simplistic straight line from zoning reforms to reduced prices. The argument that zoning reform can affect prices in the long run remains intuitively compelling.
Ok, Pink Moon means new beginnings..The song by Nick Drake is heartfelt and good.
And check out William Barber…Moral Mondays, and damn, I’m not even religious!
This book about the UK housing market https://www.amazon.com/dp/135037427X assigns some of the blame for the rise in prices over the past 30 years in the UK to changes in financing for buyers including the development of Mortgage Backed Securities. I’m certainly no expert in this field, but you might want to think about financing for buyers, since reduced percentage requirements on down payments has probably contributed to the ability of sellers to raise prices.
Very well taken. Makes sense that the high availability of mortgage funding as a result of securitization contributed to higher prices. This was to some extent reversed post 2008.
Thanks Senator! Love getting these updates, I appreciate your thoughtfulness towards such an important issue.
Will,
I truly appreciate your deeply thoughtful approach to issues, including the factors driving a mismatch between housing need and supply, as well as what that suggests about the path forward.
Thanks!
I’m disappointed in my corner of Brighton there’s one Newton based developer who is buying up houses in the area for the BC student off campus housing market. I’ve been here decades and seen people move out for one reason or the other and the housing turns into student rentals. The City of Boston just rakes in the fees and could care less. My area is just gone. Normal working people can’t afford to live here. I had an adult senior neighbor friend move out of his rental allegedly because the house is being sold. He was a good potential homeowner tending a garden even though not his land. Really a shame. Who knows, maybe I’m next because to get any repairs done are exorbitant. Capitalism is on display constantly. I don’t understand why one Newton resident and his corporation can buy up every house in this area. I won’t be alive but in time there will be massive apartment buildings because he’ll own all the land. The student rental market is very lucrative. There’s a demolition something for a house on Lane Park. Also, think I read the Governor of California has relaxed some building requirements after all the fires to get housing built. I also think of the condo owners west of here who have had foundation issues. A committee is to be formed. Do the taxpayers of MA have to pay for new foundations? What about suing the builders and the concrete suppliers? Not even safe living in a condo. Too bad there isn’t a state requirement that the colleges have a certain ratio of on campus housing. I don’t know if they just increase enrollment with its the tuition income and are totally unaccountable to the full time residents.
Perhaps MA can more fully exploit living above the store.
Thanks for all your hard work. We are blessed to have your input.
Will,
Like many others here, I appreciate and applaud your posts and your engagement with these issues. Thank you. And please keep doing it.
This is a book that does a great job of generating conversations while in many cases avoiding directly recommending specific regulatory cures. They effectively use anecdotes to point out failures of over-reliance on process to produce specific desired results, while still supporting the intention behind some of that process and avoiding claiming to know the right specific fix.
For example, I believe they would highlight this sentence from your summary. “…subsidized housing units, which are subject to even more rules and requirements than market rate units, are costing about $800 to $900 thousand to build these days in Massachusetts as compared to $500 to $600 thousand per market rate unit.” He implies in many instances that increasing government employees who could directly design and build such units (rather than outsourcing or partnering – see the California rail car example) would reduce this disparity. That feels like a thorny issue worth discussion. But primarily, Klein would ask why building with the might, knowhow, and full support of government wouldn’t result in a lower cost per unit. That question seems central and worthwhile to explore.
The AHA is a huge accomplishment. I’m curious to see the implementation and overall results. In particular, it states a goal of 65,000 new housing units (40,000 affordable), with what looks like about $2 B of the funding allocated to the affordable housing goals. If I understand correctly, that is allocating less than $50,000 per affordable housing unit. What is the force multiplier that will allow for that sum to generate those results?
Thank you, Senator, for informing and hosting this type of productive conversation. Abundance brings up a lot of compelling points as to the unforeseen and unintended drawbacks of the progressive agenda, as has been in place for five decades. It provides excellent food for thought but only if readers are willing to acknowledge some uncomfortable realities. The recent Atlantic article also provides similar background and recommendations on housing: https://www.theatlantic.com/tag/general/housing/
I especially appreciate any effort to limit broker’s fee costs on tenants. A high up-front cost makes the budget math favor putting up with higher rent increases every year instead of moving.
I only rent while my wife and I try to save up to buy our first home. Buying in Belmont isn’t reasonable for us for cost reasons, but we’d like to stay in state if we can.
Senator:
I am also appreciative of the work you put in and the continual outreach for thoughts and ideas.
I’d like more focus on the cost side of the equation. It seems that every time we talk about the affordability issue, all we end up doing is focusing on forcing others to do what we want or making someone else pay the excess cost for the poorer party. All anti-dmocratic and market distoring. In my work, when something costs too much we looked at how to reduce the cost, not how to push it onto others. Why is it 500K to build a unit of housing and how do we bring that down in absolute terms. Using ChatGPT, it identifies nearly $150K of the $500 is to pay for regulatory driven and affordable housing initiatives. While some of this is needed, removal would result in a 30% reduction in cost. Also, the afforable housing subsidies contribute to lower than liveable wages for employees in the area subsidizing the employers that use low wage employees. On the cost of construction, we need to explore more on what are the barriers to lower cost building methods such as modular. Why was the industrial revolution never applied to the home building industry? There is a relatively large Modular Home Company in Canton, MA. Maybe they would be a useful party to discuss the impediments that aret in place to this transition? The Company is Avalon Building Systems. per ChatGPT some of the issues are regulatory such as limits/costs of cranes and truck access as well as fragmentation of the building industry and parties such as labor unions who, like the dock workers union that wants to prohibit automation, can be misguided when it comes to labor efficiency efforts. The greater the efficiency the more output for less effort and the worker can make more and the customer receive more. A Win Win vs an artificial fixed pie mentality. Efficiency is what has driven and will always drive the increase in quality of life across time.
I’d also like to see more focus in the public education space on the revival of shop classes in middle school for all students and less forced tracking of students onto the College Prep track. This would help reduce the lack of respect that I see for the blue collar worker by society as well as supply workers where there is demand. Today, we setup too many of our youth for failure by encouraging them to pursue degrees that are not marketable and running up debts that some then want to transfer to others that chose a career path based on a service mentality of doing something that others are willing to pay for, meeting a societal need. The key is to allow individuals to make their own value judgements and only have government get involved when there is a market distortion such as Market Concentration or some other type of cheating but this isn’t the case for housing per your research using the HHI index. This also frees professionals from smaller DIY type of efforts that people with shop exposure could do on their own such as decks, patios, door and window replacement. The professionals can then be dedicated to new construction or large scale renovation, increasing the housing supply. Frankly being be able to do your own house renovation and car repair are the only areas were DIY pays. Most other things such as furniture making or sewing actually cost more than buying.