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Jan 16, 2007 6:20 pm US/Eastern
Project Mass: Affording A Home In Massachusetts
by Joe Shortsleeve
BOSTON (CBS4) ―
It's no secret that Massachusetts is an expensive place to live, and in particular, own a home. In our exclusive Fast Track by Survey USA, we found that 61 percent of the people asked have considered moving out of Massachusetts for that reason.
Latonya Ramsey has a Master's Degree, and a good job at a Boston hospital. What she doesn't have is her dream, a home to call her own. Latonya dreams of a "house to decorate, and a porch to sit on. It's nice to have that, and I want that."
She's been searching for a starter home for a year and half, but like many talented young professionals, Latonya may have to leave Massachusetts to buy a house. If people like her have to move, she says the state risks losing "people like me who are good neighbors. That's what they are going to lose, good neighbors and good citizens."
The Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance packs classes that teach middle class people how to break into the real estate market. Tom Callahan, the group's executive director, says "if you make 40-50-60-70-80 thousand dollars, most of those people are priced out of the state."
Callahan says cities and towns don't issue enough building permits, which impacts supply and demand. The majority of permits that are issued, he says, are at the high end. "If you go to downtown Boston, you see luxury condos selling for a million dollars… In the suburbs you see the McMansions."
McMansions are those huge single family homes that occupy enough space for two or three smaller homes. The builders like the profit margins on these bigger homes, and cities and towns are happy with them as well.
"A $250,000 home might provide real estate taxes that are not enough to cover the cost of schooling that a municipality will have to pay for the children who will reside in that house," according to Dr. Alan Clayton Matthews, an economist at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. "That's a huge incentive for municipalities to discourage production of such housing."
Newly elected Governor Deval Patrick agrees that we need more working class housing in Massachusetts. Housing activists will be looking to him to fix the situation, and so will Latonya Ramsey. "I just really hope that other people don't give up their search and leave Massachusetts because there is so much going on here and there is so much more to look forward to."
There are real estate classes to help homebuyers all over the state. You can find one near you by checking under "Related Links" to the right of this page.
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