Just one in seven renter households within the Higher Boston space can afford an “entry level” house, as affordability points proceed even whereas building will increase, in keeping with the 2025 Higher Boston Housing Report Card launched Wednesday.
“This year’s report data highlights some significant differences among housing construction, permits, and prices,” stated Luc Schuster, government director of the analysis arm of the Boston Basis.
“While new data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows a significant uptick in new home completions in recent years, the increase has not significantly helped home affordability, and a decline in the number of new housing permits statewide suggests any construction uptick could be short-lived,” the manager director added.
The annual housing report, performed by the Boston Basis, discovered that Massachusetts created slightly below 98,000 housing items between April 2020 and July 2025, with about 71,000 in Higher Boston.
The tempo marks a “meaningful increase” and “would put Massachusetts within striking distance” of assembly the state’s aim of constructing 222,000 new items between 2025 and 2035, the report acknowledged.
“But permits, which signal future housing construction, are way down,” the report states. “New permits as of July 2025 are running 44 percent below levels for the same period in 2021.”
Constructing permits had been at simply over 14,000 in 2024, down from the height of practically 20,000 in 2021, in keeping with the report. In Higher Boston, beneath 9,000 items had been permitted in 2024, under the about 15,000 permitted in 2021.
“It’s a real sort of pairing of a good news, bad news story,” stated Schuster. “Good news is that we’ve built significant new housing in the last few years, making a bit of a dent in our housing shortage, but there are real warning signs around whether that will continue into the future.”
Regardless of the modest improve in housing building, “Greater Boston’s housing affordability crisis has only worsened since the pandemic,” the report exhibits.
In 2025, house costs and rents have broadly leveled off however stay at unaffordable excessive ranges, the information exhibits.
Whereas in 2021, a family incomes about $98,000 might purchase a house on the low finish of the market with a $2,520 month-to-month fee, a family this yr would wish to earn over $162,000 to afford the $4,200 month-to-month fee on the starter houses.
“You can see that we’ve cut by almost half the number of renter households who can afford an entry level home in just four years,” stated Schuster. “Also look as one example, for Black households in 2025, we estimate just a little bit over 8,000 Black families that are renter households in Greater Boston can currently afford an entry level home. So a whole lot of dire consequences of these trends in recent years.”
The share of renter households in a position to afford an entry degree house fell from 30% in 2021 to fifteen% in 2025, the report exhibits.
The “sobering reality of this combination of price increases and higher mortgage rates,” Schuster stated, is only one in seven households in Higher Boston are in a position to afford a starter house within the area.
“The data show just how much work we have to do if we are to expand opportunities and unfreeze the market,” Schuster stated.
Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll spoke on the report’s discovering Wednesday, citing the administration’s work on a “comprehensive housing plan,” the $5.2 billion invested within the Reasonably priced Houses Act handed in 2024, and the MBTA Communities Regulation requiring housing round public transportation.
The report additionally examined the MBTA Communities Regulation, highlighting the techniques 177 cities and cities have taken to fulfill it, some by means of zoning adjustments somewhat than building.
“There are lots of intractable challenges within government,” stated Driscoll. “Building more housing isn’t one of them. It really isn’t. It should not be as hard as it is. And I think for us to solve this, we’ve got to work together, and that means local officials, state officials, certainly are in a position to drive policy, folks who are building housing, those who are developing housing. There is a path forward.”
