Housing permits dip while prices remain high, report says
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Let's start with the good news: Massachusetts has added nearly 98,000 new housing units in the past five years, including 71,000 in Greater Boston.
- The bad news: Permits for future house construction have dropped, and most renters can't afford to buy a home here, per a new Boston Foundation report.
Why it matters: Home ownership is a pipe dream for most Massachusetts renters, a key sign that the housing crisis persists.
Threat level: The household income needed to afford a home "at the low end of the market" jumped from $98,000 in 2021 to $162,000 in 2025, per the Housing Report Card released Wednesday.
- Today, just 15% of renter households could afford their starter home, down from 30% in 2021 — partly because home sale prices remain out of reach.
- That's even with the recent cooldown in the Greater Boston market; median single-family prices peaked one month at over $1 million but are ending the year with a median sale price of $837,287.
State of play: Boston, Cambridge, Quincy and Somerville added more than 24,000 units in the past five years (mostly in Boston), but permits for future housing construction have dipped.
By the numbers: Massachusetts cities and towns approved just 14,300 permits last year.
- In fact, 2023 and 2024 were the lowest permitting years since 2012, per the report.
- And those permitting years were way lower than in the 1970s and 1980s, when more than 50,000 units were being constructed a year at the era's height.
Between the lines: The housing production suggests the state could meet the 2035 target of creating 220,000 new homes in the next decade, as set by the Affordable Homes Act.
Yes, but: Most newly built homes here were permitted a few years ago, before tariffs hiked materials costs, construction sites lost workers and financing became harder to come by.
What we're watching: The report suggests Massachusetts is entering a period of even slower construction completions, putting the state far from reaching its 2035 goal as renters see costs increase.