Over the past several weeks, I’ve noticed housing coming up in more conversations than I expected.
Whether reading legislative updates, sitting in Chamber meetings, or listening to business leaders, housing seems to find its way into discussions about workforce retention, economic development and business competitiveness.
Recently, I read the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce’s Supercharging Housing Production report, and a few numbers helped me understand why.
The report compares Massachusetts with seven states that are among the top destinations for residents and businesses leaving the Commonwealth: California, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Florida, Texas, North Carolina. Among these states, Massachusetts stands out for its low rate of new housing production, permitting just 170 new housing units per 100,000 residents. That is less than half the rate of every competitor state examined in the report and well below the national rate of 417 units per 100,000 residents.
The differences go beyond the production of housing to the actual cost of affording a home.
Massachusetts has the highest median home listing price among the states studied at $799,450 – nearly twice the price of Texas at $378,000. Massachusetts also has a rental vacancy rate of just 3.4% compared with 6.8% nationally, and a homeownership rate of 62%, below the national average and five of the seven competitor states.
Those numbers caught my attention because Massachusetts already knows it needs more housing. The state’s housing plan estimates that at least 222,000 additional homes will be needed between 2025 and 2035.
But the more I read, the more I started thinking about housing as an economic issue.
For businesses here on the North Shore, attracting someone for a job is only part of the equation. That employee also needs somewhere they can realistically afford to live. For communities, housing connects to the local economy, small businesses and entrepreneurship.
As a college student, this part of the conversation also feels pretty relevant to me. My friends and I talk all the time about internships, careers, and where we want to end up after graduation. But where we want to live and where we can afford to live aren’t necessarily the same answer.
A separate 2026 survey from the Greater Boston Chamber Foundation put some numbers behind that concern. About 26% of greater Boston residents ages 20-30 say they’re likely to leave the region within the next five years. When deciding whether to stay or leave, 78% said the cost of rent matters, while 72% pointed to the ability to buy a home.
That’s a workforce issue as much as it is a housing issue.
Massachusetts has taken steps to increase production by reforming permitting, easing environmental reviews, and providing grants for housing development. Still, reading the Chamber’s report left me with a question I don’t have the answer to:
Why is housing so expensive to produce here in the first place?
Permitting is part of that conversation, but so is land, labor, materials, building requirements, energy codes, and the time it takes to move a project from an idea to a finished home. What I haven’t found is a simple number that tells me exactly how much each factor contributes to the cost of building in Massachusetts compared with other states.
But when Massachusetts is building housing at a significantly slower rate than every competitor state studied, and young residents are increasingly questioning whether they can afford to stay here, I think it is worth taking a closer look at what those costs mean for the state’s future.
Massachusetts doesn’t need to become Texas or North Carolina. But for businesses trying to hire, communities trying to grow, and young people deciding whether they can build a future here, I keep focusing on a simple question:
What makes housing so expensive to produce in Massachusetts, and which of those costs can we realistically change?
Anthony Morales
Government Affairs Intern
anthony.morales@northshorechamber.org
Anthony Morales is a rising junior at Providence College, double-majoring in Business Economics and History. At Providence, he is involved in the Economics Club, belongs to the Leadership Fellows Program, and was selected to serve as a first-year class Orientation Leader. As an intern at the North Shore Chamber of Commerce, Anthony’s work focuses on advancing policy and legislation that fosters a business-friendly environment for the region’s businesses and entrepreneurs.
