Why are home prices in Massachusetts consistently some of the highest in the nation?
While this stat doesn’t say it all, it certainly says a lot: The average lot size for a single-family home in the Bay State is a whopping 1.1 acres, according to a soon-to-be-released report by the Massachusetts Housing Partnership.
That’s the size of the field at Gillette Stadium, minus the end zones.
Here in NIMBY Massachusetts, suburban and small-town officials call the shots when it comes to setting lot sizes, with many obsessed with preserving the “character” of their communities.
Too often, that’s code word for keeping things exactly the way they are.
But guess what? Big lot sizes have big implications, especially in Massachusetts, one of the most urbanized and densely populated states in the country. Big, oversized housing lots inevitably lead to bigger, more expensive homes and higher prices.
“A lot of town officials see this as a way to manage growth,” said Clark Ziegler, executive director of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership. “But it drives up housing costs and it drives up land costs.”
OK, now some wise guy now is going to say it is all hyperbole, this idea of comparing building lots to football fields. So I’ll beat you to the punch: an NFL field is 48,000 square feet – or 1.1 acres.
It sounds ridiculous, and guess what: It is. Unless you are looking at doing some small-scale commercial farming, an acre or more is a silly amount of land for most suburban homeowners, who wind up being a slave to their lawnmowers during the sunny months of the years.
Moreover, it results in monotonous, if not downright ugly, subdivisions of McMansions on sprawling lots, eliminating creative alternatives, such as clustering homes and leaving the rest of the site as woodland or green space.
But most importantly, in a state where the median home price now tops $340,000 – according The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman – it ensures that whatever new homes are built, they are going to be downright expensive.
Not Cheap
Land is expensive in Massachusetts, especially once you get inside the I-495 beltway and start moving closer to Boston, or in a perpetually coveted and pricey market like Cape Cod.
If you are a developer and you are forced to shell out a hundred grand or two for a buildable lot, you can rest assured you are going to cram as big a house as possible on the site to recoup your investment.
It’s just simple math.
Just ask Matthew Teague, president of REEF’s Cape Cod Home Builder and chairman of the planning board in the town of Barnstable.
Towns across the Cape now mandate average building lot sizes of two acres, a major increase in the past decade, he said.
The larger lot requirements has limited the number of homes that can be built, with eight or 10 in typical subdivision now, compared to 30 before.
The cost of a buildable lot is also more expensive, resulting in $500,000 to $600,000 homes instead of $250,000 to $300,000.
In terms of affordability for the average buyer, “it’s a big, big difference,” Teague said.
It’s hard to blame the builders.
Sure, some developers have adapted to the market and are making a bundle on luxury homes, most builders would just love it if they could put more homes on the same amount land. After all, more homes mean more sales and higher profits, and, with the number of homes on the market across Massachusetts at record lows, the demand is clearly there.
Nor can you be too hard on the buyers. New construction is increasingly priced well out of reach of most middle-class house hunters in this state, who can’t even dream of affording one of the McMansions that typically get slapped onto these sprawling one – and two lots.
Rather, the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of town and suburban officials, who use large lot sizes to control and keep out unwanted development.
Town officials know very well that big lots equal big houses that pay very big tax bills.
These upscale homes are seen as paying their way or even providing a profit to the town, compared to all those middle and working class moochers in their modest ranches, capes and compact colonials, taking more out of the local schools.
No matter that studies by the University of Massachusetts Boston’s Donahue Institute and Tufts University, among others, have pretty much debunked this idea.
But maybe the most disturbing finding by the soon-to-be released MHP report on lot sizes is how little they have changed over the years.
Despite a decade of pressure and preaching from state government and an array of university think tanks and business groups, town and suburban officials continue to stubbornly cling to large lot sizes, year in and year out.
The last time MHP looked at lot sizes in the late 1990s, the average was 1.3 acres. Now it’s down to 1.1 acres – hardly much of a change at all.
That’s after years of prodding and cajoling by Gov. Mitt Romney in the early part of the decade and now, for the last seven years, by Gov. Deval Patrick as well.
One thing’s for sure: large-lot zoning is a sure-fire way to effectively shut the borders of a town to all but an affluent few newcomers who can afford to spend $600,000, $700,000, $800,000 – and up – on a house.
“Nobody is going to tell you it’s because they don’t want any more people here, but the reality is they don’t want any more people,” said Teague, the Cape builder. “Let’s tell the truth.”
Scott Van Voorhis can be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
