PAUL RUCHINSKAS
Poll results ‘not surprising’
Even though the housing market has cooled and prices have fallen in many Bay State communities, the cost of housing remains a top concern for residents, according to a new poll.
More than 66 percent of residents in Massachusetts said the cost of housing was a significant concern – up from 48 percent in 2005 – according to the poll, which was conducted by the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute and the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association.
Cape Cod residents had even deeper worries about housing. Nearly 70 percent expressed concern about housing, ranking it above issues such as access to health care and jobs, while 77 percent said high housing costs are hurting the economy.
The poll results, released last Thursday, come at a time when the residential real estate market is struggling to recover from a slumping year. The median selling price for a single-family home in Massachusetts dropped 5.8 percent to $325,000 in 2006. It was the first time since 1993 that year-over-year prices fell, according to statistics from The Warren Group, parent company of Banker & Tradesman. Single-family home sales also plummeted 14.4 percent statewide, while condominium sales were down 13 percent last year.
“Despite the softening of the real estate market recently, there still is a great deal of concern about the cost of housing and its effect on the economy,” said Eric Nakajima, senior research manager at the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute.
Statewide, residents named housing above education and access to health care as a chief concern. A majority said they worried about the effect that housing is having on the economy and the ability of young people and families and seniors to stay in their communities.
Thirty-six percent reported that either they or an immediate family member have seriously considered moving out of the Bay State because of housing costs, an increase from the prior year when only 24 percent responded the same way. But the number is still lower than a 2004 poll that showed half of respondents or their family members seriously thought about leaving the state because of high home prices and rents.
“The tough thing about the real estate market right now is that prices are still high enough that there’s a barrier of entry for people of moderate and modest incomes,” said Nakajima.
The poll, which surveyed 515 residents statewide and 401 Cape residents, was conducted in late November to mid-December. Nearly 70 percent of the respondents own homes.
Cape residents offered even more dire responses about housing than those responding statewide. More than 90 percent said they believe the cost of housing prevents young families that grew up on the Cape from living in their hometowns.
“It’s not surprising and it’s consistent with the other studies we’ve seen,” said Paul Ruchinskas, affordable housing specialist with the Cape Cod Commission.
Ruchinskas said while housing costs on the Cape are higher than those in the rest of the state, wages there are generally low.
More than 40 percent of workers on the Cape are in businesses where the average wage is $25,000 or less, he said. “The gap has gotten so huge here that it’s hard for just anyone not to recognize that their kids or grandkids would have an incredibly hard time living here,” Ruchinskas said.
Like other parts of the state, the median selling price for single-family homes on the Cape slipped last year. The median home price declined almost 3 percent from 2005. But home prices have more than tripled in the last 10 years, from $120,000 in 1996 to $369,000 in 2006, according to The Warren Group.
And while single-family home prices eased last year on the Cape, the median condo price climbed 5 percent to $275,000 during the same time.
‘A Complicating Factor’
A residents’ survey released by the Cape Cod Commission last year showed that 87 percent of respondents thought that the availability of moderate and lower-priced housing was a problem on the Cape.
Ruchinskas said most of the Cape’s zoning doesn’t encourage affordable housing development, and he said the region needs to upgrade its wastewater capacity either through a sewer system or small-scale wastewater treatment facilities to make it easier for more dense, and affordable housing, development to occur.
“On the Cape we have a complicating factor in addressing housing, and that is the lack of wastewater infrastructure,” Maggie Geist, executive director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod, said in an e-mail.
Geist noted that 85 percent to 90 percent of all houses on the Cape have on-site septic systems. “The systems remove bacteria and viruses, but not nutrients. Nutrients – especially nitrogen – travel with groundwater to our coastal bays where they fertilize the water, causing massive blooms of algae and seaweed. Every house that is built contributes to the problem of nutrient overload and degraded waters. We need to address housing and wastewater together,” she said.
Geist is a member of the Cape Cod Business Roundtable, a group of 30 civic leaders that is implementing a plan to direct growth, including housing, to existing town centers.
Poll respondents throughout the state expressed support for affordable housing and regional planning, with nearly two-thirds saying they back the construction of low-cost housing in their neighborhoods. Meanwhile, 80 percent said they believe that the state should require cities and towns to plan regionally for growth and development.
On the Cape there was even greater support for affordable housing development, with 71 percent of respondents saying they support affordable housing in their communities.
“People are very concerned because young people and middle-class people are leaving the Cape,” said Geist.
