Massachusetts’ first-time buyers seem to be facing the loosest market in many years, potentially giving hope to homebuying dreams – provided they can afford today’s home prices in the first place.
Brookline Bank is the latest financial institution to participate in the Massachusetts Housing Partnership’s ONE+ and ONE+ Boston first-time homebuyer programs.
MHP’s new mortgage product offers new and bigger discounts to low- and middle-income buyers. But without more housing supply, officials say, there are limits to how much it can do on its own.
Low- and moderate-income, first-time homebuyers in Massachusetts’ largely working-class Gateway Cities have a new mortgage option at their disposal that’s designed to make home ownership more attainable.
Vice President Kamala Harris has gone further than that feel-good platitude and put a number on her housing vow, saying her administration would build 3 million additional housing units over four years if she wins November’s presidential election.
With nearly every community complying, there’s still work to be done to make sure new zoning translates to new homes.
Gov. Maura Healey is still waiting for the legislature to act on her big housing bill, but she paused Monday to swear in two panels of developers, municipal leaders and advocates Monday, charged with charting more housing production reforms.
After the release of the new Community Reinvestment Act rules last month, community groups say banks must be careful in expanding too fast, and instead should focus on improving lending and investments in low- to moderate-income communities in areas they already serve.
A new report from a leading housing advocacy group is urging Massachusetts’ leaders not to rest on their laurels and assume a recent big change in state zoning law will fix the state’s housing problems on its own.
Density can be a polarizing term. The word is sometimes even weaponized. But density can be looked at as an important tool for crafting the types of places we enjoy, from affordability to vibrant Main Streets.
Silicon Valley Bank’s failure is creating a potential gap in financing for Massachusetts affordable housing projects and risks for commercial landlords that have a concentration of tech and life science tenants.
High housing costs helped force tens of thousands more Bay Staters to move away last year than immigrants who picked us as their new home for the first time in many years, experts say, ringing alarm bells about the state’s ability to sustain itself.
Banking trade groups say the latest CRA reform will put smaller lenders at a disadvantage. And advocacy groups think it doesn’t go far enough to help correct redlining’s racial legacy.
One of the state’s two major affordable housing and homeownership finance organizations has landed a major contribution that it says will help support a range of housing priorities.
With the racial inequality now front and center, advocates in Newton are pushing for more diverse, denser housing to replace much of the region’s single-family stock as one way to help close the Black-white homeownership gap. But hurdles exist for the private sector to meet the need for lower-priced homes.
It is hoped the program will give city families and residents who earn area median income or below a leg up on all-cash buyers in the city’s expensive housing market.
A 36-unit development in Roxbury has landed a permanent loan to help preserve its affordability.
An $18 million, 49-unit affordable housing development in Roxbury has secured permanent financing from the Massachusetts Housing Partnership in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A 60-unit apartment complex in Raynham is moving forward thanks to an $8.7 million permanent loan from the Massachusetts Housing Partnership.
A new analysis by the Massachusetts Housing Partnership’s Center for Housing Data has found the Boston area could create around 253,000 new housing units if the neighborhoods near MBTA stations were moderately densified.
