MA's Housing Affordability And Availability Report Card Is In

MASSACHUSETTS — The housing market in Massachusetts gets an F for affordability and availability, according to Realtor.com.

The online real estate platform assigned letter grades to tell potential homebuyers what markets are best for affordability and housing availability now and in the future, the latter based on an analysis of new construction permits and population.

No state received an A+, and only one A and two A- final grades were assigned in the analysis of the housing markets in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The sprinkling of A’s “says a lot about how far we still have to go to make homeownership truly attainable,” the real estate platform said in a news release.

Massachusetts received an affordability score of 10 and a score of 15.2 for home building, resulting in the final grade of F and a total score of 12.6. The only state with a lower score was Rhode Island.

The median value of a home in Massachusetts is $781,758, and the median household income is $96,584.

Massachusetts "serves as an example of how zoning can get in the way of delivering affordable housing," Realtor.com said. The state's "regulatory complexity costs builders time and money, and those costs are passed on to homeowners."

South Carolina scored the highest of any state with a final grade of A, mostly due to its high home-building score. Iowa and Texas both got A- grades, with Iowa’s high marks stemming mainly from affordability while Texas owes its ranking to the pace of new housing construction.

States in the Midwest and South stand out as the most affordable regions, but Realtor.com said a few Southern states are sliding toward the bottom of the affordability range, although there are some exceptions. Overall, B grades, including B+ and B-, were concentrated in these regions.

B grades were distributed exclusively to states in the South and Midwest, where construction activity and stronger affordability scores are concentrated.

D’s and F’s went only to Western and Northeastern states. Affordability remains a major challenge on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts and in states like Montana, which are seeing a major influx of migration from more expensive coastal markets, the platform said.

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