2019 MassHousing Annual Report - Flipbook - Page 3
CHAIRMAN AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE
On behalf of the Board and Staff of MassHousing, we are
pleased to present this annual report for fiscal year 2019.
Housing costs continue to rise dramatically — especially in
eastern Massachusetts. The increases take a financial toll
on our citizens, strain the quality of life and deepen the
divide between the well-off and the less fortunate.
Since 2013, the median sales price for a single-family home
in the Commonwealth has increased by 19%; a condominium
by 22%. Sales prices in Greater Boston have risen at an even
faster pace. In Suffolk County, the median sales price for a
single-family home rose by 49% in the same time period, while
the price of a condominium rose by 45%. Massachusetts is the
seventh least affordable state in the country; the median price
of a home here is 4.9 times higher than the median income.
Massachusetts has struggled with rising housing costs, at
varying degrees of intensity, for half a century. But in recent
years, the crisis has worsened. While the economy is strong,
the supply of homes has not kept pace with demand. Since
2000, only 266,500 new housing units have been built, just
half the number built in the 20 years prior.
MassHousing has confronted these housing challenges by
introducing new programs and products. Our Down Payment
Assistance program has opened the doors to homeownership
for nearly 1,500 buyers who otherwise might have been
forced to wait to purchase a home. Using our previous
allocation of $100 million for Workforce Housing, we funded
numerous developments with units for both low- and
middle-income earners. Due to that success, the Governor
announced that the Commonwealth will support our
workforce program with an infusion of $86 million.
We provided more than $1.5 billion in affordable housing
financing in Fiscal Year 2019. It was one of the largest annual
Michael J. Dirrane
Chairman
lending volumes in the Agency’s 53-year history. The financing
helped to ensure that more than 9,000 Massachusetts households
have an affordable place to call home.
MassHousing’s Down Payment Assistance program, the only
statewide program of its kind in the Commonwealth, provided
more than $10 million in down payment and closing cost
assistance to 1,403 borrowers. In all, during FY19, MassHousing
closed 4,611 mortgage loans for $792.1 million to help
Massachusetts homebuyers and homeowners purchase or refinance their home and make improvements to their properties.
The need to preserve the existing affordable rental stock
while producing new opportunities continues to be strong.
In FY19 MassHousing’s $688.7 million in rental lending financed
30 developments with 4,182 units, 87% of which are affordable.
Of those, 3,814 units were preservation and 368 were new
construction.
In addition to our robust lending for homeownership and
rental housing, we continue to work with many for-profit,
non-profit and community partners to improve housing
communities and the lives of our citizens. We remain
committed to things like sober housing grants; environmental
sustainability; innovative partnerships with law enforcement;
educational programs for property managers and residents;
capacity-building for small and disadvantaged businesses;
innovative ways to prevent evictions of vulnerable residents;
and more.
We extend our heartfelt thanks to our many partners in the
home mortgage lending, development, property management,
government and non-profit sectors, for their collaboration and
shared dedication to affordable housing. We also thank and
salute the professional women and men on the MassHousing
staff for their many accomplishments this past year.
Chrystal Kornegay
Executive Director
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