New housing often costs $500,000 to $600,000 per unit to finance and build, with high-rises closer to downtown Boston costing even more. Those numbers are baked in from the start, setting a floor on future rents before the first shovel even hits the ground.And they’re a big reason why building our way out of the housing crisis that’s gripping Greater Boston has proven to be so hard.Even as towns all over the region finally wrestle with their own histories of blocking the sort of multifamily housing that regular people can afford — the sort Massachusetts desperately needs to preserve its middle class and maintain a vibrant economy — the cost to build that housing has steadily climbed. Land, key materials, borrowing money itself, they’ve all surged in price. While new mandates for affordable housing and green energy aim to address long-term challenges, they too come at a cost. Those costs translate into rents, which even in this sky-high market have their limits — the point at which potential renters will go elsewhere.
Source: Boston construction: How sky high costs drive the housing crisis
