Asymmetrical Information

Perhaps, Jane, but undercutting point 5 (at least) is most peoples' view of housing primarily as a place to live, and only secondarily as an investment.

All of those factors apply, but an additional one is the practice by which investors purchase single-family houses and convert them (often not legally) into rooming houses for immigrant workers. Metro Boston gets enough immigrants for this to be a factor behind the price increases. And note that these immigrant workers tend to live "off the grid" and don't get counted in official population estimates.

I don't know how a shrinking population can support the doubling of housing prices Boston saw between 2000-2005, unless stock has been taken out of the market by tearing houses down, which I do not think has happened.

If, as has been suggested, the decrease in population is caused by the increase in housing there is nothing unusual about this. It happens all the time as markets find their way to equilibrium.

When demand increases there is a shortage at the current price. This implies that the price will rise in an effort to both increase quantity supplied and decrease quantity demanded. Since, quantity supply is slow to move inside a heavily zoned city the biggest effect is a decrease in quantity demanded.

The question is, what could have caused the increase in demand if not an increase in population. This is an interesting question.

It must be an increase in the demand for square footage of owned living space per person.

This implies either that fewer people are renting or that fewer people are sharing. My guess is a combination of both.

There was a time when most single people I knew rented with roommates, now many of them own their own homes. Thats a dramatic increase in owned sq foot per person.

This is a phenomenon not seen in many years, but those of us with a little gray hair (or in my case, none at all) remember it well if not fondly. It's called ------- Inflation.

Is a decrease in the population of Mass. necessarily identical with a decrease in the population of Metro Boston? Are housing prices also rising in Worcester, Lawrence, Springfield, etc. (granted, Shrewsbury is much closer to Worcester than Boston)?

Also, I have to think that the flight of investment dollars to housing was not unrelated to the 2000-2003 dive in the stock market, particularly in its most speculative sectors. Capital went out of tech and into land.

Or people's preferences are changing -- they are willing to spend a higher percentage of their budget on housing, in recent years.

Lenders have been much looser with credit in recent years too. The relatively easy availablity of a $300,000 mortgage with zero down has effectively reduced the initial "cost" of home ownership, thus driving up demand. It may turn out very expensive in the long run, but who worries about the long run?

I would imagine some high density housing in the city proper are being torn down or abondoned to make way for more spacious homes and commercial development.

6. Somewhere in Boston, there are neighborhoods full of gangs and abandoned houses. You can buy a house really cheap there, but who'd want it?

I do think that both low interest rates, and the 1997 tax law allowing a $250,000 capital gains deduction on your primary residence have played a roll. But there is more to the story.

As already observed, although net population is declining, there is a migration from the city to the subarbs (low crime, good schools). The problem is that good neighborhoods use zoning laws to keep other people out. They do not want the crime and the bad schools to follow them.

Barring a restoration of property rights, I predict that two things could lower housing prices in blue states: (1) school choice that includes private schools. This way the supply of schools can more easily adapt to demand, rather than be perpetually starved by anti-growth town councils and land use boards. (2) More aggressive policing. Crime rates are down, but they are still about double what they were in the 1960s.

Why you can't afford a house in a blue state.

Also another possible contributor is people buying second homes, aka pied-a-tiers, in Boston proper. Don't know if this is a factor in Boston but it certainly is a factor in NYC. Especially when you factor in apartments owned by corporations and governments. Walk down Park Ave. or 5th Ave. on any given night and from my anacdotal obsevation about 3/4 of the apartments have no lights on.

Your folk economist of the Henry George persuasion would mention that LAND prices are being driven up in Boston as improvements in nearby areas ("the Big Dig", perhaps) come to fruition.

Elderly folks are living longer, and unless they are moving in with their kids (or their kids are moving in with them), the growth rate of domiciles must exceed (fertility rate + life expectancy growth rate).

Assuming no interstate/international movement, of course.

Elderly folks are living longer

Are you sure of that? It's my understanding that life expectancy hasn't gone up much in the last 50 years or so.

Peter: not exactly true (I do life actuarial work, most specifically in annuities).

We've not had the dramatic mortality improvements we saw with the introduction to modern sanitation, mass vaccination, and antibiotics, which greatly raised the life expectancy at birth. What we are seeing is a reduction in mortality at older ages, as medications and treatments for heart disease and cancer (mainly diseases of the old) make their impact.

Let me fire up my mortality tables I got from the Social Security admin and check it out.

two words: vacation home

Okay, here's how it stacks up. I'm using Social Security cohort tables, so it's going by mortality of people born in particular years (so that if said cohort isn't up to a certain age yet, there's some projection of mortality trends involved)

Looking at a female, age 65. Life expectancy is the expected value of how many more years he has until death. I'll also put in median time-til-death, too, to give you an idea of how skewed these distributions are.

Birth year: 1910
Life expectancy: 14.2
median t-t-d:

Birth year: 1930
Life expectancy: 16.0

Birth year: 1950
Life expectancy: 17.5

Birth year: 1970
Life expectancy: 18.7

Birth year: 1990
Life expectancy: 19.9

So there's still a bunch of mortality improvement going on at older ages. And if you actually look at the whole survival distribution starting at age 65, one finds the "tails" are getting longer... that though the life expectancy might be increasing about a year or so every twenty years, the 75th percentile for death times gets pushed farther and farther out, in a much more skewed way than before.

All this to say is that you can't just look at averages. There will be more really, really old people out there, and a greater variation of age-at-death.

Of course, this may or may not have an impact on housing stock, depending on the level of home care available, whether people will have elderly relatives move into their homes with them, etc. But many of these people living into their 90s don't get to live on into their 90s without being in pretty good health in their 60s, 70s, and 80s.

It is your second item -- incomes are rising.

You have to look at net migration.

What the Boston area is losing is the relatively poorly educated and relatively low income individuals.

What they are attracting are the highly educated, higher income individuals.

The best thing Boston has going for it are all the top ranked schools. They attract the best
from around the country and around the world.
Many of them fall in love with the area and
stay.

But it is like when my sons sister-in-law, a high school graduate with no desire to go to college, left the Boston area for Nevada it
caused the averge income and the average IQ in both states to rise.

markm writes:

Somewhere in Boston, there are neighborhoods full of gangs and abandoned houses. You can buy a house really cheap there, but who'd want it?

I'm not sure this is true. Even Dudley Square in Roxbury is gentrifying. The lowest-priced single family home I can find on boston.com is a $219K fixer-upper in East Boston.

"The National Association of Realtors reports that a record 40% of all homes bought last year were not a primary residence for the buyer."

This seems to support the idea that people are speculating on rising house prices.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12954369/

People are still stock market shy since the dotcom bubble burst and 911. The Dow is only now seeing levels from five years ago. Housing historically has had less downside risk than the stock market, it has been seen as a safer bet.

For myself, in a rising rental market, the rent prices can jump more than 10% in hot areas so owning an apartment is appealing as the cost of mortgage can be fixed. I had an apartment in NYC for years and it went from $1300 to $1600 to $1900 over 3 years.

I'm gonna have to place my chips on Red-5. Not only have this decade's lower interest rates (a) enouraged folks to buy homes they can't afford and (b) allow them to even consider second mortgages, but they've (c) fostered cheaper, easier money to throw around, and (d) discouraged traditional savings and stable investment vehicles like bonds.

The perfect storm of cheap money, easy-to-rationalize mortgages, and real estate as investment opportunity has blown hot air into bubbles all over, Boston included.

This is not to say I disagree with Jane's #s 1-4, but #5, alone, has to be over 50% all by itself.

What a mess.

Gee, not a peep about the wholesale devaluation of the U$D, hmmm.

I work for a big mortgage lending bank and we have beat this phenom blue in the face and the data says:

Second homes.

Mark Hoffner sez "Gee, not a peep about the wholesale devaluation of the U$D, hmmm."

Yet, *one post* prior to his, Mike (that would be me) sed: "lower interest rates . . . fostered cheaper, easier money to throw around, and . . . [t]he perfect storm of cheap money . . ."

Mike,

Sorry, about that, I read your post to be focused solely on interest rates, as opposed to the continuous and high rate of growth in the monetary aggregates.

But, in re-reading your post, with your pointers, I hear you, now, loud and clear.

Maybe, you find the lack of others mentioning that theme, as cause of nominal home price (over-)appreciation, puzzling as well??

Palm Unveils Treo 700p Smartphone
some...

Mark-

I re-read my first post, and yeah, it was about as clear as an Alan Greenspan Press Release. I see how you, and probably everyone else, got confused.

And, yes, I'm surprised to see so little discussion about a stream of liquidity filling the bubble.

meep: that is really great data, the Soc Sec cohort information you provided. thanks!

Spongeworthy, who is buying second homes in the working class neighborhoods and suburbs of Boston? I can see that driving prices on the Cape and Islands into the stratosphere, but those don't affect metropolitan prices.

I would imagine some high density housing in the city proper are being torn down or abondoned to make way for more spacious homes and commercial development.

Not in my experience. They're putting up townhouses and condo towers all over, primarily in old industrial sites and parking lots. I can't think of any areas of dense housing or even moderately urban housing that have been knocked down--Boston has enough unusued industrial and transportation properties to suffice for new buildings.

I think that "more square foot per person" is a big factor in at least explaining why prices haven't fallen with population, if not for why they've risen so high. Massachusetts' economy is squeezing out the (mostly Catholic) working class people who used to raise families of 4 in 2-BR apartments and families of 6 in small suburban houses. Now those apartments house middle-class and upper-middle class couples or families with one or two children, max.

The parents retire and downsize while the kids move to Florida, Georgia, or Texas to enjoy a cheap house and a better climate. Meanwhile the bored well-educated kids from New Jersey, Chicago, and Northern Virginia take their places in Boston.

The problem is that good neighborhoods use zoning laws to keep other people out. They do not want the crime and the bad schools to follow them.

In the Boston suburbs, they don't want new kids, PERIOD. Even good kids are a net drain on the town budget.

We have a massive case of beggar-thy-neighbor in our suburbs, all of which have room for development but which want the new family-size houses to go somewhere else. So mid-range (geographically) suburbs mandate 2-acre minimum lots and the new, somewhat affordable houses on smaller lots are being built an hour away. Lots of new housing in the cities but who wants to send their kids to those schools?

No surprise, then, when young families leave the state because they can't afford a home and are sick of the huge commute they undertake when they can. Oh, and the weather is so lovely in Charlotte.

MA and IL will probably lose 2 seats in the next census, is it a surprise?

MA can't possibly lose more than one seat unless a meteorite strikes and takes out half a million people. These trends are harder to move than you think, and we'd lose one seat if we were growing at 2% or shrinking at 2% every year this decade.

The boom is in single family housing because high prices alone cannot motivate a person to sell. People sell because they have to. Here's why.

Suppose you discover your Boston home has doubled in value in 5 years and you want to cash in. What can you do?

1. Sell out and buy a new house of the same size with the same general location and same public services. Unfortunately, it probably has the same price and the new mortgage is twice has high as the old one and you are poorer by an 8% commission, 1% transfer tax, perhaps a capital gains tax, and moving costs.

2. Sale-lease back. The buyer obviously wants high leverage and will get a new mortgage at close to 100%. The lease will cover his out of pocket but still will cost you about double your current mortgage. Your property taxes will double, you will be out the 8% commission and the 1% transfer tax and capital gains taxes, but you will have no moving expenses.

3. Sell out and live in a cardboard box under a bridge. Fat chance.

4. Sell out and move to Pittsburgh where houses are really cheap. Unfortunately you can't find a job in Pittsburgh because they've really screwed up their economy. Option 3 is out because all the cardboard boxes have residents.

Housing prices will go up for as long as the sun shines, grass grows, and water flows down hill.

Deus lo volt.

'What the Boston area is losing is the relatively poorly educated and relatively low income individuals.

What they are attracting are the highly educated, higher income individuals. '

That's really not true - as a Boston resident I can tell you thatt he problem isn't population loss so much as it's that the people who are leaving tend to be middle class families and the replacement population is immigrants from Brazil, and transient trustafarians. Housing costs have outpriced college students and less than half of the out of state students stay in MA. The population is older, the public schools in Boston have 20% less students than they had 10 years ago. Overall the Boston Fed region has been the slowest to recover since the 2000 slowdown. My guess on the cost of housing staying high is the lack of new development and the high prices in the whold greater Boston area. I live and work in Boston and I'm not commuting from RI or NH.

Bandit, it's hard for me to say. I didn't mean to exclude the many college-educated people who have left the state, too, but there are also plenty of people like me who are middle class and who are able to stay because we got into the housing market early or have diminished expectations for housing, and like it too much to leave.

I do know people in their 20s and 30s who aren't trustafarians who have moved here and trying their best to settle down. It's just not as great a lifestyle as it used to be.

The Massachusetts natives making half of their salaries have no hopes at all.

Spongeworthy, who is buying second homes in the working class neighborhoods and suburbs of Boston? I can see that driving prices on the Cape and Islands into the stratosphere, but those don't affect metropolitan prices.

Of course second or multi home buyers can affect "metropolitan prices".

If a certain cohort of the population increases its consumption of housing units, the effect on the availability and price of housing in general is the same as that caused by an increase in housing consumption driven by population growth. No doubt particulary frothy price spikes can be seen in desirable areas favored by weekenders (Back Bay, Nantucket) but the spillover effects surely will be felt regionally.

We've contributed to the 2nd house category. When we bought a larger, quieter home for the 2 kids, we kept the previous home. Now it is rented and generating some income. When the kids have moved out (in about 12.5 years), we'll sell the larger one and move back to the smaller one.

It's second houses, paid for by people who sold a big house and didn't have to buy a bigger house to avoid taxes.

1. Zoning out poor people in new houses.
2. Zoning out poor people in old apartments.
3. Asset inflation from the new fed money.
4. Second homes by new fed money rich.
5. Increased population driven by immigrants.
6. Low rates allowing cheaper square feet.
7. Irrational euphoria in housing.
I'd say it was about in that order.

Britainn, it is as PBA states it. We are in the NY Metro area so the rules are slightly different. But what we see is the popularity of Manhattan RE driven by corporate and individual purchase and lease of non-primary homes. This sends a ripple out that jerks the market up in the surrounding areas.

Whenever a regional market like this one is dragged up, those who might consider relocating here are disuaded, their home does not come on to the market and that limits the supply in their area. So the ripple moves out even though the pebble landed in Manhattan. It's a market, like any other in most respects.

B33 -

Based on the census figures what I do know is that the state population is decreasing and getting older. There is always an influx of younger people but based on the census it's not keeping up with the people leaving. I do know James Kitts, Paul Fireman and Ned Johnson all cited the inability to attract enough younger workers because of the housing costs as the reason they either sold or in FMR's case expanded in RI. When I talk about the transients what I'm referring to is specifically the city of Boston where the population has decreased but the school age population has decreased more significantly. I happen to have been involved with the school assignment meetings on revising the assignment plan and one of the huge problems is the declining school population and demographics. The people moving into the city itself aren't bringing kids with them or having them, especially in the city proper or the middle class neighborhoods. This probably contributes to the higher prices because they either have more income and as you say lower expectations. I agree with you though, I have no idea how families starting out deal with the prices especially in the city.

I suppose one disconnect is that I don't think of there being a big market for pieds-a-terre in the Back Bay or elsewhere in the city. Certainly not big enough to sway the market, because Boston is much easier to get into and out of than New York, and not as much of an attraction for out-of-towners. I could be wrong, though--I would like to know how many condos in the city are second homes.

But let's grant that there is, and it's a factor like it is in New York.

P.B. Almeida, I also don't understand how competing for housing in resort areas in the Cape and Islands should affect the Boston metro area any more than it would affect any other separate, individual market like Springfield or Pittsfield or Wichita or Ottawa, none of which have seen comparable inflation. Boston and the Cape and Islands are distinct markets because people can't commute to the cities from there and so the second homes aren't in the same pool of housing. Yes, on a macro level there are X million units of housing in the U.S. and increasing the demand for some will affect the price for all, but market fluctuations happen at a more micro level than that, I see a big difference between the markets for suburban housing in Boston and for resort housing within 2 hours' travel of Boston.

You could easily make the argument that increasing prices in Boston have led to massive up-bidding in resort areas, but to argue the reverse appears to be a case of the tail wagging the dog.

P.B. Almeida, I also don't understand how competing for housing in resort areas in the Cape and Islands should affect the Boston metro area any more than it would affect any other separate, individual market like Springfield or Pittsfield or Wichita or Ottawa, none of which have seen comparable inflation.

Price increases in Cape Cod not only affect prices in Springfield, they indeed affect prices in Ottawa or Los Angeles or Dublin. There is now a global market for property. What you really (I think) mean to say is that the effect on Boston prices from these places that are far from Boston is quite small -- mabe too small to measure -- and hardly worth considering. But this is different from saying there's no effect at all.

For Cape Cod and the islands, the effects on the greater Boston market as a whole are surely more pronounced. A price spike on Cape Cod makes that subregion less affordable as an alternative for people fleeing high prices closer to the city; this dynamic in turns bolsters prices for the latter. Not so many folks commute from Cape Cod all the way to central Boston (although I believe it's only 45-50 miles from the canal to downtown), but some do. And a great many more commute from their Cape Cod homes to suburban locations well within greater Boston, such as, say, Attleboro, or Braintree.

No matter, though, it's all coming undone at present.

P.B. Almeida,

You mention: "There is now a global market for property. "

Could you draw that out for me(us)?

Thank you, very much, in advance.

It's also happening in SF, so much so there was an article about how the mayor wants to make SF more family-friendly.

He could start be getting rid of rent control.

This also means MA might lose a rep or 2 in the next census.

The problem is that our cultural definition of "family-friendly" has changed and it now translates into 2,500 sq ft homes and good schools, which is just not reality within sane communting distance of most major cities. I live just South of Los Angeles and it is common wisdom that if you want "family-friendly" you are either mortgaging yourself to a dangerous level reached only by an interest-only loan or you are looking at houses in the Inland Empire and facing a 3 hour daily commute. The housing stock in and around most major cities tends to be older and smaller than the current consumer tastes for large, modern homes with spacious master suites and baths. So, our consumer demands drive this problem just as much as anything else. Those who have the money will tear down and rebuild, those who don't are forced further and further out - even out of state.

Non-partisan think tank MassINC wrote about this. There is a recent Harvard study that links a lot of the price increases to zoning. I thought it was a fascinating read.

http://www.massinc.org/index.php?id=500&pub_id=1775

AFAIK, the cost of housing is going up most everywhere and there's a fundamental reason: The price of many construction materials has tripled, or worse, in the last 15 years. Thus, a house that cost $100K to construct 15 years ago is going to cost at least twice that to construct now (you've also got to consider labor, which hasn't risen nearly as fast). Oddly enough, the person who built a house for $100K 15 years ago thinks it's now worth 200K, the cost of the house that's currently being built next door.

There are many reasons for the increase in cost of construction materials, chief among them, I suspect, being that there definitely is a global market for the stuff. 1.3 Billion Chinese have just bought a Buick, driving the price of gasoline through the roof. Now they want a garage to keep it in.

Barring some sort of global catastrophe, as more of the third world emerges the demand for all of these comodities is going nowhere but up. Thus, I don't see the housing "bubble" bursting any time soon.

On a related note, I can't believe they tore down ManRay to build another set of condominium apartments.

Back on topic, I think there are a lot of people buying second homes in order to rent them out. At the same time housing prices are rising, rent prices have stabilized or even dropped. Five or six years ago, rent prices around Boston were crazy. $1000 to $1500 for one bedroom or even studio apartments. I'm sure some people realized that they could buy a second home pay nothing for it, just rent it out and cover your mortgage and still have money left over.

For what it's worth, I got together with a couple of friends who build houses last night and quizzed them about current and historical construction costs. A couple of points that stuck in my not entirely sober mind:

15 years ago concrete was about $35-40 per cubic yard (delivered, 9 yard minimum). Five years ago I had these same guys replace my sidewalks at a cost of $55/yard. Today's cost is $100/yard, if you can get it. It seems that rebuilding after the Middleast wars and recent natural disasters, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunami, etc., have Portland cement in high demand worldwide, which is creating a major shortage.

Likewise, 2x4 wall studs were $0.95 each 15 years ago, then jumped to $3+ about 5 years back, where they've been since.

Oddly enough, while concrete, 2x4s, plumbing and wiring fixtures and such -- all the construction materials basic to about every home -- have taken a big hit, the more up-scale stuff like granite counter tops, hardwood flooring, and ceramic tile haven't taken nearly the same leap in prices.

These guys are seeing two types of construction projects right now, 12,000 square foot McMansions in the foothills being built as summer homes, and remodeling of existing residences that feature a lot of fancy flooring, paneling, cupboards and counters, and tile work.

Apparently a lot of folks who can't afford a new house are doing the next best thing, upgrading the house they've got. That's certainly the way we've been going, with new sidewalks, refinished hardwood floors, new ceramic tile and counters in the kitchen and bathrooms, thermally efficient windows and better insulation, all in the last 10 years. Somewhere in the process, none of which was very expensive, the county assessor popped by to inform us that all those minor improvements had doubled the assessed value of our home for tax purposes (aarrgh!).

I've no idea what we could get for this hovel if we sold it, but since 1992 when we bought the place the assessed value has increased 215%. This almost exactly parallels the increase in "replacement cost" estimated by our homeowner's insurance, so it seems the increased value almost entirely reflects increased costs of construction.

Increased cost of construction can't be the only factor at work though, as that doesn't begin to explain the $900K, 1200 square foot 1920's vintage bungaloes for sale in south Denver. That seems like pure insanity. In places like Denver where a residential lot runs $300K and the house on it sells for 3x replacement cost I think you can make a good argument for a housing bubble.

Swen - that explains the general price inflation in housing seen across the United States as a whole, but does not explain price inflation in markets where the price of a house is sometimes two or more times the cost of construction.

My house is about 625 square feet. (No, there isn't a missing digit on the left, it really is small), and was built in 1927. Even with the high labor costs of construction in the Bay Area, I doubt it would cost much more than $125,000 to rebuild it from the ground up, to the same level of amenity (formica counters, low-budget tile floor in kitchen, inexpensive carpets, no central heat). Yet I expect to be able to sell it, in a working-class neighborhood of Oakland, for $320,000.

I notice that several of the previous comments mentioned or even focused on the notion of inflation. Inflation in the money supply is, I believe, the driving force for the dramatic rise in real estate prices as well as other markets (oil comes to mind although there are obviously other factors there.)

One huge clue for me that inflation in the money supply might be driving the "crazyness" of some current markets is the not-so-subtle fact that the Federal Reserve stopped publishing the "M3" number in March. Why? Could it be to hide a rampant increase in the supply of money? Since 9/11/2001 I've observed increases in the M3 that sometimes exceeded a 12% annual rate. When the consumer price index shows a small increase in the price of goods and services then all this fresh money, being fungible, seeks other value. Does this mean it's a new "bubble"? Sadly, I must say, it looks like it to me.

It is so easy to explain...take a three flat that houses nine adults, gut rehab it to be a large single family house. When the family of 5 moves in, that lot has lost 4 people but the value of the property has increased tremendously.
That event has taken place on my block 5 times in the last year alone.

When the family of 5 moves in, that lot has lost 4 people but the value of the property has increased tremendously.

But that doesn't work everywhere. Here in Denver, for example, choice lots are razed of an existing single-family house and a 3-5 unit townhome complex goes in. Each unit can sell for $200-400k depending on the location, plus monthly homeowner fees to the property management company, so...

Anony-mouse, in your scenario a developer is gutting existing housing and building multi-unit to maximize their profit and in the Bostom scenario families are gutting existing housing to get the larger homes that meet current consumer demand. Developers have figured out that people want large houses badly enough to sacrifice yards and anything resembling privacy. It is common for these developments here in California to pack 6 townhouse style residences onto a lot that would normally have two or three homes. There is barely 10' between the houses in some cases.

Here's a link that explains the Boston housing market:

http://tinyurl.com/neh6z

The first sentence provides the answer:

"In Metro Boston — and in Boston — the number of households is growing faster than the population and much faster than the growth in housing units, creating a severe shortage."

arteclectic: "The problem is that our cultural definition of "family-friendly" has changed and it now translates into 2,500 sq ft homes and good schools, which is just not reality within sane communting distance of most major cities."

Not sure what's happening elsewhere, but here in in Dallas employers have responded to that change. Corporate offices continue to exit city centers for the suburbs. Large employers such as EDS, J.C. Penney, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, and Frito-Lay are now surrounded by new, affordable housing far away from city centers. I could list a dozen other major Dallas employers that have made such moves.

JohnDewey - The same is happening around the 495 belt in MA. Towns like Groton, Westford, and to a lesser degree, Chelmsford used to be in the "boonies" yet are now near high-tech companies and their associated well-paid employees. Home prices and development have escalated. And now some towns can't keep services in pace with the new development. Westford in particular didn't do their zoning planning well and will find large lots getting split up again original intentions.

Comments are Closed.