Report: Metro Monitor -- June 2010

WASHINGTON D.C., July 6, 2010 --- Published quarterly by the Brooking Insitution, the MetroMonitor is an interactive barometer of the health of America’s 100 largest metropolitan economies. It examines trends in metropolitan-level employment, output, and housing conditions to look “beneath the hood” of national economic statistics to portray the diverse metropolitan trajectories of recession and recovery across the country. This edition of the Monitor examines indicators through the first quarter of 2010 (ending in March) in the areas of employment, unemployment, output, home prices, and foreclosure rates for the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas.

Study: The Economic Benefits of Home Building in Massachusetts

STATE, June 18, 2010 --- Elliot Eisenberg, PhD., senior economist of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), recently prepared a report looking at both single-family and condominium new homeownership, and the ways the creation of housing impacts local economies, as well as the state’s economy.

Discussion Paper: The Housing Bust and Housing Affordability in New England -- An Update of Housing Affordability Measures

BOSTON, June 16, 2010 --- Written by Robert Clifford, a research associate at the New England Public Policy Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, this discussion paper updates the Center's 2006 housing affordability working paper, drawing on housing market data through 2008 to provide an in-depth analysis of housing affordability after the recent housing market bust.

Report: State of the Nation's Housing 2010

BOSTON, June 16, 2010 --- The Harvard University-based Joint Center for Housing Studies recently released their annual State of the Nation’s Housing report.

Paper: Unaffordable Housing and Local Employment Growth

BOSTON, June 15, 2010 --- Written by researchers Ritashree Chakrabarti and Junfu Zhang out of the New England Public Policy Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, this working paper discusses how housing affordability is linked to employment growth and why unaffordable housing could negatively affect employment growth.

Study: Paycheck to Paycheck 2010

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 24, 2010 --- Created by the Center for Housing Policy, this regularly-updated study is provided in an online, interactive database format and compares wage information for more than 60 occupations with average home prices and rents in more than 200 metropolitan areas nationwide.

Report: A Rollercoaster Decade for Migration

WASHINGTON D.C., December 29, 2009 --- Presented by the Brookings Institute, new Census numbers released last week underscore an often unnoticed consequence of the what Time magazine called the “Decade from Hell”: a topsy-turvy pattern of population movement both across the U.S. and into its borders over a 10 year period which is ending with the greatest migration slowdown since the end of World War II.

Reality check: Housing development and municipal budgets

The common assumption that new housing development is always a net fiscal loser for cities and towns is not borne out in the actual experiences of communities that have agreed (or have been forced) to develop much needed new affordable and market-rate housing.

Report: Promoting Residential Reinvestment in Gateway Cities

BOSTON, November 24, 2009 --- This report, produced by the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth (MassINC), examines state housing spending over the last 15 years and finds that programs designed primarily to increase affordability in strong markets have not been able to meet the needs of Gateway Cities, where the challenge is lack of demand, not lack of supply.

Report: Best-Performing Cities 2009

CALIFORNIA, November 2009 --- The 2009 Milken Institute/Greenstreet Real Estate Partners Best-Performing Cities Index report ranks U.S. metropolitan areas by how well they are creating and sustaining jobs and economic growth. Massachusetts ranked high in improvement of economic ranking but this is most likely due to the state deteriorating less rapidly than other states.