Join the Massachusetts Apprentice Network for the one-year anniversary of its launch.
03/27/2023
9:30am - 11:00am
Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce
This event will explore why in-game advertising is becoming the next big advertising channel and how companies can tap into the gaming ad space.
03/28/2023
5:30pm - 7:30pm
Mediahub
Thank you for joining us for our second Government Affairs forum of the year that featured Ronald J. Mariano, Massachusetts Speaker of the House.
03/30/2023
9:45am - 11:00am
Colonnade Hotel
Designed for mid-level managers and supervisors, this new certificate program addresses workplace well-being through unique, innovative, and actionable methods.
Join our Transformational DEI Certificate! Our comprehensive learning & development offerings are designed to connect and grow strong leaders who lead both inside and out of the office.
Our Women’s Leadership Program enables you to take your leadership to the next level by arming you with the most in-demand leadership toolkit.
Expand your DEI professional development with a virtual workshop focused specifically on LGBTQIA+ identities and inclusion.
Our Economic Inclusion Committee provides strategic support around research, policies, and programs that are focused on building equal opportunity.
We are developing an ecosystem of corporations and partners with the influence and buying power to transform economic inclusion for minority business enterprises (MBEs).
The Fierce Urgency of Now Festival brings Boston’s diverse young professionals together with business leaders, organizations and their peers to build connection, advance careers and ignite positive change.
09/12/2023 -
09/15/2023
Greater Boston
City Awake empowers young professionals in a variety of ways that encourages these rising leaders to stay invested in the region’s future success.
BIMA (the Boston Interactive Media Association) serves a vibrant community of like-minded professionals from agencies, brands, publishers, and ad-tech companies with business interests in the New England market.
For more than 25 years, the Chamber’s Women’s Network has connected female professionals of all background and career levels. Today, our Women’s Network is the largest in New England, strengthening the professional networks of women each year.
Through MITX (the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange), we’re building valuable connections between the people and ideas behind technology and its impact on the future of customer experiences, all to create a community that’s finding tomorrow’s solutions together.
We support small business through public policy initiatives, events designed to connect small businesses in Greater Boston to their peers and established business leaders, professional development offerings, and free small business advising.
Explore our mission and values to better understand how we are leading the business community forward.
Our member directory is your resource to discover, connect, and engage with Boston’s businesses from every industry and sector.
June 8, 2022
The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, The Greater Boston Real Estate Board, Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Association of REALTORS®, the Massachusetts Bankers Association, the Massachusetts Mortgage Bankers Association, NAIOP Massachusetts, The Commercial Real Estate Development Association, and the Real Estate Bar Association wish to record our strong opposition to transfer taxes. Transfer taxes hurt potential homebuyers by increasing prices [1] through inventory reduction [2] and applying pressure on home prices below tax carve outs. They also drive-up rents [3] and compound the pandemic’s devaluation of commercial property [4].
Our organizations collectively recognize the need for more housing at all income levels across the Commonwealth – both affordable and market rate. Limited supply drives the region’s high housing costs, and last session’s Housing Choice legislation gave communities an additional tool to increase housing production that is woefully needed and rarely permitted [5]. Rather than creating new taxes that increase the cost of housing and undermine business competitiveness, municipalities should examine existing revenue streams, grants, one-time investments, and other actions, such as permitting more housing, to serve their community’s housing needs.
Municipalities have spurned existing affordable housing funding. Massachusetts created the Community Preservation Act (CPA) in 2000 as a tool to help communities fund affordable housing. It creates a local property tax surcharge of up to three percent, a state funding match derived from a registry surcharge paid by homebuyers, and potential affordable housing allocation of up to 80%. It has generated over $2 billion in funding that could have been allocated to affordable housing. However, only 53% of communities currently use the CPA, and significantly fewer are maximizing their surcharge [6] or affordable housing allocations [7].
The eight communities with CPA spending histories that are requesting local taxes averaged spending only 35% of their allocation on affordable housing in 2021 [8] and only four collect a three-percent CPA surcharge. The other five communities average a 1.3% surcharge, forgoing a total of $75 million in 2021. Our organizations urge communities across the Commonwealth to leverage the tools already available to encourage the production of housing, and not to implement additional taxation that will only serve to chill economic growth.
Taxing homes stifles housing diversity and inclusivity. Transfer taxes violate principles of tax fairness, discriminating against the small percentage of people in the state who buy or sell a home or commercial property annually. They also decrease housing supply, magnifying an already severe inventory shortage and increasing prices for homes below the tax threshold. This will most harm the middle class, who, for example, already face well above state average home prices in several of the communities requesting taxes.
Taxing homes will increase income stratification, raising the already expensive market rate price to become a homeowner. These taxes pose a logistical nightmare for buyers, sellers, closing attorneys, lenders, and the Registry of Deeds. They will require additional costs for the state and impose significant impediments for already complex transactions. These burdens will be another barrier to homeownership for middle- and lower-income people. Their transactions are already more complicated due to specific needs such as special financing or assistance programs. Adding transfer taxes will further limit their ability to become homeowners and build equity. Ultimately, these taxes discriminate against those looking to enter communities in favor of current homeowners, constraining community diversity and inclusivity.
Our organizations urge communities across the Commonwealth the leverage the tools already available, including zoning changes, to encourage the production of housing, and not to implement additional taxation that will only serve to chill economic growth. We urge you to oppose transfer taxes. Rather than punish property owners for their community’s restrictive and exclusionary practices, create pro-development policies and use the ample funds available to assist with housing affordability.
[1] For every $1,000 added to home costs, another 2,093 Massachusetts residents are priced out. https://www.nahb.org/-/media/NAHB/news-and-economics/docs/housing-economics-plus/special-studies/2021/special-study-nahb-priced-out-estimates-for-2021-february-2021.pdf
[2] See The Effects of Land Transfer Taxes on Real Estate Markets: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Toronto, https://repository.upenn.edu/real-estate_papers/52/
[3] Following New York’s enactment of increased transfer taxes on high value properties in April 2019, rents in New York City averaged a 5.63% year over year increase for 10 straight months until COVID-19 impacts started in March 2020. The 10 months prior to April 2019 averaged a rent decrease of 1.9%. See https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/new-york-ny
[4] Commercial real estate sales totals in Boston dropped 29% and 25% in 2020 and 2021 respectively compared with 2019 totals.
[5] From roughly 2016 through 2020, the eight communities proposing transfer taxes averaged a subsidized housing inventory increase of 0.5%, while adding over 19,000 inhabitants, an average per town population increase of 2%.
[6] 40% of CPA communities have a 3% surcharge.
[7] The average housing allocation is 19%, the lowest percentage of any category. The average allocation to historic preservation is 25% and the average allocation to open space and recreation is 32%.
[8] Cape Cod communities have long sought transfer taxes, yet since 2017 have averaged allocating 40% of CPA funds to affordable housing, forgoing over $6 million. Brookline recently became the ninth community requesting a transfer tax despite enacting CPA so recently (2021) that they as yet have no available CPA funds.
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