New analysis shows how investors pushed up Boston housing costs

By Grant Welker • Published November 30, 2023 • Updated on November 30, 2023 at 1:32 pm

Multifamily housing in some of the Boston area’s lower-income and more diverse neighborhoods are most likely to be bought by investors, according to a new analysis. Shown is a street in Dorchester.

Investors are increasingly buying more Boston-area housing, especially in lower-income, minority neighborhoods like Chelsea, Roxbury and Lynn— and pushing out other would-be buyers, according to a new analysis.

Investors, who often have the advantage of paying in cash to elbow out the competition, have accounted for 31% of purchases in those neighborhoods in the past two decades, according to a report by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. That’s the highest share of any of the types of neighborhoods the MAPC analyzed, looking at neighborhood wealth, race and ethnicity, and density.

WATCH ANYTIME FOR FREE