Senior Housing Economist Dr. Elliot Eisenberg

By Laura Knoy on Tuesday, October 27, 2009.

The senior housing economist for the National Association of Homebuilders says local housing regulations are driving up prices, pushing citizens away from central hubs and creating more sprawl. Dr. Elliot Eisenberg is visiting New Hampshire this week and he joins us to talk about the state of homebuilding in New Hampshire.

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Housing
M Traeger - Wed, 10/28/2009 - 08:25

Serving on several local and regional land use boards, I believe your guest is distorting the reality of the building industry. Developers come in to a town solely to make money and then leave. Given a free hand they would fill wetlands and use up every available piece of open space they can in order to make more money, with looking at the overall health of the town.

Even with NH's limited regulations, it takes constant vigilance to monitor developer's actions and the short cuts they take to reduce their costs.

While many developers are ethical, their goal is not to built a better community nor to protect our natural resources, it is to make money on their individual projects.

NH needs more regulation not less. Impact fees in NH are fairly rare and result in a small % of the overall cost of building homes.

Thank you,

Mark

Housing costs/regulation
Sally Wilkins - Wed, 10/28/2009 - 08:32

As a 24 year veteran of the Amherst Planning Board, may I observe that the suggestion that it is TOO MUCH REGULATION is undercut precisely by the statement by your expert outlining the price - "the land costs $xxx and the impact fees and other costs and you have to sell the house for $300,000-400,000"

The cost of land is what it is because of supply and demand. If builders pay more for the land than they can recoup by developing it and selling the houses, then they are paying too much money. If they stopped agreeing to exorbitant prices, then the overall price would fall. This has nothing to do with regulations.