Deed-Restricted Homeownership 101:

The Policy Tradeoff Between Long-Term Affordability and Individual Wealth Building

By Luc Schuster, Aja Kennedy

May 21, 2025

To help make homeownership attainable for families who might otherwise be priced out of the market, state and local governments in Massachusetts have developed a range of subsidized homeownership programs, many of which have become national models. These include down payment assistance and affordable loan programs, subsidies for affordable housing development, inclusionary zoning policies that require private developers to include income-restricted units, municipal homeownership acquisition programs, and Community Land Trusts. This short report, Deed-Restricted Homeownership 101, was developed by Boston Indicators in partnership with the Community Wealth pathway team at the Boston Foundation, and focuses on one tool used across many of these homeownership programs: affordability deed restrictions. These deed restrictions can be confusing to understand, and reasonable people can disagree on how best to balance wealth building for initial homeowners with lasting benefits for future buyers and the neighborhoods in which they live. And so, to help inform ongoing policy debates, this short report lays out how deed restrictions work, what they aim to achieve, and where the tensions lie.