Maryland Comptroller office releases new housing report

MARYLAND. – The Maryland Comptroller’s office released a NEW report on housing and the economy. Highlights focus on affordable housing and migration to states with lower housing costs.

This was a follow-up report to last year’s state of the economy. Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman dove into why housing in Maryland has faced struggles.

“A big part of the reason that Maryland is a higher cost-of-living state is really because of the lack of housing that is driving up the costs for Marylanders.”

Median rent in Maryland ($1,721) is above the national median and is higher than most of the states that Maryland is losing residents to.

Between 2011 and 2023, Maryland lost about 2.3 million residents to other states like South Carolina,Texas,
and Pennsylvania.

Lierman indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly contributed.

“Prior to the pandemic, most of the people leaving were older, retirees, and often wealthier. But since the pandemic, we’ve seen an increase in working-class families, young families, and young people who are really the workforce in Maryland.”

Holly Worthington owns Worthington Realty in Salisbury. Her firm handles real estate across much of the Eastern Shore and Delmarva. She believes some landlords have priced young people out. Thus creating migration to neighboring states.

“Due to increased interest rates, shorting our rental market. When that occurs, what’s happening is they are raising our costs to rent, so it is making that unaffordable to a median-income person.”

Worthington added that aside from TidalHealth, Perdue, Salisbury University, and Chesapeake Shipbuilding Corporation, the area lacks large corporate influence.

Lierman tells WMDT, how the state plans to fix the issue. “And that means we have to build more, and we have to rebuild old and vacant homes that are sitting unused.”

Factors like density, parking requirements, development impact fees, and ordinances play into the report.

Maryland has a current shortage of around 100,000 housing units. The state  needs to build 590,000 new housing units to meet demand and growth projections by 2045.