PROVINCETOWN — A years-long push for legislation that would allow towns to impose a real estate transfer fee of 0.5 to 2 percent on residential and commercial real estate sales and use the money for housing was dealt a setback last week when the Mass. House of Representatives passed a housing bond bill that did not include the measure.

The state Senate could still include a local option transfer fee in its version of the legislation — but the measure would then have to survive a six-person conference committee in which leaders from the two chambers hash out their differences to create a final bill, said state Rep. Sarah Peake of Provincetown.

In October, Peake seemed optimistic about getting the transfer fee, which Gov. Maura Healey had endorsed and which Provincetown, Truro, and Wellfleet had all requested, into the House bill.

“The Speaker telegraphed a couple of weeks ago that he was having second thoughts about the transfer fee, even though he had announced at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce that we were going to do a transfer fee,” said Peake, referring to a speech that House Speaker Ron Mariano of Quincy gave to that group in March.

After Mariano’s statements in Boston, “the statewide Realtors association came out pretty hard” against the policy, Peake said. Members argued that the transfer fee “would have a chilling effect on real estate, and maybe increase the cost for people to get into a home.”

The House introduced its $6.5-billion housing bond bill on June 3, and five amendments to put a transfer fee back into the bill were withdrawn without a vote, Peake said. The bill passed without the transfer fee on June 5. Peake will retire at the end of this legislative session.

“Maybe Julian Cyr can work his magic in the Senate,” said Peake, who is second assistant majority leader in the House. “I know him, and I know he has a plan.”

Provincetown’s voters first endorsed a real estate transfer fee in 2010 and have sent a home-rule petition requesting one to every legislative session since then. Truro’s voters first endorsed a transfer fee in 2019, while Wellfleet and Chatham did so in 2021.

Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard have used real estate transfer fee revenue for decades to fund their extensive land conservation efforts. The six towns on Martha’s Vineyard began asking for the right to impose a transfer fee dedicated to housing in 2004, said Philippe Jordi, founder of the Island Housing Trust.

Under the state’s unique “home rule” system, however, towns cannot impose such revenue measures without permission from the state legislature, Jordi said.

“If you look at towns in Colorado, they don’t have to go to the state and ask to raise their fees,” said Jordi. “Aspen has had a real estate transfer fee for more than three decades, and they have more than 30 percent of their housing stock deed-restricted in some form.”

Thirty-nine percent of the 5,872 housing units in Aspen are deed-restricted to full-time occupancy, according to the Aspen Times, accounting for 70 percent of all the occupied homes there.

Those 2,303 deed-restricted units, along with 900 more in the surrounding county, make up “the largest system of affordable housing per capita in the nation,” according to the Aspen-Pitken County Housing Authority.

The Island Housing Trust has created 150 deed-restricted units on Martha’s Vineyard over the last 19 years using donations and Community Preservation Act funds, Jordi said, with 150 more units under development.

“It’s nothing compared to what we could have done if we had the transfer fee 20 years ago,” Jordi said. “It’s unfathomable to me that we’re not treating this like a public safety crisis when our hospital is full of unfilled positions, and our sheriff says he cannot retain staff.”

The Road Ahead

On June 6, the day after the House passed its housing bill, Gov. Healey came to Martha’s Vineyard and told housing advocates there that she was still committed to the transfer fee.

“Her position was enthusiastic and very clear,” said Arielle Faria, co-chair of the Coalition to Create the Martha’s Vineyard Housing Bank. Faria is also running for the state House seat being vacated by Rep. Dylan Fernandes, who is running for state Senate.

“Gov. Healey was vocal about the need for a transfer fee and said she would keep pushing for it,” Faria said. “We are hopeful and confident that it will be in the Senate’s legislation, and when it goes to conference committee, the governor will be pulling for us.”

The conference committee consists of six legislators, Peake said: the chair, vice chair, and ranking Republican member of the House Ways and Means committee and the corresponding officers of the Senate Ways and Means committee.

Peake said that advocates should consider settling on a single model for the transfer fee rather than a range of possibilities that towns could adopt.

“Somerville has a model in their home-rule petition where it’s one percent paid by the seller, one percent paid by the buyer, and if for either party it’s their primary residence, that side doesn’t have to pay,” Peake said. “That might not work in central Massachusetts, where there’s fewer second and third homes, but when it comes down to the wire people really start to focus on these nitty-gritty details.”

The opposition to the fee, according to Peake, Faria, Jordi, and reporting in the Boston Globe, has been organized by the Mass. Association of Realtors.

Ryan Castle, CEO of the Cape Cod and Islands Association of Realtors, said that his organization “follows the Mass. Association of Realtors on all state legislative issues, including real estate transfer taxes.

“Our policy is not up to me, it’s up to our governing organizations, but I will say this: I’ve never seen a real estate transfer tax proposal that actually works,” Castle added. “We have underbuilt on the Cape for 20 to 30 years, and we need to reform our building processes so more market-rate housing that is attainable for people can be built — not just fund standard affordable housing programs for people who earn less than our low-median income numbers.”

State Sen. Julian Cyr of Truro also pointed out that median incomes on Cape Cod are low.

“Too often, people perceive the Cape and Islands through the lens of our summer visitors, many of whom have quite a bit of wealth,” said Cyr. “But the reality is that median incomes in most of Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard are below the state average, and we need to subsidize housing for almost all working year-round residents who don’t already own a home or stand to inherit one.

“The governor has said this remains a top priority for her,” Cyr continued. “This is the most intractable problem facing Cape Cod and Islanders, and I’m not going to let this opportunity go by.”