bostonbubble.com

balor123 · Joined: 08 Mar 2008 Posts: 1204

Rent or buy? 10 cities rated

Somehow they get 34x annual rent.

Beaumontv · Guest

The data must have a massive skew to get an average home price of $327k. Anything under $500k is either unlivable or in a dangerous area. Brookline, Newton, Wellesley, concord, Belmont, Cambridge, Waltham, Dedham,....never seen a place without boarded windows where $500k buys you anything at all....

admin · Posted: Thu May 19, 2011 4:32 pm GMT Post subject:

balor123 · Joined: 08 Mar 2008 Posts: 1204

Dedham? Ick. But yes I agree the price is low. I'm guessing they probably go out just past 495. Some people actually consider places like Lowell and Nashua suburbs of Boston! Also, it's not hard for the median price to be low when the number of cheap properties (one deck of a triple decker) greatly outnumbers then number of "McMansions". I remember reading at one point that roughly half of Greater Boston lives in Dorchester!

These kinds of comparisons always seem to compare median prices, regardless of property type. So a median condo in NYC is probably a 500sf condo which they gladly compare to a 4br house in Atlanta. And it's still more expensive! Razz

admin · Posted: Fri May 20, 2011 1:23 pm GMT Post subject:

Yes, I would guess the same thing, that they went out a little past 495 in this case. However, you actually don't need to go nearly so far to find towns where sub $500K (Beaumontv's mental signpost) is the norm. This is the first thing I found when doing a Google search for prices by town, and while it's not an apples to apples comparison (it's average 2009 assessed value), it's probably good enough as a ballpark estimate and most of the towns have an average below $500K:

http://www.boston.com/realestate/specials/fallhousehunt/2009/assessed_values/

- admin

balor123 · Joined: 08 Mar 2008 Posts: 1204

Why is Waltham NA? Anyway, let's look at towns with decent school districts around here:

Weston $1,387,707
Winchester $757,878
Newton $807,541
Lincoln $1,059,665
Wellesley $1,046,131
Belmont $752,843
Arlington $465,952
Natick $471,009
Dover $1,135,325
Lexington $702,346

I would like to see a city by city comparison of what it costs to get a home with access to good schools (GreatSchools rating of 7 or more) and commute no longer than 30min. In Boston I think about $500k seems to be it. In Austin, it's $150k. I don't know about other cities.