This five-bedroom Colonial at 4 Mohawk Lane in Lynnfield includes three-and-a-half bathrooms, a Jacuzzi and an attached two-car garage. It is being offered for sale at $1.1 million.
The Essex County town of Lynnfield is a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to build there. Actually, it’s probably much more accurate to say that it’s a nice place to visit, a nice place to live and a place where you’d love to build – if the land were available.
That’s the way the town is viewed through the eyes of at least one local real estate professional. Richard R. Tisei, broker-owner of Northrup Assoc. in Lynnfield, said that while the town sees “a little development here and there,” there isn’t much new construction because of the fact that most of it was built-out long ago. From 1951 to 1953, he noted, Lynnfield enjoyed the highest growth rate of any community in the Bay State, and its growth continued over a period of two decades.
“Lynnfield was really developed in the late 1950s, ’60s and ’70s,” said Tisei, adding that the town’s growth coincided conveniently with the opening of Route 128, a major Massachusetts roadway.
And one of the reasons the town has remained popular with homebuyers, according to Tisei, is because highways such as Route 128, Route 1 and other roads provide such easy access to the city of Boston, which is located only 15 miles south of Lynnfield. He noted that in the 1970s, professionals who worked at companies such as General Electric Co. and The Gillette Co. enjoyed living in the town for that very reason, and today’s buyers seem to be rediscovering Lynnfield’s convenience.
Single-family prices in the town are typical for a community within close proximity of the Hub. Statistics from The Warren Group, parent company of Banker & Tradesman, show that the single-family median in Lynnfield was $439,950 through May of this year. Among Essex County’s 20 most-active residential markets, only three communities – Boxford, North Andover and Marblehead – had higher median prices for single-family homes.
Still, Tisei noted that while this year’s single-family sales in Lynnfield are trailing 2002’s by a small margin, homes in the town continue to sell.
“I’d say we’re just a little behind last year, but then, last year was a record year. Sales are still pretty brisk,” he said.
Perhaps the most important attraction for would-be Lynnfield residents is the town’s top-notch school system. The Lynnfield Public Schools have been highly regarded for some time, and in recent years its students have performed extremely well on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS, examinations. Tisei said the school system always ranks among the state’s Top 20 performers on the exams and that all of the high school sophomores who took the test in the spring of 2003 earned passing grades.
Additionally, the school system is just about finished with a major infrastructure-improvement program. Extensive renovations to Lynnfield High School were completed in May, a new middle school opened in September and upgrades at the town’s two elementary schools are slated be to wrapped up by the end of the year.
“That’s definitely a selling point for the community,” noted Tisei, a state senator who was raised and educated in Lynnfield and now lives in the neighboring town of Wakefield.
U.S. Census numbers show that Lynnfield’s population grew from 11,274 residents in 1990 to 11,542 a decade later, an increase of 2.4 percent. That population, Tisei noted, is gradually becoming younger overall, with a number of retirees and empty nesters moving away and young families attracted by the school system relocating to the town.
Primarily a bedroom community, Lynnfield even entices some homeowners to “trade up” within the town by selling one home and moving into a larger one, according to Tisei.
“It’s a very picturesque New England town, with a very beautiful town common,” he said. “Once people move here, they tend to stay.”
Just the Facts:
Year incorporated:
As a town: 1814
Total area:
10.49 square miles
Population:
11,542
Density:
1,137 per square mile
Tax rates
Residential: $12.64
Commercial: $12.64
Total number of housing units:
4,273
Public school enrollment:
1,987
