The median price for single-family homes sold through October in Brookline reached $955,000. This 15-room Victorian on Norfolk Street is available for sale at $1.89 million.
Some of the Bay State’s most sought-after communities just got a bit more exclusive, as the list of towns where the median price for a home nearing $1 million grew this year.
Weston hit that $1 million threshold last year, when the median selling price for a single-family home exceeded $1.07 million. But it appears that median selling prices in other Boston suburbs like Brookline and Lincoln are fast approaching $1 million, at a time when island communities on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard already have reached that high mark.
In Boston proper, which includes the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, North End and South End, the median price of a single-family home surpassed $1 million four years ago.
The news isn’t all that astonishing to real estate brokers in Greater Boston, who have benefited from a booming real estate market during the past five years. They say buyer demand in highly desirable communities that are close to Boston and feature acclaimed public school systems outstrip the supply of available homes. And as some communities fitting that bill, such as Weston and Lincoln, have tried to preserve open space and have adopted large-lot zoning, new-home construction has become harder and more expensive.
“Weston and Lincoln are communities where the zoning is an acre and a half at a minimum, and the process to permit new construction is long and sometimes difficult,” said Peter P. Casey, a Weston real estate broker and former president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors.
Those types of restrictions have put upward pressure on land prices, and ultimately homes. “Land, because it’s scarce, is very valuable,” said Casey, president of Prudential Wilmot Whitney Real Estate in Weston.
Sales of single-family homes through October indicate that Weston’s median price has climbed to $1.26 million – a 14.2 percent increase from the same months in 2003, according to statistics from The Warren Group, parent company of Banker & Tradesman.
Among the luxury home sales in Weston this year was a six-acre estate with a 19-room English Tudor-style home that sold for $7 million in May, and a newly constructed shingle-style Colonial with six bedrooms and eight full bathrooms that went for $6.25 million in July.
Statewide, some 2,131 single-family homes priced over $1 million were sold between January and October of this year, according to The Warren Group. With 168 sales in that high-end category, Wellesley led the state in million-dollar home sales, followed by Newton with 150 and Nantucket with 135. Five percent of those sales, or 113, were in Weston, according to The Warren Group.
Currently, there are nearly 1,500 single-family homes priced over $1 million available for sale, which is about 11 months’ worth of inventory, or about the same as last year, according to information from MLS Property Information Network provided by Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage. MLS PIN is the listing service for most companies in the state, with the exception of firms in Berkshire County and Cape Cod and the Islands, where the local Realtor boards operate their own listing services.
‘Supply and Demand’
Trying to explain the high prices in towns like Weston and Lincoln, Realtor Ann Trudeau said, “It’s the oldest saying in the book: supply and demand.”
In Lincoln, where 51 single-family homes were sold through October, the median selling price has reached $930,000, which is about 2 percent higher than the same period a year ago.
Trudeau, who manages J.M. Barrett & Co. – which has offices in Lincoln, Concord and Carlisle – said Lincoln and Weston have conservative town boards that try to preserve their town centers and open space. While those efforts have created a quaint ambiance that attracts many homebuyers, it also puts a squeeze on the supply of homes.
Weston and Lincoln also benefit from their proximity to Boston – Weston is 12 miles west of the city, while Lincoln is 13 miles away – and excellent public schools.
Trudeau said most of the buyers heading to Lincoln these days are young professionals from Boston and Cambridge who are relocating there because they either have a family or are contemplating starting one or because they just want to get out of an urban environment.
East of Weston and Lincoln sits Brookline, a town that also boasts about its good public schools and can easily be confused for a Boston neighborhood because of its close proximity to the city.
Brookline’s residential real estate market continued to surge this year. The median selling price for single-family homes sold through October of this year jumped 9.7 percent to $955,000 compared to $870,000 last year. In addition, 198 single-family homes were sold during that period, a 53 percent increase from the 129 unit sales posted a year ago.
Just one of the transactions that captured the attention of real estate brokers this year was a four-bedroom Colonial situated on approximately one acre on Singletree Road that sold for $5 million in March. Earlier this month, a newly constructed shingle-style home on Woodland Road found a buyer at $4.75 million.
From its gracious Colonials on Fisher Hill to its sprawling estates near the local country club or its large Victorians near Coolidge Corner, Brookline has never had a problem attracting steady supply of interested homebuyers, explained Realtor Holly Wyner.
“Brookline has always been thought of as a desirable community. Unlike a community that has gone through a sleepy period and gone through a rebirth, that’s never been the case in Brookline. Brookline has never had a sleepy period,” said Wyner, a senior sales associate with Hammond GMAC Residential Real Estate in Chestnut Hill.
Wyner, who sells homes in Brookline and Newton, said she listed a home without a garage and central air conditioning in Brookline in October for over $1.2 million and had 40 couples see the home during one weekend. “That’s the kind of demand we’re seeing,” she said.
Even during the market downturn in the 1980s when many cities and towns saw big declines in property values and prices, Brookline had more of a market correction, said Wyner.
Among its amenities, Brookline also offers good access to public transportation, said Bob Shortsleeve, regional vice president for Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage. The B, C and D trains of the MBTA’s Green Line run through the town, along with a several bus routes.
Shortsleeve said there is so much equity in the housing market, particularly for homeowners who were fortunate enough to have purchased their properties years ago, that people can afford to trade their current homes for even more expensive homes. Someone who purchased a single-family home in Brookline 10 years ago when the median price was $354,125 with a 20 percent down payment, for example, would have hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity built-up by now.
Shortsleeve said while salaries have not appreciated at the same level as home prices have, salaries are higher than they were a few years ago for entry-level executives, attorneys and other professionals.
“It [the trend of high prices] is sustainable as long as demand is sustainable,” said Shortsleeve.
Trudeau, of J.M. Barrett & Co., said prices will continue to rise as long as the economy can support it.
First-time homebuyers and others who can’t easily afford the ever-increasing prices of single-family homes are turning to condos, which in many markets are more affordable than single-family homes. But Casey, of Prudential Wilmot Whitney Real Estate in Weston, pointed out that increasing demand from first-time buyers and even empty nesters – those who are 55 and older and are seeking housing that requires less maintenance – is putting pressure on condo prices as well.
According to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, the average sales price for a condo price escalated 16.2 percent to $300,170 during the first three quarters of the year – surpassing the 10.6 percent appreciation for a detached single-family home during the period.
“Unless something changes dramatically in the commonwealth in the way homes are developed, unless we develop them faster and smarter, chances are that we’re going to continue to see price increases,” said Casey.
