Boston Globe Top Spots 2022

T-BALL: BAD IDEA OR WORST IDEA? / GOODBYE TO BUFFY THE MIRACLE DOG THE BOSTON GLOBE | APRIL 24, 2022

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION: REAL ESTATE AGENTS

TOP SPOTS TO LIVE 2022

36 Communities Where Demand Is Surging Plus: An “Eccentricity Discount” in the Roommate Search and Five Things Every Condo Buyer Should Know APRIL 24, 2022

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BY J O N G O R E Y

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THE BOSTON GLOBE MAGAZINE

I M A G E S F R O M A D O B E S TO C K ; G LO B E S TA F F I L L U S T R AT I O N

TOP SPOTS TO LIVE 2022

A guide to 36 Greater Boston communities where demand — and prices — are surging.

BOSTON’S HOUSING HEAT MAP has shifted in the past two years, as a pandemic penchant for more space and serene settings led home buyers to coastal communities and towns far outside the city—or wherever they could still afford to buy.

Looking at the hottest housing markets in Greater Boston over the past five years, “It really seems like there’s been a flight to affordability,” says Tim Warren, chief executive of The Warren Group, a real estate analytics firm. “People have had to seek out the more affordable and more distant communities to buy,” he says. “Some of that’s reflective of people’s ability to do remote work,” he adds, but a lot of them simply can no longer afford communities inside Route 128.

I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y N A O M I E L L I O T T F O R T H E B O S T O N G L O B E

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TOP SPOTS TO LIVE > 2022

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HOME PRICES HAVE GONE ABSOLUTELY BANANAS. THE MEDIAN PRICE OF A MASSACHUSETTS SINGLE FAMILY SPIKED 14.1 PERCENT IN 2021. mined. “There are just so many people who want to buy a home that even if a small percentage of them drop out because of higher mortgage rates, it doesn’t really affect the market,” says Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at the national brokerage Redfin. “One of the things that makes it more dire is that, in many parts of Boston, inventory is much lower than it was last year,” she adds — with about 40 percent fewer listings this spring across metro Boston.

It has also sent buyers to the farthest reaches of Greater Boston in search of better value or settings that feel like a year-round retreat —quickly pushing prices up in some far-flung places.

In nearly half of this year’s Top Spots, the median price of a singlefamily home rose over 20 percent

in just the past 12 months, and upward of 50 percent since 2016. (If this were a statewide list, it would consist largely of towns in Western or Central Massachusetts, and those on Cape Cod and the Islands; in Stockbridge, for example, prices more than doubled in five years, while on Nantucket, the median price of a single-family home leapt by nearly $1 million.)

That trend shows no sign of slowing. Office workers are now getting long-term commuting clarity from their employers, says Barbara Hirsch, head Boston strategist at the real-estate advisory Suburban Jungle — and many are learning they can expect continued flexibility, “which is really opening up where they can live,” she says.

Meanwhile, workers — especially those in high-demand fields such as health care and biotech — now have more negotiating power than before the pandemic, Fairweather says. So people who bought in farther-out areas while working remotely the past two years will likely be able to insist on a flexible schedule going forward. “We may see a bit of a return to the office,” Fairweather says. “But I don’t think we’ll ever go back to the way it was before the pandemic.”

M E T H O D O L O GY Determining a “best” place to live is a subjective exercise, one with as many possible outcomes as there are home buyers.

To arrive at this year’s list of Top Spots, we relied on the finite but nonetheless valid wisdom of the market: Sharply increasing home prices suggest that these are the places many people want to call home.

We analyzed median home prices from 2016 and 2021 to find the biggest five-year increases across three price tiers for each region. In the suburbs, we looked at single-family data from The Warren Group, excluding communities with fewer than 50 sales in 2021.

For Boston and Cambridge neighborhoods, we used median home price data — which include both single-family and condo sales — from real estate brokerage Redfin.

North of Boston UNDER $600,000 TOP SPOT: LAWRENCE

MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $385,913 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 67.8 percent

NORTH OF BOSTON, three former industrial cities — Lawrence, Lynn, and Lowell — have seen home prices climb upward of 60 percent in the past five years, with buyers drawn to their mix of vibrancy and relative affordability.

Marianela Rivera, a lifelong Lawrence resident and education justice advocate, loves the city’s activist history. “Growing up as a kid in Lawrence, walking around the mills and learning about the Bread and Roses Strike really inspired me,” she says of the landmark 1912 labor protest.

The city is also rich in culture, she adds. “You see art everywhere in our community,” from salsa socials hosted by the Utopia Dance Company, to literary events at El Taller, the independent bookstore and cafe Rivera calls “a local treasure.”

And what’s more? “The food, oh my God,” Rivera says. In addition to Dominican and Puerto Rican restaurants — and the cheap, heaping plates on offer at her corner bodega — “there are all these fusion spots now.” Vaka Restaurant, for example, serves Dominican-influenced sushi and tapas, and Japu puts a Japanese spin on Peruvian ingredients.

Fusion is a fitting culinary theme in a city that has long welcomed international arrivals. “There’s something really beautiful about Lawrence being a place that has attracted immigrants from all parts of the world seeking opportunity,” Rivera says. But she worries that rising rents and home prices are

H O U S E I C O N F R O M A D O B E S TO C K

Because let’s be clear: Home prices have gone absolutely bananas.

The median price of a Massachusetts single-family house spiked 14.1 percent in 2021, and 27.5 percent over the past two years, according to The Warren Group. It’s no longer just a coastal city phenomenon, either. With America’s biggest generation, the millennials, at settling down age, there are way more buyers than homes for sale all over the country. A recent study by the National Association of Realtors found that we need to build at least 5 million more homes in the United States to relieve our “chronic shortage” of housing.

It will take years to plug that kind of gap, and economists don’t expect the housing supply crunch to ease soon. So if there’s any hope of price increases slowing, it will be due to interest rates, which are rising at their fastest pace in decades — making it even more expensive to buy a home.

Consider this ruthless math: The median price of a Boston-area single-family home was a stomachwrenching $750,000 in 2021, according to the Greater Boston Association of Realtors. A year ago, when the average interest rate on a standard home loan (30-year fixed, 20 percent down) was 2.97 percent, according to Freddie Mac, a typical monthly mortgage payment would have been $2,520. By mid-April, the average rate had risen to 5 percent, bringing the cost to $3,221—about $700 more per month. And that’s if home prices simply stayed put for a full year.

(Spoiler alert: They didn’t.)

“Buyers who could afford a certain price, and who were pushing their max, now have to drop down and now have to rethink where they’re moving to or what they’re trying to get,” says Greater Boston Association of Realtors president Melvin A. Vieira Jr., a broker at RE/ MAX Destiny.

That is pushing many buyers to the sidelines, which economists expect will ease some of the frantic competition for homes as the year wears on. But others remain deter-

WHAT YOU GET FOR AROUND

$750,000

45 Cottage Road | Newbury Price: $750,000 Square feet: 2,449 Lot size: 0.97 acre Bedrooms: 4 Baths: 2 Surrounded on three sides by conservation land, this contemporary house — sold in as-is condition — features exposed wood beams in the living room and two decks to enjoy the natural landscape.

LISTED BY PAULA VIERA, BENTLEY’S REAL ESTATE

no says. “There’s still plenty of open space, but it’s gotten busier.”

displacing longtime residents. “As much as it is an amazing place, I think a lot of people right now are struggling to continue to call Lawrence home, which is sad.”

public university system. All three cities have seen their relative affordability diminish in recent years.

$600,000-$800,000

RUNNERS-UP

TOP SPOT: ROCKPORT

LYNN

MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $744,500 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 64.7 percent

MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $463,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 61.3 percent

LOWELL MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $410,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 60.8 percent

WITH AN OCEANFRONT setting and the 2,200-acre Lynn Woods Reservation, Lynn beckons buyers with a blend of urban lifestyle and natural beauty just a few miles from Boston. Upriver from Lawrence on the Merrimack, Lowell is home to a National Historical Park honoring the city’s role in the Industrial Revolution, and a major piece of the state’s

AT THE FAR END OF CAPE ANN is Rockport. And at the far end of Rockport, where Bearskin Neck juts into the harbor, you’ll find the studio and gallery of John Caggiano, who moved to this former artist colony more than 40 years ago. “A girlfriend brought me here, but I stayed because of the coastline and the beauty of the area,” Caggiano says.

“All of Cape Ann, I have to say, is a painter’s paradise.”

Between the iconic red fishing shack on Bradley Wharf — called

Motif No. 1, it is perhaps the most painted building in America — and the town’s quaint, coastal charm, a walk around Rockport can feel like a stroll through a painting. “The July Fourth parade is something out of Norman Rockwell,” Caggiano says. In December, Santa arrives by lobster boat and a choir sings carols in Dock Square.

Rockport remains a small town where “neighbors rely on neighbors,” Caggiano says, and an artists’ haven at heart, with new galleries continuing to open and more performance venues than one could expect from a town of 7,000 yearround residents. But this picturesque perch on the Atlantic, connected to Boston by commuter rail, has also grown more popular and more cost prohibitive. At one time, three cars constituted a traffic jam and the Pigeon Cove area across the harbor was mostly forest, Caggia-

RUNNERS-UP WINTHROP MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $651,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 62.8 percent

NEWBURY MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $715,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 58.0 percent

WHILE WINTHROP BORDERS Boston and Logan Airport — and sits beneath the flight path of many an approaching aircraft — it can also feel a world apart, nearly enveloped as it is by the ocean. A 2021 Top Spot to Live, Newbury offers access to downtown Newburyport as well as open spaces such as the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island.

$800,000 AND UP TOP SPOT: WENHAM MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $870,000

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TOP SPOTS TO LIVE > 2022 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 52.6 percent

WENHAM’S ROUGHLY 5,000 residents share many services — including a library, commuter rail station, and well regarded school system — with neighboring Hamilton (where the median price has risen a similar 52.8 percent in the past five years, to $770,000).

“The schools were one of the primary reasons we wanted to buy here,” says Barbara Locke, who moved to the town in 1995 with her husband, Peter, a Wenham native. Local kids can also enjoy a summer playground camp, located behind the Wenham Tea House, that has been offered since 1935 by the Wenham Village Improvement Society (Locke is on the board).

“Wenham is a beautiful place,” Locke says. “It’s a small town, and you really get to know your neighbors.” But she laments the property taxes driving out people on fixed incomes. “We have no commercial base, it’s all residential — so the tax burden falls on the homeowners,” she says. (The average annual property tax bill in Wenham is $14,265 this year, 14th highest in the state.)

RUNNERS-UP

WEST NEWBURY MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $855,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 52 percent

MIDDLETON MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $850,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 51.1 percent

WITH FEWER THAN 5,000 residents, West Newbury offers a rural setting (plus the 270-acre Mill Pond Recreation Area) along the southern stretch of the Merrimack River between Haverhill and Newburyport. Fast-growing Middleton, which offers access to Interstate 95 on its eastern side and two state forests on its northern border, gained nearly a thousand residents in the past decade, and saw home prices rocket 27 percent last year alone.

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WHAT YOU GET FOR AROUND

$750,000

West of Boston UNDER $600,000 TOP SPOT: SHIRLEY

MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $450,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 54.1 percent

BEFORE ALISON TOCCI came back to her hometown of Shirley to take over the family business — the Bull Run, a restaurant and music venue her parents started in the 1940s — she and her husband, George, had spent more than a decade running a concert series on a floating barge in Brooklyn. It was quite a change of pace from New York City, but continuing the family tradition in this small town west of Interstate 495 has been a dream come true. “It’s been an unbelievably rewarding journey,” she says.

Tocci lives in Shirley’s historic center, while the Bull Run stands on the site where local men began their march into Lexington and Concord during the Revolutionary War. “Even when the pandemic hit, I felt like it’s not our first rodeo in terms of hurricanes, wars, recessions. . .This thing has withstood quite a bit,” Tocci says. “The Bull abides — we’re not going anywhere.”

She likes that the town is near enough to both Boston and Worces-

ter (and their airports), as well as the ocean, while affording a rural lifestyle. “Shirley has just got tons of open space,” Tocci says, including one of her favorite places, the 89-acre Farandnear Reservation. It does lack some modern conveniences — like its own gas station or grocery store, she notes. “It’s very, very small.”

But as much as she’ll always love New York, Tocci finds all the action she craves right in Shirley. “I walk into a completely different cast of characters every night,” she says, depending on who’s booked to perform at the Bull Run and what kind of audience they draw. “That’s my own little New York City microcosm right there.”

RUNNERS-UP MILLIS

MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $580,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 52.7 percent

MILFORD MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $450,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 45.2 percent

MILLIS AND MILFORD have both seen their stocks rise with home buyers who work along I-495. Millis is a bit further off the beaten

48 East Street | Upton Price: $745,000 Square feet: 3,506 Lot size: 4 acres Bedrooms: 5 Baths: 3 This 1976 Garrison Colonial features an updated kitchen, three fireplaces, and a working 18th-century stove in the dining area, plus a separate onebedroom guest apartment.

LISTED BY DEREK GREENE, THE GREENE REALTY GROUP

track than Milford, but offers more open space and a school system with a 12-year Spanish immersion program. 2021 Top Spot Milford, meanwhile, is a small, relatively affordable city with its own full-service hospital.

$600,000-$800,000 TOP SPOT: UPTON

MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $615,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 57.7 percent

ORIGINALLY FROM UPSTATE New York, Dan Lazarz and his wife had been living in Central Virginia when they moved to Massachusetts in the late 1990s. Their relocation specialist was nudging them to buy closer to Boston, but life near the Blue Ridge Mountains had left them longing for a similar rural-suburban setting, and they settled on the relatively remote town of Upton. “It was definitely much more affordable than communities inside 495,” Lazarz says. “We got a nice house for the money, and we weren’t too

far outside of Boston.”

The Lazarz family grew, and so did the town, as major employers like EMC (now Dell EMC) and Fidelity opened nearby offices. But with 29 percent of the town’s land protected, including Upton State Forest, and the rest almost entirely residential, there’s not much of a commercial tax base in Upton itself.

Lazarz, a fire protection engineer who’s also a volunteer firefighter, says the wave of newcomers joined longtime residents in pouring their hearts into the town, making up for services the small community couldn’t provide. The town of 8,000 also shares a school district (and a Spanish immersion program) with next-door Mendon.

“If you’re looking for a community where all your services are kind of given to you on a menu, Upton is probably not your place,” Lazarz says. But those who want to get involved with their neighbors through volunteering — whether on a town board, a school’s PTO, or a youth sports program — will feel right at home.

RUNNERS-UP BOLTON

MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $705,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 46.5 percent

WESTBOROUGH MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $661,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 45.3 percent

SCENIC BOLTON BOASTS over 2,000 acres of conservation land —more than one-third of an acre per resident. Westborough, meanwhile, could have easily become one big office park or strip mall, given its location at the nexus of the Massachusetts Turnpike, Route 9, and I-495. But between its picturesque downtown, commuter rail service, and multiple lakes and parks, it balances small town charm with city-caliber conveniences.

$800,000 AND UP TOP SPOT: CARLISLE

MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $1,250,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 59.2 percent

WOODSY CARLISLE CAN feel a bit out of the way compared with its neighbors (such as second runner-up Concord, with whom Carlisle shares a high school); it’s not on a highway, and has no commuter rail station. But life in Carlisle should never feel lonely, says 84-year-old Ellen Huber, a resident since 1964.

“Some people live at the end of a long driveway surrounded by woods, but no one should ever feel isolated here — unless they want to,” Huber says.

“It is very easy to get involved in town groups and events,” she adds, from library happenings to the annual Old Home Day, which features live music and games, road races, a children’s pet show, and a strawberry festival. Residents can also get involved with the nonprofit, weekly newspaper, the Carlisle Mosquito, Huber says — or catch up on local news by chatting with neighbors at the town transfer station, which has “friendly workers and the best swap shop anywhere.”

The town also boasts “great schools and a wonderful trails system,” Huber says, including the 1,000-acre Great Brook Farm State Park, and another 1,100 acres of town-owned conservation land — complete with an active cranberry bog.

RUNNERS-UP

SOUTHBOROUGH MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $810,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 58.9 percent

CONCORD MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $1,416,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 52.3 percent

THOUGH IT LACKS a defined downtown district, Southborough boasts the same highway and transit options as neighboring Westborough — with a slight head start toward Boston, given its position inside I-495 — as well as St. Mark’s School and abundant open space.

And Concord — historic home to authors Alcott, Emerson, and Thoreau — continues to charm with its walkable downtown and pastoral landscape.

5 THINGS EVERY CONDO BUYER SHOULD DO

BY STACEY MYERS

WHEN I DECIDED to buy a home in 2016, I had no desire to maintain a lawn or shovel snow. So, I set my sights on a condominium, where someone else would take care of those things (for a fee).

Here are five things I’ve learned that condo buyers should do to protect themselves: 1. LOOK CAREFULLY AT THE RESERVE FUND. Does it seem reasonable in relation to the property’s size? Are there upcoming projects or assessments (repairs to roofs, parking lots, pools)? Large fees can affect resale by making it harder for buyers to secure a mortgage since lenders factor in those fees, says Melvin A. Vieira Jr., president of the Greater Boston Association of Realtors. Keep in mind, Vieira adds, that complex maintenance histories and plans are facing tougher scrutiny from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after the Surfside, Florida, condo collapse – which could affect a buyer’s ability to obtain conventional financing.

2. UNDERSTAND HOW PROPERTY INSURANCE WORKS. Otherwise, you could pay out of pocket for repairs you thought were the responsibility of the homeowners’ association, or HOA, like if a laundry room flood ruins your floors.

The HOA pays for a master policy through condo fees, and unit owners pay for individual policies (HO6 policies cover owners who live in their units; landlord policies cover those who rent them out). Know your association’s “per unit” deductible, and confirm that your HO6 will cover it, says Becky McLaughlin, a senior vice president with insurance brokerage HUB International New England.

(In my HOA, which McLaughlin advises, the master policy doesn’t

kick in until the damage exceeds $25,000, which she says is standard.) It’s a good idea to “get the governing documents for the association that spell out who’s responsible for what,” and show them to your insurance agent, she adds.

3. CHECK YOUR UNIT’S COVERAGE FOR “LOSS OF USE,” which pays for alternate housing if you’re displaced. HO6 policies include some coverage for additional living expenses based on your coverage for replacing personal property. But “we do live in an expensive area,” so you should consider bumping up that amount, McLaughlin says. Last spring, there was a fire in my complex that uprooted folks from 36 units.

Unfortunately, some owners had limited coverage and are struggling nearly a year later to pay for temporary housing while also keeping up mortgage payments.

4. BE AWARE OF BUILDING CONNECTIONS. Even if they have separate addresses, buildings that are attached may share electrical, water, and fire alarm services. So, a fire in one “building” could knock out utilities throughout the structure. At my complex, one of the three connected buildings escaped fire damage, but its residents were displaced for about three months until the utilities were restored.

5. ONCE YOU MOVE IN, INTRODUCE YOURSELF TO NEIGHBORS — and exchange cellphone numbers. Those numbers come in handy if there’s a problem such as a hot water heater bursting while someone is on vacation. But it’s not always bad news. A neighbor once texted me to let me know I had a flower delivery waiting on my doorstep.

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TOP SPOTS TO LIVE > 2022 Golf Course. In nearby Rockland, the factories that once churned out shoes for the Union Army now host artist studios and residents in a quiet suburb that includes a 3-mile rail trail.

WHAT YOU GET FOR AROUND

$750,000

$600,000-$800,000 TOP SPOT: MATTAPOISETT MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $620,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 65.3 percent

South of Boston UNDER $600,000 TOP SPOT: ROCHESTER MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $576,500 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 64.7 percent

WHEN DAN COSTA and his family moved to Rochester to take over Lloyd’s Market, a butcher shop and grocer that has been a mainstay since the 1950s, he wasn’t sure what to expect. “I didn’t really know much about Rochester until I got here, but I’m glad I’m here,” Costa says.

It’s a lot quieter and more peaceful than Boston’s North End, where Costa had owned a store on Hanover Street for 18 years. “It’s just a simpler, quieter lifestyle,” he says.

The town is a Right to Farm community — which means residents have committed to living with the noises and odors related to standard agricultural operations — and Lloyd’s sources much of its produce from local farmers. “It’s actually really pretty with the farmland that we have, and some of the

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ponds around here make you feel like you’re up in the lakes in New Hampshire,” he says.

When the family first arrived in town with their two young children, they rented for a couple of years before buying a house. “And then we decided to live here based on how we felt about the community, and the school system, which is just tremendous,” Costa says. “We decided this is where we want to be.”

RUNNERS-UP BROCKTON MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $395,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 63.9 percent

ROCKLAND MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $440,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 60.9 percent

DESPITE BEING one of the largest cities in Massachusetts, 2021 Top Spot Brockton — a.k.a. the “City of Champions” — offers suburbanstyle neighborhoods full of singlefamily houses, as well as the Olmsted-designed D.W. Field Park and

MATTAPOISETT’S HARBOR on Buzzards Bay attracts plenty of boaters, and the community swells with seasonal residents each summer. But it isn’t quite a tourist town, says Chris Demakis, a local real estate agent and co-owner of the Town Wharf General Store.

Demakis grew up in Mattapoisett and, after a stint living in Boston, moved back to his hometown in 1999. He commuted into the city for nearly two decades before a career change allowed him to stay local.

Lately, he’s seen many other home buyers able to do the same thing, without having to change jobs.

“More and more people are choosing to live where they want to, versus where they have to,” Demakis says — a decision that, for many people, leads to the ocean.

“And when you look at our housing prices compared to the South Shore or the Cape, Mattapoisett and the South Coast in general turns out to be, I think, a better value for your money.”

Mattapoisett’s village includes historic homes, a public boat launch, a series of giant stone wharves from the town’s shipbuilding heyday, and a town green called Shipyard Park, which hosts free concerts and other events in the summer. “People treat the wharf like their backyard,” Demakis says.

There’s a public beach nearby, too, and the town offers a sailing camp for kids in the summer.

19 Highland Avenue Mattapoisett Price: $750,000 Square feet: 1,674 Lot size: 0.13 acre Bedrooms: 3 Baths: 1.5 Just a block from Sandy Beach in the Point Connett neighborhood, this shingled 1935 Cape offers ocean views from the big front porch and a cozy wood-paneled living room with fireplace.

LISTED BY LAUREN KAVANAGH, JACK CONWAY & CO. MATTAPOISETT

SCITUATE MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $762,500 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 53.7 percent

EASTON IS HOME to Stonehill College, the Ames Estate, a children’s museum, and an impressive collection of buildings designed by H.H. Richardson, the architect of Boston’s Trinity Church. Salty Scituate offers waterfront (and often stormbattered) homes from Minot Beach south to Humarock, more typical suburban neighborhoods (and a pair of commuter rail stations) farther inland, and a walkable village by the harbor.

$800,000 AND UP TOP SPOT: COHASSET MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $1,350,000

RUNNERS-UP EASTON MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $610,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 54.4 percent

INCREASE SINCE 2016: 66.7 percent

ANOTHER PRETTY coastal town — this one on the bay side, and on the commuter rail — saw

the fastest price growth of any town south of Boston. “Cohasset might be a nice town if it were 40 miles inland,” says 77-year-old Dan Leahy, a photographer for the Cohasset Anchor who has lived there since 1982.

But the oceanside setting takes it to another level, he says.

“Anytime you’re having a bad day or a down moment, you go down to the harbor and just sit there for 15 minutes and inhale that marvelous salt air, and look out at that magnificent scenery,” Leahy says.

Families with kids flock to Sandy Beach in summer, while Leahy’s more likely to stroll quieter Black Rock Beach or photograph wildlife or lobster boats in the working harbor. “Whether it’s a foggy day, a cold day, a snowy day, it just presses all my buttons.”

Beyond the natural beauty, Leahy, who raised six children in Cohasset, says the schools are “phenomenal.” From academics to athletics to extracurricular activities, “they do everything, the teachers are all really involved,” he says — as is the rest of the town.

“You go to any school play or debate or any school event...the whole community joins in.”

RUNNERS-UP WESTWOOD

MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $1,025,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 55.7 percent

HINGHAM MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY PRICE: $1,100,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 48.6 percent

WEDGED BETWEEN the shopping mega-centers along Route 128 in Dedham and the tony suburbs of Dover and Needham, 2020 runnerup Westwood offers a mix of convenience (including a Wegmans grocery store and Amtrak Acela service to New York) and suburban quiet.

From modern, harbor-front condos just a boat ride from Boston to historic Colonials in its town center, Hingham offers handsome housing and plenty of parks — including a state park and three Trustees of Reservations properties — for those who can afford its high housing prices.

Boston & Cambridge UNDER $600,000 TOP SPOT: HYDE PARK

MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $566,750 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 51.1 percent

THERE’S A LOT to love about Hyde Park, Boston’s farthest-flung neighborhood: There’s its semi-suburban feel, its three commuter rail stops, the municipal George Wright Golf

Course, and the nonprofit Riverside Theatre Works. There’s also Ron’s Gourmet Ice Cream and Bowling, a fixture for some 50 years. But if there’s one thing Ron himself — Ron Covitz, that is — loves about the neighborhood, it’s the customers he gets to meet.

“I love the people, and the diversity of the people,” Covitz says. “If you ever stood in our ice cream line

on a Sunday night, you’d see people from everywhere, all over the world.”

Covitz counts Boston Mayor Michelle Wu as an ice cream customer, just as former mayor and Hyde Park native Thomas Menino once was.

After Covitz transformed his father’s bowling alley and pool hall into a family-oriented ice cream shop, “It was Tom Menino who suggested,

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TOP SPOTS TO LIVE > 2022 very early on, that I go nonsmoking, so that I’d have kids’ birthday parties,” he says.

With his youngest son, Jay, now in charge of the business, Covitz feels lucky that he and his family have been able to serve the community all these years. “I worked with my father, all my kids have worked with me — and I mean all my kids, I have four kids, and every one has spent some time here,” he says. “It’s just been a wonderful, wonderful part of my life.”

RUNNERS-UP ROXBURY MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $579,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 34.7 percent

ALLSTON MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $599,500 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 33.5 percent

IN THE GEOGRAPHIC center of Boston, Roxbury offers access to the Orange Line (and Southwest Corridor Park), Franklin Park, and vibrant Nubian Square, arguably the beating heart of Boston’s Black culture. As Harvard University continues expanding across the Charles River into Allston, once-dormant Western Avenue has sprung to life with new development (and beer gardens), while the heart of the neighborhood around Harvard Avenue hosts an eclectic, studentfriendly melange of small eateries and live music venues.

$600,000-$800,000 TOP SPOT: MATTAPAN MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $600,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 55.8 percent

MARIA HIGGINS has lived in the same two-family house for almost 40 years: First, with her mom, who bought the house after a divorce and rented out the lower unit. Later, Higgins got married and raised two kids there, and now she and her husband — and two Australian shepherds — live in the downstairs unit, so she can take care of her 93-year-old mom upstairs.

Higgins isn’t sure what original-

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“I KIND OF FEEL LIKE [MATTAPAN IS] THE LAST SECTION IN THE CITY OF BOSTON THAT YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO AFFORD.” ly prompted her mother to buy in Mattapan, but expects it had something to do with the relative wilderness out back. “She wanted woods and green space, so behind my house is undeveloped land,” Higgins says. There’s a lot more where that came from: Mattapan is bordered

by Franklin Park to the north and the Neponset River Greenway to the south, and includes Mass Audubon’s 67-acre Boston Nature Center and Wildlife Sanctuary, where Higgins is a committee member.

Higgins has noticed development in the neighborhood, and on the one hand, she says, “I kind of feel like it’s the last section in the city of Boston that you might be able to afford.” At the same time, while Mattapan Square offers a busy shopping district and Red Line trolley service, it’s still the only Boston neighborhood without a sit-down restaurant with a full liquor license, an inequity Higgins hopes will end soon. Either way, while some of her friends have moved out of Boston, she’s staying put. “The city is a wonderful place to be.”

WHAT YOU GET FOR AROUND

$750,000

15 Manila Avenue | Hyde Park Price: $729,000 Square feet: 1,612 Lot size: 0.09 acre Bedrooms: 3 Baths: 1.5 This 1920 Colonial near the commuter rail has an updated kitchen, hardwood floors, a spacious backyard with mahogany deck, and a bonus bedroom or office on the top floor.

LISTED BY KATIE GELLENBECK, ENGEL & VOLKERS BOSTON

Boston Harbor.

$800,000 AND UP TOP SPOT: NORTH CAMBRIDGE

ROSLINDALE

MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $1,043,814

MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $647,000

INCREASE SINCE 2016: 62.3 percent

INCREASE SINCE 2016: 42.2 percent MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $659,000 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 39.5 percent

RESIDENTIAL ROSLINDALE offers more single-family homes with yards than most Boston neighborhoods, along with a much-loved village and a portion of the Arnold Arboretum. East Boston has always been a magnet for newcomers from across the world; in recent years, sleek waterfront condos have also been drawing buyers from across

RUNNERS-UP CAMBRIDGEPORT

RUNNERS-UP

EAST BOSTON

And there’s plenty to observe in her quirky corner of the city, which runs from Porter Square along Massachusetts Avenue toward Arlington, and includes the Alewife MBTA station (plus bike paths that offer safe cycling routes to Davis Square, Watertown, or all the way to Bedford). “North Cambridge is not a single enclave, it’s got all these little micro-neighborhoods, which I think is fascinating,” she says — such as the birdhouse neighborhood. “There are a couple of blocks where every single tree and lamppost, everything, has birdhouses on it.”

As a cookbook author, White appreciates the neighborhood’s myriad food options — including, she marvels, no less than four poke restaurants within walking distance of her home. She loves Curio Spice Co. on Mass. Ave. — “walking in there is sort of a culinary geography lesson,” she says — but “the secret gem of the neighborhood” is a corner store called Thistle and Shamrock. Since the early days of the pandemic, the tiny grocer has been selling boxes of fresh produce for pickup — with a new recipe inside each week, written by White herself. “It’s become our corner store, and it’s become the heart of the neighborhood.”

MERRY WHITE, a Boston University professor, has lived in North Cambridge for more than three decades, and in Cambridge since 1953. And yet, New England being the way it is, she still sometimes feels like an outsider. As an anthropologist, however, that doesn’t bother her much. “Anthropology means you’re always a stranger, but you can appreciate it more because you’re observing, observing, observing,” she says. “You notice things because you’re not from there.”

MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $1,101,407 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 31.7 percent

WEST CAMBRIDGE MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $1,478,774 INCREASE SINCE 2016: 31.2 percent A RESIDENTIAL AREA nestled between Central Square and the Charles River, it’s not hard to see the appeal of Cambridgeport.

And stretching west from Harvard Square, West Cambridge has been prime property since the days when Colonial-era Tories lived on Brattle Street.

Jon Gorey is a frequent contributor to the Globe Magazine. Kim Costigan and Dylan Dhindsa contributed additional reporting. Send comments to magazine@globe.com.