Greater Boston's biggest home price winners, losers
The real estate market overall is in rough shape. And it's likely to get worse before it gets better.
But the key question, if you live here in Greater Boston, is worse for whom?
For if you just look at the numbers, homeowners in some of the more coveted suburbs and neighborhoods might reasonably ask "what downturn?"
Boston magazine's Best Places to Live issue just hit the streets. It includes a nifty chart, drawn from Warren Group data, comparing today's sales numbers with peak prices across Greater Boston.
At just a shade below $700,000, the median price in Lexington is up 11 percent over the past year and off just 2 percent from its 2005 peak.
Needham, at $630,000, is off just 5 percent from its 2005 peak,
And Wellesley? Well the median price hit $900,000 after rising 6 percent over the past year. That's just 7 percent off from its 2005 peak.
For that matter, Cambridge median prices are actually up - not down - from 2005, to $755,500.
There's a definite pattern here. Upscale suburbs, at least when it comes to prices, have so far largely escaped the downturn's wrath, middle income towns have seen a modest decline, while old industrial cities and poorer urban neighborhoods have taken it on the chin.
Other towns, mostly upscale, where price declines have stayed in the single digits, include: Medfield, off 7 percent; Milton off a percent; Weston, down 9 percent; Sherborn down 4 percent; Concord, down 6 percent; Lexington, down 2 percent.
It's not clear what happened in Dover, with the median price having fallen to a shocking $827,750, down 22 percent from 2005.
By contrast, middle class towns are more likely to have seen price declines from their bubble year peaks of 10 to 20 percent, with 15 percent being more typical.
Examples include: Franklin, at $370,000, down 15 percent from peak; Dedham, at $364,850 down 14 percent from peak; Littleton, down 15 percent; Beverly, off 13 percent; Ashland, down 19 percent; and Chelmsford, off 10 percent.
Here's who is taking it on the chin: Brockton prices are down 37 percent from 2005, to $174,500; Mattapan and Roxbury, by 38 and 34 percent from peak, to $202,450 and $225,000 respectively; while Lawrence has taken a 33 percent hit, to $165,000.
Now there's one big caveat here. The buying frenzy sparked last spring as the home buyer tax credit wound down helped boost prices across the board. Many well off towns would likely have seen double digit declines, if only barely, if it weren't for that boost.
And we are likely to see declines again as the double dip in home prices gains momentum.
Yet if the median price in your town is off just 5 percent from peak, that's not such a terrible place to start.
Anyway, class and money appear to count more than ever in real estate.
The more you have the less you are likely to lose.
That's my takeaway - what's yours?
