Home Buying

Rockport wants young families with children to buy homes in town

Rockport’s median home price rose 10 percent in 2015, to $475,000. Jonathan Wiggs/Globe staff

March 14, 2016

3 minutes to read

More than a few Boston area suburbs have fought tooth and nail to keep out new apartments and homes, fearing more families will drive up school costs.

But the picturesque Cape Ann town of Rockport has kicked off a public relations campaign with a much different – and unusual – message.

The seaside town is rolling out the welcome mat for families with children, encouraging them to buy houses in town and fill up increasingly empty seats in the town’s classrooms.

“We have had a lot of people coming to Rockport to buy second homes, but we realized that the lifeblood of the community is young families with children,” said Lana Razdan, chair of the town’s Economic Development Committee, on the genesis of the unusual campaign.

To get the word out, the town has hired a local firm, Warner Public Relations.

While many towns are worried about schools bursting at the seams, Rockport has the opposite problem, with graduating classes at its high school numbering a few dozen instead of the more typical few hundreds, Razdan said.

Still, it’s not for lack of reputation that seats are gong unfilled, with Rockport schools winning awards and boasting low student-teacher ratios, with class sizes in the 16 to 17 range, she said.

The superintendent knows the names of the all the students in town, notes Theresa Scatterday, a veteran Rockport real estate broker who has had two children go through the Rockport system.

There are also plans to build a greenhouse at the high-school, while the town’s music program is top-notch, said Scatterday, who also serves on the town’s economic development committee.

Students regularly play at the Shalin Liu Performance Center. Professional musicians work with students through the year through residencies run by Rockport Music, the nonprofit that operates Shalin Liu.

“The town has a great sense of community and the school system parallels that,” Scatterday said. “It’s an intimate school system.”

Yet despite great schools, natural beauty and a thriving downtown packed with trendy restaurants and shops, young families are too often taking a pass on Rockport, officials say.

The reason, contend Scatterday and Razdan, is the perception of Rockport as an expensive town to buy in that is also relatively remote in terms of commuting in to Boston and Cambridge.

Yet real estate prices in Rockport are not out of this world, at least for pricey Eastern Massachusetts, Scatterday contends.

Rockport’s median home price rose 10 percent in 2015, to $475,000, according to The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.

That is well below Manchester, Cape Ann’s most expensive community, which weighs in at $783,500, she noted.

Sales were also up, with a total of 76 homes changed hands last year in Rockport, an 8 percent increase over 2014. Condo prices fell to $257,000 in 2015, a decline of 6 percent, even as sales rose by nearly half to 43.

The sales were relatively evenly spread through the $250,000 to $1 million price range, Scatterday said. And some years there can be a larger than average cluster of homes that sell in the $300,000 to $400,000 range.

A half a million will get you a three-bedroom, two-bath home with 2,400 square feet, she noted.

Rockport is hurt by the perception that it is a remote town stranded in the boondocks.

Rockport is right off of Route 128 and has its own commuter rail station, so you can leave the car behind, boosters argue.

Scatterday notes her husband takes the train into his job in Cambridge everyday and wouldn’t trade it for the world because of his love of the town he gets to come back to each evening.

“I think is the perception that we are just so far out of the way when in fact if you take the train directly from Rockport to Boston, it’s an hour,” she said.