Homebuyers looking for location and affordability turn to Watertown
Looking for something relatively affordable, the Boston University professor and his wife struck out on bids for homes in Cambridge, Newton, Somerville, Brookline and Arlington.
After more than six months of house hunting, they finally found what they were looking for when they landed a Cape in Watertown that had been on the market in the mid-$600,000s.
As buyers get priced out of Cambridge, Somerville and Newton, Watertown is emerging as a still relatively affordable town to buy a home in, notes Sara Rosenfeld of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, the agent on the professor’s deal who has sold homes in the Somerville and Watertown area for decades now.
“Nothing in Metro Boston is affordable,” Rosenfeld said in an email. “But when it comes to finding a quality house or condominium close to Boston and Cambridge, Watertown offers some of the best value for the properties you can find on the market right now.”
While the median price in Watertown is $580,000, up 3 percent so far this year, that’s just over a third of what it would cost to buy a house in some neighboring communities.
The median price in Cambridge and Brookline now weighs in at a stunning $1.6 million, while Newton’s median price is now over $1 million, according to The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.
Somerville’s median home price is slightly lower, at $560,000, but the now trendy city is also on every buyer’s radar screen in the Boston area and beyond. The median price in Arlington, at $660,500, is a good $80,000 higher.
Of course, it’s not just price that’s drawing buyers, but location as well.
Watertown’s geographic position next door to Cambridge and near Boston is a big reason for its growing popularity.
Given Greater Boston’s increasingly traffic-clogged highways and byways and erratic public transportation system, long commutes have increasingly fallen out of fashion, brokers say.
Buyers, in turn, are battling it out for homes where the ride to work might mean just jumping on the subway for a few minutes or even pedaling in on their bikes.
“It’s all about positioning in metro Boston,” Rosenfeld noted. “Look at the map. Watertown is clearly closer into Boston than many other communities and it has superb bus service.”
While Watertown is not on the Red Line, there is bus service into Harvard Square and Boston. Depending on where you work, it is also close enough to ride your bike to work, she added.
Buyers are also finding they can get more bang for their buck. For $660,500, the price that the BU professor and his wife paid for their Watertown Cape, which has three bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms, at best they would have gotten a floor in a Somerville or Cambridge three-family house.
The biggest problem is actually finding a home to buy. While pricing is still relatively reasonable compared to some of its neighbors, Watertown residents are reluctant to let go of a good thing, with some families passing down their homes from one generation to the next, according to Rosenfeld.
As of July 13, there were just seven single-family homes on the market in Watertown, she noted.
“Anything that has been on the market has sold instantaneously,” Rosenfeld said.
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