Report names Quincy an affordable alternative to Boston for home buyers

People walk through Quincy Square in Quincy Center inSeptember 2020. Quincy Center is quickly emerging as a new downtown for the South Shore, adding dense new housing developments, growing a restaurant scene and starting to attract more companies looking for an alternative to downtown Boston. Erin Clark / Globe Staff

By Julia Taliesin

May 24, 2021

2 minutes to read

A recent Realtor.com analysis named Quincy an affordable alternative for buyers looking for Boston homes. While local market experts agree, they say it depends on what kind of property buyers want.

Boston Pads CEO Demetrios Salpoglou tallied up some numbers for Boston.com. In the last 30 days, here was the square footage cost in the top three property types:

Condos: $415 in Quincy and $807 in Boston
Single-family homes: $450 in Quincy and $543 in Boston
Multi-family homes: $323 in Quincy and $346 in Boston

“If you were just driven on data, well, condos in Boston are almost twice the price, you could go 20 minutes down the road, and you’re almost at half price,” he said. “Maybe that’s a good enough reason.”

The numbers show that condos are much more affordable in Quincy, and Salpoglou pointed out that condos are typically recently renovated. Quincy properties also have more amenities, he said, such as included parking and more green space, all with only a short commute to Boston.

Tim Warren, of real estate analytics firm The Warren Group, pointed out that it all depends on what you’re comparing it to.

“The median price of Quincy single-family homes is lower than those in Mattapan, West Roxbury, Roslindale, and Jamaica Plain. But at $566,500, I’m not sure I would call it super-affordable,” he told Boston.com. “The statewide median is $440,000 over the first 4 months of 2021.”

A quick search of Google trends for a few terms, Salpoglou said, shows high and comparable interest in Boston and Quincy homes. The average monthly search for “houses for sale in Quincy” tallies 5,400 searches compared to “Boston real estate,” at 6,600. Other phrases like “Quincy MA homes for sale” and “houses Boston” are each at 4,400 average monthly searches.

“What I hear from agents is that people — when they want Quincy, they really want it, and they’re serious buyers,” he said. “They’ve done a lot of their due diligence, and they’re honing in on Quincy, and I think that’s probably what you’re seeing reflected in those numbers.”

Madelene Cheney, a broker and owner of Quincy-based Red Door Real Estate, told Boston.com that Quincy is where you can get more for the same price you’d spend on a Boston home.

“You can be by the ocean for a similar price for what they’re paying in Boston, so they’re upgrading their house but not their payments,” she said. “We do get a lot of people where they just want a little more space, so they come to Quincy and still have that city feel where we have good access to public transportation and quick access into Boston. So, you have that city feel to it but more room to spread out.”