Boston neighborhoods are the most ‘economically integrated’ of any US metro
At least when you measure it by home prices.
Despite Boston’s reputation for rising rents and luxury condos with sky-high price tags, relatively few of the city’s neighborhoods are accessible only to the rich, according to a new analysis of home prices by the real estate company Redfin.
This does not mean it’s not expensive to live here. It just means that of the 20 cities Redfin looked at, Boston had the most neighborhoods with a “balanced mix’’ of home prices. Balanced neighborhoods are areas in which expensive, high-end homes stand along side homes that a family making the city’s median income could reasonably afford.
For Boston, 51 percent of the city was considered to have a balanced mix of home prices, while 35 percent had mostly or solely high-end homes.
Though Boston ranked No. 1 for mixed areas, it ranked third worst, ahead of Los Angeles and San Francisco, for areas with mostly or solely affordable homes, at 15 percent.
According to Redfin, affordability was determined by “comparing sale price to the purchasing power of a local, median-income family.’’ A neighborhood was labeled as affordable if more than three affordable houses sold for every unaffordable one.
The neighborhoods that had a balanced mix of homes were Highland Park in Roxbury, Egleston Square, Mission Hill, and Hyde Square-Jackson Square.
High-end neighborhoods with little-to-no affordable homes included Bay Village, Back Bay, North End/Waterfront, Beacon Hill, and the South End.
Neighborhoods with a majority of affordable homes were Uphams Corner, Hyde Park, Mattapan, the Bowdoin Ave area, and Franklin Field.
Related: Massachusetts towns and cities where homes are selling really fast
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