Weekly real estate insights for Greater Boston suburban buyers
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If your rent goes up or you get a termination notice within 6 months of reporting a problem, Massachusetts law presumes your landlord is retaliating — and the burden shifts to them to prove otherwise.
M.G.L. c. 186 §18 makes it illegal for a Massachusetts landlord to retaliate against a tenant for reporting code violations, joining a tenants' union, or asserting other legal rights — and creates a powerful 6-month presumption in the tenant's favor.
Eviction in Massachusetts is a strict, multi-step legal process called Summary Process — and a single procedural mistake by the landlord can get the whole case dismissed. Here's how it actually works.
Massachusetts eviction (Summary Process, M.G.L. c. 239) starts with a Notice to Quit and can only proceed through Housing Court, District Court, or the Boston Municipal Court — never by a landlord acting alone. Here's every step, every deadline, and the defenses tenants can raise.
Episode 5 of Greater Boston, Ranked. We took Portuguese ancestry percentages from every full-coverage municipality in the metro and found a winner so dominant it reshapes how we think about ethnic settlement patterns in New England. One whaling capital runs away with it.
New Bedford's Portuguese ancestry is 32.6% — nearly 5 times higher than second-place Gloucester at 7.0%. We ranked Greater Boston's most Portuguese towns on hard Census data and the South Coast gateway dominates by a historic margin.
If your landlord won't fix a certified code violation, Massachusetts law lets you pay for the repair yourself and deduct the cost from rent — but only if you follow the process exactly.
Under M.G.L. c. 111 §127L, Massachusetts tenants can repair certified sanitary code violations themselves and deduct up to four months' rent for the cost — or withhold rent entirely as an eviction defense. Here's the exact process and where it can go wrong.
43 Waverly Street closed on June 30, 2026 at $3,350,000 — about $1,252 per square foot, the priciest by the foot of any single-family home to sell in Brookline this cycle. It sold roughly $1.35 million over the town's assessed value and, on a smaller lot, some $900,000 above a larger house on the very same street that had closed seven weeks earlier. In a town where the usual rule is ‘buy the dirt,’ this sale was about the house.
On June 30, 2026, 43 Waverly Street in Brookline sold for $3,350,000 — not the town's biggest sale, but its most expensive by the only measure that strips out size: about $1,252 per square foot, the highest of any Brookline single-family closing this cycle. It sold in 12 days with no recorded price cuts, roughly 68% above the town's $1,998,100 assessed value, and — on a smaller lot — about $900,000 more than 50 Waverly Street, a larger house on the same street that closed in May. Here's the forensic breakdown of why buyers paid for the house, not the ground.
Nine single-family sales, a $875,000 median, and a price-per-square-foot discount that explains why South Shore buyers keep looking here.
Abington recorded nine qualifying single-family sales between June 12 and July 2, 2026, at a median of $875,000 and $321 per square foot — roughly a fifth below the Greater Boston median of $405. Every home sold above assessed value, and nothing sat longer than 30 days.
105 CMR 410 sets the minimum a Massachusetts landlord must provide. Here's what counts as a violation, what's owner-responsibility vs. tenant-responsibility, and how to get it enforced.
Every Massachusetts rental has to meet 105 CMR 410, the State Sanitary Code — working heat, hot water, no pests, sound structure, and more. Here's a practical, plain-English walkthrough of what's actually required and how to get violations fixed.
Episode 4 of Greater Boston, Ranked. We took Italian ancestry percentages from every full-coverage municipality in the metro and found that a working-class suburb north of Boston runs away with it. The winner tells a quiet story about how Census ancestry data reflects the real Boston.
Stoneham's population is 27.5% Italian ancestry — the highest in Greater Boston, followed by Wakefield at 25.6%. We ranked every municipality on hard Census data and the North Shore cluster dominates the top ten, with Italian heritage concentrated in the older, closer-in suburbs rather than the wealthiest towns.
A 5-bedroom on Boston's prestige side of the North Shore sold at one of Winchester's highest price-per-foot rates—and faster than typical for its class.
When Winchester homes compete on price per square foot, 50 Oxford Street stands at the very top of this month's comparable sales. A 16-day close on a $3.5 million sale tells you everything about where this market sits.