Week of June 1: Hot market, 4-day sales, and what your town taxes really pay for

Transcript

Two hundred forty homes sold in Greater Boston last week at an average of four days on market — and that speed tells you almost everything you need to know about where this market stands right now. ANALYST: Four days on market is the headline number this week. That is not a typo — the average home that sold last week went under agreement in four days. HOST: Four days. So buyers are essentially making decisions over a weekend. What does the pricing look like at that pace? ANALYST: Average sale price came in at $1.24 million, and the median matched that exactly, which tells us the distribution was fairly tight — not a lot of outlier mega-sales pulling the average up. HOST: And on a per-square-foot basis, what are we talking? ANALYST: Four hundred forty-nine dollars per square foot across 240 transactions. That is a meaningful volume week for Greater Boston. HOST: So the market is moving fast and at a high price point. Let's shift gears, because this week's listicle theme is one I think a lot of buyers overlook entirely — municipal spending priorities. ANALYST: Right, and the framing this week is specifically about towns that are pouring money into school construction while infrastructure quietly deteriorates — and what that trade-off actually means for buyers. HOST: Give me the most striking example from the data. ANALYST: Newton is building a new high school for $200 million — and simultaneously cannot fund basic pothole repairs. Lexington is in a similar spot with a $150 million high school project against a mounting infrastructure backlog. HOST: And Wellesley and Weston are in that same pattern? ANALYST: Exactly — Wellesley at $75 million, Weston at $100 million for school construction, while annual infrastructure budgets across these towns typically run just $3 to $10 million. HOST: So the gap between what gets built and what gets maintained is enormous. ANALYST: Infrastructure backlogs in these towns are running $5 to $20 million, and the pattern is consistent — schools are visible and prestigious, infrastructure is invisible and unglamorous, so voters and councils prioritize accordingly. HOST: What should a buyer actually do with this information when they're evaluating a town? ANALYST: Pull the town's capital improvement plan before you pull the school ranking. You may be buying into excellent schools and a $15 million road repair backlog that eventually shows up in your tax bill or your commute. HOST: That is a genuinely underused due diligence move. So we have a blazing-fast market at $1.24 million average and a reminder that the sticker price of a town is not the whole story. ANALYST: That is the week in a sentence. Speed and price tell you demand — municipal budgets tell you what you are actually buying into long term. Before you tour a single open house this week, look up the capital improvement plan for any town you are seriously considering — it is public, it is free, and it will tell you more than any school ranking ever will.