Wu, Boston Globe lovefest | Suburban home price explosion

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Sticker shock: Once just a handful, there has been an explosion in the number of Boston-area suburbs where $1 million-plus home sales are the norm, not the exception

It is one of Greater Boston’s most expensive yet fastest-growing clubs, and it will cost you seven figures to join.

That would be the million-dollar town club: Boston-area suburbs where the median sale price of a home now tops $1 million.

A once-exclusive fraternity, the number of towns where seven-figure sale prices are routine has exploded as Greater Boston’s affordability crisis has gone from bad to worse in the last few years, according to data reviewed by Contrarian Boston.

More than 50 towns in the Boston area, on the Cape and Islands, and in the Berkshires now have median prices of at least $1 million, with some now in the $2 million and $3 million range, according to The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.

The number of million-dollar towns has nearly tripled since 2020 in the early days of the pandemic, when there were 18.

Membership today in the million-dollar club has expanded well beyond a few elite suburbs like Wellesley, Weston, Brookline, Winchester, Newton, Hingham, Lexington and Concord.

Old North Bridge in Concord/Photo by Tom Henell on Unsplash

As of April 30, it now includes places that were never on anyone’s list of super-posh places to live, towns like Westwood, Wayland, Boxboro, and Westford.

And it is a club whose membership is likely to continue to grow exponentially, given the anemic levels of new residential construction, both in the Boston area and across the state.

Andrew Mikula

“We need to ask ourselves whether we want those median home prices to be $2 million or $3 million in 20 years,” Andrew Mikula, senior housing fellow at the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research, told Contrarian Boston.

Prices have surged in upscale towns, suburbs, and resort communities as residential construction has continued its bumpy, decades-long decline from its peak in the 1980s.

The dearth of new construction has led to a chronic shortage of homes for sale and has been the key factor in driving prices to ever crazier levels, experts say.

Sam Schneiderman

“Even the historically less expensive neighborhoods are now at the tipping point of unaffordability, with many Boston neighborhoods already surpassing the million-dollar mark,” said Sam Schneiderman, principal broker of the Greater Boston Home Team.

The slowdown in new residential construction has been particularly noteworthy in many of the tony suburbs and towns that make up the million-dollar club.

Much new construction in the priciest towns is now taking the form of teardowns of older, more modest homes to make way for McMansions. That’s not adding to the overall supply of housing; that’s subtracting from it.

Clark Ziegler

“There are still dozens of state and local friction points that prevent the market from meeting housing demand,” said Clark Ziegler, executive director of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership. “Those policies drive development toward large-lot single-family homes.”

Reading from the same script: In story on Boston mayoral race, Globe echoes Wu’s messaging

Is The Boston Globe truly in the tank for Boston Mayor Michelle Wu?

Or is the paper, whose coverage was once led by dogged journalists like Frank Phillips and Andrea Estes, simply unable to hire reporters with the ability to write critically about the mayor of New England’s largest city and economic hub?

That’s our question after reading the Globe’s big think piece on the mayoral race, “Personal wealth, outside spending take center stage as Michelle Wu and Josh Kraft compete in fiery Boston mayor’s race.”