Median home prices jumped across Boston from 2014 to 2019, new report says

Median home prices jumped in particular between 2014 and 2019 in ZIP codes covering parts of Dorchester, Mission Hill, Roxbury, and the South End as well as pretty much all of East Boston. That’s according to new figures from Point2 Homes, a listings site that used data on closed deals from research site PropertyShark.

To be sure, Boston’s overall median home sales price rose to $735,000 in 2019, from $508,000 five years before. So increases in various neighborhoods shouldn’t surprise. But the increases in ZIP codes 02120, 02125, and 02128 are surprising because of their size.

The median sales price in 02120 (much of Mission Hill and parts of Roxbury and the South End) increased 127 percent from 2014 to 2019, to $1.16 million. The median in 02125 (upper Dorchester, pretty much) increased 108 percent, to $702,500. And the median in 02128 (East Boston) jumped 105 percent, to $768,000.

Such jumps are due in part to new developments, a lot of them higher-end condos, and to buyers priced out of even more expensive downtown redoubts such as Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and the North End.

And, of course, the price jumps are due to the general rise in prices throughout a growing city. The same Point2 Homes data found that median sales prices increased between 50 percent and 99 percent in nine other ZIP codes, and between 25 percent and 49 percent in 12 more.

What’s more, as of the end of 2019, nine Boston ZIP codes had a median home sales price of more than $1 million:

• 02120
• 02118 (the South End)
• 02110 (a lot of downtown and the waterfront)
• 02210 (the Seaport District and Fort Point)
• 02111 (Chinatown, the Leather District, and other parts of downtown)
• 02109 (the North End waterfront and some of downtown)
• 02116 (much of Back Bay and the South End)
• 02108 (a lot of Beacon Hill and the Haymarket area)
• 02199 (Copley Place)

For comparison, at the end of 2014, only two Boston ZIP codes had median sales prices north of the million-dollar mark: 02199 and 02108.

“Although the Boston housing market is slowly shifting, starting to favor buyers instead of sellers, there is no denying home prices have been increasing at breakneck speed,” the Point2 Homes report said. “Some analysts are even saying that the slowdown the market experienced toward the end of 2019 is simply a ‘correction or a rebalancing’ and not an actual decline.

“Also, after years of sustained growth, the stagnating home prices and sales toward the end of 2019 haven’t managed to put a more significant dent in price evolution.”