The U.S. housing market continues to evolve, with the median home price forecast to reach ******* U.S. dollars by the second quarter of 2026. This projection comes after a period of significant growth and recent fluctuations, reflecting the complex interplay of economic factors affecting the real estate sector. The rising costs have not only impacted home prices, but also down payments, with the median down payment more than doubling since 2012. Regional variations in housing costs Home prices and down payments vary dramatically across the United States. While the national median down payment stood at approximately ****** U.S. dollars in early 2024, homebuyers in states like California, Massachusetts, and Hawaii faced down payments exceeding ****** U.S. dollars. This disparity highlights the challenges of homeownership in high-cost markets and underscores the importance of location in determining housing affordability. Market dynamics and future outlook The housing market has shown signs of cooling after years of rapid growth, with more modest price increases of *** percent in 2022 and *** percent in 2023. This slowdown can be attributed in part to rising mortgage rates, which have tempered demand. Despite these challenges, most states continued to see year-over-year price growth in the fourth quarter of 2023, with Rhode Island and Vermont leading the pack at over ** percent appreciation. As the market adjusts to new economic realities, potential homebuyers and investors alike will be watching closely for signs of stabilization or renewed growth in the coming years.

House prices grew year-on-year in most states in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2025. Hawaii was the only exception, with a decline of **** percent. The annual appreciation for single-family housing in the U.S. was **** percent, while in Rhode Island—the state where homes appreciated the most—the increase was ******percent. How have home prices developed in recent years? House price growth in the U.S. has been going strong for years. In 2025, the median sales price of a single-family home exceeded ******* U.S. dollars, up from ******* U.S. dollars five years ago. One of the factors driving house prices was the cost of credit. The record-low federal funds effective rate allowed mortgage lenders to set mortgage interest rates as low as *** percent. With interest rates on the rise, home buying has also slowed, causing fluctuations in house prices. Why are house prices growing? Many markets in the U.S. are overheated because supply has not been able to keep up with demand. How many homes enter the housing market depends on the construction output, whereas the availability of existing homes for purchase depends on many other factors, such as the willingness of owners to sell. Furthermore, growing investor appetite in the housing sector means that prospective homebuyers have some extra competition to worry about. In certain metros, for example, the share of homes bought by investors exceeded ** percent in 2025.

Graph and download economic data for S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller MA-Boston Home Price Index (BOXRSA) from Jan 1987 to May 2025 about Boston, NH, MA, HPI, housing, price index, indexes, price, and USA.

The U.S. housing market has slowed, after ** consecutive years of rising home prices. In 2021, house prices surged by an unprecedented ** percent, marking the highest increase on record. However, the market has since cooled, with the Freddie Mac House Price Index showing more modest growth between 2022 and 2024. In 2024, home prices increased by *** percent. That was lower than the long-term average of *** percent since 1990. Impact of mortgage rates on homebuying The recent cooling in the housing market can be partly attributed to rising mortgage rates. After reaching a record low of **** percent in 2021, the average annual rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage more than doubled in 2023. This significant increase has made homeownership less affordable for many potential buyers, contributing to a substantial decline in home sales. Despite these challenges, forecasts suggest a potential recovery in the coming years. How much does it cost to buy a house in the U.S.? In 2023, the median sales price of an existing single-family home reached a record high of over ******* U.S. dollars. Newly built homes were even pricier, despite a slight decline in the median sales price in 2023. Naturally, home prices continue to vary significantly across the country, with West Virginia being the most affordable state for homebuyers.

Graph and download economic data for Housing Inventory: Active Listing Count in Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH (CBSA) (ACTLISCOU14460) from Jul 2016 to Jul 2025 about Boston, NH, MA, active listing, listing, and USA.

Chinese housing prices rose by over 10 percent per year in real terms between 2003 and 2014 and are now between two and ten times higher than the construction cost of apartments. At the same time, Chinese developers built 100 billion square feet of residential real estate. This boom has been accompanied by a large increase in the number of vacant homes, held by both developers and households. This boom may turn out to be a housing bubble followed by a crash, yet that future is far from certain. The demand for real estate in China is so strong that current prices might be sustainable, especially given the sparse alternative investments for Chinese households, so long as the level of new supply is radically curtailed. Whether that happens depends on the policies of the Chinese government, which must weigh the benefits of price stability against the costs of restricting urban growth.

The average price per square foot of floor space in new single-family housing in the United States decreased after the great financial crisis, followed by several years of stagnation. Since 2012, the price has continuously risen, hitting ****** U.S. dollars per square foot in 2024. In 2024, the average sales price of a new home exceeded ******* U.S. dollars. Development of house sales in the U.S. One of the reasons for rising property prices is the gradual growth of house sales between 2011 and 2020. This period was marked by the gradual recovery following the subprime mortgage crisis and a growing housing sentiment. Another significant factor for the housing demand was the growing number of new household formations each year. Despite this trend, housing transactions plummeted in 2021, amid soaring prices and borrowing costs. In 2021, the average construction cost for single-family housing rose by nearly ** percent year-on-year, and in 2022, the increase was even higher, at close to ** percent. Financing a house purchase Mortgage interest rates in the U.S. rose dramatically in 2022 and remained elevated until 2024. In 2020, a homebuyer could lock in a 30-year fixed interest rate of under ***** percent, whereas in 2024, the average rate for the same mortgage type was more than twice higher. That has led to a decline in homebuyer sentiment, and an increasing share of the population pessimistic about buying a home in the current market.

West Virginia and Kansas had the lowest cost of living across all U.S. states, with composite costs being half of those found in Hawaii. This was according to a composite index that compares prices for various goods and services on a state-by-state basis. In West Virginia, the cost of living index amounted to **** — well below the national benchmark of 100. Virginia— which had an index value of ***** — was only slightly above that benchmark. Expensive places to live included Hawaii, Massachusetts, and California. Housing costs in the U.S. Housing is usually the highest expense in a household’s budget. In 2023, the average house sold for approximately ******* U.S. dollars, but house prices in the Northeast and West regions were significantly higher. Conversely, the South had some of the least expensive housing. In West Virginia, Mississippi, and Louisiana, the median price of the typical single-family home was less than ******* U.S. dollars. That makes living expenses in these states significantly lower than in states such as Hawaii and California, where housing is much pricier. What other expenses affect the cost of living? Utility costs such as electricity, natural gas, water, and internet also influence the cost of living. In Alaska, Hawaii, and Connecticut, the average monthly utility cost exceeded *** U.S. dollars. That was because of the significantly higher prices for electricity and natural gas in these states.

Breaks down how Mass households heat by fuels including comparison to rest of New England.

Data, statistics and adopted local options related to property taxes

Find in-season and off-season pricing for heating fuels, including heating oil, propane and wood price surveys by DOER. Links to electric and natural gas rates also available here.

Certified by the Executive Office of Aging & Independence, Assisted Living Residences (ALRs) are private residences that offer, for a monthly fee, housing, meals, and personal care services to aging adults who live independently.

Violations on Boston buildings or properties issued by inspectors from the Building and Structures Division of the Inspectional Services Department.

Note: property_id is equivalent to sam_id.

Looking for Public Works violations? Check out this dataset: https://data.boston.gov/dataset/public-works-violations

The American Housing Survey was first conducted in 1973. Between 1973 and 1981 it was conducted every year and was called the Annual Housing Survey. The last even-numbered year for the national survey was 1980. Since 1981, the survey has been conducted every other year. In 1984, the name was changed to the American Housing Survey. The 1997 national data are from a sample of housing units interviewed between August and November 1997. The CD-ROM contains data files in both SAS. and ASCII format s. The 1998 American Housing Survey Metropolitan Sample (AHS-MS)provides information on 15 metropolitan areas interviewed as part of the American Housing Survey (AHS),which was conducted by the U.S.Census Bureau for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. These metropolitan areas are: Baltimore, MD Birmingham, AL Boston, MA-NH Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN Houston, TX Minneapolis-St.Paul, MN-WI Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Newport News, VA-NC Oakland, CA Providence-Pawtucket-Warwick, RI-MA Rochester, NY Salt Lake City, UT San Francisco, CA San Jose, CA Tampa-St.Petersburg, FL, and Washington DC-MD-VA. Note to Users: This CD is part of a collection located in the Data Archive of the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The collection is located in Room 10, Manning Hall. Users may check the CDs out subscribing to the honor system. Items can be checked out for a period of two weeks. Loan forms are located adjacent to the collection.

August 2025

To access parcel information:Enter an address or zoom in by using the +/- tools or your mouse scroll wheel. Parcels will draw when zoomed in.Click on a parcel to display a popup with information about that parcel.Click the "Basemap" button to display background aerial imagery.From the "Layers" button you can turn map features on and off.Complete Help (PDF)Parcel Legend:Full Map LegendAbout this ViewerThis viewer displays land property boundaries from assessor parcel maps across Massachusetts. Each parcel is linked to selected descriptive information from assessor databases. Data for all 351 cities and towns are the standardized "Level 3" tax parcels served by MassGIS. More details ...Read about and download parcel dataUpdatesV 1.1: Added 'Layers' tab. (2018)V 1.2: Reformatted popup to use HTML table for columns and made address larger. (Jan 2019)V 1.3: Added 'Download Parcel Data by City/Town' option to list of layers. This box is checked off by default but when activated a user can identify anywhere and download data for that entire city/town, except Boston. (March 14, 2019)V 1.4: Data for Boston is included in the "Level 3" standardized parcels layer. (August 10, 2020)V 1.4 MassGIS, EOTSS 2021

There are several forms, regulations and data associated with the Emergency Assistance (EA) Family Shelter Program for our business partners and constituents.

HOLC, in consultation with local real estate professionals and local policymakers, categorized neighborhoods in hundreds of cities in the United States into four types: Best (A), Still Desirable (B), Definitely Declining (C), and Hazardous (D). So-called “hazardous” zones were colored red on these maps. These zones were then used to approve or deny credit-lending and mortgage-backing by banks and the Federal Housing Administration. The descriptions provided by HOLC in their reports rely heavily on race and ethnicity as critical elements in assigning these grades. According to the University of Richmond's Mapping Inequality project, “Arguably the HOLC agents in the other two hundred-plus cities graded through this program adopted a consistently white, elite standpoint or perspective. HOLC assumed and insisted that the residency of African-Americans and immigrants, as well as working-class whites, compromised the values of homes and the security of mortgages” (Mapping Inequality). HOLC’s classifications were one contributory factor in underinvestment in a neighborhood, and generally, although not always, closed off many, especially people of color, from the credit necessary to purchase their own homes.The 15 Worcester neighborhood zones included on the map are ordered from Zone 1 (categorized as "Best") to Zone 15, with the highest numbered zones included in the least desirable "Hazardous" category. The exact descriptions used by HOLC to classify the neighborhoods in 1936 are included, and therefore may contain some disturbing language. Many scholars and institutions have focused their efforts on tracking the effects the 1930s redlining maps still have today. The Mapping Inequality project by the University of Richmond has collected and analyzed a comprehensive set of redlining maps for more than 200 cities in the U.S. One of their conclusions is that, for most cities, there are striking and persistent geographic similarities between redlined zones and currently vulnerable areas even after eighty years. See the Mapping Inequality website for more information (https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining).This digitized version prepared by the Worcester Regional Research Bureau was based on a scanned copy from the National Archives, obtained thanks to Dr. Robert Nelson, the Digital Scholarship Lab, and the rest of his team at Mapping Inequality at the University of Richmond. Dr. Nelson worked with The Research Bureau directly to track it down in the Archives.Informing Worcester is the City of Worcester's open data portal where interested parties can obtain public information at no cost.

RentSmart Boston compiles data from BOS:311 and the City's Inspectional Services Division to give prospective tenants a more complete picture of the homes and apartments they are considering renting, assisting them in understanding any previous issues with the property, including: housing violations, building violations, enforcement violations, housing complaints, sanitation requests, and/or civic maintenance requests.

You can look up individual properties using the RentSmart dashboard here.