Posted on Sep. 11th, 2013
For many homebuyers, investors and sellers, home price appreciation rates are an important element of the home-buying and selling process. Since buying and selling a home is about the biggest investment you’ll ever make, understanding whether your home’s value has gone up – or down – is important.
Appreciation refers to an increase in value of a property. It is a measure of the demand for the property. Home values fluctuate regularly for many different reasons, but over the long term homes have always increased in value. Short-term increases or decreases in value are triggered by employment rates, interest rates, business growth, housing supply, demand, affordability, crime rate, weather, quality-of-life issues, the quality of schools and other factors. What a home is worth depends on these elements, which impact what a buyer is willing to pay for your property.
Below is the list of towns in Massachusetts with their corresponding appreciation rate since 1990.
| Town | Appreciation since 1990 | Avg Annual Appreciation Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Brookline | 138.23% | 3.85% |
| Wellesley | 124.95% | 3.59% |
| Weston | 124.42% | 3.58% |
| Needham | 111.51% | 3.31% |
| Lexington | 111.15% | 3.30% |
| Winchester | 109.79% | 3.27% |
| Bedford | 108.94% | 3.26% |
| Arlington | 106.81% | 3.21% |
| Burlington | 104.18% | 3.15% |
| Concord | 103.23% | 3.13% |
| Wayland | 94.77% | 2.94% |
| Reading | 94.75% | 2.94% |
| Westford | 93.44% | 2.91% |
| Lincoln | 92.84% | 2.90% |
| Andover | 92.47% | 2.89% |
| Sharon | 89.98% | 2.83% |
| Belmont | 88.37% | 2.79% |
| Sudbury | 87.85% | 2.78% |
| Acton | 85.57% | 2.72% |
| Malden | 76.50% | 2.50% | Quincy | 72.25% | 2.39% |
| Newton | 69.66% | 2.33% |
| Boston | 69.47 | 2.32% |
| Woburn | 68.99% | 2.31% |
| Waltham | 67.70% | 2.27% |
| Carlisle | 66.86 | 2.25% |
| Cambridge | 52.71% | 1.86% |
Note: The whole Massachusetts house appreciation rate is 95.88% since 1990, with an average annual appreciation rate of 2.97%, source of information: www.neighborhoodscout.com