Maynard's House Prices

In my 2011 book "Maynard:History and Life Outdoors" I included an observation on comparing Maynard to the neighboring towns of Acton, Concord, Sudbury and Stow. That table included area, population, population per square mile, percent rentals, median house prices and median household income. The information was sourced from 2010 data from city-data.com. The question, then, is how have things changed over the intervening 15 years? 

  TOWN      AREA     POPULATION   POP/SQ MI   %RENTALS   MED. HOUSE   MED. INCOME

   Maynard         5.2 sq.mi.     10,100              1,942               30%               $308,000            $  78,100

   Acton            19.8                20,400             1,030                24                    536,000              117,500

   Concord        25.0                17,500                700                19                    725,000              123,200

   Sudbury        24.3                17,300                710                  8                    692,000              152,200

   Stow             17.6                  6,100                 350               13                    485,000               123,600

Maple Street house purchased from builder in 1870. The left side
displays additions, as the first floor replaced a porch with a TV room 
on a concrete slab, and the second floor replaced an attic room
with a bathroom, and walk-in closet with a clothes washer/dryer.

From the above, one could have referred to Maynard as "the low cost hole in the middle of a high cost donut." As far as housing costs, the high-to-low order was Concord, Sudbury, Acton, Stow and Maynard, with the first two having a median house value of more than twice that of Maynard. For a recent year, city-data is incomplete on median values, but Zillow provides average values for 2025 through September. The high-to-low order is the same: Concord $1,440,000, Sudbury $1,135,000, Acton $864,000, Stow $811,000, and lastly Maynard at $600,000.  

Average sales prices cannot be directly compared to median sales prices because a handful of extra-high sales will shift the average higher than the median (which is a value with half of sales above and half below). In Concord, there are sales of homes in the multiple-millions. Even in Maynard, in 2025 there have already been sales of homes, mostly much newer and larger than Maynard's housing stock, and near the Sudbury border, in the range of  $850,000 to $950,000. Regardless, the general picture is that Maynard, while having crept comparatively closer to the others, is still a low-cost option. 

As for population growth, the 2020 census pegged Maynard at 10,745, Acton at 24,021, Concord at 18,491, Sudbury at 18,934 and Stow at 7,174. Thus, Acton and Stow grew by about 17% and the others under 10%. Maynard has since crossed 11,000 (its highest population ever) with the addition of several apartment projects at Maynard Crossing and elsewhere, but still under 10% growth compared to 2010. Given the limited availability of developable land, and perhaps limits on its water supply, Maynard may never top 12,000. Note that for Massachusetts as a whole, predictions for the next 25 years are no population growth - basically flat at seven million. 

On an interesting local history note, because Maynard was an early industry town surrounded by farm and orchard towns, until after World War II the population of Maynard was larger than the combined populations of Acton, Stow and Sudbury. Only after WWII did those become fast-growing commuter suburbs.

Predicting the future of housing prices is difficult. Government policy on legal immigration and actions against non-legal immigration will have a massive effect on U.S. population predictions, and thus on demand for housing; the latter affecting whether the value of housing increases faster, the same or lower than the inflation rate. For a country with no immigration, population maintenance calls for 2.1 births per woman. Many countries - including the U.S. - are now well below this rate. Countries in Europe and the far East have 'empty' villages with no children being born, and have shrinking cities. For the United States - until this year - immigration (legal and illegal) compensated for the declining birth rate, but with immigration stalled and birthrates in immigrant families becoming Americanized, it is not impossible to imagine that inflation-adjusted housing prices could peak in the future and decline thereafter, paralleling a peak and then a decline in population.

Japan is a good example of population peaking circa 2010 at 128 million and a decline expected to reach 106 million by 2050. Already, an estimated 10 million house properties are empty - abandoned by heirs when their aged parents die.