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 a walk-in closet with a clothes washer/dryer. Behind 
the TV room, the kitchen was extended 12 feet past the foundation. The
original purchase price in 1870 was $2,430; estimate now >$700,000.

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 most of 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. Recent 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, with population peaking circa 2010 at 128 million and a decline expected to reach 106 million by 2050. Prolonged low birth rates lead to a higher percentage of older people in the total population. Already, an estimated 10 million house properties are empty - abandoned by heirs when their aged parents die.

*At https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/total-fertility-rate/country-comparison/ the United States ranks 133rd with 1.84 births per woman. Japan is at 1.40 and South Korea at 1.12.