Facts About Housing in Wellesley

Market Prices

As of August 2021, the median value of a home in Wellesley is $1.46 million, or about 17.1 years worth of income for the typical Massachusetts household.
In August 2021, 96% of homes in Wellesley were valued at more than $457,000, the median Massachusetts home price.
In 2019, the median price of a single-family home in Wellesley topped $1.7 million, a 19% increase from the previous year.
Since 2000, housing prices in Wellesley have appreciated by 89.6%, compared to the Consumer Price Index, a common measure of inflation, which has grown by 54.9%.
As of 2014, nearly one-quarter of Wellesley homeowners and one-third of renters pay more than 30% of their income for housing costs.
An October 2020 Brookings Institute analysis estimated that the development costs associated with building a new single-family home in Wellesley Hills average $1.9 million, compared to the per-unit cost of building a new condominium of $500,000.

Subsidized Housing

Sudbury, one of 5 towns in Massachusetts with a higher per-capita income than Wellesley, had 11.3% of its housing stock in the state’s Subsidized Housing Inventory in 2017. That same year, Wellesley had 6.3% of its housing stock in the SHI.
Types of subsidized housing in Wellesley:

Housing Diversity

As of 2018, over 81% of housing units and 94% of owner-occupied units in Wellesley are single-family dwellings.
In 2018, 92% of the land zoned for residences in Wellesley was occupied by single-family homes.

Housing Production

In June 2019, The Boston Foundation estimated that, from 2013-2017, Wellesley issued building permits for just 64.1% of the housing units needed to satisfy its proportional share of regional housing demand.
Between 2010 and 2020, Wellesley’s population grew by 5.6%, while our housing stock grew by 1.0%.