Best Places to Live 2009

II. The Convenience- and-Culture Club
Enjoy big-city perks without spending big-city bucks.

    SUDBURY
    Median home price    $594,500
    One-year change    -9.31%
    Since market peak    -19.34%

During the boom years, if you were priced out of Carlisle or Lincoln, you went to Sudbury, tore something down, and built much, much bigger. A wave of mortgage resets has dislodged some nouveau residents, but foreclosures have abated following a spike in 2007. "Sudbury used to be closed to young families. Now you can get in for under $500,000," says Laura Meier of Black Horse Real Estate. Development along Route 20 has brought in a welcome mix of boutiques and restaurants, previously in short supply. Those additions haven't obscured what's always been good about Sudbury: rambling country roads with stone walls, and Colonials and Capes in harmony with fairly discreet newer homes. The town is also laced with old farmland conserved for cross-country skiing, hiking, and camping. The regional high school, Lincoln-Sudbury, is top-notch.
    
    WEST ROXBURY
    Median home price    $360,000
    One-year change    -11.66%
    Since market peak    -18.07%

West Roxbury is like Boston's secret suburban arm. Instead of triple-deckers, there are sidewalk blocks of single-family homes with backyards. The city schools have been a bugaboo for some, but homes have moved rapidly and continue to do so—selling in 77 days, on average. Centre Street has a library, a YMCA, solid restaurants, and a supermarket, allowing families to run errands on foot and limit themselves to a single car (and car payment). Longer-term, broader cultural shifts toward greater civic engagement and shorter commutes should help propel this neighborhood's popularity. Look for three-bedroom houses in the $300,000s near the Brookline or Dedham line; large Victorians on Bellevue Hill sell for $700,000 and up.

 BOSTON LUXURY CONDOS

These days there are, as one luxury broker puts it, "uncommon values" to be had in some of Boston's poshest addresses, with Realtors singling out the Ritz Residences, the InterContinental, Battery Wharf, and the South End's Bryant on Columbus as particularly ripe for bargains. (Unfinished projects like the Clarendon and the W Hotel Residences, on the other hand, are still publicly asking top dollar.) One broker predicted the Mandarin Oriental condos, which sold out at a record-setting $1,500-plus per square foot preconstruction, may eventually go for reasonable rates, given the number of owners already looking to sell. Other developers are throwing in parking spaces, scuttling closing fees, and picking up the tab on a year's worth of condo dues (for instance, at Southie's eco-friendly Macallen Building). One note: With few new projects getting financed, now is the time to strike, as constrained supply could put an end to further price sliding.

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