Massachusetts Real Estate

A Primer on Massachusetts Real Estate

When you tread on Massachusetts real estate, you've got a lot of history under your feet. Some of America's first European colonists settled on Massachusetts shores; and as one of the original 13 colonies that formed an upstart nation calling itself the United States of America, the state was a center of the fighting during the American Revolution. It also contributed many thousands of men in the Union effort in the Civil War, and has since grown into a center of commerce, finance, and industry. And that's not even mentioning the 11,000+ years of prehistoric occupation by Native Americans, the details of which remain little known today.

Modern Massachusetts is heavily urban, especially along the coast; indeed, population densities of 5,000 or more per square mile are common. Massachusetts real estate options are the most varied in the urban regions, given the wide variety of resources, commercial opportunities, and well-paying jobs available in and around Boston, Salem, Cambridge, and other large Massachusetts cities. If you're a high-tech firm in search of succulent Massachusetts real estate, you're in luck: the urbanized areas, particularly Boston, offer an abundance of commercial and industrial sites for your needs. Not only that, the local world-class centers of learning, such as MIT and Harvard, provide plenty of the keen brains you need to run such a business, as does the native populace of homegrown high-tech workers.

A little bit country

Massachusetts is by no means exclusively urban, but it is mostly about suburbia. If you like that mix of a little bit country, a little bit city that the suburbs offer, with the advantages of both, then you just might love Massachusetts. Suburban Massachusetts real estate includes everything from townhouses in tony bedroom communities to quiet homes in housing developments and subdivisions.

As far as rural property goes, you're unlikely to find any large spreads that you can lay claim to, though of course rural residences abound (as they do in most states). When it comes to agricultural facilities, dairy, grain, and vegetable farming is most common, though the farms are small. Of the 6,100 farms recorded for Massachusetts, the average size is 85 acres.

Moving in

As long as you're not expecting to find a Green Acres-type farm during your hunt for prime Massachusetts real estate, you're unlikely to be disappointed. If you're not already in Massachussets, of course you should talk to people, including friends and relatives, who might know something about the real estate situation there; but your first serious points of contact should be with Massachusetts real estate brokers. Probably the easiest way to find them is online; once you've narrowed your search to a few specific properties, you can then contact them directly by e-mail or telephone. Having pinned something down, you'll then need to take a trip down Massachusetts way and check out those properties firsthand. In the finest traditions of caveat emptor, be sure you don't make any promises before you see the property.