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Arlington is hottest place in Eastern Mass.
Blend of amenities, convenience keeps town's housing market strong despite slump
ARLINGTON - When Dave Stewart put his house up for sale this summer in the midst of a slumping real estate market, he held his breath and hoped for the best. Then the bidding began.
His modest two-bedroom home in Arlington Heights was listed on a Friday for $459,000. By Saturday it had had several private showings. The next day, after an open house, he received eight offers at or above asking price, so he asked the four highest bidders for their best offers. On Monday the house sold for $480,000, more than a 50 percent profit on what he had paid for it three years earlier.
"We were expecting, in an ideal world, to get our asking price, and we would have been very satisfied with that," said Stewart, a software engineer who moved to a bigger house in Bedford with his wife and two young children. The final price and quick sale, he added, "blew us away."
Welcome to Arlington, which is enjoying its own housing bubble while many other communities in Eastern Massachusetts struggle with declining sales and prices. Despite spiking foreclosures and subprime sorrows nationwide, real estate in this suburb northwest of Boston remains freakishly hot. Prices are stable, activity is brisk, and frenzied behavior not seen since the boom years - deliberate underpricing to fuel bidding wars, multiple offers over asking price, tight deadlines for submitting offers - is often routine.
Why home sales in Arlington continue to be so robust offers a case study in how a community with a key mix of attributes can muscle through a difficult real estate market. For many buyers and sellers, Arlington has that magic blend: proximity to Boston, respectable schools, desirable housing stock, prices notably lower than in surrounding communities, and city amenities in a town setting, such as a thriving restaurant scene.
Densely populated, tree-lined residential streets are largely populated with handsome Colonials, Capes, and two-family homes, many of them converted into condominiums. Bustling Massachusetts Avenue is the spine of the town, and is home to popular spots ranging from the charming Capitol Theatre movie house to the upscale Wild Child children's clothing store, to the newly expanded Argentine restaurant Tango.
That vibrant scene is attracting legions of buyers, particularly young couples trying to buy their first homes or trading up from condos.
"The market in Arlington remains quite strong, and it's really remarkable in a way, because you can go to a number of towns not very far from Arlington and find business off fairly severely," said Robert E. Bowes, owner of Bowes GMAC Real Estate, which does two-thirds of its business in the town and is on track to have its busiest year since the firm was founded in 1945.
"Arlington really is a destination," Bowes added. "It's that perfect blend between urban and suburban, and you can still come to Arlington and buy a nice single-family home on a nice street in a nice school district for under $500,000."
As of early October, the average number of days houses sat on the market in Arlington before selling was 83, substantially less than the 146-day average for all of Eastern Massachusetts, according to the Multiple Listing Service Property Information Network. Arlington's average is also significantly shorter than in nearby Belmont, Bedford, Cambridge, and Lexington, and it's one of the few Boston-area communities where homes typically sell in less than 100 days.
Condo sales have slowed, and houses lacking the critical blend of good price and good location can still languish on the market. But 450 residential properties have already sold this year, putting Arlington on pace to match 2005 and 2006, when real estate markets generally were much stronger.
"Arlington is incredibly consistent, whether it's a good year or a bad year in the marketplace. And very few towns can claim that," said Steve Savarese, owner of Century 21 Adams, which specializes in Arlington and Belmont.
Among single-family houses, the median price in Arlington is $510,000, according to Warren Group, a Boston publisher of real estate data. In contrast, Bedford's single-family median is $526,000, Belmont's is $647,000, Cambridge's is $641,000, and Lexington's is $739,000.
That means Arlington is affordable by comparison, and benefits from the spillover effect of prospective home buyers priced out of surrounding communities. And even though Arlington houses can easily cost a half-million dollars, that's a deal for shoppers who started their hunt in pricier towns.
"It might be a buyer's market nationally, but that's not the way it is here," said Lyle Bibler, who has rented in Cambridge for seven years and was house-hunting in Arlington last weekend. "Places are selling fast that are well-priced."
And what shoppers see in Arlington, they like. The town has well-maintained roads and libraries, several theaters and museums, and recreational opportunities that include public parks and tennis courts, the Minuteman Bikeway, Spy Pond, the Mystic River, and a local swimming hole.
It's conveniently situated between two major employment belts, Boston/Cambridge and Route 128, making it an ideal location for those who commute in either direction. Its housing stock, much of which was built in the early to mid-1900s, frequently comes with fireplaces, decorative moldings, handsome staircases, and other appealing features.
Of course, Arlington has long had those attributes, which, combined with its affordability, made the town a steppingstone to more affluent towns nearby. For decades, it was a blue-collar community heavily populated by firefighters, police officers, and public works employees where the schools were good enough and the houses grew modestly in value.
But Arlington has become more than just Cambridge Northwest, and more than simply a placeholder for homeowners aiming for Belmont and Lexington. It's no longer a sleepy, dry town, as evidenced by its growing cornucopia of excellent restaurants, which include Brazilian and Nepalese eateries and high-end spots like Flora, where entrees can reach $30, as well as inexpensive diners and cafes. It recently rebuilt several public schools, and its test scores are rising, buffing its educational profile.
As a result, realtors say, Arlington home sales are being driven largely by a specific demographic: Two-income couples with good-paying jobs, many of whom live in Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville but, as they start families, are searching for more space and better schools without sacrificing urban amenities.
"Clearly, we have that professional crowd from Cambridge and Boston coming in," said Savarese of Century 21 Adams. "A lot of people are deciding to relocate to Arlington because of its services and schools and because it has slightly larger lots than Cambridge and Boston."
Tim Bosco bought a single-family Cape in Arlington Heights for $450,000 in July, but only after he and his wife lost out on two other Arlington bids, including one where the winner reportedly paid $20,000 over asking price. He also watched another house listed at $400,000 sell for more than asking price, even though he thought it was significantly overpriced.
"At that point we were shocked and thought it must be an anomaly," said Bosco, who works at a Boston investment bank. But he found that nice homes in nice neighborhoods drew substantial interest, and he began to suspect that realtors were inciting hyper-competition by intentionally underpricing homes.
"The demand is there," he added, "but I think they make it worse."
Still, he said, among the prospective buyers he repeatedly saw at open houses, "Everyone had settled on Arlington for a number of reasons, including a nice commute, nice restaurants, and a lot of younger folks in the town." In addition, he said, "it feels a little more progressive than further out in the suburbs. We really like the location."
Sacha Pfeiffer can be reached at pfeiffer@globe.com. 
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