If you have been watching Cambridge on the portals, you have seen one number pulled in four directions at once. Zillow put the ZHVI at $1,050,668 on May 31, 2026, down 1.6% year over year. Redfin logged a three-month median sale price of $1.2M through May 2026, down 7.1%. Movoto's June 2026 list-side median was $1.11M. The Greater Boston Association of Realtors, meanwhile, reported the region's single-family median crossing $1,032,500 in April 2026, up from $989,500 the year before.
The numbers do not disagree because anyone is wrong. They disagree because Cambridge stopped being a single market in February 2025, and the citywide median now averages three property types that are moving in opposite directions.
The one number that stopped meaning anything
The clearest way to see this is to stop looking at the citywide median and look at each segment separately. Broker-side MLS analysis for 2025 closings, cross-checked against mid-2026 market snapshots, produces this picture:
| Segment | 2025 median | Recent trend | Days on market | Sale-to-list |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single-family | $2,503,000 (112 sales) | Tight, trading near list | Low | ~101% |
| Condo | $975,000 (488 sales) | Softening, absorption 95% → 30% since 2022 | ~78 | Weakening |
| Multi-family | $2,165,000 (up ~$400K YoY) | Repriced by zoning | Variable | ~97% |
Averaging those three into one citywide "$1.2M" number is like averaging a hospital's ER wait times with its cafeteria's lunch line. The result is arithmetically correct and analytically useless.
What actually changed in February 2025
On February 10, 2025, the Cambridge City Council voted 8-1 to end single-family zoning citywide, in what the Cambridge Day called a landmark reform. The city's own summary collapses the old A-1, A-2, B, C, and C-1 residential districts into a single unified residential district. Four-story multifamily is now allowed by-right on any residential lot except open space. On lots of at least 5,000 square feet, developers can go up to six stories if they make 20% of the units permanently affordable through the city's Inclusionary Housing Program.
Two other details from the ordinance matter for how the market has reacted. Setbacks were streamlined to ten feet in front and five feet on side and rear, with 30% open space. And as councilors Burhan Azeem and Sumbul Siddiqui pointed out in Banker & Tradesman, roughly 85% of Cambridge's existing residential units were already non-conforming under the pre-2025 code. In practice, it was easier to keep an old triple-decker standing than to build one.
Before the reform, city planners projected about 300 net new units over 15 years. After it, that number went to roughly 3,500, according to Councilor Azeem in reporting from GBH News.
That is the mechanism. What follows is what it did to prices.
Why the multi-family median jumped $400,000
Cambridge multi-family sold at a median near $1.77M in 2024. In 2025, that median moved to $2,165,000, and the average sale price reached roughly $2,600,000. Days on market are not the story. Sale-to-list on multi-family is running near 97% in 2026 broker analyses, which is the softest sale-to-list ratio of the three segments.
What changed is not the buyer pool's willingness to overbid. What changed is what a two-family lot on a quiet Cambridge side street now represents. Before February 2025, a 6,000-square-foot lot with an aging duplex was a duplex. After February 2025, that same lot is a by-right entitlement for a four-story building, or a six-story building if the owner takes the inclusionary path. Sellers, especially owners of tired multi-families sitting on generous lots, are pricing the entitlement. Buyers are split. Owner-occupants are underwriting the building. Developers are underwriting the lot. Sale-to-list falls a couple of points because the two groups will not agree on the same number, but the median climbs because the developer floor now sits higher than the owner-occupant ceiling used to.
For a Somerville or Cambridge multi-family owner considering a sale, that is the entire pricing conversation in one sentence. The building is worth what it used to be worth. The lot is worth more. Getting the two priced separately, and marketed to two different buyer pools, is the work.
The condo market is the first one you can take your time in
Cambridge condos are the segment where the softening is real. Broker MLS work for early 2026 shows condo days on market extending to around 78, with absorption dropping from 95% in 2022 to roughly 30% today. Average condo sale prices in 2025 landed near $1.21M with a median of $975K. Price per square foot on condos sits around $955.
That softening has a supply side and a rate side. On rates, the 30-year fixed averaged 6.47% on Freddie Mac's PMMS for June 18, 2026, down from 6.81% a year earlier. Payment math is easier than it was, but not easy. On supply, the pipeline is now visible enough that buyers can factor it in:
- Cambridge Point at Alewife. Healthpeak's state filing, reported by the Boston Globe, outlines 2,601 housing units on 45.7 acres near the Alewife MBTA station and Fresh Pond, with Hines handling the residential portion. Total project cost is $4.5 billion, tallest building up to 160 feet, final city approvals targeted for the third quarter of 2026, groundbreaking hoped for 2027, ten-year buildout in two phases. A new pedestrian bridge over the commuter rail to Alewife is part of the plan.
- IQHQ's Alewife Brook Parkway complex, under construction since 2024.
- MBTA Alewife garage and its 20 surrounding acres, offered for redevelopment.
- By-right infill everywhere else. The February 2025 ordinance means small four-story projects can now appear on lots that were locked to two-families for decades.
None of this hits closing tables in 2026. All of it hits buyer psychology in 2026. If you are a condo buyer at $1M to $1.5M, you are the first Cambridge cohort in a decade with genuine time to make a decision. A sharp offer with a real inspection contingency now closes, where in 2022 it did not get read.
Single-family is still its own weather system
The single-family market did not get the memo. 2025 closings totaled 112 units at a $2,503,000 median, trading near 101% of list. Cambridge has roughly 55,000 residential units in total, and single-family stock is a small and shrinking share of that. Nothing in the zoning reform forces anyone to demolish a single-family home. What the reform did is take the option value on those lots and price it into the sale.
The practical read for a luxury buyer: the single-family segment is a scarcity trade and remains so. Wait for rate cuts and you will find fewer listings, not lower prices. Cambridge's FY2026 residential tax rate is $6.67 per $1,000 of assessed value, among the lowest in Greater Boston, and the residential exemption for owner-occupants makes the effective tax bill on a $3M single-family lower than on many $2M homes in surrounding towns. That is a real number to put in an underwriting spreadsheet.
What this means if you own or are buying right now
- Multi-family sellers, Cambridge or Somerville. Get a lot-based valuation and a building-based valuation before you list. If the gap is large, your marketing plan and your price both need to reflect it. Do not price the building and hope a developer notices.
- Condo buyers, $800K to $1.5M. You have time you did not have two years ago. Use it. A 78-day median means the well-priced listing still moves fast, but the mispriced one sits, and that is where the leverage lives.
- Condo sellers. The first 21 days on market are the whole story. Absorption dropped from 95% to 30% because sellers anchored to 2022 comps. Price to 2026 comps and you close in the first window. Chase the market down and you finish the year with a reduction.
- Single-family buyers at the top of the market. The rezoning did not add single-family supply. It will not. Underwrite scarcity, and factor the FY2026 tax rate and residential exemption into your carrying-cost math.
- Investors aggregating parcels. Cambridge Point, the IQHQ complex, and the MBTA Alewife redevelopment reshape the North Cambridge and Alewife submarkets on a ten-year clock. That is a long enough runway to matter for underwriting condo appreciation there, but not so long that it belongs in a spreadsheet as certainty.
FAQ
Does the February 2025 rezoning apply to condominium conversions? The ordinance changes what can be built by-right on a lot. It does not change condominium conversion law, tenant notification requirements, or the Inclusionary Housing thresholds that already apply to new units. A multi-family that becomes a four-story new build under the new zoning is subject to inclusionary rules on lots of 5,000 square feet or more when the six-story bonus is used.
Is Cambridge Point going to depress condo prices near Alewife? Not on any near-term timeline that a 2026 buyer needs to underwrite. Final city approvals are targeted for the third quarter of 2026, groundbreaking is hoped for 2027, and the project is a two-phase, ten-year buildout. It matters for the ten-year appreciation curve, not the twelve-month one.
Which submarket is most exposed to new condo supply first? The Alewife corridor and the East Cambridge/Kendall edge, based on where the entitled pipeline sits and where lot geometry supports the six-story inclusionary path. Mid-Cambridge and West Cambridge lots are more likely to see four-story by-right infill than six-story projects.
If you own a multi-family in Cambridge or Somerville, or you are trying to price a condo purchase against a supply pipeline that most buyers still cannot see clearly, the difference between the citywide median and your actual number is the whole conversation. The Encompass Group works with sellers and buyers on exactly that gap. Schedule a consultation.
