Where home prices are soaring in the city of Boston

From Allston to Southie, these Boston locales are seeing the biggest price increases for single-family homes or condos.

Scotty Reifsnyder

ALLSTON

Median condo price: $422,900

Change since 2011: 64%

There’s a comfort in knowing Allston Village hasn’t changed much since you lived there in your 20s; the abundant takeout restaurants, boisterous bars, and roving college kids are all still around, it just costs a lot more to live among them. And on the other side of the Mass. Pike, in quieter Lower Allston, Harvard’s expansion has brought  new apartment buildings shooting up like weeds in a sidewalk. The burgeoning New Balance complex means more recreation and transit options, as well.

CENTRAL BOSTON

Median condo price: $880,100

Change since 2011: 58%

Whether you opt for a luxury condo in a high-end high-rise or a cramped, crooked one-bedroom in a North End row house, one thing remains the same: It’s wicked expensive to live downtown. How expensive? At Millennium Tower in Downtown Crossing, the penthouse unit sold for more than $30 million.

DORCHESTER

Median single-family price: $419,500

Change since 2011: 60%

Median condo price: $375,000

Change since 2011: 88%

From gritty three-deckers to Victorian mansions, old Irish pubs to excellent Vietnamese food, diverse Dorchester is Boston’s largest neighborhood, with some of its biggest price gains, too. New developments dot its many Red Line stops — like the nearly sold-out Treadmark building going up at Ashmont, the 278-unit Hub 25 complex that opened in 2016 at JFK/UMass Station, and the 11-acre apartment and hotel development underway next to South Bay Plaza in Andrew Square.

EAST BOSTON

Median condo price: $416,000

Change since 2011: 83%

Lower prices, a quick T ride to downtown, excellent cheap eats, and a view of the Boston skyline? It’s no wonder East Boston caught everyone’s attention the past few years. With nearly 1,000 new apartments in the works along the waterfront, the migration across the harbor seems likely to continue.

HYDE PARK

Median single-family price: $370,000

Change since 2011: 48%

Wedged between Dedham and Milton, distant Hyde Park can feel downright suburban — this is commuter-rail country, after all. But the home turf of Tom Menino, longtime Boston mayor, more closely reflects the city’s diversity than surrounding areas, and it has caught the eye of developers. While prices are rising, it remains one of the more affordable corners of Boston if you have your heart set on a house and a yard.

JAMAICA PLAIN

Median single-family price: $750,000

Change since 2011: 53%

Home prices in JP have soared in the past five years, but they were already climbing in 2011, when Whole Foods opened here, after a long and often contentious public debate — a reflection of the neighborhood’s community spirit and activism. Between the bustling shops and restaurants of Centre Street, the mixed-use brewery buildings, the handful of Orange Line stops, and several jewels of Frederick Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace — including Jamaica Pond and much of the Arnold Arboretum — JP is essentially an urbanite’s dream.

ROSLINDALE

Median single-family price: $500,500

Change since 2011: 48%

Median condo price: $385,500

Change since 2011: 58%

Rozzie has enjoyed growth in tandem with Jamaica Plain, as buyers priced out of JP fall in love with the compact charm of lively Roslindale Square and relative affordability on the other side of the Arnold Arboretum. Though the area is currently served only by bus and commuter rail, the MBTA envisions one day extending the Orange Line from Forest Hills to Roslindale Square. But such a project needs approval, and probably a decade.

SOUTH BOSTON

Median single-family price: $680,000

Change since 2011: 70%

Median condo price: $632,500

Change since 2011: 66%

Whitey Bulger’s old haunt, Triple-O’s, is now an upscale bar with a Starbucks across the street; that pretty much sums up the transformation of Southie. Between the incredible growth in the neighboring Seaport District and Southie’s own combination of beaches, restaurants, shops, and residential side streets all just a bridge away from downtown, it was only a matter of time before the broader market realized Southie’s potential.