South Shore Towns, Compared

The coast from Quincy down toward Plymouth, plus the towns just inland of it — the Red Line ends at Braintree and commuter rail carries the rest.

Of the 13 South Shore towns we cover, Hingham has the strongest school tier and Braintree is closest to downtown Boston at about 33 minutes, and Holbrook is the cheapest at roughly $550k for a 4BR house. 6 of them have MBTA rail.

Every South Shore town

Sorted by school tier, then commute to Boston. Every column links through to the town’s own page.

#	Town	Schools	4BR house	Commute	Rail	Tax rate	Est. bill
1	Hingham	strong schools · Niche 29thT2	$1.65MT4	47 minT3	Rail · 39 min	$10.47T2	≈$17,300
2	Norwell	strong schools · Niche 32ndT2	$1.2MT3	47 minT3	None	$14.50T3	≈$17,400
3	Cohasset	strong schools · Niche 47thT2	$1.6MT4	48 minT3	Rail · 47 min	$12.00T2	≈$19,200
4	Hanover	strong schools · Niche 81stT2	$950kT3	50 minT3	None	$13.00T3	≈$12,400
5	Scituate	strong schools · Niche 45thT2	$1.1MT3	55 minT3	Rail · 54 min	$11.50T2	≈$12,700
6	Duxbury	strong schools · Niche 20thT2	$1.4MT4	63 minT4	None	$12.50T3	≈$17,500
7	Braintree	solid schools · Niche 66thT3	$875kT2	33 minT2	T · 25 min	$10.06T2	≈$8,800
8	Weymouth	solid schools · Niche 116thT3	$725kT2	40 minT2	Rail · 28 min	$10.12T2	≈$7,300
9	Hull	solid schoolsT3	$750kT2	44 minT2	None	$11.00T2	≈$8,300
10	Pembroke	solid schools · Niche 123rdT3	$750kT2	57 minT3	None	$13.00T3	≈$9,800
11	Marshfield	solid schools · Niche 61stT3	$825kT2	64 minT4	None	$9.61T1	≈$7,900
12	Holbrook	mixed schools · Niche 133rdT4	$550kT1	42 minT2	Rail · 36 min	$15.50T4	≈$8,500
13	Rockland	mixed schools · Niche 122ndT4	$600kT2	47 minT3	None	$15.50T4	≈$9,300

How this region is defined: “South Shore” has no legal boundary, so we use the membership of the South Shore Coalition rather than drawing our own line. Data last reviewed July 18, 2026. See the methodology for every source.