North End, Boston Tier 4

A Boston neighborhood · Tier 4 · mixed schools · 0 miles from downtown Boston, about 8 minutes door-to-door at peak.

North End, Massachusetts
North End · photo via Wikipedia
4BR house
$2.2M est.
$1.6M townhouse · $850k condo
Dearer than 98% of MA towns
Property tax
$27,300/yr
$12.40 per $1,000 on that house
Higher than 98% of MA towns
To downtown Boston
8 min
Rapid transit (T) · ~3 min to downtown
Closer than any MA town
Schools
22nd pct
growth 50th · 81% graduate
Behind 78% of MA districts

marks the Massachusetts median of $750k for a 4BR, $8,800 in tax and 62 min to Boston. Prices and the tax bill are estimates, not appraisals, and North End’s prices are preliminary: not yet checked against sales.

About North End

North End is a Boston neighborhood about 0 miles from downtown as the crow flies, 8 minutes at peak, and one of the priciest markets in the state: roughly $2.2M for a 4BR house and $850k for a 2BR condo. Public schools are Boston Public Schools, assigned by lottery rather than by address. The residential rate is $12.40 per $1,000, about average for Massachusetts, but on a $2.2M house that is still about $27,300 a year. Rapid transit reaches downtown in about 3 minutes, so a car-free commute works. That rail time is modeled, not read off the timetable. Boston's oldest neighborhood: Hanover Street's restaurants, the Freedom Trail, and narrow streets built before cars.

The good, the bad, the ugly

Editorial
Good

Hanover Street, the Freedom Trail, and the most walkable square mile in New England.

Bad

Pre-automobile housing: small, old, and short on closets, laundry and parking.

Ugly

Tourists, trash night and rats — the city's densest restaurant district produces the city's densest garbage.

Schools and child caremixed schools · 22nd MCAS

Public schools

North End is served by Boston Public Schools. Boston does not assign students by neighborhood alone — families rank schools and receive an assignment through the city’s home-based lottery, so the schools your child can attend depend on your address and the lottery, not on the neighborhood line. The district-wide figures below therefore cover all of Boston, not North End specifically.

Before kindergarten

Child care in North End is licensed under the Boston address rather than the neighborhood, so its programs are counted on the Boston page.

Public School Rankings

Publisher rankingResult
Niche 2026 · Best School Districts#125 of 236 MA districts · B
SchoolDigger 2025 · City/locality test-score rank#295 of 361 MA localities
U.S. News 2026-27 · High school in town (not assigned)#1 of 353 MA · Boston Latin School (exam school — admission by test, not address)
Boston Magazine 2026 · Greater Boston high school#44 of 148 · Boston Latin School
Official Massachusetts data (DESE)Result
MCAS achievement22nd percentile statewide
Student growth (SGP)50th percentile
4-year graduation rate81.3%
DESE accountabilityModerate progress toward targets

Each publisher ranks a different thing. A district, a locality, or one high school, each by its own method — shown separately, never blended.

MCAS percentile is the district’s statewide rank on % Meeting/Exceeding expectations, ELA + Math.

Latest school building project: Boston neighborhoods do not operate separate school districts. No neighborhood-specific full-school project with a published total budget was located in the July 2026 review; citywide BPS projects are recorded on the Boston row.

Charter School Options

2 charter schools near North End
Nearby · East BostonTuition-free · lottery5–12 · Charter (public, tuition-free) · growth 70th pct · 95.1% graduate · Meeting or exceeding targets · $24k/pupil
Nearby · ChelseaTuition-free · lottery9–12 · Charter (public, tuition-free) · 12.3% graduate · Insufficient data · $33k/pupil

Admission is by lottery, not address — a seat is never guaranteed. Some charters here are alternative or recovery high schools enrolling students already off-track, so their MCAS and graduation figures are not comparable with a traditional school’s.

Public and tuition-free; results from DESE

Available Private School Options

16 of the 146 private schools in North End and within 12 miles
In North EndPreschool–8 · Catholic elementary and middle school · ~$13k/yr
Nearby · Beacon HillPreschool–6 · Christian elementary school · 162 students · 6.4:1 student-teacher · ~$32k/yr
Nearby · East BostonPreschool–8 · Catholic elementary and middle school · 207 students · ~$10k/yr
Newman SchoolNiche #35 · A+
Nearby · BostonNEASC accredited7–12 · IB college-preparatory school; day and boarding · 267 students · ~$34k/yr
Nearby · Back BayAISNE accreditedK–6 · Independent elementary school · 117 students · ~$38k/yr
Nearby · Back BayAISNE accreditedToddler–6 · Montessori · ~$38k/yr
Cathedral High SchoolNiche #84 · A-
Nearby · South End7–12 · Catholic college-preparatory school · 345 students · ~$15k/yr
Nearby · South BostonPreschool–3 · Private early elementary school · 40 students · ~$13k/yr
Nearby · Chelsea8–12 · Specialized / placement · 28 students · 4.8:1 student-teacher · placement/specialized
Commonwealth SchoolNiche #3 · A+
Nearby · BostonNEASC accredited9–12 · High school · 163 students · 4.5:1 student-teacher · ~$36k–$50k/yr (est.)
Nearby · BostonNEASC accredited9–12 · High school · ~$36k–$50k/yr (est.)
Nearby · BostonNEASC accreditedPK–12 · PK/K–12 · ~$36k–$50k/yr (est.)
Roxbury LatinNiche #13 · A+
Nearby · BostonNEASC accredited7–12 · Independent boys' college-preparatory school · 307 students · ~$43k/yr
The Winsor SchoolNiche #16 · A+
Nearby · BostonAISNE accredited5–12 · Middle / high · ~$36k–$50k/yr (est.)
Boston Trinity AcademyNiche #40 · A+
Nearby · BostonNEASC accredited6–12 · Middle / high · ~$18k–$28k/yr (est.)
Nearby · BostonAISNE accreditedPK–5 · Elementary · files no enrolment with the state

Tuition is an estimated range by school type, not school-published pricing — a parochial school and an independent day school are priced very differently. Private schools sit no MCAS, so no figure here is a state measure.

How to read this list

Schools within 12 miles of North End, from the MA DESE 2025–26 non-public enrollment report plus the Niche ranking of Massachusetts private high schools. Tuition shown as an estimated range by school type, grades and region — not school-published pricing. A parochial school and an independent day school are priced very differently, so treat these as a starting point and confirm with the school. Niche ranks private high schools only, so an elementary school never carries a number; where one shows a letter instead, that is Niche’s own overall grade, which reaches schools no ranked list does. Neither is a state measure — private schools sit no MCAS and report no results to Massachusetts. That Niche extract is also partial, so a school showing neither was not judged and found wanting; it may simply not have been in it. Student numbers are the figure schools do report, from the same DESE return. Where a student-teacher ratio is shown it is students over full-time-equivalent teachers in the federal Private School Universe Survey, 2021–22, the most recent published — a rough guide to class size, not a class size, and not a ranking either. It is shown only where that survey and the state agree on how many pupils the school has, which is why many schools here have none. Accreditation comes from the AISNE member directory, which records whether a school holds AISNE or NEASC accreditation — the two split the work by age rather than compete, AISNE taking the elementary and middle schools and NEASC the secondary ones. It means an outside body has reviewed the school against published standards on a ten-year cycle. It is not a measure of results, and its absence is not a mark against a school: plenty are not members at all. That directory is also where the schools marked files no enrolment with the state come from. They are real schools that simply make no return to Massachusetts, so the state holds no size for them and this page can show none — and for those, the grade range is read off AISNE’s age bands rather than taken from the school, so treat it as approximate and confirm with the school.

The vibe of North End

College & cultural townsCoastalCompact centreVisitor destinationhigh confidence

Very lively, dense/walkable, and sparsely provided with youth facilities; higher-cost in housing and well-maintained in public spaces, with strong cultural identity, major visitor destination, and exceptional public realm.

Energy10
Compact town center10
Family amenities9
Culture10
Visitor presence10
Public gathering places9

Six 1–10 scales for the intensity of each quality, not a score of how good the place is. Higher just means more of that thing. Family amenities counts public recreation infrastructure, not who lives here; these never use race, ethnicity or other protected characteristics, and never measure safety. See the methodology.

What it takes to live here$2.2M 4BR · ≈$27,300 tax
To buyMedian price (est.)
4BR / 2BA detached house$2.2M
3BR / 2BA townhouse$1.6M
2BR condo$850k
Property taxes (FY2026)$12.40 per $1,000 (1.24%)

These are modeled estimates, not listings. Each row opens the real Redfin market in ZIP 02113, one of 2 in North End, and the two will not match.

To rentPer month (est.)
4 bedrooms$4,800/mo
3 bedrooms$4,353/mo
2 bedrooms$3,653/mo
1 bedroom$3,057/mo

These are benchmark rents, not asking rents. HUD sets them at the 40th percentile of standard-quality units, so a nice single-family will ask more — which is why the links are not capped at the figure beside them.

HUD FY2027 Small Area Fair Market Rents for North End’s ZIP codes

Home values over the last decade

North End home values, 2016–2026Zillow Home Value Index for North End, 2016 to 2026: $561k to $789k, up 41 per cent.$532k$680k$828k20162026
North End, 2016 to 2026: $561k to $789k, up 41% in 10 years — 3.5% a year compounded. This is the citywide Boston index; Zillow does not publish a separate series by neighbourhood.
If a $2.20M house grew at…5 yrs10 yrs15 yrs30 yrs
3.5% — North End’s own last decade$2.61M$3.10M$3.69M$6.17M
3% — inflation, holding its real value$2.55M$2.96M$3.43M$5.34M

These are not forecasts. They are what $2.20M becomes at a fixed rate, shown for two rates because nobody can tell you which one the next thirty years will bring. The last decade included a period of unusually fast growth across Massachusetts; repeating it for thirty years would be a strong assumption. The inflation row is the conservative case — a house that holds its value and earns nothing beyond it. History from the Zillow Home Value Index, a whole-town index that sits at a different level from the 4BR estimate above and is used here for the trend.

What’s around North End

urban49,624 people per square mile across 0.2 sq mi city density — 5,000+ people per square mile

What’s hereCount
Cafés and coffee shops
See the list
15
Bookshops0
Museums, theatres and galleries
See the list
3
Colleges and universities0
Public libraryBoston Public Library branches

Density is Census population over land area. Café, bookshop and culture counts are what is mapped in OpenStreetMap — a volunteer map, so a well-mapped town looks busier than a thinly-mapped one. Read a low count as “little mapped here”, not “nothing here”. Colleges are active degree-granting institutions in the federal IPEDS directory; enrolment and campus housing capacity are its 2023 figures. The public library comes from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, which lists library systems rather than every branch. Boston neighborhood figures are counted inside the neighborhood’s own boundary, not the city’s. These figures describe places, never the people in them — see our methodology.

Census snapshot

The American Community Survey reports these figures for cities and towns, not for Boston’s neighborhoods, so none are shown here.

These figures are neutral census facts, shown for every town equally. They are never used to filter, rank, or recommend towns — see our methodology and the federal Fair Housing Act.

Town spending & civic data

Boston (citywide)Figure
Residents675,647
Municipal budgetFY2025, DLS Schedule A$4.78B
School district spending$2.04B
Spending per pupil DESE, total expenditures$33,854
School spending per resident$3,024
Subsidized housing (Ch. 40B)64,446 units on the state inventory, of 299,238 year-round homes21.54%at or above the state’s 10% threshold

These are Boston’s citywide figures, shared by every neighborhood.

Budget: FY2025 General Fund total expenditures, DLS Schedule A · Schools: DESE Per Pupil Expenditure · Subsidized housing: Ch. 40B Subsidized Housing Inventory, EOHLC, as of 30 September 2025; the percentage is over year-round housing units counted in the 2020 Census. Never used to rank or filter towns.

Realistic alternatives to North End

South BostonTier 4
Also Tier 4, 6 min further from Boston
FenwayTier 4
Also Tier 4, about $300k more expensive

Surprisingly similar in character

Beacon HillTier 4
Both compact and cultural · $1.8M dearer
South EndTier 4
Both compact and cultural · $1M dearer
East BostonTier 4
Both cultural and lively · $1.1M cheaper
Back BayTier 4
Both lively and compact · $2.3M dearer

Read next

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Data statusPrices preliminary · data updated September 11, 2026
FigureStatus
Home pricesCalibrated to the Zillow Home Value Index and Redfin market pages. For comparison, not appraisal.Preliminary
Median value by bedroom countZillow Home Value Index by bedroom count, July 2026, houses and condos together — Zillow publishes no single-family-only bedroom split. Observed medians, so they will not match the modeled prices above. The top bucket is five bedrooms OR MORE, because Zillow’s buckets stop at five: it carries a town’s largest houses and runs well above a true 5BR median, which is why it is labelled 5+ everywhere. Absent for Boston’s 18 neighborhoods, which are not cities and have no series, and for the smaller towns at the top bucket.Sourced
Property tax rateFY2026 residential rate per $1,000, from the Division of Local Services’ Tax Rates by Class, for every municipality. Towns with a residential exemption bill owner-occupied homes less than this.Sourced
Census shares and homeownershipAmerican Community Survey 2020–2024 5-year estimates, US Census Bureau, for every municipality. The survey does not report Boston’s neighborhoods, so none are shown for them. Never used to rank, filter or recommend.Sourced
RentsHUD FY2027 Small Area Fair Market Rents, by ZIP, in effect from 1 October 2026.Sourced
School dataDESE published state reports. Publisher ranks carry their own edition and denominator. The school tier is editorial.Sourced
CommuteRail times for the 75 towns we could verify against the MBTA's published timetable are real scheduled journeys, transfers included. Where a town has rail but no verified journey, its rail time is modeled too, and the town page says so. Driving is modeled from distance with corridor adjustments, and station access is a flat allowance. Not measured by a routing API.Measured + modeled

This community was added after the original hundred, so its prices are preliminary estimates, not yet checked against sales. Its tax rate, like every town’s, is the state’s certified FY2026 figure. Data last updated . Full detail on every source is in the methodology.

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