Would You Pay a Million Dollars for This?

With everything from modest homes to million-dollar dumps now commanding princely sums, it's no wonder that Boston's hospitals, colleges, and biotech firms are seeing so many job offers rejected. Who can afford to live here?

By Neil Swidey, Globe Staff

SO THIS IS WHAT it has come to: a two-bedroom ranch with a shallow backyard, sitting on a well-traveled road in Brookline not far from the hum of Route 9, with white Formica countertops in the kitchen, powder-blue carpeting in the living room, and pink tiles in the bathroom. The musty basement family room, which abuts a two-car garage, has walls decorated with narrow mirrors set alongside some kind of bulletin- board material, and the sunroom has a sliding glass door. That sticks

It just sold for a million bucks.

Walking around this solid but defiantly outdated house in a nice section of town is like stepping back into your grandmother's house after a long absence. The lemon-yellow draperies in the living room, the wooden TV console in the den, the cafeteria-style linoleum squares in the family room. All that's missing is the clear plastic covering on the sofa.

So, sit up straight, be careful not to spill, and lower your expectations. Dramatically.

This 2,000-square-foot house may evoke warm memories from childhood, but it also reveals the cold realities of the current metro-Boston housing market. At some point when we were all too busy marveling at the rapid appreciation of our own modest homes, we missed the complete erosion of one of the most enduring symbols of real estate: the million-dollar mansion. Forget stately Georgians, forget sweeping staircases, forget rolling grounds. Over the last year, some communities have seen everything from ordinary postwar ranches and Capes to shag-carpet split-levels sneak into the $1 million price range -- and in surprising number. The overheated Boston market is blurring two time-honored iconic images: your grandmother's house -- sturdy, simple, inviting -- and the million-dollar home -- august, luxurious, exclusive. Who knew Grandma could be comfortable in this crowd?

Houses here cost so much because there are too few of them for all the people who have been drawn to Boston because it's such a great place for great minds to do great things. But that reputation, which has kept Boston competitive all these years, is beginning to buckle under the weight of absurd home prices. Even in a recession, Boston's world-renowned hospitals, higher-education institutions, and biotech firms admit they are seeing their job offers turned down like never before, largely because of housing costs. If prices get so high that it becomes less desirable to move here, how long before it becomes less competitive as well?

Home prices in Massachusetts are six times what they were in 1980 -- by far the largest spike in the country. But salaries here are only about three times what they were in 1980, creating an enormous imbalance between what we're earning and what we're paying for our houses. There's no way this can continue.