Live in Roslindale
Houses outnumber condominiums here by more than two to one and 77% of the stock is owner-occupied, third-highest of the 23 Boston guides on this site behind West Roxbury's 89% and Hyde Park's 78%, which is the whole argument for the neighborhood and the whole cost of it.
Roslindale is a late streetcar and railroad suburb that never became a town. It was part of Roxbury until West Roxbury separated in 1851, took the name Roslindale in 1870 when the village asked for a post office and a resident proposed it after Roslin in Scotland, and came into Boston with West Roxbury's annexation in 1874. The housing is what that history built: on the fiscal 2026 assessment roll, postal Roslindale holds 5,380 one to three-family houses against 2,235 condominium parcels, a ratio of about 2.4 to 1, and 5,858 of the 7,615 parcels carry the owner-occupied flag, which is 77%. The median single family is assessed at $694,050 and the median year built of the houses is 1920. What you pay for that is the commute: the village station is on the Needham Line in fare Zone 1, where a one-way ticket costs $6.50 rather than the $2.40 a subway ride costs, and the track through the village is single.
The part of Boston where a house is the likelier purchase
The southwest of the city between Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury, with the Arnold Arboretum and Forest Hills on the northern edge, Hyde Park across the Neponset valley to the south, and Mattapan and Franklin Park to the east. The Needham Line runs through the middle and the village is built around its station. The BPDA publishes the polygon and says plainly that its neighborhood boundaries are approximations rather than the City's official lines; postal Roslindale, which the assessment figures here are drawn by, is almost entirely ZIP code 02131.
Roslindale never was a town. It belonged to Roxbury until 1851, when West Roxbury broke away to stay rural, and it took its own name in 1870: the village asked the Post Office for a branch, South Street Crossing was refused, and a resident proposed Roslindale after Roslin in Scotland. Annexation came with West Roxbury in 1874. The railroad was here first, though. The Boston and Providence opened its West Roxbury branch on 14 July 1849 with a stop called South Street, and that stop is the station the village is still built around.
What makes this neighborhood different from most of Boston is the shape of the stock. On the fiscal 2026 assessment roll, postal Roslindale holds 5,380 one to three-family houses against 2,235 condominium parcels, about 2.4 to 1, and 5,858 of the 7,615 parcels are owner-occupied, which is 77%. That is the third-highest share of the 23 Boston guides on this site, behind West Roxbury's 89% and Hyde Park's 78%, and roughly double Brighton's. The median single family is assessed at $694,050 and the median condominium at $519,900. If you are looking to buy a whole house inside the city limits rather than a floor of one, this and West Roxbury are the two places the arithmetic is on your side.
The price of that is the commute, and it is a specific number rather than a feeling. Roslindale Village station is on the Needham Line in fare Zone 1, where a one-way ticket is $6.50 and a monthly pass $214.00. A subway ride is $2.40 and a Zone 1A monthly pass is $90.00. Dorchester's Fairmount Line stations are Zone 1A; Roslindale's is not. The train reaches South Station in about twenty minutes in the morning peak, which is fast, but the line through the village is single track, which caps how often it can run. Most of the neighborhood therefore commutes the cheap way instead: a bus to Forest Hills and the Orange Line from there.
The tax mechanic is the city's and it works well here. Boston publishes one residential rate, $12.40 per $1,000 for fiscal 2026, then takes $351,108 of assessed value off any parcel the owner lives in, worth $4,353.74 a year. Against a $694,050 house that is half the taxable value gone. Because 77% of the stock is owner-occupied, this is the neighborhood where the exemption is closest to being the normal case rather than the exception, and where a seller has almost certainly been taking it. Own and occupy on 1 January, file by 1 April. The arithmetic on both sides is on the Boston hub.
The square is the reason people stay. Roslindale Village Main Street was founded in 1985 with the National Trust and the city councilor Thomas Menino, one of the first urban Main Street programs in the country, and its first three years counted 33 facade changes, 43 building rehabilitations and 29 net new businesses. The village today is a working square with a Saturday farmers market in Adams Park, a library branch, and the station in the middle of it. The houses around it were built to a median year of 1920, so the questions are the ordinary ones for that vintage: the roof, the heating, the knob and tube, and whether the driveway on the listing is actually deeded.
- Time both commutes on a weekday: the train from the village and the bus to Forest Hills
- Ask whether the seller took the residential exemption, and set your closing against 1 January and 1 April
- On a two or three-family you occupy, the exemption comes off the whole parcel including the rented units
- On a house built around 1920, price the roof, the heating and the wiring before you bid
- Confirm that off-street parking on a listing is deeded rather than customary
How Roslindale got here
- 1849The Boston and Providence Railroad opens its West Roxbury branch on 14 July, with a stop here called South Street. The line is still the Needham Line and the stop is still the village station.
- 1851West Roxbury separates from Roxbury as its own town, taking this ground with it to keep it rural. It stays a town for 23 years.
- 1870The village applies for a post office. The name South Street Crossing is rejected, and a resident proposes Roslindale, after Roslin in Scotland, which is the name that sticks.
- 1874Annexation of West Roxbury to Boston takes effect, in the same year as Brighton and Charlestown. Roslindale becomes a Boston neighborhood without ever having been a town of its own.
- 1920The streetcar and railroad suburb fills in with the one and two-family houses that still define it. 1920 is the median year built of that stock on the fiscal 2026 assessment roll.
- 1985Roslindale Village Main Street is founded with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the city councilor Thomas Menino, one of the first urban Main Street programs in the country. Its first three years count 33 facade changes, 43 building rehabilitations and 29 net new businesses.
- 2021The 1898 bridge carrying the railroad over Roberts Street is replaced in June, built wide enough for a second track if one is ever added. Through the village the line is still single track, which is what caps the service.
The Arnold Arboretum, Adams Park and Forest Hills
The Arnold Arboretum is 281 acres of Harvard's living collection, free and open every day, and its Peters Hill side is the Roslindale one. Forest Hills Cemetery, a 275-acre garden cemetery from 1848, works as a second arboretum for anyone willing to walk in one. Inside the neighborhood, Adams Park is the green in the middle of the village and Healy Field and Fallon Field carry the playgrounds and the ball fields.
What the map does not show: the two big spaces are both on the boundary and both belong to somebody else, Harvard and a cemetery trust. That works, and it means the City's own open space here is modest. Check how far your street actually is from Peters Hill before you count the Arboretum as your back garden.
21 places, with real drive times
Road-adjusted distance and drive time from the centre of the community to each destination, nearest first. Filter by category.
Showing 1–12 of 21 places, nearest first.
Method: distances and drive times are computed from a representative point near the middle of Roslindale, using straight-line distance multiplied by a road factor and a tiered speed model: honest ranges, not routed times. The drive column understates the train, which reaches South Station in about twenty minutes, and flatters the trip to Logan, which crosses the whole city.
Every gym within reach
The City runs the BCYF Roslindale Community Center on Cummins Highway, with a gymnasium, a fitness area and a walking track, open on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. It has no pool, and neither does anything else inside the neighborhood. The nearest full facility with one is the Parkway Community YMCA on Centre Street in West Roxbury.
- BCYF Roslindale lists an auditorium, a gymnasium, a teen center and a walking track, and no pool
- The Parkway Community YMCA serves Roslindale, West Roxbury, Jamaica Plain and Dedham
- BCYF Ohrenberger on West Boundary Road is the other City option on this side
| Facility | What it is | Drive |
|---|---|---|
| BCYF Roslindale Community Center open | The City's center on Cummins Highway, with a gymnasium, a fitness area and a walking track, open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. There is no public pool in Roslindale. | 3–4 min |
| Parkway Community YMCA open | On Centre Street in West Roxbury, serving Roslindale, West Roxbury, Jamaica Plain and Dedham. The nearest full facility with a pool. | 7–10 min |
| BCYF Ohrenberger Community Center open | The City's other center on this side, on West Boundary Road in West Roxbury. | 7–10 min |
The free option is the Arboretum's carriage roads, several miles of paved, car-free, gently graded path that are open every day of the year at no cost.
Four district elementaries, one middle school and no high school
Roslindale addresses fall under Boston Public Schools, which for kindergarten through grade eight assigns no neighborhood school. It builds a list from your address, starting with every school within a mile and adding option and citywide schools until it holds roughly 10 to 14, then runs an algorithm close to a lottery over the choices you rank. Roslindale is unusual in holding four district elementaries, the Sumner, the Bates, the Philbrick and the Conley, which raises the odds that a school near you appears high on the list.
| School | Board | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Sumner Elementary School | Boston Public Schools | On Basile Street. Boston assigns no neighborhood school for kindergarten through grade eight: it builds a list from your address, starting with every school within a mile and adding option and citywide schools, then runs an algorithm close to a lottery over the choices you rank. |
| Bates Elementary School | Boston Public Schools | On Beech Street. Roslindale is unusual in Boston for holding four district elementary schools inside one neighborhood, which is what raises the odds that a nearby school appears high on your list. |
| Philbrick Elementary School | Boston Public Schools | On Philbrick Street toward the West Roxbury line, and the third of the four elementaries here. |
| Conley Elementary School | Boston Public Schools | On Weld Street at the eastern edge, nearest to the Hyde Park and Mattapan side of the neighborhood. |
| Washington Irving Middle School | Boston Public Schools | On Cummins Highway and the only 6-8 in Roslindale. There is no high school in the neighborhood at all: every Boston high school is a citywide option, so a Roslindale family applies across the city like everybody else. |
There is no high school in Roslindale. The Washington Irving on Cummins Highway is the only 6-8, and every Boston high school is a citywide option, so a family here applies across the city like everybody else. Run your exact address through the district's own tool rather than trusting a catchment map.
Month by month, what living here looks like
Not a highlights reel: the actual annual rhythm, including the dates residents have to remember.
- Highs near 3 °C and lows around -5 °C at Logan, with 36 cm of snow in an average January
- A declared snow emergency clears one side of most streets, and a resident permit does not exempt you
- This is the part of Boston where a driveway is normal, and January is when that shows up in a price
- Marginally the snowiest month, at 37 cm on the 1991 to 2020 normal
- A single-track line means one problem cancels a train rather than delaying it
- The quietest month for viewings, and the easiest time to see a house without competition
- Highs near 8 °C, with 23 cm of snow still normal for the month
- The spring market starts listing, and a closing after 1 January means the residential exemption waits a year
- Freeze and thaw is hard on a 1920s porch and on the driveway you are paying for
- Highs near 14 °C and only trace snow
- 1 April is the filing deadline for the residential exemption, and missing it costs the whole year
- Lilac Sunday and the flowering season bring the whole city to the Arboretum on the other side of Peters Hill
- Highs near 19 °C, and the Arboretum is at its best
- The busiest listing month, and the month with the most competition on a house here
- Houses in this neighborhood sell fast in May, which is the argument for looking in November
- Highs near 25 °C, and the Saturday farmers market starts in Adams Park
- Fallon Field and Healy Field run their summer programs
- Longer light is the time to walk the village and see how far your street really is from it
- Highs near 28 °C and lows near 19 °C, the warmest normals of the year
- The fiscal year turns on 1 July, and the first bill of the new assessment cycle follows
- Roslindale's tree cover is among the better in the city and a July afternoon here is cooler than downtown
- Most Boston leases turn over on 1 September, though far less of Roslindale rents than the rest of the city
- Tropical systems reach New England in August and September, usually as heavy rain rather than wind
- The best month to test a house for heat, since much of this stock has no central cooling
- Highs near 23 °C, low humidity, and the clearest stretch of the year
- Schools restart and the buses to Forest Hills run at capacity again
- The one month to time both commutes, the train and the bus, before you decide
- Highs near 17 °C, and the wettest month on the normals at 102 mm
- Heating systems get their first real test, and a 1920s house here often still runs on oil or steam
- The Arboretum's color is the reason people who move here stop complaining about the commute
- Highs near 11 °C, with the first snow normal of the season at under 2 cm
- The market goes quiet, which is the argument for buying now rather than in May
- The farmers market runs into late November and then stops
- Highs near 6 °C and 23 cm of snow on the normal
- You must own and occupy on 1 January to qualify for the next year's residential exemption, so a December closing beats a February one by a full year
- Short days, and the walk from the village station is what you feel most
4 more photographs of the community and its surroundings
All freely licensed, via Wikimedia Commons. Filter by category.
Showing 1–4 of 4 photographs.
About these photographs. Openly licensed images geotagged in or near Roslindale, found on Wikimedia Commons and served from there with full attribution. Inline photos elsewhere on the page may still come from the site's shared Boston library.