Lexington's New Downsizer Condos Are Priced Like Houses

At 93 Bedford Street, residents of The Lex Residences park in a garage under the building, take a central elevator up, and walk into a home that sits entirely on one floor. Each owner has a deeded parking space with electric vehicle charging and a storage unit beside the car. The main building has three floors with ten condos on each.

Lexington had almost nothing like this before. The building is the first development in town under the state's MBTA Communities Act, and The Lexington Observer reported in October that most of the 30 main-building condos sold for between $1.2 million and $2 million, mostly to buyers who were downsizing. If you own a single-family home in Lexington and expected a condo to free up a large share of your equity, those prices change the plan.

The condo price follows the house, not the condo market

Here are the Lexington numbers from the Massachusetts Association of Realtors' September 2026 Local Market Update, next to the price range at The Lex Residences.

The town's September single-family median of $1.57 million falls inside the Bedford Street range. The town's year-to-date condo median of about $1 million falls below the bottom of it. A typical Lexington condo resale tells you very little about what a new single-level unit with an elevator costs. A typical house tells you much more.

Volume is the reason. Through September 2026, Lexington recorded 223 single-family sales and 32 condo sales. With so few condo sales, one or two transactions can move the condo median a lot. MAR's own report warns that a single month "can sometimes look extreme due to small sample size." The September condo median of $915,000 came from three closings.

The new units are also a different product from the older condos behind that median. All 30 main-building units at The Lex Residences have two bedrooms and two baths, and 12 of them add a den. The building also has a resident gym, a shared patio and grill, and ten extra garage spaces that residents can buy. Buyers pay for one-floor living, covered parking and an elevator, and those features cost about what a house costs.

The timing gap for downsizers

The developers sold every unit in the main building early enough that some buyers could customize their interiors, according to the Observer. So buyers who wanted the best choice of unit and finishes committed while the building was still going up.

That leaves a downsizer with a sequencing problem. You commit to the condo early, then sell the house later, and Lexington's single-family market in 2026 has been slower than it was a year ago. The MAR figures for September 2026:

• Single-family inventory was 83 homes, up from 64 in September 2025.
• Months of supply rose to 3.5 from 2.8.
• Cumulative days on market until sale, year to date, was 50, up from 36 in the same period of 2025.
• Sellers received 99.2% of original list price year to date, compared with 101.6% a year earlier.
• The year-to-date median fell 10.3%, from $1,950,000 to $1,750,000.

Put those together. The new condo's price is set by a scarce product with very few local competitors. The house you are selling is priced in a market where buyers have more choices and more time than they did in 2025. A seller who assumed a fast sale above asking may wait weeks longer, and the price may land below where 2025 comparables pointed. The figures do not say what is causing the softer single-family numbers. They do show that the condo and the house are moving on different schedules.

Why one-level condos took so long to arrive

Lexington made it legal to build this kind of building before any developers arrived to build it. The town was the first to pass an MBTA Communities compliance plan and rezoned 227 acres, well beyond the state's 50-acre requirement. Ben Finnegan of Finnegan Development, which built The Lex Residences with Katz Development, told the Observer that the permitting process was the biggest change for his firm. Under the law, multifamily housing in those districts is permitted by right, without special permits or variances for the basic use.

He described what the zoning opened up in the Observer's report on the opening:

"The MBTA Communities Act, for us, really opened up a lot of opportunity to deliver a product that we've actually been building since the late 1990s, which is stacked flat condominiums. They're generally targeted for down-sizers…and in my opinion, were greatly lacking in the town before this."

The scarcity has not fully gone away, because the zoning shrank. In March 2025, Town Meeting passed Article 2 with about 94 percent support. It cut the multifamily overlay from 227 acres to about 90 and removed Lexington Center, while letting the ten projects already in the pipeline, about 1,100 homes, go forward. The Observer covered the vote.

The pipeline kept growing anyway. By late October 2026, the town counted 17 MBTA Communities Act projects, some approved and some proposed, totaling about 1,600 homes, 236 of them affordable, according to the Observer's regional roundup. Those units do not all serve the same buyer. Only some are for-sale condos, and the Town of Lexington's MBTA Communities zoning page tracks each project separately.

The competition is changing too. Finnegan told the Observer that national builders such as Pulte are now competing in Lexington, which he called rare for a local developer to see. He added that building single-family houses is still far more competitive, partly because larger buildings are harder to finance. Fewer builders can take on a 30-unit elevator building than a single house, which helps explain why one-level condos stay scarce and their prices stay high.

The next one-level condos, in order

For downsizers comparing options, these are the next for-sale openings, based on what the developers have said:

1. The Marrett, 419 Marrett Road. Finnegan Development and Katz Development broke ground on this nine-unit building this fall. Every unit has two bedrooms, two baths and a den, and Finnegan expects pricing to be announced around January 1, 2027. He called it "a boutique, smaller building" that he expects to draw the same buyers as The Lex Residences.
2. The historic house at The Lex Residences, 93 Bedford Street. The renovated house next to the main building is being converted into two one-bedroom condos, which Finnegan estimated could come to market in spring 2027.
3. Fieldside at Lexington, 475 Bedford Street. Pulte's New England division is building 150 condos here, according to the Observer. Pulte lists the community as coming soon, with single-level condos among the home types and pricing still to come.

Of the three, Fieldside matters most for pricing. Nine units at The Marrett will not change the market for one-level condos, but 150 units on one Bedford Street site would be several times Lexington's year-to-date condo sales through September 2026. Its prices will show whether $1.2 million to $2 million holds once there are more of these units for sale.

Transit is changing along the same road. The Observer reported that a bus canopy will soon be built on Bedford Street in front of The Lex Residences, and the historic house will have bike storage attached to its back side.

A few direct answers

Is the town's condo median a fair guide to new construction prices? Not in 2026. The year-to-date condo median through September was $1,015,000, based on 32 sales. The new single-level units at The Lex Residences mostly sold between $1.2 million and $2 million.

Should I sell my house first or reserve a condo first? That depends on your finances and how much risk you can carry. The market data shows why the question matters this year. New downsizer units have sold early in construction, while Lexington single-family homes took longer to sell through September 2026 than a year earlier. Talk with your lender about any bridge financing before you commit to either step.

Are all 17 MBTA projects condos? No. The town's project list includes both approved and proposed developments totaling about 1,600 homes, and they vary in type. The three projects above are the ones that have been described as for-sale condos aimed at downsizers.

If you're weighing a Lexington house against a new single-level condo, start with an accurate figure for what your home would sell for in this slower fall market. Edith Paley can give you that number, compare it with current one-level condo prices, and help you plan the timing so you aren't carrying two homes longer than you meant to. Request your free home valuation.