Duxbury, MA Buying Process: Brokerages, Taxes, Seawall

Start With Duxbury's Named Local Brokerages

Two brokerages have a confirmed, dedicated presence in Duxbury: William Raveis Real Estate maintains a dedicated Duxbury office (raveis.com), and Coldwell Banker Realty lists Duxbury-based agents. That is a reasonable starting point for identifying agents who work this specific market regularly, rather than beginning with a generic national portal search.

This page does not assert that Gibson Sotheby's International Realty or Compass maintain a branded office physically located in Duxbury -- that could not be confirmed during the research behind this page, even though both firms are active elsewhere on the Massachusetts coast. If an agent from either firm, or any other firm, approaches you, ask directly how many Duxbury transactions they have closed recently and whether they have a local office or simply cover the town from elsewhere.

Verify Current Zillow and Redfin Figures Yourself

At the time of the research behind this page, Zillow's Duxbury home-values page showed an average home value (ZHVI) of $1,147,098, up 4.7% year-over-year, with 59 homes for sale and a median list price of $1,283,433. Homes were typically going pending within 11 days -- a genuinely fast-moving market where an unprepared buyer can lose out to financing delays alone.

Redfin maintains its own Duxbury market page, but it could not be directly fetched during the research behind this page, so no Redfin-sourced median-sale-price or days-on-market figure is cited here. Pull both Zillow's current figures and Redfin's median-sale-price and days-on-market data directly from each site before you set a budget -- ZHVI is an aggregate value index, not a verified median sale price, and in an 11-day-to-pending market, even a few-weeks-old figure can already be stale.

Understand How Proposition 2½ Sets Duxbury's Tax Rate

Massachusetts does not set a statewide property tax rate. Instead, Proposition 2½ (a 1980 ballot law) caps how much total property-tax revenue a town may raise each year: the levy cannot exceed 2.5% of the town's total assessed value, and year-over-year levy growth is generally capped at 2.5% plus revenue from new construction, unless voters approve an override. Each town's assessors then divide that year's allowed levy by total assessed value to set an annual tax rate per $1,000 of assessed value -- mechanically similar in form to a flat mill rate, but the amount itself is derived from a statutory revenue-growth cap rather than simply set at will.

Duxbury has used a single rate, applied identically to residential and commercial property, in recent years: $10.69 per $1,000 in FY2023, $10.06 in FY2024, and $10.14 in FY2025, per the town's own Assessing Department. The Selectboard again chose a single rate for FY2026 after townwide assessed value rose roughly 4.63% to about $7.3 billion, but the exact FY2026 dollar-per-$1,000 figure was not confirmed during the research behind this page -- pull it directly from Duxbury's Assessing Department before you budget carrying costs. For a deeper look at how this mechanism works and what it means for your own budget, see this site's dedicated Duxbury property-tax page.

Waterfront and Gurnet Road Buyers: The 2026 Seawall Betterment Assessment

If you are looking at waterfront property near Duxbury Beach or the Gurnet Road area, there is a specific, current civic story you need to understand before you make an offer. On June 1, 2026, Duxbury's Selectboard voted 4-0 to approve a $2.94 million betterment assessment on nearby property owners to fund Phase 2 of a seawall project protecting the Duxbury Beach/Gurnet Road shoreline. Total project cost is $14.776 million, funded by $8.8 million from the town, a $3 million state grant, and the $2.94 million property-owner assessment; Phase 1 was completed in 2018 under a similar assessment methodology.

Properties were split into four proximity tiers: 47 abutting Tier 1 properties paying 70% of the assessment (about $2.06 million) allocated by frontage; 28 Tier 2 properties paying a flat $17,875.60 each; Tier 3 properties paying a flat $19,650 each; and Tier 4 properties covering the remaining 5%. The vote drew real neighborhood pushback over the fairness of that tiering -- including at least one owner of a vacant beachfront parcel objecting that the wall provides no structural protection for their lot -- and over late changes that removed certain parcels from the assessment.

A betterment assessment like this typically attaches to the specific parcel, not to the town as a whole, and it can be paid off, still outstanding, or bonded over a period of years depending on the property. Before you make an offer on anything near Duxbury Beach or Gurnet Road, ask the listing agent and the town directly whether the specific parcel you are considering was assessed, which tier it fell into, and what -- if anything -- is still owed.

This Is General Information, Not Legal or Financial Advice

Everything on this page is general educational information about how the buying process tends to work in Duxbury, not legal, financial, or tax advice, and it is not a substitute for professional counsel on an actual transaction. Retain a Massachusetts-licensed real estate attorney before you sign a purchase agreement, and work with a licensed local agent who can confirm, for your specific parcel: current listing and comparable-sale prices direct from Zillow and Redfin, the current tax rate and any applicable betterment-assessment balance, flood-zone status, and the property's permit and deed history at the town's own records office.

Duxbury's combination of a fast-moving market (homes typically pending within 11 days), a tax rate set through Proposition 2½ rather than a flat statewide number, and a live, dollar-specific seawall assessment story near the beach and Gurnet Road means the due-diligence questions above are worth working through early -- local agent and verified pricing first, tax mechanics second, and any site-specific assessment or flood question third -- rather than skipping ahead to an offer before you have answers.