Real Cost of Living in Hull, MA: Taxes and Home Prices

How Massachusetts Property Tax Actually Works: Proposition 2½

Massachusetts towns do not simply pick a tax rate each year. Under Proposition 2½, a 1980 ballot law, the total property-tax revenue a town may collect — its levy — is capped, and that levy can grow year over year by only 2.5% plus whatever new revenue comes from newly built or improved property (new growth), unless voters approve an override at town meeting or the ballot.

Only after that levy ceiling is set does a town divide it by its total assessed value to produce a rate expressed per $1,000 of assessed value. This mechanism applies identically across every South Shore town in this cluster, including Hull — the difference below is that, unlike Cohasset, Scituate, and Marshfield, Hull's own resulting rate could not actually be confirmed in this research.

Hull's Tax Rate: an Open Gap, Not a Number to Guess At

Direct attempts to confirm Hull's current property tax rate — in dollars per $1,000 of assessed value — from the Town of Hull's own Assessors' page and from two statewide comparison tables did not return Hull's specific line-item figure. The town's own tax-rate page returned an error, and the comparison tables returned only surrounding page structure rather than Hull's own number.

That means, unlike this cluster's other four towns, Hull's exact current tax rate is genuinely unconfirmed here — not omitted for space, and not assumed to match a neighboring town. Cohasset's FY2025 rate of $11.58 per $1,000, Duxbury's 10.14, Scituate's 9.99, and Marshfield's 9.90 are all documented elsewhere in this cluster's research, but none of those figures should be carried over and applied to Hull. Anyone who needs Hull's actual current rate should get it directly from the Massachusetts Department of Revenue's Division of Local Services Tax Rates by Class database, or from the Town of Hull Assessors' Office, rather than from an estimate.

One related figure is confirmed: Ownwell.com's own trends page puts Hull's median effective property-tax rate — a different measure than the statutory per-$1,000 rate — at 1.12%, just under the Massachusetts state median of 1.15% and above the U.S. median of 1.02%.

What Hull Homes Actually Cost: Three Numbers, Three Sources, No Blending

Ask what a home is worth in Hull and, as with every town in this cluster, the honest answer depends on which source you ask. Ownwell's trends page gives a median home value of $536,850, alongside a median annual tax bill of $6,012 (against a stated national median of $2,400) — the lowest median home value confirmed among the three figures below.

Zillow's own home-values page, reflecting late-June 2026 data, shows an average home value (ZHVI) of $731,712, up 2.2% year over year, with a median list price of $792,333 as of June 30, 2026, 70 homes for sale, and homes typically going to pending in 25 days. Redfin, drawing on November 2025 data, gives a median sale price of $725,000, up 19.8% year over year, with 39 days on market and 15 homes sold that month, up from 9 the prior year.

These three figures — $536,850 (Ownwell), $731,712 (Zillow ZHVI), and $725,000 (Redfin median sale price) — reflect three different methodologies and data vintages, not one number with rounding noise. Ownwell's figure leans on assessment-vintage data, Zillow's is a live index estimate, and Redfin's is an actual recent-transaction median. Cite whichever matches what you need, and say which source it is.

What is not in question: Zillow's $731,712 ZHVI is, by a wide margin, the lowest average home value confirmed anywhere in this five-town South Shore cluster — compare Cohasset's $1,474,056, Scituate's $1,040,218, and Marshfield's $803,822. On this cluster's own numbers, Hull is the most affordable Boston-adjacent, water-proximate real estate on this stretch of the South Shore, not a close second.

Household Income: a Range, Not a Single Figure

Wikipedia's own Hull town-article data gives a median household income of $128,022. DataUSA's separate profile gives $115,485 for its most recent year, which it describes as a 9.15% decline from the prior year's $127,112. These two figures sit in roughly the same range but do not agree exactly, so the honest way to state Hull's household income is as a range — roughly $115,000 to $128,000 — rather than a single precise number.

DataUSA's figures should be treated with the same caution this cluster's research has applied to that source elsewhere: this same DataUSA profile separately claims that no households in Hull report speaking a non-English language at home, while also reporting a 6.09% foreign-born population — an internally inconsistent claim that should not be used. That does not mean every DataUSA figure for Hull is wrong, but it is a reason to prefer Census-sourced figures over DataUSA ones where both exist, and to double-check DataUSA numbers before relying on them.

DataUSA separately gives a poverty rate of 5.8% (587 people), well under its stated 12.5% national average, and an average commute time of 33.2 minutes against a 26.4-minute U.S. average, with 67% driving alone and an average of two vehicles per household.

Schools: an Above-Average District, and the Lowest-Ranked in the Cluster

Niche.com gives Hull Public Schools an overall grade of B — an above-average public school district, in Niche's own framing — with a statewide ranking of #128 of 217 Massachusetts districts, and #14 of the districts in Plymouth County. Academics and Teachers each grade B+, and the student-teacher ratio is a genuinely favorable 8:1, versus a stated 16:1 national average.

Set against this cluster's other four towns, though, Hull is the lowest-ranked: Duxbury is #20 of 217 statewide, Scituate #45, Cohasset #47, Marshfield #61, and Hull #128. That is a real, meaningful gap within the cluster, not a rounding difference, and it should be presented honestly rather than smoothed over — Hull's schools are solidly above average on their own terms, just not competitive with its wealthier South Shore neighbors on this particular ranking.

The district itself changed structure recently: Memorial Middle School closed in 2024, with grades 6 to 7 folded into the renamed Jacobs School (pre-K through grade 8) and grade 8 moved to Hull High School. Total 2025–26 enrollment across both schools is 690 students — a real decline from the roughly 1,250 students reported for the district's older, three-school structure — so any current description of Hull's schools should use the current Jacobs/Hull High two-school structure, not the older setup.

A Practical Checklist Before You Rely on Any Number Here

First, Hull's exact current property tax rate could not be confirmed in this research and should not be estimated from a neighboring town's rate. Get it directly from the Massachusetts Department of Revenue's Tax Rates by Class database or the Town of Hull Assessors' Office. Ownwell's separately confirmed 1.12% median effective tax rate is a different measure and does not substitute for the statutory per-$1,000 figure.

Second, do not anchor to a single home-value number. Ownwell's $536,850, Zillow's $731,712 ZHVI, and Redfin's $725,000 median sale price are three different, non-interchangeable figures from three different methods and data vintages — cite the one that matches your purpose and name the source.

Third, treat Hull's household income as a range — roughly $115,000 to $128,000 — rather than a single number, and treat any DataUSA figure for Hull with extra caution given the internally inconsistent language-spoken-at-home claim on that same profile.

Finally, this page does not attempt to estimate Hull-specific grocery, utility, or homeowners-insurance costs, and Hull's flood-prone, peninsula geography (295 FEMA-tracked repetitive-loss properties, per the town's own 2024 hazard-mitigation plan) makes flood-insurance costs a genuinely important, town-specific question this page does not answer — get a current, address-specific flood-insurance estimate before buying. Confirm every number here directly with the Town of Hull Assessors' Office, the U.S. Census Bureau, and a Massachusetts-licensed real estate agent or tax professional before relying on any of it financially. Nothing on this page is tax, legal, or financial advice.