Waterfront vs. Non-Waterfront in Hull, MA

Three Home-Value Figures, Not One Blended Number

Ask what a home is worth in Hull and the honest answer depends on which source you ask, and none of the figures below are broken out separately for waterfront versus inland property — they are townwide figures, presented here without blending. Zillow's own home-values page, reflecting late-June 2026 data, puts the town's average home value (ZHVI) at $731,712, up 2.2% year-over-year, with a median list price of $792,333 and 70 homes for sale. Redfin, drawing on November 2025 data, gives a median sale price of $725,000, up 19.8% year-over-year, with homes going to pending in 39 days. Ownwell's own trends page gives a lower figure still: a median home value of $536,850, alongside a median annual tax bill of $6,012 and an effective tax rate of 1.12%.

These three numbers — $536,850, $725,000, and $731,712 — reflect different methodologies and data vintages, not the same figure rounded three ways: Ownwell leans on assessment-vintage data, Redfin reflects actual recent-transaction medians, and Zillow is a live index estimate. What is not in question is Hull's position in its own cluster: Zillow's $731,712 ZHVI is, by a wide margin, the lowest average home value confirmed across this site's five-town South Shore research, well below Cohasset's $1,474,056, Scituate's $1,040,218, and Marshfield's $803,822. On every figure this research could confirm, Hull is the most affordable water-proximate town in this stretch of the South Shore, not a close second.

The Real Distinction Here Isn't Waterfront vs. Inland — It's Degree of Exposure

In a town where only 2.8 square miles is land, calling any neighborhood truly "non-waterfront" overstates the case. Hull sits on a chain of glacial drumlins connected by narrow necks of land, a shape one 1867 gazetteer described as "five small hills, connected by very narrow necks" — and that shape means water is visible or a short walk away from most of the peninsula, not confined to a single premium strip the way it is in towns with more interior acreage. The real distinction buyers should weigh in Hull is not whether a property has water access at all, but how directly it faces the open ocean or a tidal channel versus sitting on a more sheltered inner cove, pond, or hillside with a water view rather than a water edge.

That distinction matters most for flood risk and insurance cost, not for whether water is nearby at all — a point the flood-risk section below addresses directly rather than assuming one risk profile fits the whole town.

Named Areas Closest to the Water: Gunrock, Allerton Hill, and Pemberton Point

Gunrock, on Hull's southeastern coast, takes its name from the rocky Gunrock Beach outcrop and mixes older beachfront cottages with newer custom homes; it sits near the Hull Lifesaving Museum and Fort Revere Park. A July 2026 real-estate-marketing snapshot put Gunrock's median list price at $519,000 with only one active listing at the time — treat that figure as a thin-inventory, single-source marketing snapshot rather than an authoritative neighborhood benchmark, since one listing does not make a market.

Allerton, or Allerton Hill, is a quieter residential hill neighborhood with views toward Boston Light, named for Mayflower passenger Isaac Allerton and marked with a plaque at Point Allerton. It is also the neighborhood that once held the Fitzgerald-Kennedy family's summer house: John F. Fitzgerald, Boston's "Honey Fitz" mayor and the maternal grandfather of President John F. Kennedy, bought the Tudor Revival house in 1915, and it served as the extended family's summer gathering place — including a young JFK himself — years before Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. purchased the Cape Cod property that became the famous Hyannis Port compound. Hull, in other words, was the Fitzgerald-Kennedy family's original South Shore summer home, not simply a lesser-known stand-in for Hyannis Port.

Pemberton, at the peninsula's northern tip, was historically called Windmill Point before taking its current name in the 1820s. It is now home to Hull High School, the Point Allerton Coast Guard Station, and the MBTA ferry terminal — meaning this water-facing neighborhood also carries Hull's most distinctive commuting asset, covered below.

Hull Village and Telegraph Hill: Set Back, Still Peninsula-Close

Hull Village, the town's historic core, sits near Fort Revere and Telegraph Hill — the site of a Revolutionary War-era fortification, later rebuilt as the Endicott-era Fort Revere between 1898 and 1906, and today an 8-acre park run by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. Hull Village is also home to Hull Village Cemetery, where lifesaver Joshua James is buried and where the town holds "Joshua James Day" each May 23. Of everywhere in Hull, this historic core is about as close to a genuinely inland, village-feeling location as the town offers — and even here, the water is a short walk away, not a long drive, simply because of how little land the town has to work with.

Other named residential areas and coves fill out the rest of the peninsula: Green Hill, Straits Pond, Crescent Beach, Atlantic Hill, Rockaway, Sagamore Hill, Hampton Circle, Sunset Point, and Stony Beach, plus Nantasket Beach and Nantasket itself at the peninsula's southern end. Each has its own character, but none sits more than a few minutes from open water, tidal pond, or harbor — which is the underlying reason this page frames Hull's real estate choice around degree of water exposure rather than a simple waterfront/non-waterfront split.

Hull Gut: A Notable Boating Feature, Not a Hull-Owned Island

Hull Gut is a narrow, naturally dredged channel roughly half a mile wide and about 35 feet deep, running between Pemberton Point and Peddocks Island's East Head, and forming the southern entrance to Boston Harbor's inner harbor. It carries strong cross-currents and heavy commercial vessel traffic, and it is a genuine landmark for anyone boating out of Hull — Hull Yacht Club, founded in 1880, and several marinas around the peninsula all operate in waters that connect through or near it. One important clarification: Peddocks Island, on the Gut's far shore, is administratively part of neighboring Hingham, not Hull, and should not be treated as one of Hull's own harbor islands when weighing a Hull property's water access or views.

Flood Risk Is Real and Address-Specific, Not Uniform Across the Peninsula

Hull's narrow, low-lying, harbor-mouth geography makes it genuinely storm-exposed, and the town's own 2024 hazard-mitigation plan draft documents 295 FEMA-tracked repetitive-loss properties — 261 standard and 34 severe — with combined historical claims exceeding $16.5 million since 1978, a large count for a town with only 2.8 square miles of land. At least 14 locally identified flood-hazard or seawall-need areas appear in that same plan, including Atlantic Avenue, Nantasket Beach, Stony Beach, and Point Allerton. Separately, Hull is named as eligible for a $1.1 million FEMA grant for shoreline-protection work on Harborview Road — an application, not yet an awarded or completed project, as of this research.

None of this means every Hull property carries the same flood exposure. FEMA flood-zone designations spanning AO, AE, A1 through A30, X500, and VE all apply somewhere within the town, and a property's actual zone, base flood elevation, and insurance cost depend entirely on its specific parcel, not on which named neighborhood it sits in. This page will not assign a flood zone to any neighborhood named above — confirm the exact designation for a specific address directly through FEMA's Map Service Center, and get a real insurance quote for that address before assuming either a waterfront premium or a flood-insurance cost from a neighborhood's reputation alone.

Weighing the Tradeoffs Before You Decide

Hull's version of the waterfront-versus-inland question is less about whether water is nearby — in a town that is 89.6% water, it almost always is — and more about degree of exposure, flood risk, and what a specific micro-market like Gunrock or Allerton Hill is actually asking, versus the town's broader, and more affordable, home-value figures. Pemberton adds a practical edge unique to this cluster: its MBTA ferry terminal makes a direct-to-Boston-Harbor commute possible without driving to a neighboring town's rail station, since Hull itself has no commuter-rail stop. Hull Village and the surrounding historic core offer the closest thing to a set-back, village-style alternative, without ever being far from the water given the town's shape.

None of the figures on this page should be read as a single, reconciled price premium for water exposure — get current comparable sales from a Hull-based real estate agent, a parcel-specific flood-zone determination from FEMA's Map Service Center, and a current tax-rate confirmation from the Town of Hull Assessors' Office before comparing two specific properties. Nothing on this page is legal, insurance, or financial advice.