Real Cost of Living in Scituate, MA: Taxes and 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. The number that comes out the other end is the output of a statutory revenue cap working backward through the town's rising assessed values, not a figure the Select Board sets directly the way it might set a budget line. This mechanism applies identically across every South Shore town in this cluster — only the resulting rate differs.

Scituate's Confirmed Tax Rate: FY2025, and the South Shore Cluster Comparison

One rate year is solidly confirmed for Scituate: for FY2025, the rate was $9.99 per $1,000 of assessed value, cross-confirmed by two independent sources that agree exactly. Massachusettsalmanac.com's own Massachusetts Communities Tax Rate Fiscal Year 2025 comparison table lists Scituate at 9.99, and steve-novak.com's Scituate-specific cost-of-living guide separately states the identical figure: Property tax rate (FY2025): $9.99 per $1,000 of assessed value.

That same comparison table places Scituate squarely in the middle of its own South Shore cluster: Scituate at 9.99, Marshfield at 9.90 (very slightly lower), Duxbury at 10.14, and Cohasset at 11.58 (the highest of the four). In other words, Scituate's rate is close to Marshfield's and meaningfully lower than either Duxbury's or Cohasset's — a modest, real advantage over two of its four immediate neighbors, and a near-wash against the other.

FY2023, FY2024, and FY2026 rates could not be confirmed for this page and should not be assumed. If you need those specific years, go directly to the Massachusetts Department of Revenue's Division of Local Services Tax Rates by Class database, or contact Scituate's own Assessor's Office at 600 Chief Justice Cushing Way, Scituate Town Hall, Scituate, MA 02066 (781-545-8712), rather than relying on an interpolated guess.

What Scituate Homes Actually Cost: Several Numbers, Several Sources

Ask what a home is worth in Scituate and the answer depends heavily on which source you ask and when. Zillow's own home-values page, reflecting late-May 2026 data, shows an average home value (ZHVI) of $1,040,218, up 5.7% year over year — a notably fast-moving market, with homes typically going to pending in just 6 days.

Census QuickFacts, using 2020-2024 American Community Survey data for owner-occupied units, gives a materially lower median home value of $847,600. Ownwell's trends page (last updated April 13, 2026) lands close to that Census figure, at $842,500, with a median annual tax bill of $8,417 and a median effective property-tax rate of 1.00% — below the Massachusetts state median of 1.15%. Those two sources agree closely with each other and sit well below Zillow's live index figure, which measures something different (a real-time value estimate rather than a median sale or assessed value).

A separate, Scituate-specific cost-of-living guide at steve-novak.com estimates a materially higher median home price of roughly $1.42 million, alongside a price per square foot of $545, an estimated monthly mortgage (with 20% down) of about $7,391, and an estimated monthly property-tax bill of about $1,186 at the confirmed FY2025 rate. That ~$1.42 million figure should be treated as one source's own estimate rather than blended with the Census or Ownwell numbers above — it likely reflects active-listing or median-list-price data rather than a broader median-sale or assessed-value figure, and it has not been independently cross-confirmed. Present it as steve-novak's own estimate, not as an agreed-upon town-wide figure.

Household Income: A Real Edge Over Marshfield, With a DataUSA Caution

Census QuickFacts, drawing on 2020-2024 American Community Survey data, puts Scituate's median household income at $136,732 — notably higher than neighboring Marshfield's Census-confirmed $125,986. That is a genuine, sourced income gap between two adjacent South Shore towns, not a rounding difference.

A separate figure, $124,549, appears on a DataUSA.io profile for Scituate. That figure deserves real caution: the same DataUSA profile also reported a 2024 population of 5,796 for Scituate — a town the Census Bureau's own QuickFacts page puts at 19,662 as of its July 1, 2025 estimate. A population error that far off points to a mismatched geography or Census tract somewhere in DataUSA's pipeline, and its accompanying income figure should not be relied on without independent verification directly against Census or ACS tables. Prefer the Census QuickFacts figure of $136,732.

The Greenbush Line: A Real Commuting Advantage, With a Catch

Unlike Duxbury and Marshfield, neither of which has an MBTA station within town limits, Scituate has its own MBTA Commuter Rail service. The Greenbush Line's southern terminus, Greenbush station, sits directly in Scituate at 247 Driftway, with a second in-town stop at North Scituate station. For anyone weighing the practical cost of a Boston commute, that is a real, structural advantage neither of Scituate's southern neighbors can offer without first driving into another town.

The advantage comes with a real catch worth presenting honestly rather than as an unqualified selling point. The Greenbush Line's modern service was restored on October 31, 2007, after a 48-year gap (the original line dated to 1849 but lost passenger service in 1959), at a restoration cost of about $534 million, built partly as environmental mitigation for the Big Dig. By 2024 it recorded roughly 3,741 average daily riders — the lowest ridership of any line in the entire MBTA commuter rail system. Scituate residents get direct rail access that Duxbury and Marshfield residents do not; that access simply happens to run on the system's least-used line.

A Practical Checklist Before You Rely on Any Number Here

First, treat $9.99 per $1,000 as Scituate's confirmed FY2025 tax rate, cross-confirmed by two independent sources. FY2023, FY2024, and FY2026 were not confirmed in the research behind this page, and guessing at them would be worse than leaving the gap open.

Second, do not anchor to a single home-value number. Census QuickFacts' $847,600 and Ownwell's $842,500 agree closely with each other and are the most defensible general-purpose figures; Zillow's live $1,040,218 ZHVI measures something different (a real-time index, up 5.7% year over year); and steve-novak's roughly $1.42 million estimate should be treated as that source's own figure, likely reflecting a different methodology, rather than blended in with the others.

Third, prefer the Census QuickFacts household-income figure of $136,732 over DataUSA's $124,549, given that source's confirmed, unrelated population error for this exact town. Fourth, weigh the Greenbush Line honestly: it is a genuine cost-of-commuting advantage Duxbury and Marshfield residents do not have, but it is also the least-ridden line in the entire MBTA system, which may affect future service frequency or investment.

Finally, this page does not attempt to estimate Scituate-specific grocery, utility, or homeowners-insurance costs, and it does not state a flood-insurance Community Rating System class for the town — none of those figures were part of the confirmed research behind this page, and inventing them would be worse than leaving them out. Confirm every number here, and get current estimates for anything not covered on this page, directly with the Town of Scituate Assessor's Office, the U.S. Census Bureau, and a Massachusetts-licensed real estate agent or tax professional before relying on any of it financially. Nothing here is tax, legal, or financial advice.