The Bedford Citizen, Bedford Real Estate Market Heating Up (emphasis added):

According to realtor Suzanne Koller of Suzanne and Company— Bedford’s branch of Keller-Williams—the real estate market has been increasingly busy over the last few months, to the point where there are ready buyers but very few houses to show them. Koller reported a recent bidding war as additional evidence of a turn in the tide.

“I’ve been begging people to sell their houses because we don’t have much inventory,” she said in a recent phone interview. “We were feeling the shift somewhat at the end of last year. It’s like they say ‘you don’t know you’ve been at the bottom until it starts to get better.’ People have been waiting to buy because they thought prices would keep going down. Now they want to move before prices get too high.”

Prospective sellers, too, have been holding out for fear of putting their houses on the market but not getting a decent price. An additional problem is that people who want to downsize—but stay in Bedford—don’t have many places to go, with tear-downs making way for million-dollar houses that increasingly replace more modest homes.

On the other end of the family-size spectrum, families that want to upsize— to get off a busy street, or to move into a more congenial neighborhood—are struggling to find a home within their price range.

“I have 12 families who want to sell their smaller homes right now,” said Koller. “They don’t have anywhere to go unless they want to spend a million dollars.”

This warming of the market is happening in other pockets around the Greater Boston area, but not in every town. Buyers appear to be targeting communities with good schools and strong public transportation or access to major commuting corridors.

Rule of thumb used to be (and perhaps still is) that you could afford a mortgage three times annual household income.  One-third of $1M = $333k.  Not a lot of $333k/year households out there even in this neck of the woods but apparently enough to sustain the current trend.  (In fact, a developer bought the 1000 sq.ft. 1940s-vintage range next door to us, tore it down, and is building something in the 3500 sq.ft. range.  It’s big.)