"You can actually get out of Boston fairly quickly to reasonably priced real estate" Maybe compared to SV. I'd argue that it's surprisingly still very expensive even an hour out of Boston. I always wonder who are these wealthy people that can afford these million+ dollar mansions not even close to Boston.
It depends a lot on the town and the property. Massachusetts is certainly not cheap in general but get outside of 495 and there are many decent properties for far less than a million. It's also the case that a ton of Massachusetts companies are not in the city. Tech was historically not in the city much at all. So living 45 minutes plus outside the city can actually be a lot more convenient to many jobs than closer in.
A lot of people who live that relatively far out just don't go into Boston much.
