The South Coast Rail is on track. What could it mean for the housing market?

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority anticipates service on the South Coast Rail beginning this summer, marking the first time since the late 1950s when passengers can take a one-seat trip from Southeast Massachusetts to Boston, Lisa Battiston, the transportation authority’s deputy press secretary, said in an email to the Globe.

Real estate experts and development officials say the extended rail service will incentivize new development and housing in the region at a time when the inventory in the state’s housing market is nearly bottoming out. But new transportation access could temporarily bump up costs in some areas, they said, stopping short of predicting that prices would shift across these cities in the long run.

Pateakos said Taunton is trying its best to keep rents as low as possible.

“But, you know, some of that is out of our control for sure,” Pateakos said. “I mean, there’s a little bit of concern. I think it’s happened in every community.” As of March, the median list price for a one-bedroom apartment in Taunton was $1,318, according to ApartmentAdvisor, an online data marketplace.

Buyers’ interest in Bristol County, where the three cities sit, has grown even as prices in the region continue to increase.

Median list prices increased by 60.5 percent between July 2016 and January 2024, from $342,400 to $549,450, according to Realtor.com data retrieved from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The median price swelled by 57.4 percent in Suffolk County, from $675,000 to $1,062,500 during the same period.

The ballooning prices aren’t curtailing interest in Bristol County. Market hotness — a Realtor.com calculation of average listing views for properties in a market divided by the average listing views in the United States — has increased 29.9 percent there between August 2017 and January 2024, compared with a decrease of 32.5 percent in Suffolk County.

Theresa Hatton, chief executive of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, said increased access to public transit can boost housing inventory, which is the premise behind the MBTA Communities Act. Housing prices may bump up in the short term, Hatton said, “but that might not be directly attributed to the rail. It’s more likely attributed to our housing crisis and the shortage of units.”

New Bedford’s entire market shouldn’t be affected by the new rail line, said Derek Santos, executive director of the New Bedford Economic Development Council, but the nonprofit expects costs to shift upward close to the city’s stations.

But Unee Washington — the owner of UW Realty Co., which is selling 457 units in Fall River — said costs are already growing in the city, which was once a key player in America’s textile industry.

Washington remembers an amazing downtown when she was a child, when she’d get candy and clothes from the factories and play around Battleship Cove. But it died “as its textile plants shuttered due to globalization of the business process,” said the broker, who views it now as a “phoenix rising” and an “affordable housing oasis” as its waterfront develops.

“Some people will say: ‘Oh, this is an invasion. You’re coming in to steal Fall River,’” Washington said. “Well, it’s a city that’s open to development right now and welcomes the retrofit,” she said, adding that her portfolio in Fall River is more affordable than options in Boston and slightly less expensive than in New Bedford

High prices in Boston drove first-time buyer Brianna Jeanty to Stoughton after first looking for real estate in Boston. She moved with her sister to a multifamily home with quick access to the commuter rail in the Norfolk County town after renting for a year and thinking, Why am I spending this money paying somebody else’s mortgage when I could buy a house and pay toward my mortgage?

Hatton said buyers started migrating out of Boston during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the rail expansion may bring even more buyers to the Southeast. “We’re very much hoping that as the rails expand, and as development increases around those locations, that there’s going to be an opportunity for people to have a bit of relief compared to what they’re experiencing today,” she said.

Total listings in Bristol County have fallen from 2,060 in July 2016 to just 460 in January 2024, according to the Realtors.com data compiled by the Federal Reserve. In Suffolk County, the change was less dramatic, as inventory dropped from 1,309 to 857 during the same period.

A 275-unit development is coming to the same parcel as East Taunton Station, said Michael Boujoulian, the New England managing director of Alliance Residential Co., the 43-acre site’s developer. The company became interested in the property after it heard that construction on the station had begun.

“I can say that without the train there, our interest level would have certainly been quite a bit less,” Boujoulian said of the site, which will feature mostly one- and two-bedroom units.

Hatton said the train’s reliability will matter. Joe Bernardi and Katie Searl, who live in Malden, were checking out a home at 60 Richmond Ave. in Worcester in late February. They’d love to stay near Boston, Searl said, but it’s hard to find an income property there under $700,000.

Searl grew up in Worcester and was living there a few years ago when she experienced a medical emergency that kept her from driving. She had to leave home by 6 or 7 a.m. to get to Boston by 10 a.m. on the commuter rail, she said.

“It was just very frustrating not having any independence, which is one of the reasons I moved into Boston, and you just felt really stuck,” Searl said, adding that the state should make the trains faster and more accessible.

Battiston said more than 93 percent of commuter rail trains arrived within five minutes of their scheduled arrival times in 2023. She said the MBTA believes the rail has the potential to jump-start significant economic development.

Once the South Coast Rail is operational, Washington said, “more people will choose to maximize their Boston salaries and save on housing by residing in Fall River, because that is a huge pain point right now.”

Pateakos called the South Coast Rail “transformative.” He said Taunton wants to make the corridor around Route 140 just down the street from the station a destination.

“We don’t want people to just come to the rail and leave,” Pateakos said. “We want people to come to the rail and be like: ‘Oh, my god, Taunton is awesome. I’m going to go to this arcade, or I’m going to go to this restaurant or shopping.’”

Santos said the train schedule will be limited at first, “but you have to start somewhere, right?”

Every Massachusetts community is short on housing, he continued, from senior housing to low-income units.

“There’s a need across every band,” Santos said, “and it’ll be interesting for us to see once the commuter rail starts, how those trends start to actually evolve for real.”

You can reach Victor Stefanescu at victor.stefanescu@globe.com. Follow him on X @vic_stef. Subscribe to our weekly real estate newsletter at Boston.com/address-newsletter, and follow us on X @globehomes.