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Boston’s luxury boom comes courtesy of Moderna

Covid vaccine has company execs flocking to market

Moderna's Tracey Franklin and St. Regis Residences Boston (Getty, Moderna)
Moderna's Tracey Franklin and St. Regis Residences Boston (Getty, Moderna)

Covid vaccines didn’t just help fight the pandemic – they also boosted the high-end market in Boston, where Moderna employees are seeking expensive homes.

Moderna employees inserted themselves into the city’s luxury market in a major way in recent years, the Wall Street Journal reported. One broker, Lori Orchanian of Coldwell Banker Realty, referred to it as the “Moderna halo effect.”

Shares of the company, based in Cambridge’s Kendall Square, soared after its vaccine became one of the FDA-approved shots for Covid-19, jumping to almost $500 in August from $28 in March 2021. Revenue surged to $18.5 billion from $60 million in 2019.

As the company succeeded, so did its personnel. Headcount increased to more than 3,200 from 830 at the end of 2019. The median employee salary at the end of last year was $133,000.

That led employees into the city’s luxury market. One broker said a Moderna executive reserved the option to buy a 17th-floor unit at St. Regis Residences Boston for $4.95 million just two hours after a Pfizer employee purchased a unit one floor below for $4.85 million.

“He just looked at me, completely serious and said, ‘I want the same home, but I need to be one floor higher than Pfizer,’” the St. Regis sales director told the publication.

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New hires are part of the surge. Neal Dahiya, head of litigation, closed on a Cambridge house for $3.4 million in June 2021, five months after being hired, although he’s exiting the role.

Allyson Nicholson, vice president of supply chain design, bought a Westwood home for $2.5 million two months after joining Moderna in September. Chief Human Resources Officer Tracey Franklin and her husband paid $6 million for a Boston home in April 2021.

Employees have spread their wealth beyond Boston, too. Some have made big-ticket purchases in Cape Cod and New York. Long-time employees were part of the push.

The median luxury sale price in Boston has been soaring, although Moderna can’t take all of the credit. Last month, the median price was $2.2 million, according to Redfin, up 15.8 percent year-over-year and close to 30 percent from June 2020.

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— Holden Walter-Warner

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BostonCoronavirusLuxury Market