Bidding wars are an emerging trend in today’s market, and Boston happens to be one of these fierce battlegrounds. According to realtor.com, more U.S. cities are engulfed in these bidding wars as the market swells and a new generation of homebuyers rolls in. One of these areas is Worcester in Massachusetts. Its market has exploded in popularity due to the neighboring Boston’s staggering prices and limited supply of housing.

In other Boston real estate news:

• Sotheby’s International Realty Cape Cod announced the top-producing agents of their firm in 2017: Peggy Rowland, Jane Bodrie, and The Annie Hart Cool Team. According to a recent press release, Rowland had the highest sales volume for the brokerage, Bodrie had the largest number of transactions completed in the Osterville office and The Annie Hart Cool Team had both the highest amount of sales volume and the most transactions for the Falmouth office.
• A new study by MagnifyMoney.com reveals that Boston is currently placed 6th in a list of the highest metropolitan areas that spend the most money per student on public education. In addition to overall spending, this list was also compiled from costs with instruction (including teacher pay and benefits), pupil/instruction support and capital expenditures.
• The Baker administration has identified 13 neighborhoods in Boston as a portion of the 138 communities across Massachusetts that are eligible for a new federal program designed to draw investment to low-income neighborhoods. According to The Boston Globe, these neighborhoods are named federal “Opportunity Zones,” where investment in businesses or real estate could be rewarded with hefty breaks on federal capital gains taxes.
• The Boston metropolitan area has been named the second-best major metropolitan area in the U.S. for single people. An analysis by Zumper comments that Boston’s popularity with singles stems from a variety of reasons including the number of universities like Harvard and MIT to the technology-savvy nature of the city and its inhabitants.