August Bay State Home Sales Drop To Lowest Level In Two Decades

Single-Family Home Sales Decline 18 Percent, Prices Creep Up

09/28/10

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To hear The Warren Group CEO Timothy Warren Jr. explain the low number of home sales, click here.

Sales of Massachusetts single-family homes in August plummeted to their lowest level in more than two decades, according to the latest report by The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.
A total of 3,659 single-family homes sold in Massachusetts in August, an 18.5 percent drop from 4,492 sales in August 2009. It represented the second consecutive month of year-over-year sales declines. This is the first time sales have fallen below 4,000 in the month of August since The Warren Group began tracking data in 1987. Prior to last month, the lowest number of single-family home sales tracked in August was 4,100 in 1990.
Sales of single-family homes edged up from a month ago, when there were 3,590 sales of single-family homes. Year-to-date sales climbed 9.35 percent to 28,567, up from 26,124 a year ago.
"Sales volume in the real estate market remains slow as an after-effect of the expiration of the popular tax credit for homebuyers. Anxiety and uncertainty in the minds of consumers regarding rising foreclosures, the economy, jobs and financial markets all played a role in keeping potential homebuyers on the sidelines this summer," said The Warren Group CEO Timothy M. Warren Jr. "I'm afraid that the slumping real estate market led the country into the recession and the market's continuing malaise is holding back any kind of strong economic recovery."
Year-to-date sales were up in every county.
The median price of single-family homes crept up 3.9 percent to $315,000 in August, up from $303,000 a year earlier. Median prices of single-family homes in Massachusetts dropped from a month ago, when the median price was $320,000. August marked the third straight month of the year that the median price exceeded $300,000. The median price for homes sold January through August was $300,000, up almost 5.26 percent from $285,000 in the prior year.
In August, condominium sales also dropped in the Bay State, declining 23.3 percent from a year earlier. A total of 1,620 condos sold in August, down from 2,113 a year ago.
Year-to-date condo sales were up 9 percent, increasing to 12,830 from 11,764 during the same period last year.
Condo sales increased slightly from a month earlier, when 1,482 condos sold in Massachusetts.
The median condo price also increased in August. The median selling price was $298,500, up 8.5 percent from $275,000 a year earlier. The year-to-date median price of condos in the Bay State is $266,000, up 3.5 percent from $257,000 a year ago.