…and here come the buyers

Last week I commented Here come the sellers on the wave of new houses hitting the market and asked if the buyers were ready. Well, this week we got the answer. Read on to find out what it was. Here is a table showing the number of Single Family Homes (SFHs) which received an accepted offer in recent periods:

Source: MLS, Oliver Reports

It seems clear that buyers have indeed stepped up to the plate, especially in Marblehead, over the last week or so. I also looked at the price ranges of the pending sales. This table shows both the 30 properties that have “gone pending” in May and the 52 overall pending, including those that went pending earlier than May.

Source: MLS, Oliver Reports

And finally an early read on prices. The median price of a SFH in Marblehead for the whole of 2013 was $535,000, with a quarterly high of $560,000 in the third quarter. So far in 2014, with 64 completed sales (about 30% of the expected total for the year), the median price is $582,500. When we add in the pending sales we get to 116 sales, roughly half the year’s expected total. Since the median price of pending sales is higher than the YTD figure,when the pending sales close the median price YTD will move a little higher. Bear in mind that the record high for Marblehead in 2006 was $585,000.

As I mention in this post  Is the housing boom coming to your town? many communities nearer Boston have already surpassed their previous peak in pricing. It looks as though Marblehead has a shot at joining those areas in 2014.

If you  – or somebody you know – are considering buying or selling a home and have questions about the market and/or current home prices, feel free to contact me on 617.834.8205 or [email protected]. Andrew Oliver is a Realtor with Harborside Sotheby’s International Realty

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