Essex County Median Prices: town by town guide

Mid-year is a good time to look at Essex County Median Prices for Single Family Homes (SFH) on a town by town basis.
Guide to the tables
The 34 cities and towns are listed in alphabetical order. The first two columns show the median prices for the first half of 2005 and 2006 – I show both years because the peak year was 2005 in some towns and 2006 in others.
The next two columns show the median price for 2015 and 2016, followed by the percentage change of 2016 over 2015. Following that is a column showing the change in 2016 from the pre-great recession high, whether it be 2005 or 2006.
And finally, I show sales for the two years. This is important because the smaller the number of sales the greater the chance that median prices will show bigger swings.
Note that the median price for the whole of Massachusetts increased 3% and for Essex County 4% compared with 2015, while some towns with a very small number of sales often saw much bigger increases – and indeed decreases.
As always, having the numbers is a start – it is the interpretation that is important. I can produce, on request, for any of these towns the same detailed analysis I publish regularly on Marblehead, Swampscott, Salem, Beverly and Lynn.

Source:MLS, Oliver Reports

Comment
The first half of 2016 saw a strong increase in sales – up 14% in Essex County and 19% throughout Massachusetts, while median prices increased modestly – by 4% in Essex Co and 3% in MA – but to new record highs.Within these numbers the figures for individual cities and towns vary widely.
Median Price compared with 2015
23 towns saw price increases while 11 saw decreases. 4 towns had increases of 18% or more, but in all these cases sales were under 50 units. Similarly, all the towns with decreases of 10% or more occurred in towns with sales fewer than 40 units. The median town saw a price increase of 6%. (The median price increase for Essex County of 4% comes from using all 2,751 sales individually; the number here is derived from sales by town.)
Median Price compared with 2005-06 peak
While 12 towns show an increase over the pre-great recession peak, fully 22 have yet to see prices return to those levels. But here again, all 10 towns showing a 10% or greater decline from the peak have sales under 50 ( well ok one has 51). And the two with the highest increase have sales under 40 units.The median town price still shows a 4% decline from the peak (as against a 3% increase using individual sales).

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Andrew Oliver is a Realtor with Harborside Sotheby’s International Realty. Each Office Is Independently Owned and Operated

@OliverReports