Marblehead house sells for $100,000 over list price

A consistent theme of this blog over the last two years has been that the combination of strong demand, shrinking inventory and low mortgage rates would inevitably lead to higher prices. And equally inevitably, if these conditions persisted while the local economy continued to be strong, bidding wars would break out from time to time.

To see how this pressure has been building in Marblehead, where a mantra of the market for years has been “no boom, no bust”, I looked at all MLS sales of Single Family Homes over the last 18 months, as shown in this table:

Over the last 18 months, 62 homes in Marblehead have sold above list price. Homes generally sell above list price when there is more than one buyer, so another way to put this is that there have been 62 unofficial auctions in the last 18 months. I have no doubt that at some point official auctions will become an accepted part of the local landscape as they are in so many other places.

Finally, back to the house which sold this week (and so is not included in my table) for $819,000 after being listed at $719,000. I imagine that most people when reading this will assume that the bidding wars have occurred at lower priced points in general. While that is true, I did come across one house which sold for $100,000 above its $1.3 million list price and another sold for $50,000 above its $1.4 million list price.

Read Marblehead Mid_Year Report: Onwards and Upwards for more details of the market in the first half of 2017.

If you are looking to buy, I will contact you immediately when a house that meets your needs is available. In this market you need to have somebody looking after your interests.

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

@OliverReports