MASS home prices reach highest level since 2007
This week the Massachusetts Association of Realtors released its June report Massachusetts median prices back to 2007 levels.
That sounds good and is certainly good news for homeowners, but let’s dig a little deeper into the numbers. This chart shows median prices for Single Family Homes (SFH) in MASS on a quarterly basis since 2004. As always, my numbers exclude foreclosures and short sales.
Source: MLS, Oliver Reports
The message I take from this table is one of how stable prices overall have been in Massachusetts. Prices did decline from late 2008 to mid 2009, but quickly recovered the majority of that fall.
Perhaps this next chart, which shows the median price for the first half of each of the last several years, will make the picture clearer:
Source: MLS, Oliver Reports
In conclusion, I would say that these numbers confirm what I have written many time before; Massachusetts did not have the boom of other notorious markets – think Miami, Phoenix, etc. – but also did not have the bust. And the recovery of the last few years has not created a bubble, or anything like it.
Editor’s note: when this blog was first published this morning the second table was incorrectly labeled as Marblehead. All numbers in this article refer to Massachusetts overall.
I basically agree with your comments. But what we need to remember are all those people that bought in 2004, 2005, 2006 thinking that their property would continue to gain the values seen from 2000 to the time they purchased. These folks also financed and planned their lives according to this belief – for them this period was clearly a bubble and a bust.