November home sales in MASS highest since 2005
Sales of SFHs increased 38% over a year ago in November. Condo sales were up 33%.
The SFH median price increased 2%, while for the condos the figure was 7%.
Median prices were the same – $275,000 – for both SFHs and condos.
Data comes from the Warren Group
Jennifer McKim boston.com December 27, 2012
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These numbers certainly sound encouraging and somewhat reflective of what we see locally as they relate to the number of transactions. I do wonder about the supposed price increase. Is this reflective of an increase in higher end homes being sold? Is this a comparison of “like” properties being sold? Locally the median price of homes has actually dropped. This is a function of a greater number of homes being sold at the lower end of the market this year versus the previous year. So have prices fallen in Marblehead?
Dick – as you say we saw a shift from about the third/fourth quarters of 2011 through the late summer of 2012 in MHD towards more houses selling below $500k. As I wrote in my November article , sales returned to a more normal pattern after that clearing out of a lot of lower priced inventory.
We have a couple more days to go before the year end but with activity no longer so concentrated at the lower end the median price in Q4 will show a sharp jump from a year ago, and the year as a whole will end up pretty well unchanged.
Check back next week for the year end numbers!