Essex County Q3 market: town by town

In this post I report the numbers for the Single Family Home (SFH) market for each of the 34 cities and towns in Essex County.

Explanation of columns
The tables start with the median price for the first three Quarters for 2005 and 2006, the prior peak years, and then show 2015 and 2016 numbers.
The first highlighted column shows the percentage increase from 2015 to 2016; the second the comparison between 2016 and the prior high – normally 2005 but in some cases 2006.
The last three columns show sales YTD for 2015 and 2016 and the change.
The towns are listed, not alphabetically, but in the order of their percentage change in median price compared with the prior 2005/06 peak.

My comments are shown after the tables

Source: MLS, Oliver Reports

Comment
As reported in previous posts, the median price of a SFH in Essex County and Massachusetts improve 4% and 2.5% respectively Year on Year (YOY), and in both cases set new record highs.
As always, though, the devil is in the detail.
Of the 34 cities and towns, 15 are at a new high, while 19 remain below their prior peaks. Going deeper, 5 towns – Merrimac, Manchester, Lynnfield, Newburyport and Beverly – show increases of 10% or more; while 7 – Salisbury, Nahant, West Newbury, Rowley, Georgetown, Wenham and Essex – show prices 10% or more below the earlier peak.
And Manchester-by-the-Sea is the first town to have a median price over $1 million, although I suspect it will drop back below that figure for the year as a whole.

The law of large numbers – and small
As a basic rule of statistics – and a pretty obvious concept – the larger the sample the more reliable is the number. Thus, note that the two towns with the highest increase and all of those with declines of 10% or more had sales of fewer than 100 units.
In the most extreme example, the numbers for the town of Essex reflect just 24 sales in 2005 and 19 in 2006 and the latter seems a more realistic indication of pricing.

My offer
Summary numbers such as those in this report are a good starting point – not the total answer – for the analysis of a town’s market.
Regular readers will know of the detailed reports I publish on individual towns and which I am happy to produce on request for any town.

If you are considering selling your home please contact me on 617.834.8205 or [email protected] for a free market analysis and explanation of the outstanding marketing program I offer.

Not sure which broker to use to sell your home? Read  Which broker should I choose to sell my house?

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.

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

@OliverReports