Where have all the buyers gone?

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Wait a minute, don’t I mean sellers? Isn’t the lament – posted here and everywhere else – that the housing market is being held back by the lack of sellers?

Well, yes, that is certainly true at lower price levels. In MHD, for example,there are just 16 Single Family Homes (SFHs) available for sale under $500,000, compared with a total of Sold, Under Agreement and with an Accepted Offer (SUAGAO) of 59 so far this year. That works out to less than 2 months of supply, when 6 months is regarded as a stable market.

But while the market at the higher end is booming in Boston and robust elsewhere, buyers at $1.5 million and above seem largely to have given the North Shore a pass, at least so far.

Here are some numbers I ran yesterday for Marblehead which I found startling. So far this year, the number of SFHs under $1.5 million that had either Sold, were Under Agreement or had an Accepted Offer (SUAGAO) was 124. The number available for sale was just 59, so sales and pending sales were more than twice the available supply.

Now let’s look at SFHs at $1.5 million and above. The number available was 35 – or more than half the number under $1.5 million. But the number that have sold or received an accepted offer (SUAGAO) was….4. Let’s be explicit. If sales at this level were at the same pace as sales below $1.5 million the number of sales and accepted offers would be 73. But it is just 4.

Here are the detailed numbers by price bracket:

Source:MLS,Oliver Reports

Source:MLS,Oliver Reports. The second set of numbers show sales for the whole of 2012. The available column is years of current supply at 2012 sales levels. Assuming all houses under offer close by the end of June SUAGAO would be roughly 6 months of sales. The last column would be 2 if the sales pace were the same as last year. Less than 2 indicates a faster sales pace.

These numbers got me to look at the rest of Essex County and then other counties and the State as a whole. Detailed numbers are published on www.OliverReports.com under the Massachusetts tab on the right hand side.

But here is a summary. For Essex County as a whole the ratio of Available SFHs to SUAGAO this year for all houses $1.5 mill and above is 5.1. Don’t focus on the absolute number, look at the comparisons, as shown in this table:

Source:MLS,Oliver Securities

Source:MLS,Oliver Reports

The point here is that SFHs at $1.5 million and above are selling elsewhere, in Suffolk, Norfolk and Middlesex Counties. Those three Counties have seen a total this year of SUAGAO of 362 vs just 27 for Essex County.

Let’s throw in condos in Boston (or Suffolk County as we are calling it here). SUAGAO total 134 so far this year, and 226 sold at $1.5 million and above in 2012.

Boston, of course, sees buying interest from around the world, while Norfolk has Brookline and Wellesley, and Middlesex has Belmont, Cambridge, Newton and Weston.

It may just be a timing issue as activity at higher price levels ripples out from Boston.

Whatever the reason, a buyer of a higher priced property certainly has a great opportunity today on the North Shore. With the stock market at record highs, mortgage rates at record lows and plenty of choices, that dream home can be bought today at an attractive price.