Decline in housing sales grows steeper

The drop-off in Massachusetts home sales last year just got worse.

The Warren Group, a Boston real-estate services firm, reported yesterday that sales of single-family homes declined 7.6 percent last year. That is much larger than the 3.5 percent drop in 2005 sales reported recently by the Massachusetts Association of Realtors in its year-end report.

Warren Group's data show ''a little slower market," though ''not a precipitous drop," said Tim Warren, chief executive of the family-owned Warren Group, which reported the sales figures yesterday in Banker & Tradesman, a weekly publication that it owns.

''I would say our numbers are probably more complete because they come from the public record data and not from realtors," he said. Warren Group's data are collected from registries of deeds in each Massachusetts county.

John Dulczewski, spokesman for the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, confirmed that his organization's data are culled strictly from real estate agents' listings in five multiple listing services operating across Massachusetts. The association's data do not include private transactions, such as a parent's sale to offspring, or sales by owners, or builders directly to buyers.

''Ours is strictly realtor-affiliated sales" for virtually all full-time, active agents working in the state, Dulczewski said.

The Warren Group, as a result, reported a larger number of statewide home sales in 2005 -- 63,350, compared with the association's 49,306 sales.

Both groups said house prices, nevertheless, went up last year. Warren's median house price in Massachusetts was $345,000 last year, up 5.5 percent from 2004; the association's median 2005 price was $354,000, up 2.6 percent.

The disparity between the association's and Warren's data is typical of the results historically, Dulczewski said. The association's 2005 data reflect well on agents' sales abilities, he said. Owners are typically more successful in selling their own properties in strong housing markets than they are in softening markets -- that worse track record may be reflected in Warren's steeper drop.

''If the number of sales involving realtors didn't decline as much," he said, ''then realtors are doing a better job of maintaining their business than builders and for-sale-by-owners are."

Warren and the realtors group reported the same news about condos: 2005 sales broke another record.

Warren Group said condo sales in Massachusetts were 34,672, up 12.14 percent from 2004 sales of 30,918. The median price increased 8.11 percent, to $278,379. (Association of Realtors data show a 3.8 percent increase, to $275,000).

Warren said two of the biggest gains in condo sales occurred in Middlesex and Worcester counties, which had sales increases of 29 and 30 percent, respectively.

Surprised by the strength of sales in Worcester County, Warren said, ''You don't typically think of Worcester County as having so many condos."

A large increase in Middlesex condo sales, he said, was due to ''people switching from single-family homes to condos" who are ''wanting to stay in the town they have lived in but wanting to downsize."

Kimberly Blanton can be reached at blanton@globe.com.