Mass. home sales and prices fall
December figures show decline picked up pace at year's end
Sales of single-family homes in Massachusetts dropped 12.6 percent last year, as sellers refrained from reducing prices and buyers refrained from buying. The median home price fell just 1.5 percent, to $330,000.
Condominium sales fell 12 percent, while the median price held steady at $279,000.
The numbers exclude thousands of foreclosures, but include any subsequent sales of those foreclosed properties. The data are aggregated from public records by Warren Group, a real estate publisher.
The volume of residential sales is at levels last seen in the early 1990s. And the decline accelerated in December, as single-family house sales dropped 23 percent, compared to December 2006. Condominium sales dropped 27 percent.
"It's certainly noteworthy that this deep into a correction, to see the numbers accelerate, that was a bit of an eye-opener," said Terry Egan, editor in chief of Banker & Tradesman, Warren Group's weekly newspaper.
The contraction of the real estate market is part of a national downturn. Tighter lending standards have limited the number of people who can buy homes and the amounts they can borrow. At the same time, a growing number of foreclosed properties are being resold at discounts.
National numbers released yesterday showed sales of newly built homes fell 26 percent last year, the largest decline in at least four decades. It was previously reported that existing-home sales fell 13 percent nationwide. And both new and existing sales posted steep declines in December.
The drop in sales volume suggests that buyers cannot or will not pay the asking prices. Historically, there are only two resolutions: price cuts, or an improved economy, which increases the amount of money buyers can spend.
The new year opened with conflicting signals: Interest rates dropped to the lowest levels in years, effectively cutting the cost of buying a house, but the economy appears to be weakening.
"Hopefully, the folks who are on the fence about owning a home will take advantage of this buyer's market . . . to get sales moving in the first quarter," said Susan Renfrew, president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors.
The trade group also released year-end data yesterday, reporting that sales assisted by a real estate agent declined 4.3 percent last year, while median prices declined 1.3 percent. The data capture about 89 percent of the sales counted by Warren Group, excluding sales by owners, for example.
Both sets of state numbers obscure strength in certain markets.
Among cities and towns with at least 50 single-family sales, the Warren Group data show that median prices actually increased in 53 communities and decreased in 199. In the Boston area, Lincoln posted the largest uptick. Prices in the exclusive suburb rose 27 percent. Southborough brought up the rear, with prices falling 23 percent.
In general, prices in second-home markets such as Nantucket and the Berkshires remained strong, while prices fell in urban areas and in suburbs farther from Boston. But much of the variation was harder to parse, as illustrated by the closely linked towns of Dover, where prices rose 6 percent, and Sherborn, where prices fell 23 percent.
Binyamin Appelbaum can be reached at bappelbaum@globe.com. 