Mass. home sales slump continues
Massachusetts single-family housing sales had their worst December since 1991, and the median sale price for a single family home fell 8.1 percent to $310,000 in December 2006.
The December median sale price is the lowest monthly figure since March 2004.
Those are among the conclusions of a report issued today by the Warren Group, a Boston provider of real estate data and the publisher of Banker & Tradesman.
On a volume basis, December single-family home sales fell 8.4 percent from December 2005 to 4,037, the lowest level for December since 1991, the report said.
"We're still in the midst of a market correction which began in the latter stages of 2005," Timothy Warren Jr., chief executive of the Warren Group, said in a statement.
He added, "We still see this as more of a soft landing than a crash, though, and we'll be watching closely the next few months for signs of stabilization."
For the full year of 2006, single-family home sales dropped 14.4 percent to 54,203, the lowest number of homes sold since 1995, and down 20 percent from the peak year of 2004, the Warren Group said.
The median sales price for a single-family home dropped 5.8 percent to $325,000 in 2006; the first annual drop since 1993, the Warren Group said.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)
