Mass. May home sales drop on year-to-year basis
The median selling price in May for single-family homes in Massachusetts fell 9.2 percent to $322,500, compared with $355,000 in May 2007, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors reported today
The volume of Massachusetts single-family homes sold fell 10.1 percent in May to 3,491 in a year-to-year comparison, the association said, and the median selling price for a Massachusetts condominium in May dropped 2.6 percent from $290,000 in May 2007 to $282,500 in May 2008, the association said.
On a volume basis, the number of Massachusetts condos sold in May fell 24.5 percent to 1,640, the association said.
The Warren Group, a provider of local real estate data and publisher of Banker & Tradesman, issued a separate report on the Massachusetts housing market today. The Warren Group uses a different method to track residential real estate activity than the realtors association does.
The median price of single-family homes dropped 7.8 percent in May, falling from $350,000 last year to $322,500, the Warren Goup said, and sales of single-family homes fell 12.7 percent from 4,284 in May 2007 to 3,739 in May 2008.
Condominium sales continued to fall dramatically in May, with a 29.6 percent decline, from 2,855 to 2,010, the Warren Group said, and condo prices rose 1 percent in May from $285,000 to $288,000.
Ever upbeat, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors saw bright spots in the monthly report.
"Both single-family home sales and condominium sales experienced their biggest April-to-May percentage increase in the past 10 years," the association said in a press release. "While year-over-year single-family home sales were down 10.1 percent in May, this is the smallest decrease since September 2007."
In a statement, Susan M. Renfrew, president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, added: “While the number of sales for both single-family homes and condos were down in May, these decreases continue to narrow since the start of the year, which is definitely a move in the right direction. It is also a positive sign that median prices on a month-to-month basis continue to move up. However, the 9.2 percent year-to-year median price drop indicates that the growing number of distressed sales continues to have an impact.”
In a statement, Timothy Warren Jr., chief executive of the Warren Group, said: “The first sign of a recovery in the housing market will be a rebound in home sales. We’re not there yet, but this is the second month in a row that sales have shown smaller declines than we’ve been seeing since the last quarter of last year. It could mean that more people were coming out to view and buy houses on the market as the weather warmed up earlier this year. But we still have a long way to go before we’ll see sales increase, and even longer before prices will turn around.”
The Warren Group said last month that the median single-family home price in Massachusetts fell about 12 percent in April to $305,000.
Meanwhile, in a separate report that took a long-range view of the housing market, the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University said today that the housing downturn continues to pressure the US economy.
"The nation is in the throes of a housing downturn that is shaping up to be the worst in a generation," the Harvard study said. (Read more about the Harvard study.)
Along with its monthly report, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors is introducing a new feature called "Housing Numbers Podcast." To hear that podcast, in which Renfrew gives the association's analysis of the local housing market, please click here.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)
