Warren Group: Local housing prices fall by 20%

(File photo: Mark Humphrey/AP)

The new year got off to a slow start in the local housing market as the January median price for a single family home in Massachusetts fell to $259,250, the lowest the local median price has been since March 2002, the Warren Group said today.

January marked the fifth consecutive month that single-family median home prices have been off by double-digit percentages, with the January 2009 price down 20.2 percent from $325,000 in January 2008, said the Warren Group, a Boston firm that tracks real estate data and publishes Banker & Tradesman.

The number of sales was also off in the Bay State. Condominium sales hit a 17-year low for the month of January. As for single-family homes, 1,908 single-family homes were sold in January, down 10.3 percent from the 2,126 sold in January 2008. For single family homes, it was the lowest sales volume for the month of January in the 22 years that the Warren Group has been tracking the Massachusetts residential real estate market, the firm said.

“This is a really slow start to this year’s housing market,” Timothy M. Warren Jr., chief executive of the Warren Group, said in a statement. “It’s not entirely unexpected that sales and prices are off because the employment picture and foreclosure activity really hasn’t improved much. We had seen a little improvement in single-family home sales late last year, with sales transactions climbing three out of the last four months in 2008. But that didn’t carry over to January.”

Addressing Massachusetts condo sales, the Warren Group said in a press release: "There were 806 condo sales statewide in January, a 29 percent decrease from 1,136 during the same month in 2008. The median condo price fell 22.2 percent to $209,900 in January from $269,950 a year earlier."

Using a different method to track real estate activity, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors released a separate report on the local housing market.

Always seemingly capable of spotting silver linings in stormy circumstances, the association noted that it's a great time to buy a house, thanks to three factors: historically low interest rates for mortgages, the new federal $8,000 tax credit, and local home prices at their lowest levels in years.

The median selling price for Massachusetts single-family homes in January was $263,500, a decrease of 17.9 percent from $321,000 in January 2008, the association said; there were 1,737 detached single-family homes sold this January, a 12.5 percent drop from the 1,986 homes sold in January 2008.

Bay State condominium sales dropped 26 percent last month, from 850 units sold in January 2008 to 629 units sold in January 2009, the association said. Condominium median selling prices in January were down 26.1 percent from $276,000 in 2008 to $204,000 in 2009, the association added.

“With historically-low mortgage interest rates, average home prices at their lowest level in years, and the new federal $8,000 tax credit, the housing market just hit a ‘triple’ for first-time home buyers in the commonwealth,” Gary Rogers, president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, said in a statement. “Meanwhile, the December 1 deadline for that tax credit and shrinking supply of homes for sale really makes this a good time to get into the market to buy a home."
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)