NEW YORK - Sales of existing homes in the Northeast dropped almost 10 percent in December from last year, while the median sales price fell nearly 8 percent to $268,200 the National Association of Realtors said yesterday.
Sales in the Northeast were weaker than the US numbers, but the region's price decline was less severe. Sales nationwide edged up 1.1 percent in December, while the median price fell 15 percent to $216,000.
Sales in five major Northeast cities posted double-digit declines, according to the Associated Press-Re/Max Monthly Housing Report. Median prices in six Northeast metro areas lost more than 10 percent of their values.
The report analyzed sales in nine metropolitan statistical areas by all real estate agents.
The fallout from the financial collapse has yet to fully hit the suburban housing markets surrounding New York City said James Diffley, managing director of IHS Global Insight's regional services group. He expects the higher-end homes to suffer the most from the unraveling of the financial services industry.
The New England states are reeling from the recession, said Michael Lynch, a regional economist at IHS Global Insight. Lynch tracks the region's largest economy, Massachusetts, as a harbinger for the rest of the states.
For most of 2008, Massachusetts "hung on" while the rest of the nation's economy faltered, Lynch noted, but now it's starting to stumble.
Boston home sales fell nearly 7 percent in December, according to the AP-Re/Max report. And the median price fell almost 11 percent to $303,625.
But the region's worst price performer was Providence. While it had the smallest decline in sales volume at just under 2 percent, the city booked the largest drop in home values.
The median home price there plunged almost a quarter to $190,000 as foreclosures and short sales made up about one in four sales, said Ron Phipps of Phipps Realty in Warwick, R.I.
