Homes sales plunge below 2009 (Great Recession) depths
The tax credit is now history and home sales are spiraling furiously downward - both here in the Bay State and across the country.
The news this morning is pretty bleak - it sure looks like the long-predicted double dip in the housing market has arrived, and with a vengeance.
Sales of single-family homes dived 28 percent in July, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors reports this morning.
Month over month, the numbers were even worse, with sales down more than 38 percent from June.
Condo sales were down more than 33 percent year over year and 42 percent from June.
Nationally, home sales plunged more than 27 percent, the largest drop on record since the National Association of Realtors first began tracking these stats in 1968.
Still, in a bit of a puzzler, Massachusetts home prices were up 7.4 percent last month over July of 2009, with a median sale price of $330,000.
However, the rise in prices is likely more of a hangover from the tax-credit-fueled surge of sales this spring. The flood of first-time buyers eager to claim their $8,000 credit emboldened sellers to jack up prices.
As a result, a dwindling number of sellers are managing to find buyers at those higher, springtime prices, even as many others watch their homes languish on the market.
