The Bay State's increasingly bipolar real estate market
Here we go again.
The latest home sales numbers are out and, once again, sales are down steeply and prices are - you guessed it - up.
While sales posted an 18 percent, year-over-year plunge in August, the median price of a home hit $330,000, a 4.8 percent increase, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors reports.
The mixed signals were even more dramatic in the condo market, which saw sales plunge 21 percent from last year, only to see the median sale price hit rise to $304,700. Not only is that up from $279,000 last year, but MAR claims it is the first time it has seen the median condo price pass the $300,000 threshold.
The Warren Group came out with its own numbers today, pointing out that August's home sales numbers were the slowest in more than two decades.
What on earth is going on here?
Some of this clearly is the afterglow from the home buyer tax credit, which artificially boosted sales and prices last spring. Yes, we are now heading into the fall, but recall that Congress passed an extension back in June to give more time to tax credit buyers to close deals.
But it is also a warning as well that sellers are stubborn and prices can be slow to come down, especially in a perpetually inventory starved market like Greater Boston.
Just recall the start of the real estate downturn, which first appeared in these parts in 2005. Even as sales steadily fell, it took some months for prices to catch up.
