Home shopping? Towns with the biggest spring discounts
This has been a miserable spring for sellers.
Not only are sales down, but prices are down as well.
Sipping my morning coffee, I came across these numbers in the records section of Banker & Tradesman, which is published by The Warren Group, the Boston-based real estate publisher and data firm.
Market psychology is a funny thing. Just recall the foolhardy stampede last spring by buyers scrambling to close on homes in time to collect the $8,000 federal home buyer tax credit. A year later, you can get reap multiples of that as sellers slash prices, but buyers are waiting on the sidelines again. Go figure.
Here are some year-to-date numbers, which match up median prices for the first four months of 2011 with spring 2010. I note sales where the declines are significant.
Towns where sellers are feeling the most pain include:
• Westwood, where the median price has dropped $88,000, to $452,000, while sales are off more than 30 percent.
• Sudbury has seen a $56,000 decline, to $554,800.
• Medfield, a favorite of the pro jock set, has seen prices plummet by $109,000, to $456,500, while sales are down roughly 25 percent.
• Wayland prices are down $75,000 to $454,900.
• Natick, my hometown, has taken a $49,000 hit, down to $374,000.
• Dedham’s median price is now $305,000, down $50,000 from last spring.
• Stoughton prices have dropped $77,000, to $231,500.
• Middleboro’s median price is now down to an affordable sounding $189,900 after a $55,000 come down.
• Hopkinton’s median price has plunged $62,000, down to $419,750, while sales are down a third.
• Georgetown’s median price is now $300,000, after a drop of $110,000.
• Amesbury has its median price fall $84,000, down to $229,000.
• Andover has taken a $55,000 hit, with a new median of $450,000.
• Billerica has seen its median price sink by $37,000, to $278,980.
• While Athol hardly counts as Greater Boston, I figured I would throw it in anyway. You can now buy a house for less than $100,000 in that old mill down off of Route 2, which has a median price of $77,000. That's down $33,000 from last spring.
Feel free to share your candidates as well. The more the merrier.
