Buyers snapping up homes at premium prices, Mass. Realtors group says
FOXBORO — If you want to buy a house in Massachusetts, you better be ready to act fast – and have some money put away.
According to the Foxboro-based Massachusetts Association of Realtors, the inventory of single-family homes for sale hit record lows in February, down 68% compared to the same month last year. For condominiums, inventory is down nearly 34%.
Home prices have, conversely, been on a steady rise in recent months, the association reports. The median price for a single-family home was $462,500, up 17% over February 2020. And while the hike in condo prices was not as steep, at just over 5 percent, the median price is just below that of a single-family home at $425,750, compared to the same month last year.
“While interest rates did increase in February compared to January, they remain lower than previous years’ and this is contributing to the strong buyer demand,” said Steve Medeiros, president of the association. “This is not something I believe will majorly impact home sales, though it is important to take this shift into consideration when thinking about buying or selling a home as interest rates contribute to the overall affordability index.”
In its statement, the Realtors group said that home prices have been on a “steady rise in recent months, with February’s data staying on trend... Prices are being driven again by high demand, low supply, and interest rates continuing to hit record lows.”
And homes were being snapped up more quickly too.
According to data provided by the association, the median time for a single-family home in Attleboro, for example, to stay on the market in February of 2020 was 56 days. Last month it was 33 days, a drop of 41 percent.
And the data show buyers were more willing to go over what the owners were asking to land that dream home. The percentage of list price the sellers were getting jumped from 96 percent to 104 percent. But there are also fewer listings to go around. Housing inventory dropped from 49 single-family homes on the market last February to just 20 in the same month this year, a plunge of nearly 60%. New listings went from 31 in 2020 to 26 last month.
Attleboro prices rose more sharply than in the state as a whole, with the median price for a single-family home going from $337,000 to $430,000, a hike of 27.6%.