Down rental market could curb evictions

The latest Massachusetts residential real estate sales data continues to project a bull market for sellers and a conversely bear market for buyers.

Despite – or because — of the pandemic, single-family home and condo sale prices surged during 2020, according to a new report from The Warren Group.

Statewide, the median price of that home jumped 11.4% to $445,500. Condo prices soared 9.2% to $415,000 — the largest single-year increases in over a decade.

“The acceleration and momentum for price increases seem to be the stand-out feature of last year to me,” Tim Warren, CEO of The Warren Group, told the Boston Herald.

Not every area of the state shared equally in this price explosion. While the median sale price for a single-family home on Nantucket hit $2 million, the median price for a single-family residence in Hampden County, home to blue-collar Springfield and Chicopee, registered a vastly more affordable $227,500.

All this spells discouraging news for aspiring firsttime homebuyers, unless you’re willing to live in the more economically-challenged or rural regions of the commonwealth.

But there’s one silver lining in this ever escalatingprice cloud. Unlike residential sales, this pandemic has driven rental prices downward. In September, a Herald report found Boston rents had plummeted an average of 7%.

That’s due to additional inventory, now that many otherwise renters either work or attend college from home. This ripple effect could also help delinquent leasees slapped with eviction notices. Rental agencies and smaller landlords should be more willing to work with these unemployed or underemployed individuals, due to this glut of unoccupied rental units.

That’s at least one potential benefit we can assign to this viral scourge.