Housing market shows signs of life

Is Greater Boston’s housing market finally starting to wake up? Not quite, but there are some early signs the market may finally start churning again. Home sales ticked up slightly in February, with 457 single-family homes sold in the region, a nearly 9 percent increase from the 420 homes sold in February 2023, according to figures released Tuesday by the Greater Boston Association of Realtors. It’s a small increase, and still well below the number of homes sold in February two years ago when the market was quite active, but there are other signs things may be improving as well. Single-family listings were up 36 percent in GBAR’s coverage area, which includes most of Greater Boston except for the North and South shores. Inventory was up 19 percent from the same time last year. Pending sales were up, too. It may be a sign that buyers and sellers are becoming more willing to stomach interest rates that, while down from recent peaks, are still much higher than they were a few years back. Or they’re becoming less patient. The housing market in Greater Boston has been practically frozen for the last two years, as both would-be buyers and sellers have recoiled from an inflation-driven surge in mortgage rates. Today, those rates are declining, albeit slowly. The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.87 percent last week, a drop from late October when that rate nearly hit 8 percent, according to Freddie Mac. Before rates began to rise in early 2022, they had been in a multidecade trough that meant the vast majority of home buyers were able to secure mortgages with relatively low monthly payments.