Mass. Home Sales Sink Lower Than Depressed 2023 Levels

Midyear Stats Show Sales Down Nearly 1 Percent, Median Home Sale Price Up Almost 10 Percent

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, JULY 23, 2024…..The median sale prices of both single-family homes and condos hit new all-time highs in Massachusetts last month, real estate market analysts said as a group of six Beacon Hill lawmakers attempts to produce a compromise housing production-inducing bill by the end of July.

There were 4,441 single-family home sales in Massachusetts in June, according to The Warren Group, an 8.9 percent decrease compared to June 2023. At the same time, the median sale price increased 8.1 percent year-over-year to hit $665,000, a new all-time high.

“It wasn’t that long ago that the prospect of the median single-family home price exceeding $600,000 seemed like a long shot, but here we are with a median price approaching $700,000,” Cassidy Norton, associate publisher of The Warren Group, said. “A lack of inventory is clearly driving this record-setting appreciation. Despite these record prices, higher mortgage interest rates have actually slowed price growth – the median may have been even higher without those changes – but it has also contributed to low inventory.”

The 18,451 single-family home sales in Massachusetts this year through June represents a 0.8 percent decrease compared to the first six months of 2023. But the year-to-date median home price has increased 9.8 percent compared to where it was a year ago, having climbed to $609,900, The Warren Group said.

Sales volume was down last month in every county, ranging from a 1.8 percent decline in Essex County to 29.2 percent declines in Berkshire and Franklin counties (Nantucket actually posted the largest percentage drop in total sales, 71.4 percent, but it represented a drop from 7 sales to 2 sales).

Not counting Cape Cod or the islands, Middlesex County had the highest median sale price in July, $885,510. And Hampden County had the lowest median sale price in July, at $325,000. The median price was $749,900 for Barnstable County, $1.245 million on Martha’s Vineyard and $2.875 million on Nantucket, The Warren Group said.

Once thought of as a more-affordable or more-accessible option in the red-hot Massachusetts housing market, condominiums followed many of the same trends as single-family homes here last month.

The Warren Group counted 1,938 condo sales in June 2024, compared to 2,324 in June 2023 – a 16.6 percent drop. Meanwhile, the median condo sale price was up 5.2 percent to $570,000 – a new all-time high for condos — last month.

“The median Massachusetts condo price may well exceed $600,000 in the coming months,” Norton said.

There have been 8,954 condo sales here so far in 2024, down 4.5 percent from the first six months of 2023 while the median sale price of $540,000 represents a 5.9 percent increase from one year ago, The Warren Group said.

Home sales across Massachusetts fell to a 12-year low in 2023 and housing here is inaccessible or unaffordable for many residents. Gov. Maura Healey last year identified housing as “the number-one issue facing this state” and said there is a shortage of 200,000 units across the state.

A six-person conference committee began negotiating July 11 with the goal of sending a compromise housing policy and borrowing bill to the governor’s desk by the time formal sessions end July 31.

A MassINC Polling Group survey released Tuesday showed that more than 70 percent of Bay States feel that the amount they pay each month for housing is “somewhat of a burden” (34 percent) or a “very big burden” (37 percent) on them. And housing was tied with migrants and immigration as the single largest issue facing state government (18 percent).