Mass. Housing Sales Continue On Sluggish Pace

A Look at the Latest Data From The Warren Group

The Massachusetts real estate market continued to chug along at its sluggish pace in August, with single-family home sales ticking up slightly while median prices once again set a new high record for the month.

The Warren Group said there were 4,499 single-family homes sold in Massachusetts last month, a 2.2 percent increase over August 2023. The month’s median sale price for those homes was up 5 percent year-over-year, to $630,000 and a new high for the month of August.

“It’s also the fifth month in a row that the median price has stayed above $600,000, showing just how resilient the market has been,” Cassidy Norton, associate publisher of The Warren Group said.

High and climbing prices have put homeownership out of reach for many people who want to live in Massachusetts. Gov. Maura Healey and the Legislature hope a law passed and signed this summer will spur the production of about 45,000 new units and the preservation of 27,000 more. Massachusetts is expected to have a 220,000-plus housing unit shortage by 2030.

Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus is attending a slate of ribbon-cuttings and groundbreakings for housing projects around the state.

He was in Lawrence on Monday for a ceremony marking the adaptive reuse of a 175-year-old mill building into 86 rental apartments for families with income levels ranging from 30 percent of the area median income to market rate. Augustus on Tuesday is breaking ground on construction of 50 units of 100 percent affordable senior housing in Westminster, and on Wednesday cuts the ribbon on a 40-unit residential project in Springfield and then breaks ground on a Northampton project to turn a nursing home into 60 family apartments.

So far this year, the 27,376 single-family homes sold in Massachusetts represent a 1.1 percent increase compared to the first eight months of 2023, a year that ended with the lowest volume of sales in 12 years. Meanwhile, the 2024-to-date median home price is up 8.8 percent over the same time period to $620,000.