Mass. market staggered through first quarter of 2009
 | Adam Rosenbaum (left), a real estate agent for Century 21, showed an unidentified buyer a two-family home in Arlington in March. The home, at 40 Tanager St., went under agreement after nearly two months. (Globe Staff Photo / Pat Greenhouse) |
Median residential prices and sales volume dropped by double digits over the first three months of the year, according to data released yesterday by Warren Group, a company that tracks real estate.
The median price for single-family homes fell 18.2 percent, to $253,500, in the first three months of 2009, compared with the same period last year - marking a record drop during any quarter since Warren Group started charting prices in 1987.
Sales volume also continued to decline, with single-family home sales dropping nearly 11 percent in the first three months of the year, the slowest pace for a first quarter since 1991, Warren Group said.
"I don't think we've hit bottom yet," said Timothy Warren Jr., the firm's chief executive. "We saw some increase in sales volume toward the end of last year, but there needs to be steady sales gains for three to four quarters before prices begin to level off."
Condominium sales did not fare any better. The median condominium price in the first quarter fell nearly 17 percent, to $220,100, compared with the same period in 2008, reflecting the sharpest decline for any quarter in the last two decades. Condo sales in the first quarter dropped nearly 27 percent.
Many prospective buyers are holding back, real estate agents say, because they expect to find better bargains. Jitters about job security, as well as the complications of obtaining financing, also are slowing sales, they say.
"When well-priced homes come on the market they are selling fairly quickly," said Gary Rogers, president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. "Unfortunately, we are seeing a shortage of those types of marketable properties."
There also fewer properties to choose from, the association reported yesterday. As of March 31, the inventory of residential properties fell 21 percent, compared with the same time last year.
Not all communities are seeing dramatic price drops. Some - including Cambridge, Brookline and Somerville - reported higher median sales prices for single-family homes in the first quarter, Warren Group said.
Mary Walsh, a real estate agent with University Real Estate in Cambridge, said buyers often don't believe her when she tells them they won't find cheaper prices in that city.
"They think I'm not trustworthy," Walsh said. "Buyers think the bottom has fallen out of the market. In some places it has. But it hasn't in Cambridge."
In many cases, sales increased in the towns that also had the biggest slide in prices. Truro, near the tip of Cape Cod, saw sales volume of single-family homes spike 33 percent in the first quarter of 2009 as median sales prices fell nearly 39 percent, Warren Group said. The Mattapan neighborhood of Boston saw sales volume jump 133 percent - from 6 to 14 homes - as single-family home prices dropped nearly 41 percent in the first three months of the year, compared with last year.
Melvin A. Vieira Jr., a sales consultant for Re/Max LandMark in Milton, said steep price drops in Mattapan, Dorchester, and Roxbury are bringing values back to a more realistic range.
"If the property is priced right, people are buying it regardless," Vieira said. "We are going more into a more normal market."
The Boston area was the first in the nation to reach its housing peak in 2005 and probably will find its bottom sooner than many other states, said David Blitzer, managing director of Standard & Poor's, the financial analysis firm.
The region's home prices have fallen less sharply than in many areas of the country. Boston's real estate prices dropped about 7.2 percent over the last 12 months, less than the national average of nearly 19 percent, according to data released this week by the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.
The Case-Shiller index, which records repeat sales, shows that the rate of price declines through February slowed slightly.
"That is the first step toward turning around but I don't think we'll turn around at this point," Blitzer said.
Source: www.Boston.com
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment