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Home prices climb in R.I. Fewer properties are hitting the market.
Residential property sales remain "sluggish," but "less so," with a "significant uptick" in pending deals.
The median sales price of a single-family home in Rhode Island shot up nearly 13% year-over-year in January, reflecting a market in high demand, the state realtors association reported Thursday.
Buyers were shelling out $391,375 for a single-family property in January 2023. Last month, the median sales price shot well past $400,000 to $441,750, according to the market report by the Rhode Island Association of Realtors.
The cost of a condo edged up (1.56%), from a median sales price of $320,000 in January 2023 to $325,000 last month.
Meanwhile the multifamily market saw the slowest start to the year since 2015, the association said, with a 9.5% drop in sales. “Contracts in the queue to close however, declined just 2.8%, a sign that completed closings should soon be on the rise. A $475,000 median price reflected an eight percent gain from the prior year,” the association reported.
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In the condo market, pending sales were up 14.59% in January, while in the single-family sector, that figure was pretty static: down 0.27%. The latter is welcome news and indicative of a slower rate of decline, the association said, noting that pending sales fell by double digits in all but one month in 2023.
More on Rhode Island
“While home sales are still sluggish, they are getting less so,” said Sally Hersey, association president. “Recently, lower interest rates have helped ease affordability issues and allowed more people to jump back into the market. Unfortunately, they still don’t have many options to choose from. The supply of homes for sale decreased throughout the fall and we need to see that trend reverse.” Long-term mortgage rates, which had fallen for several weeks, have ratcheted back up to the highest level in 10 weeks, the Associated Press reported Thursday.
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They reported a 1.4-month supply of single-family homes for sale, down from a two-month supply in September, noting that “a five- to six-month supply typically signifies a healthy market, balanced between supply and demand.”
The association saw glimmers of hope: “The rate of decline in year-over-year home sales that plagued 2023 showed marked improvement in January, falling just 4.3% compared with the double-digit drops in sales activity recorded throughout each month last year.”
A small number of sales can really skew the median sales price. Here’s what single-family home prices are doing by Rhode Island city/town:
| CITY/TOWN | MEDIAN HOME PRICE JAN. 2024 | % CHANGE YEAR-OVER-YEAR | NUMBER OF SALES |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barrington | $630,000 | -17.11% | 13 |
| Bristol | $647,500 | 28.86% | 6 |
| Warren | $391,500 | -5.61% | 4 |
| Coventry | $370,000 | 2.07% | 22 |
| East Greenwich | $645,000 | 14.16% | 9 |
| Warwick | $410,000 | 19.19% | 50 |
| West Greenwich | $385,000 | -23.00% | 2 |
| West Warwick | $324,450 | -13.48% | 16 |
| Jamestown | $635,000 | -47.08% | 3 |
| Little Compton | $778,628 | 28.59% | 2 |
| Middletown | $860,000 | -4.44% | 10 |
| Newport | $933,750 | 35.67% | 18 |
| Portsmouth | $600,000 | 14.83% | 13 |
| Tiverton | $473,750 | 39.96% | 8 |
| Burrillville | $365,000 | -12.47% | 8 |
| Central Falls | no sales | n/a | 0 |
| Cranston | $400,000 | 5.96% | 33 |
| Cumberland | $600,000 | 47.24% | 15 |
| East Providence | $375,000 | -1.12% | 19 |
| Foster | $377,500 | -30.73% | 2 |
| Glocester | $543,000 | 33.66% | 4 |
| Johnston | $376,500 | -1.57% | 10 |
| Lincoln | $460,000 | 2.22% | 9 |
| North Providence | $424,500 | 24.85% | 8 |
| North Smithfield | $365,000 | 0.83% | 3 |
| Pawtucket | $350,000 | 21.11% | 15 |
| Providence | $411,000 | 15.29% | 44 |
| Scituate | $645,000 | 68.63% | 5 |
| Smithfield | $472,500 | 0.13% | 6 |
| Woonsocket | $377,500 | 18.34% | 10 |
| Block Island | $1,962,500 | 55.14% | 2 |
| Charlestown | $555,000 | 21.31% | 4 |
| Exeter | $478,000 | 32.98% | 2 |
| Hopkinton | $219,000 | -47.42% | 7 |
| Narragansett | $2,980,000 | 374.33% | 5 |
| North Kingstown | $505,000 | -11.79% | 21 |
| Richmond | $405,000 | -5.79% | 3 |
| South Kingstown | $629,000 | 11.67% | 17 |
| Westerly | $687,500 | 39.74% | 14 |
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