Luxury condo buyers have it made these days, while the rest fight for scraps
Sales of surged this spring, posting double-digit gains.
Call it a tale of two real estate markets.
The number of condos sales below $500,000 in neighborhoods like Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Midtown and the South End plunged this spring, with too many buyers fighting over too few units.
But sales of luxury condos and homes in downtown Boston worth $2 million and up surged, posting double-digit gains.
“The Boston area endured a very challenging winter, which affected the available inventory in the luxury home market,’’ said Merit McIntyre, regional vice president of the Boston metro region for Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, in a report detailing the sales.
“This resulted in pent-up demand and that has helped to boost sales activity, particularly in the condo market,’’ he said.
More than 71 homes and condos sold for $2 million or more in the second quarter, from April through the end of June, Coldwell Banker reports. Most were in downtown Boston, though the report covers the whole city. That represents a 16 percent increase over spring 2014.
Leading the pack was a $12.5 million sale of a 3,222-square-foot condo at the posh Mandarin Oriental on Boylston Street. Other notable sales included a $5.5 million sale, also at the Mandarin, a $4.1 million condo sale at the Ritz-Carlton Towers, and a $4 million sale at the Belvedere.
Still, multimillion-dollar homes sold faster than multimillion-dollar condos during the second quarter. Luxury homes found buyers in about 49 days, on average, about half the 90 days it took for luxury condos to get scooped up.
That some luxury condos are taking a little longer to sell may be due to the fact that the market, while still tight, is also seeing some new options emerge for the wealthiest buyers.
Two big new condo addresses, the new Four Seasons and Millennium skyscrapers, are already signing up buyers to preliminary deals as they forge ahead with new construction.
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By contrast, there has been practically no new construction of condos under $500,000 in downtown Boston in several years, leaving buyers to battle it out over a dwindling number of listings.
Sales of condos under $500,000 fell more than 13 percent this spring, to 515 from nearly 600 the year before, notes Otis & Ahearn, a downtown luxury condo marketing and research firm.
Scarcity, in turn, has sped by the buying process while also boosting prices for condos below half a million.
Average days on market fell to a super-fast 36 days, down from 38 days in 2014, while the median price hit $410,000 this spring, up from $397,000 last year, according to Otis & Ahearn.
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