Home sales slowed in February, while prices kept plowing higher
Blame it on rising mortgage rates — which have climbed a full percentage point year to date — or on the “Blizzard of ’22,” which dropped almost 2 feet of snow on Boston at the end of January, but February was a slow month for home sales.
There were 2,593 single-family home sales across Massachusetts in February, according to The Warren Group, a real estate analytics firm. That marked a 14.7 percent drop from the 3,040 sales logged in February 2021. Last winter was a particularly active market, though; compared with February 2020, the sales volume last month was down just 3.3 percent.
And while the median price of a Massachusetts single-family reached $470,000 in February — a record for the month — that marked a fairly modest 5.4 percent increase from a year ago, when the typical Bay State house sold for $446,000. With median prices up 23.7 percent over the past two years, a single-digit year-over-year increase may come as a relief to home buyers.
Noting that housing inventory was down more than 50 percent in January, according to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, Warren Group chief executive Tim Warren said the ongoing shortage of homes for sale continues to impede sales activity — even as it pushes prices upward.
“February was the eighth month in a row where the number of homes sold declined while the median price continued to rise,” Warren said in a press release. “It’s a familiar trend, one that is likely to continue unless sellers flood the spring market with new homes.”
With few homes on the market, home buyers are still facing bidding wars. Nearly 4 out of 5 Boston-area homes (78.6 percent) received multiple offers in February, according to a report by national brokerage Redfin. “It’s the most competitive time in history to purchase a home because mortgage rates are rising from historic lows amid a worsening supply shortage,” said Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather. However, she expects rising rates will start to push some buyers to the sidelines, easing competition.
In Medford, single-family home sales slipped 9.1 percent year over year in February, while the median sale price of a house rose 13.4 percent, from $695,000 in February 2021 to $788,000 last month. Framingham saw median sale prices for single-families jump 15.3 percent year over year, from $468,250 to $540,000. (View the town-by-town data here.)
Condominiums followed a similar pattern, with total sales dropping 17.1 percent year over year, from 1,462 in February 2021 to 1,212 last month. That was the fewest condos sold in February since 2018, Warren said. The median price of a Massachusetts condo, meanwhile, increased 5.3 percent versus a year ago, from $418,000 to $440,000.
Condo sales were down 26.1 percent in Middlesex County compared with February 2021, but the median price was up 9.4 percent year over year, from $493,500 to $540,000. The median price of a condo in Suffolk County — which includes Boston, Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop — was up 1.6 percent, to $655,000. (See the county-by-county data here.)
Jon Gorey blogs about homes at HouseandHammer.com. Send comments to [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @jongorey. Subscribe to our free real estate newsletter at pages.email.bostonglobe.com/AddressSignUp. Follow us on Twitter @GlobeHomes and Boston.com on Facebook.
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