Why do small, old homes sell so quickly in Boston?
Bostonians love their city’s history, even when it comes to the homes they buy, new data from Zillow indicates.
Bostonians love their city’s history, even when it comes to the homes they buy, new data from Zillow indicates.
According to a new Zillow study, Boston homes that were built between 1870 and 1899 sell the fastest in the area. In fact, data shows there is an 85 percent chance such a home will sell within 90 days on market, while homes built between 1925 and 1971 sell within 90 days only 60 percent of the time.
“It makes sense in Boston,’’ Svenja Gudell, senior director of economic research at Zillow, told Boston.com. “Baltimore is another city [like this]. These cities where you have a rich history and a well-developed historic area, the homes tend to sell fast.’’
In other words, it’s not necessarily that people love the homes because they’re old, but that the neighborhoods people love are full of old homes.
“There are such a core of historic homes in popular areas like Back Bay and Beacon Hill,’’ Gudell said. “There are fantastic historic homes in fantastic areas.’’
Zillow’s numbers provide insight into other factors that make a home likely to find a buyer within a few months.
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For example, a one-bedroom home in Boston is more likely to sell within 90 days than a three-bedroom.
The study also shows that homes under 1,000 square feet are more likely to sell in the first month on the market.
“It could be a mix of things,’’ Gudell said. Again, homes in popular areas like Beacon Hill and Back Bay “tend to be smaller and sell faster,’’ she said.
She also explained that in a city like Boston that has an expensive market, larger homes are going to cost a lot more, and therefore there are fewer buyers who can afford them, so they will be on the market longer.
The median home price in Boston is about $450,000, which is also a sweet spot for Hub homebuyers.
According to the graph, homes valued between $400,000 and $500,000 sell more quickly than homes valued between $160,000 and $320,000.
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See Back Bay through the years:
The number of photos in the online listing also makes a difference.
The study shows that a seller with 16 to 21 listing photos is twice as likely to sell within a month as someone who has less than nine photos.
But Gudell warned that the study did not control for every factor in selling a home, so if you are trying to sell a house that fits into these categories, it is not a given it will sell immediately.
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