YOUR We Buy Houses in Massachusetts Real Estate Market Update for September 2024! Get ready… Because some prices are going down!
Last month I talked about how it was time to throw the caution flag in the Massachusetts condo market. That premise sticks. But it may also be time to find a caution flag for the Massachusetts Single Family market as well. We aren’t there… Yet. But things can change quickly.
And as the market changes, then be prepared for more people needing to sell house fast in as-is condition for cash.
Ultimately, these rate cuts couldn’t come at a better time. The real estate market has survived. They took some of the worst punches a market could take… And the effects are starting to show. But the interest rate cut bailout is right around the corner and will be the lifeline that the market needs.
Get An Offer Today, Sell In A Matter Of Days
If you are wanting to hear about the Massachusetts Real Estate Market data for Single Family Homes, Condos and Multi-Family properties… Then you are in the right place.
Let’s start with Single Families
In August of 2024, we saw 3,799 Massachusetts Single Family homes sell for an average sales price of $832 thousand dollars.
Chalk this month up to the 4th month where we have seen sales down year over year.
The 3,799 Single Families that sold in August was 3.8% less than last year when we saw 3,950 homes sold.
We have now seen sales levels down 4 months out of the last 8 months. This is ultimately what I expected for this year. Some months we would be ahead of the year over year and some months we would be behind.
Adding in this month’s sales levels, the year to date sales in the state of Massachusetts has increased to 1.4% as we have now sold 24,492 units compared to the 24,144 units at this point in 2023.
August was our lowest year over year price increase that we have seen so far. In August we recorded a 5.6% year over year increase in Single Family property values. This is why I was saying that we should maybe start trying to locate a caution flag for the Single Family market. Because the trend has been downward for the last five months.
With eight months down, home prices in Massachusetts are up 7.4% year over year. But the pullbacks continue. We were at an 8.8% year over year appreciation rate three months ago, 8.1% two months, 7.8% increase one month ago and now 7.4% this month.
With home prices going up, then that means more Massachusetts home owners are sitting on record equity. Some of these homeowners do not want to go through the hassles of selling their house with a Realtor. This is when homebuyers that purchase property for cash in as-is condition come in to help people achieve their real estate goals. For those people that are looking for a stress free property sale, then it’s important to remember that We Buy Houses in Massachusetts!
With eight months in the books, I can say with certainty that 2024 will end up with the single family market ending the year in the green. For all the people praying for home price declines… This will not be the year.
Now onto the yearly sales comparison levels.
Like I said, we were down compared to last year. Our sales levels of 3,799 ultimately put us in the ballpark of the sales levels we saw in August of 2011 which were 3,859 units sold.
As we have said many times before, sales levels aren’t great. But sales levels and housing prices are not correlated. But the sales side has a lifeline being thrown to them with these decreasing interest rates.
IF sales go up, then that will put more pressure on inventory levels which will ultimately lead to higher pricing.
So four months out of the last 8 of year over year sales declines doesn’t sound great. But let’s put it all in perspective.
Before this year, we had 30 consecutive months of year over year sales declines. We had to go back to June of 2021 in order to find the last month of year over year gains before we kicked off 2024.
And now that is 50 consecutive months of year over year home price increases.
We have seen the rate of home price increases starting to taper off. Will this continue is the big question. Will this turn bleak in the latter part of the year. Or will the interest rate cuts stimulate the market and shoot prices back up?
If the market does turn bleak, then cash home buyers will become more important then ever before. Especially in areas in and around Boston. So reach out if you are looking to Sell Boston Home Fast.
Time will tell. But like I said last month, I see little doubt that this doesn’t hit 5 consecutive years or 60 months of pricing gains.
But as we know, it’s all about inventory levels. So let’s take a look at inventory.
We ended the month with 4,773 single family homes on the market.
Year over year, inventory levels are up 28.2%!
Quick note that these inventory levels are probably a little lower than they should be. This is thanks to the early Labor Day weekend which bled a little into the end of August.
We saw more level inventory numbers in August which makes for an interesting story when it is compared to the decreasing inventory levels of 2022.
We now have 1,121 more single family homes on the market when compared to the end of August of 2024 then we did at the end of August of 2023. And 55 fewer houses on the market than August of 2022.
New Listings were down year over year. We listed 3,847 Single Family homes in Massachusetts in August of 2024. This was a 3.1% decrease when compared to August of 2023.
Price reductions were up year over year.
In August of 2024 we saw a 6% increase in price reductions throughout Massachusetts. There were 356 Single Family homes that did a price reduction in August.
Quick recap… So sales in the Single Family market were up down by 3.8% while inventory was up by 28.2%. The number of new listings were down by 3.1% when compared to last year’s numbers while we saw a 6% increase in price reductions for August of 2024.
The historical home price trend continues! Yes, home prices are pulling back year over year… But we see that every year.
I said this last month, but I feel like I need to say it again… Do not. I repeat. Do not get baited into headlines that say housing prices are down month over month. Always only look at year over year data.
As we talked about earlier, the $832,000 average sales price means that home prices in Massachusetts are up 5.6% year over year and 7.4% year to date.
We have the condo market and the Multi-Family market up next…But first, any chance you can do me a huge favor as it helps play with the youtube algorithm? Can you hit that like button? It just makes a huge difference to me as well as my channel.
We saw 1,483 condos close in Massachusetts for the month of August with an average sales price of $695k thousand dollars.
Let’s start with the sales data…
Sales levels were down in the condo market as well. Sales levels were down by 7.4% year over year. The 1,483 condos sold in Massachusetts for the month of August was compared to the 1,601 units that sold in August of 2023.
Two months ago, sales levels were down 5.3% year over year. Last month we saw some improvement with sales levels down 3.4% year over year while this month we slipped a bit to a 3.6% year over year sales decline as we now have 10,989 condos sold compared to the 11,396 in the first eight months of 2023.
We have seen year over year sales declines for 5 out of the last 8 months in the condo market. So the Single Family market has one upped the Condo market here.
Before this year, it was a 25 month streak of year over year sales declines. It was November of 2021 that saw the last sales level year over year increase before we started the 2024 year off.
As we have said, not a great month for sales. And this graph really shows it! The 1483 sales fell far short of the August of 2011 levels, but were well ahead of the August of 2010 levels.
Inventory growth continues for the month of August in the condo market. The 2,506 condos on the market in Massachusetts is 23.2% higher than the inventory levels in August of 2023.
We were just slightly above the inventory levels of 2021. I see this inventory growth as a short term enjoyment with buyers if we are truly entering a cycle of interest rate cuts. Buyers should act quickly!
But I do think it is interesting to note that our inventory levels are now at the levels of Covid craziness where people were trying to get out of condo living.
The 2021 and 2024 inventory levels have been pretty consistent for the month of August. On the last monday of August, we had 487 more condos on the market compared to this time in 2023, 279 more when compared to 2022 and 130 more than 2021.
The amount of new listings were down with 1,525 new condo listings hitting the market. The 187 additional new listings when compared to August of 2023 represents a 10.9% decrease in new listings in Massachusetts for the month of August.
Meanwhile we saw a decrease in the amount of condos that saw price reductions in Massachusetts in August of 2024 as there were 106 price adjustments. This is 23 units or 17.8% less than when compared to August of 2023.
As a year over year comparison…Sales were down 7.4 percent and new listings were down by 10.9% when compared to 2023. Meanwhile inventory was up by 23.2% with the number of price reductions decreased by 17.8% year over year.
Yes. Prices we saw prices down last month, but I have always felt that July of 2023 data was an outlier. There is no outlier asterisk that I can place on this month’s data. Condo prices were down year over year.
The average sales price of $695k was 1.1% lower than the average sales price in August of 2023 when it was $702 thousand dollars.
This is the first back to back year over year price declines since January and February of 2021. That actually ended up being a three month fun from December 2020 through February, but who’s counting!
The first four months of this year were definitely kinder to condo owners, than the last 4 months have been.
Year to date, condo prices in Massachusetts are up by 2.4%. This number was 4.6% in June and 2.9% in July. The trendline isn’t a great one for condo owners in Massachusetts.
I am confident that home prices won’t go down for the Single Family market in 2024. I can’t call that shot for condo prices. It’s just too close to call.
And now for my very quick shameless plug. If you are thinking about buying or selling a home, then reach out to me today as I would be honored to help guide you through the process.
Now onto the Multi-Family market…
Another good month in the Multi-Family market. In August of 2024 we saw 469 Multi-Family units sell for an average sales price of $827k.
The 469 units sold was 2 units or a .4% increase in the year over year sales levels for August.
This means that year over year sales levels are now up by only 6.0%.
The 469 units sold puts us pretty much exactly on par with the sales levels of last year…
The next year that was close to our sales levels of August of 2024 would be August of 2011 when we sold 489 multi-family properties.
I ultimately think the decreasing interest rates really help the multi-family market.
Inventory continues to grow in the multi-family market. There are currently 706 multi-family properties on the market which means that inventory levels are up by 27 units or 4.0% year over year.
The amount of additional inventory continues to be fairly consistent over the last couple of months. We have 60 more Multi-Family homes on the market than when compared to the end of August of 2023.
Meanwhile we listed 10.5% more multi-family properties than we did in 2023. We listed 664 multi-family homes in August of 2024 which is compared to the 601 Multi-Family homes in August of 2023.
Year over year, the $827 thousand dollars was 13.2 higher than the levels we recorded in August of 2023.
Since when does a 13.2% appreciation rate not seem great? It’s when you are comparing it against months of 20 and 29% appreciation rates! The 13% was the third highest that we have recorded in 2024.
Multi-family properties pricing is now up by 13.4% for the first 8 months of 2024. This is an improvement from the 13.1% that we were at last month.