The Lamacchia Housing Report presents overall home sale statistics and highlights the average sale prices for single families, condominiums, and multi-family homes in Massachusetts and New Hampshire for November 2020 compared to November 2019. It also looks at other metrics in Massachusetts like Homes Listed for Sale, Homes Pending, and Price Adjustments made to active listings, as they are often the best indicators for predicting future trends in the market. This month’s report will be unlike years past due to the lingering effects of COVID and the massive amount of home sellers that didn’t list their homes in late March and early April when the lockdown first hit.
Massachusetts Home Sales Up 19.4%
Consistent with 2020 trends, prices are up year over year for November by $39,775 to $514,371 from $474,596. Prices increased in condos and singles, but decreased slightly in multi-families, by 4.4%. Single-family prices increased by 14.6% and condos by 8%. Buyers are still competing for homes due to the scarce inventory and frequent multiple offer situations are further inflating prices.
Sales have increased by 19.4% year over year. There were 1,402 more sales overall, with each category increasing. Homes are selling through the holidays this year as the market is trying to catch up from delays in the spring due to COVID.
Homes Listed for Sale:
The number of homes listed exhibited an increase which is a positive sign for buyers. There were an additional 847 homes listed in November 2020 over November 2019- a 15.3% increase to 6,372. Though the number of homes is increasing which should make it a less competitive environment for buyers, so is the number of homes placed under agreement so the inventory is still very tight.
Pending Home Sales:
Pending home sales are up by 9.1% over November 2019 which continues to prove that this market is still very active for buyers. With homes going under agreement so quickly, inventory is more limited than ever, especially for single-family homes.
As you can see in the chart below, the number of single-family homes on the market for 2020 is lower than it has ever been- people are moving out of condos in search of social distance and more space, and those who were considering a downsize are likely waiting until the world opens back up again.
Price Changes:
Price changes (reductions) increased by 55 listings, 12.2%, which shows that sellers may be on the market a little longer than earlier this fall, but overall buyers are still willing to pay what sellers want. With listings and sales up, it is a relative increase. Price changes in this market won’t be necessary if the house is priced well, but if a few weeks go by without serious offers, that’s the sign that an adjustment is posibly in order.
New Hampshire Home Sales Up 4%
New Hampshire exhibited an increase in sales and prices when compared to November 2019. Sales saw a 4% increase, 45 more sales, with increases in all three categories. Prices increased by 24.9% in all three categories to $391,601.
What’s Ahead?
The market is active, buyers are motivated and sellers hesitating to list means inventory can’t keep up with demand. Extremely low mortgage rates are keeping buyers in the game despite the rising home prices, and homeowners are refinancing in droves. The single-family market is anemic at this point as depicted in the graph above and explained in the Market Updates video as people are moving out of urban areas in search of space.
As you can see in MARealEstateUpdates.com and NHRealEstateUpdates.com, our pages monitoring the progress of the market, the market is trying to catch up to where it would have been had COVID not put a massive wrench in the works, but it’s not quite there yet.
Our COVID-19 Resource page is a tool designed to answer questions that homeowners, buyers, and sellers have about how all of this will impact their real estate goals. There are videos in which Anthony explains the market and how it’s being impacted, blog resources, news articles, and more. For those seeking information on what their mortgage companies expect and are willing to offer their borrowers during this time, we also created a COVID-19 Mortgage Resource page.