Level Luxury Real Estate

With new information available on Boston real estate in March of 2015 we are getting our a solid look at how the year is shaping up. By comparing the sales figures of March 2015 with 2014 a number of patterns become apparent, and whether you’re looking to buy or sell your home in the coming months it is worth looking at what the data says about the state of the Boston housing market.

The two most noticeable trends found in the March market report from the Greater Boston Association of REALTORS® are steadily rising property values and a slight decrease in inventory and sales. For a more thorough look at the market we’ll now look at some specifics from the report.

Rising Home Values

Between Boston residents looking to buy new real estate to transplants looking to move into the area rising property values show that the area is experiencing a healthy level of demand. In March of 2014 the median sales price for Single-family homes was $427, 00 and this year it reached $433, 750 for a rise of 1.6%

Turning to the condominium market values are rising even faster. In March of 2014 the average condominium sold for $420, 00 and this year that value reached $449, 00 for an increase of 6.9%.

Today’s numbers look even more dramatic when you look at median sales prices farther back. In March of 2013 single-family homes were selling at $378, 000, $55, 750 lower than this year. The condominium market has experienced similar changes, with a median sales price of $390, 000 in March of 2013, meaning a $59, 000 increase over 2 years.

Low Inventory

Real estate prices, like prices in other businesses, tend to revolve around supply and demand. The rise in property values that we have just looked at related to the next fact we will consider, the decreasing property inventory in the area. Higher prices are likely caused by a high demand being met with a smaller supply of available properties.

We’ll begin our look at Boston’s housing supply with single-family homes. In March of 2014 there were 3, 075 homes on the market, while this year that number dropped to 2, 237. That’s a decrease of 27.3%. If we look at the number of pending sales we see 1, 255 in 2014 and 1, 226. This is a 2.3% drop but the decrease is much less dramatic than we saw in terms of inventory.

Similar trends can be seen in the condominium market. Last March there were 1, 679 condominiums for sale and this year there were 1, 171. This represents a 30.3% drop in inventory. Oddly enough if we look at pending sales we see an increase of 0.4% as the number has gone from 1, 053 in 2014 to 1, 057 this March.

When we put these numbers together we see that while there are less single-family homes and condominiums for sale this year they are still both getting sold at a decent rate, with the number of condominium sales even increasing slightly. Add in the rising values noted earlier and it looks more like a healthy market with growing demand.