Bay State home sales drop in December Buy a First Class Home

Bay State home sales drop in December

Posted by Carry Brooks on January 23, 2012 Leave a comment (0) Go to comments

Single-family home sales in the Bay State dropped 5 percent last month to 3,380, reversing five prior months of year-over-year sales gains, according to a report issued today by The Warren Group.

In all of 2011, single-family home sales statewide dropped nearly 6 percent to 38,994, down from 41,389 home sales in 2010. This is the lowest amount of annual sales recorded in Massachusetts since 1990, when there were 35,819 sales.

“It’s a bit disheartening to see a drop in sales in December after gains in sales volume for five straight months,” said Timothy M. Warren Jr., CEO of The Warren Group. “Granted, we are comparing sales to a strong December in 2010, as it was the best December since 2006.”

Yet fourth-quarter home sales did see an increase in 2011, according to The Warren Group – 9,991 sales were recorded, up from 9,461 during the same period in 2010.

The first quarter of 2011 was the worst quarter of the year, posting just 6,643 sales. The strongest month was June, when there were 4,349 single-family home sales.

Median sale prices of single-family homes in the state also dropped 4.2 percent in December as compared to the previous year.

Condominium sales also saw a more than 16 percent drop in 2011, from 18,048 in all of 2010 to 15,122, The Warren Group said. This is the fewest number of condo sales in Massachusetts since 1995. Condo sales dipped 15.75 percent in December as compared to December 2010, with the median condo price dropping almost 2 percent to $255,000 from $260,000 for the same period in 2010.

In a separate but similar report, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors said 3,361 detached single-family homes were sold in December, a 0.4 percent decrease from 3,373 homes sold the same time last year. Meanwhile the condo market in December was down 3.1 percent compared to the same time last year.