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 Southern New Hampshire for June 2019 compared to June 2018. 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.
Massachusetts June Home Sales Down 10.26%
Massachusetts home sales decreased year over year in all three categories by 1,129 sales and prices increased by $6,997 overall.
Homes Listed for Sale:
June 2018 had more homes listed for sale as we saw a 4.29% decrease this year. There were 502 fewer homes placed on the market in the past month compared to last June.
Pending Home Sales:
315 fewer homes went under agreement in June 2019 compared to June 2018 depicting a 2.98% decrease in Pendings. We are well into the swing into buyer’s favor, and with higher inventory comes selection for buyers and they can take their time making offers. Price adjustments are in order for sellers who’ve been on the market for a while without much buyer interest.
Price Changes:
June 2019 had 218 fewer price adjustments than June 2018 – a 10.14% decrease. As mentioned in the May 2019 Housing report, the drop in interest rates made it so sellers didn’t have to price as aggressively because buyers had more money to work with due to the lower cost of their mortgages. But that’s clearly not the case anymore. The decrease in price changes in May and now in June of 2019 are the reason that pending sales are down. Sellers are being stubborn and aren’t budging on their list price. Typically, late June and July are busy because sellers start to adjust their prices and then we see a boom in sales. It will be interesting to see what July does when we are able to review it in next month’s housing report.
Southern New Hampshire June Home Sales Down 11.54%
Like Massachusetts, Southern New Hampshire exhibited a decrease in sales and an increase in prices. Sales are down by 174 transactions, and prices increased by $23,377 year over year, about 7.5%.
What’s Ahead?
National inventory is down- which is generally unheard of in the spring market particularly when the economy seems to be very strong in every other category. More specifically, sales are down in the West and the South but have slightly increased in the Midwest and the Northeast, according to the NAR. Inventory in Massachusetts has increased by a little over 3.43% year over year as of July 23, 2019- contrary to the state, Worcester’s inventory has decreased by over a whopping 41% as of the same day year over year. This speaks to two things- more inventory generally across the state proves that buyers have more selection and therefore more time and power of negotiation and that sellers need to consider adjusting their prices if they’ve been on the market long enough. It also proves that various towns and cities have their own microcosmic market, and Worcester is the perfect example of that.
Buyers are finally enjoying the selection and sellers should be focusing on their pricing- with the over 10% decrease in price adjustments as well as pending sales in June we could see another month of sales being down in July, which is atypical- last July sales were up 7.3%. This year did see fewer price adjustments due to the interest rate decline and because of that buyers should make sure their pre-approvals reflect the current rates.