This house at 55 Concord Parkway in Pittsfield is currently listed for sale with an asking price of $315,000. The median single-family home price in the city through the first five months of the year is $160,000.
The spring sales season did little to rejuvenate the sluggish housing market in most parts of the state. But unlike other Bay State regions, home prices in Berkshire County are on the rise.
The median price for single-family homes sold through May jumped 5.8 percent to $179,850 from $170,000 a year earlier. The price increase came as the number of home sales in the county tumbled 9.4 percent, however. A total of 502 homes were sold during the first five months of the year.
Some area Realtors expressed surprise that prices and sales haven’t slipped further, given the market slump that has plagued most of the Bay State. But others said the region’s prices have held firm because, during the real estate boom in the first half of the decade, home values increased at a more moderate pace than in other parts of Massachusetts.
“I think people still perceive value [in western Massachusetts] relative to what they see in other areas,” said Charley Sawyer, a broker with Dayspring Realtors in Pittsfield. “Price increases were dramatically higher in [the eastern part of the state]. We’ve been very steady.”
Year-over-year price increases in Berkshire County have ranged from 2.6 percent to 16.9 percent in the last six years. The single-family home median price reached $177,500 last year, a 2.6 percent increase from the prior year’s median of $173,000, according to statistics compiled by The Warren Group, Banker & Tradesman’s parent company. The biggest price spike came between 2003 and 2004, when the median leaped from $137,000 to $160,000.
Prices in Berkshire County are significantly lower than those in the eastern and central part of the state, where year-to-date median prices range from $244,000 in Worcester County up to $389,000 in Middlesex County. The median price for homes sold statewide was $313,000. In Middlesex County, the median home price in 2006 was $406,000, a 4.5 percent decline from the $425,000 median recorded in 2005.
Martha Piper of Stone House Properties in West Stockbridge said zoning and strict building rules have restricted the housing supply and kept the real estate market stable in Berkshire County.
“We have a very small supply of homes for people to work from,” said Piper, who is vice president of the Berkshire County Board of Realtors. “We don’t have a lot of [speculative] building and we don’t have a lot of new development.”
The market in the southern Berkshires, which includes towns like Lenox, Great Barrington and West Stockbridge, is driven in part by second-home buyers. Home prices in some of those resort communities tend to be higher than cities in central Berkshires like Pittsfield or Dalton. The year-to-date median in West Stockbridge, for example, is $440,000, while Pittsfield’s median price so far this year is $160,000 and Dalton’s $150,000.
Realtors say that the market appears to be stronger in central Berkshire County.
In central Berkshire County, homes are selling at about 95 percent of the asking price, but in the southern Berkshires, homes in some towns are selling at about 15 percent off the asking price, according to Sawyer.
Homes in the central part of the county also are selling faster than in southern Berkshire County, according Sawyer. Homes took an average of 132 days to sell in central Berkshire County, just five days longer than last year, he said. Sawyer estimates that home in the Southern Berkshire are taking about 110 days longer to sell than properties in the central part of the county.
“South Berkshire County is a discretionary market. [Buyers] are not compelled to buy. In the rest of the county, the market is driven by the normal comings and goings of living,” said Sawyer.
More Homes, Fewer Buyers
But year-to-date sales statistics from The Warren Group show mixed results in all regions of Berkshire County. Pittsfield’s median price is 4.7 percent higher than a year earlier, but sales were down 6 percent. Dalton’s median home price is 16 percent lower than a year ago, and sales plunged 45 percent during the same period.
In Great Barrington the year-to-date median price fell 19 percent to $291,000 and sales were flat. Lenox’s median price climbed 3 percent but sales fell 59 percent, with only 9 single-family homes selling from January through May compared 22 a year earlier.
In northern Berkshire County, prices and sales rose in Williamstown but tumbled in North Adams. The year-to-date median price in Williamstown surged 52.5 percent to $289,750 from $190,000 a year ago, while sales increased 12 percent to a total of 28 home transactions in that time.
In North Adams, however, the median home price dipped 8 percent to $113,500 and the town’s 34 home sales were a 17 percent decline from a year earlier.
“I personally have seen in Williamstown and North Adams that there aren’t as many buyers as there were,” said Lynne Blake, a broker with Harsch Assoc. in Williamstown. “I truly don’t know the reason why. I don’t know if people are sitting and waiting for prices to plummet, which is not going to happen.”
Blake said there are still some sellers who don’t want to adjust prices to reflect the market conditions.
Patrice Melluzzo, a broker with Wheeler & Taylor in Great Barrington, said Realtors are seeing demand for high-end properties priced over $1 million in southern Berkshire County and less demand for homes priced in the $400,000 to $800,000 range.
“I certainly think we still have valuable property to sell and the value is holding. The problem is there’s so much on the market,” said Melluzzo.
There were 1,410 single-family homes listed for sale in the Berkshire County Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service as of last week, up from about 1,143 a year earlier.
But Piper, of Stone House Properties, said the supply isn’t large considering that about 1,400 homes are sold countywide each year. Still, year-to-date sales are off 9.4 percent from last year.
Jeff Rose, president of the Berkshire County Board of Realtors, said Berkshire County had slower-than-usual market activity this spring. Rose, a Pittsfield-based broker, said the “long-enduring winter season” had an impact on home-buying activity. But he said activity has picked up and sales will likely be higher in the next quarter.
“You’re going to see year-to-date numbers catching up,” said Rose.
