The median selling price for single-family homes in Fall River reached a record $200,000 during the first half of the year. Condos and multifamily properties also are seeing price appreciation. This three-family home at 42 Ash St. in the city’s South End section recently sold for $244,800 after just 10 days on the market.

Fall River, an economically depressed industrial city that has struggled throughout the last three decades, hit a real estate milestone this year. For the first time ever, the median selling price for a single-family home has reached, and even surpassed, the $200,000 mark during the first half of the year.

And it’s not just single-family home prices that have broken a record in Fall River this year. The median price for condominiums sold during the first two quarters of 2003 was $100,450, marking the first time median condo prices have jumped beyond $85,000.

Local Realtors say a variety of factors have helped fuel a strong residential real estate market in the port city that sits along the Atlantic Coast and Taunton River in Bristol County. Homebuyers, priced out of Greater Boston communities, are flocking to Fall River for a piece of the American dream. Boston-area investors are also snatching up triple-deckers in the city, which is known for its mix of single-family and multifamily properties.

With apartment vacancies in the city so low that rents in Fall River have been steadily rising, according to one longtime Realtor, investing in the city’s multifamily properties is particularly attractive. And unlike renters in Boston and surrounding suburbs who are benefiting from rent discounts and concessions and incentives offered by property owners, tenants in Fall River haven’t been so lucky.

Additionally, buyers from neighboring Rhode Island suburbs like Tiverton – unhappy with the increasing home prices and property taxes in that state – are also being drawn to Fall River. With the supply of for-sale homes tight, and with few large-scale residential housing developments being built, Fall River, like other cities and towns in the commonwealth, has seen home prices escalate. But unlike other parts of the Greater Boston area that have seen price appreciation ease during the last 12 to 18 months as unemployment grew and the overall economy floundered, Fall River has seen its single-family home prices jump more than 30 percent during the first two quarters of 2003.

“The market here is still steady,” said Dorene Menezes, owner of American Dream Realty in Fall River. “We still have people coming down here and investing.”

The median price of single-family homes sold during the first half of the year in Fall River was $201,500, a 32 percent increase from the $152,900 median price recorded during the first two quarters of 2002, and 24 percent more than the $162,000 median price for all single-family homes sold in 2002. From 1999 to 2002, the median selling price for single-family homes climbed 43 percent.

‘Seller’s Market’

Meanwhile, the median price for the 52 condos sold in Fall River through June of this year was $100,450, up 34 percent from the $75,000 median posted the prior year, according to The Warren Group, parent company of Banker & Tradesman. The median price for all condos sold in 2002 was $84,900, 17.5 percent higher than median condo price recorded two years earlier.

“One of main symptoms of the housing crisis is that cities that were previously ‘affordable’ – such as Fall River, New Bedford, Brockton and Chelsea – are now unaffordable to the majority of moderate-income residents in the region,” said Aaron Gornstein, executive director of the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association, in an e-mail.

“In fact, it is these cities that have experienced some of the largest percentage increase in home prices over the past three years. This is compounded by the fact that incomes are flat or falling due to the economic recession and job layoffs,” he said.

While Fall River has experienced steep increases in its home prices during the last four years, the city’s housing costs are still lower than Bristol County communities north of the city and closer to Boston.

In Norton, for example, the median selling price for a single-family home during the first two quarters of 2003 was $293,450, and last year’s median price was $262,000, according to The Warren Group, which collects real estate information from registries of deeds throughout the state.

In the city of Taunton, a neighbor of Norton, the median selling price for single-family homes was $247,000 during the first half this year, and $215,000 for all of 2002. The median selling price for condos sold in Taunton during the first six months of the year was $175,000.

Low mortgage interest rates have encouraged homebuyers and investors in Fall River and other parts of the state, and as the rates started creeping up during late summer, even more homebuyers and investors made the decision to purchase. Fall River has also received attention in recent years with talk of the possible expansion of commuter rail service to the city. Currently, the closest commuter rail station is the Middleboro/Lakeville terminus of the Old Colony line, approximately 20 miles from Fall River.

Even though the state is facing a fiscal crisis and the status of transportation projects are uncertain in the near future, that hasn’t deterred many buyers.

“They [investors] still think the train’s coming down here. Obviously, they haven’t been listening to our governor,” quipped Menezes.

Recently, Menezes helped a couple that was interested in purchasing a home priced under $200,000. Menezes could find only about four single-family homes in that price range in Fall River. But because the homes were located in parts of the city that consisted primarily of multifamily homes, the buyers weren’t interested.

After about a month, Menezes finally found the buyers a three-bedroom, one-bathroom ranch in neighboring Tiverton that they liked. But the buyers had to pay $215,000, $15,000 more than they intended to spend.

“Before, if a buyer [was] pre-approved [for a mortgage loan of] $150,000, they could find practically anything,” said Menezes. “Now the entry level is $200,000.”

Joanne Vallee, a lifelong resident of Fall River and local real estate agent, said it’s not uncommon to get multiple offers for one property.

“There hasn’t been enough supply to meet the demand,” said Vallee, who works in the Fall River office of ERA Castelo. “It’s definitely a seller’s market. We had a buyer’s market for so, so long, and finally the buyers can get a return on their investment.”

Investor interest in multifamily properties has also increased in recent years. The majority of housing in Fall River is occupied by renters. Sixty-five percent of the city’s occupied housing, or about 25,200 housing units, are renter-occupied, according to statistics from the 2000 U.S. Census.

Vallee recently helped an owner sell a six-unit property within a week. “I would have sold 20 more of the same property if I could find them,” she said.

It’s not uncommon for new buyers to purchase a multifamily investment property in the city and bump up monthly rents for a two-bedroom apartment from $500 to $800 or $900.

Real estate has been a particularly attractive investment option recently, with the stock market taking a plunge, and with the availability of low-down-payment homebuying investment programs.

As the demand for multifamily properties has increased, so have prices. The median price for triple-deckers sold during the first half of 2003 was $210,000 – 34 percent higher than the $156,863 median price of a year ago, according to The Warren Group.

The median selling price for two-family homes during that period rose more moderately – 16.7 percent – to $175,000 from $149,950.

Menezes said she recently worked with a client who sold his home within four months after purchasing it because of an out-of-state job transfer, and made a $50,000 profit.

“Where else could he have saved $50,000 in four months?” she asked.