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New research from brokerage and listings portal Redfin shows that a tiny proportion of Boston-area homes are selling for less than their owners paid thanks to a supply of homes for sale that’s shrunk much faster than demand as interest rates rose over the last 18 months.

Only 1.2 percent of Greater Boston homes sold at a loss in May, June and July, Redfin said – the second-lowest share out of the nation’s 50 biggest metro areas – compared to 0.8 percent in the same period of 2022. Among that fraction selling for a loss this summer, the median loss was $50,000.

By contrast, most area homeowners are making money on their home sales, the analysis found, with a median capital gain of $315,100 in May, June and July of this year. Researchers said that equated to 81.9 percent of what the median Boston-area seller paid for their house in the first place.

Nationwide, 97 percent of home sellers sold for a profit during the three months ending July 31, Redfin said, with the typical home that sold going for 78.4 percent more than the seller bought it for, for a pre-tax gain of $203,232.

The data reflects the large amount of equity many homeowners have built up, Redfin’s analysis said, along with the large shortfall in housing inventory in markets across the country that’s keeping sellers in most markets from having to drop their prices. Even in San Francisco, the market hardest-hit by drops in home value thanks to an increasingly weak luxury housing market there, Redfin’s analysis found most homeowners are still winning, with the median home going for 70.5 percent more than its seller paid for it, for a pre-tax gain of $625,500.

New research real estate data company Black Knight released this week found that few homeowners are tapping this huge buildup in home equity, despite mortgage lenders’ earlier optimism that HELOCs might prove to be a way to salvage some profits from an otherwise difficult year.

Nationwide, Black Knight found, homeowners withdrew a paltry $39 billion from their homes in the second quarter when second-lien home equity lines of credit and cash-out refinances are combined, compared to more than twice that in successive quarters in 2021 and equivalent to only 0.4 percent of available tappable equity.

Data from The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman, shows that Massachusetts homeowners have taken out $1.28 billion in HELOC loans this year through July 31, a 17.31 percent drop compared to the same period last year and 47.94 percent off the same period in 2020.

Few Boston-Area Homes Sold at a Loss Over the Summer

by James Sanna time to read: 2 min
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