Buyers didn’t gobble up homes in November.
Single-family home and condominium sales in Massachusetts plunged by double-digit percentages last month compared to a year ago as prices continued to slip.
A total of 3,538 single-family homes sold in November, 15.4 percent fewer than during the same month in 2006, according to a new report by The Warren Group, parent company of Banker & Tradesman. Sales are the lowest recorded for any November in the past 16 years.
The single-family median home price fell 5.8 percent to $295,000 last month from $313,000 in November 2006. The year-to-date median price is $311,705, or 4.7 percent below the median price for the first 11 months of 2006.
The numbers were first reported last week on Banker & Tradesman’s Web site.
Karl Case, an economist and professor at Wellesley College, said the credit crunch, which has made it harder for some buyers to secure mortgage loans, and a decline in buyer demand have hurt the housing market this year.
“People are not buying,” said Case.
Sales of single-family homes have dropped every month this year compared with the corresponding month in 2006, with the exception of January and July when sales volume increase slightly. Single-family home sales so far this year are 7.6 percent lower than 2006. A total of 47,123 single-family homes sold from January through November.
Despite November’s sharp drops, Case offered some positive news. The Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Price Index, a closely watched index that analyzes repeat home sales data in 20 metro markets, has shown that prices in the Boston metropolitan area could be steadying.
The index in February stood at 168.04 and climbed for the next five months until it reached 171.77 in July. It dipped to 170.84 in August and then slipped again to 170.73 in September. But year-over-year September’s index was down 3.2 percent.
“We [metropolitan Boston] were the first off the diving board and now we seem to be the first metro area showing some hint that things are stabilizing,” said Case.
Foreclosure activity is putting downward pressure on prices. When foreclosure sales are eliminated, the median price for single-family homes sold so far this year has stayed about the same as 2006, according to The Warren Group. Without foreclosure sales, the median price has fallen less than a half percent to $334,900 compared to $335,000 a year ago.
Meanwhile, Bay State condo sales plunged 23 percent in November. A total of 1,713 units traded compared to 2,229 a year ago. So far this year, condo sales are off by 8 percent with a total of 25,576 sales recorded through November. The median condo price fell 4.2 percent to $258,006 in November. Year-to-date, the median condo price of $269,900 is about 2 percent lower than a year earlier.
