The new year hasn’t delivered a brighter picture for the Bay State housing market.
Single-family home and condo sales plunged more than 20 percent in January from a year ago and prices were down as well.
A total of 2,110 single-family homes were sold, down 28 percent from January 2007. That represents the lowest figure since The Warren Group, Banker & Tradesman’s parent company, began tracking Massachusetts real estate statistics in this fashion in 1987. The second-lowest number of single-family homes sold was 2,166 during the real estate downturn in 1991, while the state hit a high in 1998 with 3,922 homes sold. The median selling price for a single-family home also dipped in January by 4.4 percent to $325,000 from $340,000 a year earlier.
The decline in condo sales was even steeper. Sales fell 36 percent, with 1,135 units trading in January compared to 1,778 during the same month last year. The median price for condos slipped 1.5 percent to $270,000.
“It’s what’s been happening now since the last half of last year. Once the subprime mortgage mess bubbled up, the housing market nationwide and in Massachusetts has shown more weakness than before,” said Alan Clayton-Matthews, an economist who teaches at Boston’s McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at the University of Massachusetts.
“This is a continuation of slower sales and lower prices,” he added.
Plymouth, Norfolk and Worcester counties saw sharp drops in home sales. In Plymouth County, 172 homes sold in January – 38 percent fewer than a year earlier. The region’s median selling price dropped 4.4 percent to $325,000.
Norfolk County’s home sales plummeted 37 percent and the median price tumbled 11 percent to $370,000. Meanwhile, in Worcester County, sales dropped 36 percent and the median home price fell 2.3 percent to $254,000.
Clayton-Matthews said the state can expect to see more price drops given the supply of for-sale homes.
“Sales would have been higher if prices had fallen more. Because there’s a surplus of homes on the market, that puts downward pressure on prices. The inventory will work itself down if prices fall,” he said.
The only regions that had price gains in January were Nantucket, Dukes and Berkshire counties. In Dukes County, which includes the towns on Martha’s Vineyard, the median price jumped 10 percent to $772,500 from $699,000. Nantucket’s median price in January was $3 million, a whopping 69 percent increase from the $1.77 million median recorded a year earlier.
And Berkshire County’s median home price climbed 18 percent to $206,500.
The drop in sales activity comes as the state and national economy is struggling. The sluggish economy means that there will be slower growth in income, which will affect people’s ability to purchase homes, Clayton-Matthews said.
“That’s going to put additional downward pressure on the housing market,” he noted.
While condo sales and prices were down statewide, some pockets saw a jump in prices.
The median condo price in Suffolk County, which includes Boston, jumped 12.8 percent from $344,000 to $388,000. Sales, however, were down 45 percent. A total of 269 condos sold in January compared to 490 a year earlier.
In Middlesex County, the median condo price rose 1.3 percent to $293,682. A total of 309 condos sold in that region, a 32 percent drop from the 455 sales recorded last January.
