The median sale price of a Bay State condominium hit a record high in March and surpassed the median price of a single-family home for a second consecutive month.
The median price of a condo was $389,000 last month, $35,000 higher than the median price of a single-family home at $354,000, according to analysis from The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman. This is the second consecutive month where the condo median has surpassed that of a single-family home, and only the fourth time since The Warren Group began its current method of tracking data in 1987.
March’s condo median was 20 percent higher than the same month in 2017. The number of sales also rose slightly, to 1,854. Year-to-date, condo sales were up 0.22 percent with 4,458 transactions compared to the same period in 2017, while the median price rose 13.4 percent to $362,873.
Median sale prices are calculated on a statewide basis, and there are far more single-family homes than there are condos in the Bay State. Single-families exist in a wide range of geographies and economic climates, while the condos tend to be clustered in and around cities – particularly Greater Boston. As a result, the city’s condo market, and all of its new luxury units, has an outsize effect on the statewide median price, like the wave of March closings at The Fallon Companies’ 50 Liberty on Fan Pier.
Single-family home sales decreased in March on a year-over-year basis; home sales have dropped from 2017 in each month so far this year. Last month, there were 3,632 single-family home sales recorded in Massachusetts, an 8 percent dip from March 2017. Concurrently, the median single-family sale price increased 5.4 percent to $354,000, up from $335,750 a year earlier. Year-to-date, there have been 9,832 single-family home sales across Massachusetts with a median sale price of $350,000.
“Although year-to-date single-family homes sales have dipped slightly from where they were at this time last year, the median sale price continues to increase at an impressive rate,” said Tim Warren, CEO of The Warren Group. “The most recent gain marks 24 straight months of year-over-year median home price gains, and even though we should see a spike in inventory on the market in the coming months, there’s no sign that price gains will slow down.”
