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The latest data on the Massachusetts housing market shows that fewer houses sold across the state last month than any September since 2010, when the state was still in the grip of the Great Recession.

Only 3,608 homes sold last month according to The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman, representing a 26.5 percent drop over last September.

The total number of homes sold last month didn’t quite breach that low, however, thanks to condominium transactions: 1,668 condos sold in September, a 20.7 percent drop year-over-year but around 300 more than traded hands in September 2010.

The statewide median single-family sale price ticked up 2.7 percent year-over-year to $565,000, while the median condo sale price rose 8.7 percent to $500,000.

Within the Interstate 495 corridor, The Warren Group said single-family sales dropped 30.2 percent to 1,616 while condo sales slumped 9.7 percent to 1,174, both on a year-over-year basis. The median single-family sale price in that region ticked up 3.3 percent on the same basis, to $705,000, while the median condo sale price rose 6.9 percent to $579,950.

“Economic forces have been weighing down the market for much of the summer which has caused an increasing number of buyers to stop looking, or at least pause their home search,” Greater Boston Association of Realtors President Alison Socha, an agent with Leading Edge Real Estate in Melrose, said in a statement. “With interest rates climbing, selling prices still close to record highs, and inventory levels at their lowest point in over two decades, few are in a rush to buy.”

Still, the numbers of buyers on the market appear to continue outpacing the number of sellers.

Weekly data from Zillow through Sept. 23 showed the share of Greater Boston home listings with price cuts continued to lag substantially behind 2022, 2019 and 2018, running roughly even with 2020’s pace of price cuts. Throughout the entire month of September, only 19 percent of all Boston-area home listings saw any form of price cut and both GBAR and the Massachusetts Association of Realtors reported that the share of list price a seller ultimately received rose slightly year-over-year in September, with condo sellers commanding 100 percent of list price and single-family sellers getting 102.5 percent of list price in Greater Boston and 101.3 percent and 101 percent, respectively, statewide.

Looking ahead, the inventory picture remained largely unchanged on a year-over-year basis, but Socha said that sellers lost some of their pricing power last month.

Statewide, single-family inventory was off just shy of 34 percent from one year ago, while condo inventory was off 28.2 percent. Meanwhile, new single-family listings were down 13.1 percent and new condo listings were down 10.7 percent.

In GBAR’s territory – Boston and its immediate neighbors plus much of MetroWest, but excluding many northern and southern suburbs – single-family inventory was off 24.1 percent year-over-year while condo inventory was cut 11.5 percent. Numbers of single-families that hit the market in the area fell 18.1 percent and numbers of new condo listings slumped 8.8 percent.

“With more buyers getting priced out as mortgage rates climb and a healthy dose of new listings coming on the market since Labor Day, we’re starting to see sellers adjust their expectations and be a bit more flexible on price. As a result there’s more room for negotiation, and sales prices have slowly begun to come down from their peak highs of earlier this summer,” Socha said. “Even so, there’s still plenty of demand to keep prices from dropping sharply.”

Mass. Single-Family Sales Lowest Since Great Recession

by James Sanna time to read: 2 min
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