A new report from Yardi-owned listings portal Point2 says 34,8 percent of home listings – condominium and single-family combined – in the Boston area had asking prices above $1 million.
That puts Boston at sixth place among the nation’s 30 largest cities with the share of listings above $1 million. However, when the share of listings above $3 million was counted, Boston surged to second in the nation, only behind San Francisco, with 22.4 percent of listings in that category. The city is fourth in the nation among large cities ranked by share of listings over $5 million, with 4.7 percent.
Like Boston, many of the large metro areas consistently in the top 10 of each ranking were coastal hubs that have long struggled to build enough housing to meet demand, however Nashville, Tennessee, Austin, Texas and Las Vegas, Nevada also made appearances.
The study analyzed active listings on July 5, as posted on Point2, Zillow, Redfin and Realtor.com.
The Greater Boston Association of Realtors reported the median home price in its coverage area, generally within the Route 128 corridor plus many exclusive MetroWest towns, hit $812,000 for single-family properties and $640,000 for condos in June, with the year-to-date median sale price for the former landing at $746,000 and $620,000 for the latter. Those figures are 14.8 percent and 5.1 percent up from the same indicators at the end of June 2020, respectively.
The latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index report, issued this morning, states that Greater Boston home values jumped 17.4 percent in May on a year-over-year basis. Phoenix, Arizona saw the biggest increase at 25.9 percent, followed by San Diego, California at 24.7 percent and Seattle, Washington at 23.4 percent.
Increasing demand for high-end suburban homes has been a feature of the Boston-area housing market since last summer, when numerous residents of downtown luxury multifamily buildings decided they needed to move to single-family homes to be safe from COVID-19. However, demand for high-end condos has only recently returned in force after seeing softness for much of 2020.
