| Another spring market is in the books and the market’s recovery remains uneven.
While the spring market generally is considered to end in July, some of these homes are still closing in August, and so a year to date assessment is worth a look. Moreover, mortgage brokers are reporting a significant uptick in originations in September and October; the traditional “spring market” may no longer apply in Boston’s current market.
Most of the communities with the greatest year-over-year price increases through August were also towns with very few sales overall, where a couple of sales on the higher end can skew the results. (All figures here are for single-family homes, with a minimum of four homes sold in either year.) Aquinnah took the top spot with a nearly 75 percent jump in the median sale price, according to data from The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman. The tiny seaside town (population: 311) also had only six sales year to date in 2016 and five in 2017.
Almost all of the towns in the top 10 for year-over-year price increases had commensurately low sales figures. Westminster, number 10 by price increase at 29 percent, was the only one with more than 25 sales in either year (58 in 2016 and 73 in 2017). The rest of the top 10 are a who’s who of “where the heck is that?!”
They are Gill (65 percent), Rowe (59 percent), Windsor (55 percent), Alford (46 percent), New Marlboro (43 percent), New Braintree (41 percent), Heath and Montgomery (both 31 percent).
In several of those towns the price increases are large by percentage but not necessarily in figures. Rowe, Windsor and New Braintree saw median price increases from mid- to high-$100k to the low- to mid-$200k range; Gill’s increased a whopping $128,000 to $325,000 from $197,000. The big winner of course was Aquinnah, which went from just shy of $1.25 million to $2.175 million.
The bottom 10 also holds some surprises. Warwick lost the most value with a 48 percent drop in median price from $230,000 to $120,000, with five home sold in each year. The town on the New Hampshire border (population: 780) was joined at the bottom of the rankings by Egremont (-28 percent), Stockbridge (-25 percent), Conway (-23 percent), Monterey (-21 percent), Chester (-19 percent), Brimfield (-18 percent), Becket (-17 percent) – and Boston, down 15 percent.
Boston, it is worth noting, is divided in The Warren Group’s database into 13 neighborhoods; many of the neighborhoods made price gains, though Allston, Brighton, Charlestown and Roxbury were all down year over year. The “Boston” of the database includes the core of the city, where there are few single-family homes to be found in the first place. The number of sales grew very slightly, from 40 to 42.
The vast majority of the commonwealth’s communities lie somewhere in the middle, with modest gains or losses since last year. And right now the middle is the safest place to be.
