Condominium and Single Family Market Round-Up

Another Spring market in the books for Greater Boston and another quarter of (mostly) rising values in a market that just keeps on keepin’ on.

We focus mainly on 4 counties (Middlesex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex Counties) that comprise much of what is considered Greater Boston. We have clients buying and selling in all of these counties.

Here’s the TLDR of this year’s spring market and Q2-2024 takeways:

• Interest rates, aside from a dip in March and subsequent leap in April, remained largely steady.

• Single family prices rose over Q2-2023 values in all 4 counties with Suffolk taking the greatest leap at 13%.

• Condo Values, in Q2-2023 vs Q2-2024, were much slower to rise. Essex was the biggest increase at around 6%.

• Inventory remains low, but showing signs of blossoming.

• Anecdotally, some listings, well-priced or not, are seeing mixed responses with some getting multiple offers and others remaining on market for longer.

Based on what we’re seeing currently on the market, we think it’s going to be a slow summer. That said, if there’s any downward movement with the interest rates coming into the Fall market, we’re likely to see a surge of new listings, but the lower rates and years of pent up demand will keep the pressure on value.

Here are a series of charts and graphs depicting, county by county, and then town by town, the Q2-2024 sales figures for single family and condominium homes across Greater Boston.

[Rates provided by Macrotrends & Sales Data via MLS Pinergy. With respect to the MLS data, I try my best to clean it up and route out any human data entry errors, but it’s never a perfect dataset.]

Sale Price vs. Interest Rates

Here’s how the sale prices, by month, compared to the interest rates. Keep in mind that the sale prices reflect offer bids that were accepted several weeks prior, so these graphs may make more sense if you’re looking at the peaks and valleys of pricing as almost an echo of the interest rates.

Change in Sale Price: Q2-2024 vs. Q2-2023

Here are the Q2-2024 over Q2-2023 comparisons. It’s separated by county and divided between single family and condo sales, with the towns listed alphabetically.

Inventory by # of Sales

And here are the corresponding tables showing sale prices, by town and by property type (condos and single families):

Days to Offer & Sale Price Ratios

Finally, here’s a look at market health as reflected by “Days to Offer (DTO)” and “Sale Price to List Price Ratios (SP:LP)”. I went back from 2021 through this quarter.

I divided each of the four counties into two categories again: single family and condo markets.

In the SP:LP category, they’re all pretty much in lockstep with some subtle exceptions. Everyone saw a bump in Q2 from each year. Mostly, the trend was to see the SP:LP drop closer to 100% in Q2. Given how quiet this quarter is already proving to be, I suspect a similar trajectory for Q3-2024.

In the DTO category, again there’s a clear drop each Q2, but the Q3 numbers in each of the eight examples aren’t easy to peg.

If you’re listing your home for sale this summer, you may want to really zero in on what’s happening in your specific market locale, in your specific price range, and for your specific property type and price point. Not every market will be a sleepy summer snooze-fest, but many definitely will. Check with your trusted realtor!

And what’s actually happening so far in Q3-2024?

Bupkis! In most markets, anyway. Traditionally, July is one of the slowest months of the year when it comes to transactions and the introduction of new listings. Factor in that the rates are still over 7% along with the uncertainty that surrounds the significant changes on the horizon for the mechanisms of agency and commission fees, and there’s a quietude we’re experiencing. If I had to guess, given the U.S. economy’s relatively strong Q2 performance, the Fed may signal a rate drop midway through Q3 and, if mortgage interest rates correlate, we’ll see a pretty robust fall. It’s not a secret that many homeowners are starting to feel trapped beneath the mortgage rates they were able to lock in between 2020 and 2022. If the rates come anywhere close to 5%, we may see a deluge of listings hitting the market this September and, if the rates continue to soften, next Spring. No crystal balls over here at the Boston Home Team headquarters, only data, intuition, and decades of experience in the residential real estate world.

As always, if you or someone you know is thinking about selling or buying a home, make the Boston Home Team your first call. Data-driven market knowledge and intelligent insight is our strength and our combined decades of experience is the foundation.

In the meantime, enjoy your summer and stay safe, stay cool, and stay informed!