Let’s get local - North Shore market update
Recently, the North Shore Association of Realtors released updated information on market statistics in their area. In case you are curious, you can check which towns comprise the NSAR area. The numbers are rather discouraging, and include January through July statistics as compared with the same months from a year ago. The average sale price for single family homes has dropped 3.3% in the past year, with condo prices dropping a modest 1.6%, while multi-family average prices have dropped 12.4% versus the same seven months in 2006. That translates to a more than $50k drop in average sale price for multi-family homes. Looking to invest in real estate and/or become a landlord? The time may be right to pick up that triple decker you have had your eye on.
Single family homes stayed more than a month longer on the market on average, going from just over 112 days to 146, or almost five months, an increase of 30%. Condos spent 5.5 months on the market, up 34% from 2006, and while multi-families spent the least amount of time on the market, their average DOM (days on market) rose nearly 42%, from 97 to an average 138 days. Are the buyers still out there? Yes. But they are waiting in the wings until the property they like drops thousands of dollars as it lingers on the market.
The number of units sold dropped across all three categories as well, with multi-family properties selling 30% less units versus 2006 sales. Over 1800 single family homes were sold in both 2006 and ‘07 in the North Shore area (see above link for town list), with a negligible 2% decrease. Condo sales dropped more than 11%, with 1146 condos selling from January to July 2006, while only 1013 were sold over the same months this year.
What does all this mean? It means what everyone has been seeing and hearing about - too much inventory that is priced too high with not enough qualified or interested buyers buying up that inventory. It is simply a part of the real estate cycle - the market is correcting itself and evening out as it tends to do at least once per decade.