The Massachusetts Association of Realtors recently released its February 2020 Pending Sales Report, the results showed that the number of single-family homes and condominiums put under agreement in this month increased by 25.2% and 18.6% respectively year-over-year. February marks 12 consecutive months of year-over-year increases for both single-family homes and condominiums in Massachusetts.

Single-family homes under agreement experienced a 4.7% growth in median price, marking a near $18,000 price increase. Based on this growth, single-family homes under agreement now average a median price of $396,900.

Condominiums saw even larger growth in median price year-over-year, with the median price increasing by 13.2%. The median price for condominiums under agreement reached $395,000 this year, which is a $46,000 increase from last year.

“Buyers made their presence known in February by taking advantage of mild weather and very low interest rates to push the number of accepted offers up over 25%,” 2020 MAR President Kurt Thompson, broker at Keller Williams Realty North Central in Leominster, said in a press release. “The competition for the limited number of homes for sale remained very high, and low interest rates gave buyers more buying power in our high price market.”

The February 2020 Realtor market and price confidence indices remain high at 72.89 and 72.34, respectively. Thompson noted, “Realtor confidence continued on its climb to very positive territory in February with lower interest rates having a positive effect.”

This month’s “Hot Topic” Question asked Realtors to rank their most popular method of communication when speaking with clients. Text messaging proved to be the most popular form of communication at 76%, and the next most popular form of communication was email with 42.6%. Only 19% of Realtors said speaking on the phone was preferred and 7% stated that meeting in person was most popular.

Communicating through social media ranked as the least popular option as 2% reported that using Facebook Messenger was preferred. No Realtors said using Twitter or LinkedIn was popular with their clients. “Realtors are always going to communicate with their clients in the way their clients want to be communicated with and clients now prefer texting,” Thompson said.