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Home, condo sales rapidly declined in July

by Liz Hughes

July single-family home and condo sales continued to plummet last month as the market continued to cool thanks to high home prices and mortgage rates. 

The Warren Group’s July Sales Report found single-family home sales fell 17.4% to 5,266 from 6,374 a year ago. 

Despite the drop in sales, median sales prices continued to climb. 

Last month, the median single-family home price rose 8.3% from last year to $585,000, marking an all-time high. The median sales price is up from $540,000 in July 2021. 

Warren Group CEO Tim Warren said the market’s cooling is driven by mortgage rates up over 5% compared to 3% a year ago and the median price of a single-family home now $45,000 higher than it was a year ago. 

“Increases in wages and salaries are not keeping pace with inflation that is now running at 8.5%. Plus, homebuyers face a very low inventory of homes for sale,” Warren said. “All this leads us to a cooler real estate market. We’ve seen the same trend occur for many consecutive months now; prices reach new highs while the total number of sales declines on a year-over-year basis. Evidence in the cooling is seen in prices. They are rising at a slower rate, gaining just 9% so far this year after gaining 14% last year.”

So far this year, 29,819 single-family homes sold in Massachusetts, an 11.8% decrease from a year ago. At the same time, the year-to-date median single-family home price rose 9% to $553,000. 

Meanwhile, condo sales also fell year over year as prices increased. 

July condominium sales fell 24.5% to 2,201 from 2,916 a year prior, while the median sale price increased 10.9% to $521,000, the fourth month in a row that median condo prices have hovered above $500,000, according to the report. 

For the first seven months of 2022, 14,465 condos sold in Massachusetts, down 13.9% from a year ago. The median condominium sale price rose 8.7% from the same time period to $500,000. 

“The median condo price has now been above $500,000 for four consecutive months, and $521,000 marked a new all-time high for the month of July,” Warren said. “The median condo price is up 10.9% in July, outpacing the 8.3% gain in the single-family median price.”

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