April 2015 – Page 2

Good Boston Globe article –

DAVID L RYAN/GLOBE STAFF

Home by the sea in Falmouth.

By Prashant Gopal BLOOMBERG NEWS

Even before the remnants of Eastern Massachusetts’ snowiest winter have melted, second-home buyers flocking to Cape Cod’s beach towns have helped agent Steve Clay’s team break their sales record.

Clay, of Keller Williams Realty, said he and his four agents have 17 properties under contract, more than at any one time since the team formed in 2009

“Buyers know they missed the bottom of the market, and now they don’t want to miss the bottom of interest rates,” he said.

Second-home buyers from Cape Cod and New York’s Hamptons to Miami and Lake Tahoe, Calif., are returning to the housing market as surging stock prices, job growth, and low interest rates boost purchasing power and consumer confidence. US vacation-property sales jumped 57 percent last year to an estimated 1.13 million, a record in data going back to 2003, the National Association of Realtors said in a report Wednesday.

The increase in sales of new and existing vacation homes coincides with a 7.4 percent drop in deals for investment properties, to 1.02 million, as rising prices cut into potential profits. Purchases of owner-occupied homes fell almost 13 percent to 3.23 million, the realtors group said.

Vacation-home buyers had a median household income of $94,380, up from $85,600 in 2013, and the typical property was 200 miles away from a buyer’s primary residence. About 40 percent of purchases were in beach areas, 19 percent were in the country, and 17 percent were in the mountains.

Vacation homes accounted for 21 percent of all transactions last year, the most since the National Association of Realtors survey was first conducted 12 years ago.

‘Greatly Improving’

“We knew the fundamentals for vacation-home sales were greatly improving in 2014,” Lawrence Yun, the group’s chief economist, said in a telephone interview. “I did not expect it would be this big of an increase. It shows the buyers perceive that economic conditions will be solid for upcoming years.”

The realtors’ vacation-sales figures were based on survey responses from nearly 2,000 people who bought a residential property last year. Transactions involving institutional investors were excluded from the report.

In the Hamptons, the Long Island resort area favored by Manhattan’s elite, many people who might have rented in previous years are choosing to buy instead, said Ernest Cervi, the executive managing director who oversees Hamptons home sales for brokerage Corcoran Group. Buyers are riding high because of stock gains and average Wall Street bonuses of $172,860, up 2 percent as the industry added 2,300 jobs in New York City.

“Rates are low, so why not jump in?” Cervi said.

‘Backed Up’

Clay, who is based in Falmouth, where ferries bound for Martha’s Vineyard depart, said the snow kept many buyers away earlier in the year. In the past few weeks, the market has exploded, he said.

Single-family home sales in Barnstable County, which covers Cape Cod, rose 11 percent in February from a year earlier, according to The Warren Group, a property-data provider based in Boston.

“Mortgage people are flooded and appraisers are backed up,” Clay said. “It’s an indication that the pent-up demand is coming to fruition.”

Interesting dynamics in the Boston and metro Boston markets – from Scott at Boston.com.

Sales rise in suburbs, slow down in Boston.

By Scott Van Voorhis

Boston.com Correspondent

Towns and neighborhoods across the Boston area posted big gains in both sales and prices in February, defying a winter that broke snowfall records and left many businesses reeling.

The suburbs led the way. Several communities are actually ahead of last year’s pace when it comes to home sales, according to numbers released by The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.

Cambridge proved as desirable as ever, with both condo and home sales rising markedly, as the median price of a house in the city hit $1.3 million.

Boston was more of a mixed bag; some neighborhoods posted strong numbers, but others all but fell off the map.

Overall, home sales across Massachusetts rose 4 percent in February, with the median single-family home price for the first two months of the year increasing 5 percent to $316,000, according to The Warren Group.

Condo prices rose 1.5 percent to $294,250, even as sales fell by 6 percent.

The Warren numbers, of course, only tell part of the picture, as some represent sales that were initially inked late last year, or in January of this year (before the storms) but which finally closed in February.

“The continued, sustained snowfall has been an incredible challenge for the region’s housing market,” said Dan Breault, EVP/regional director of RE/MAX of New England in a press statement. “Fortunately, spring is just around the corner and with low inventory and rising prices, we anticipate a busy spring season.”

Still, Greater Boston homebuyers proved to be a hardy bunch.

The western suburbs held up especially well, according to The Warren Group’s February housing report.

Framingham, Marlborough, Natick, Franklin, Medfield, Wayland, Lexington, Concord, Wellesley, and Weston all put in strong showings in February.

Sales so far this year are up by double digits in Framingham (20 percent), Franklin (118 percent), Concord (54 percent), Lexington (14 percent), Natick (15 percent), Wellesley (26 percent), and Needham (18 percent).

The dire cold may have made buyers stingier, as selling prices were down in a number of towns. Notable exceptions included Needham, whose median home price soared past $1 million after a 33 percent jump; Lexington, where the median price hit $875,000 after a 7.4 percent increase; and Natick and Framingham, which saw prices go up by 6 percent.

Quincy and Braintree were the stars on the South Shore, with sales for the first two months of the year rising 28 percent and 15 percent respectively. Median prices in both cities stayed just about even, at $360,000 for Quincy and $356,000 for Braintree.

North of Boston, Medford is off to a particularly fast start in 2015, with sales up 6 percent and median price up more than 10 percent, to $440,000. Sales in Reading are up 80 percent, though the median price fell 9 percent to $438,000.

But for Boston and Somerville, the latest home sales numbers for the first two months of the year had more downs than ups.

Somerville home sales plunged 36 percent, with just seven properties changing hands so far this year, while condo sales were down 14 percent. The median price of a condo dropped 6 percent, to $422,000.

In Boston, both condo and home sales were down in several neighborhoods.

South Boston saw home sales rise by a quarter, even as condo sales fell by 10 percent, while Jamaica Plain saw condo sales plunge by 25 percent, even as the median price rose nearly 20 percent to $426,500.

East Boston put in one of the strongest showings in the city, with condo sales up 46 percent for the year and the median price rising 10 percent to $385,000.

Downtown Boston saw condo sales drop by a quarter through the end of February, while the median price edged down 14 percent to $757,500.

Neda Vander Stoep, a broker in the Back Bay office of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage. “However, with inventory remaining low and plenty of buyers on the sidelines, properties that came on during the February storms were nonetheless quick to sell.”