Tag: Boston South End condo sales

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Condo Prices Shatter Record

 

Great post from Scott.

Mass condo prices shatter record

Posted by Scott Van Voorhis
Yes, condo prices are getting nutty again.

The median price of a condo in Massachusetts crossed the $300,000 threshold in January.

That’s the highest condo price ever for a January since The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman, began tracking condo prices back in 1987.

It also represents a 24 percent increase from January 2013, when the median price for a condo in the Bay State was at a relatively more affordable $242,000.

By comparison, the median U.S. home price weighs in at $188,900. And that’s after a 10 percent increase in January.

Condo sales were also up by a pretty sizable 16 percent, with 1,144 units changing hands the first month of the year, The Warren Group reports.

What’s even more amazing, condo prices are not all that far behind single-family home prices in Massachusetts, with the median home price in January rising 16 percent, to $315,000.

Condos have long been a starter home alternative in pricey Greater Boston, but it’s not clear how much longer that’s going to last given current trends.

Certainly condo prices are out of sight now in Cambridge, Boston and the inner suburbs.

Of course, the price increases might be good news for sellers, but it’s hardly anything for buyers to cheer about. Even if you are trying to sell a house in order to move up into something grander, you are still going to be scrambling to keep up when prices are rising at double digits.

So what’s driving this price escalation? Some of it is due to pent-up demand, but low inventory – basically not enough listings for all the buyers out there – is the bigger problem right now.

The inventory of single-family homes dropped more than 20 percent in January compared to January 2013, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors reports this morning. (There were 15,246 listings this past January, compared to 19,142 the year before.)

Condo inventory was down even more, by 27 percent, to 4,232, MAR reports.

Anyway, it should be an interesting spring market. At a time when sales and prices in many other parts of the country are starting to moderate, the market in Massachusetts kicking into high gear.

 

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Condos Soar

691 Mass Ave, #208, asking $570K. 1B/1B, 909 sf

Its always interesting to hear mixed reactions to condos, as our “local” markets, downtown Boston and Provincetown are very condo centric. A good statewide perspective though.

Condos soar as home sales stumble

Posted by Scott Van Voorhis
Are buyers turning to condos as they find themselves on the losing end of soaring single-family home prices?

It happened during the bubble years and in previous booms as well. And it looks like it may be happening again given the latest Massachusetts sales stats out this morning

Bay State condo sales jumped more than 15 percent in December compared to the year before, even as home sales slid –  by just under a percent –  for the fewest sales since April,The Warren Group reports.

Yet even as home sales faltered, home prices rose yet again in December amid a dearth of listings for buyers to look at, with the median price hitting $320,000, a 6.3 percent jump over 2012 and an increase over this November as well, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors finds.

And despite the stagnant sales numbers, demand still appears to be relatively strong, with the drop in sales driven by the sparse choices in the market as much as anything else.

Even as home sales stagnated in December, average days on market dropped to 99 days, down from 130 in December 2012, according to MAR.

By contrast, condo prices look a little more reasonable, though that window appears to be closing as well.

The median condo price rose 8 percent in December, to more than $305,000, MAR reports. The median condo price for all of 2013 – $300,000 – was the highest since 2004.

While generally less expensive, condos have the perception as being a riskier bet than singe-family homes. There’s more price volatility with condos the poster child, at least in New England, of the devastating early-1990s real estate collapse.

Many of those who snapped up condos during the greed-is-good 80s were stuck with them for years, unable to sell, period, let alone settling for a loss.

Developers during those heady boom times got the very dangerous idea they could turn any old building anywhere into overpriced condos and stuff their pockets with easy profits.

Bad bets include the downtown Haverhill condo next to a car dealership that one of my former newspaper colleagues was stuck with from his bachelor days.

He wound up renting it after he got married and bought a house – he may very well still be sitting on it, though I suspect he finally found a way to unload during the bubble years, circa 2003-2006.

Ready to go condo? Homes too expensive for you now?

 

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Goode & Farmer Report – Boston Year End 2013

 Goode & Farmer Report – Boston Year End 2013

January 15, 2014

The challenge remains lack of inventory.

The Big Numbers are 6, 8 and 44! Combined, all Boston neighborhoods saw a 6% increase in the number of condos sold in 2013 to 4,605 from 4,361 sales in 2012. The average sales price of condominiums increased 8% to $608K from $563K in 2012. Average days on market dropped 44% to an average of only 46 days from an already historic low last year of 82. This real estate market is healthy except for the continuing decrease in inventory levels. There are only 374 condominiums for sale in downtown Boston, a slight increase from the 347 last year at this time, but still a very low number.

The Back Bay, saw a 4% increase in the average sales price of a condominium to $1.228 from $1.18M. Total sales of condos were down 12% to 474 from 537 in 2012 with the average days on market down a remarkable 44% to only 59. There are only 58 condos available for sale in the Back Bay today.

The South End saw a 7% increase in the number of condo sales to 578 from 540 condos sold last year. The average price of a condo sold increased 14% to $802K compared with $704K last year. Total sales volume was up 22% to $463M. Interestingly there are only 28 condos for sale today.

South Boston saw an 8% increase in the number of condos sold to 630 from 585 in 2012. The average sales price of a condo increased by 10% to $467K compared with $423K in 2012. South Boston had the largest drop in average days on market to only 32. There are only 54 condos on the market today.

It is so evident that inventory remains the problem in all of the downtown Boston markets, but as I have said repeatedly this market is so resilient and so desirable that declining inventory levels have not  affected the steady increase in prices in most neighborhoods. Although in some neighborhoods like Beacon Hill sales have decreased 25% to 140 from 186 last year – due to the total lack of inventory available for sale. There are a total of only 6 condos for sale on The Hill. Time will tell if this dynamic continues. The addition of Ink Block and numerous other condominium projects just may signal an end to the seemingly endless lack of inventory.

 

Boston chart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope this clean and simple year end analysis of some favorite and important Boston neighborhoods has been interesting.

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Homes Selling Faster, Confounding Experts

Recent post from Scott confirming what we are seeing on the ground. While low inventory is beginning to effect the volume of sales, the increase in the velocity of sales is surprising.

Homes selling faster, confounding experts

Posted by Scott Van Voorhis Boston.com Real Estate

So much for all the doom and gloom talk of a looming real estate slowdown.

Economists for the various real estate websites and brokerages out there have been talking up a storm about how the Fed, rising interest rates and the troubles in Washington were adding up to big trouble for home sales and prices.

Yet instead of a slowdown, we are seeing, if anything, acceleration, with homes in Greater Boston selling like hot cakes, according to a new Zillow survey.

Homes within the I-495 beltway that sold in September were on the market about 99 days before finding a buyer.

That’s down from an average of 107 days on market last year, or 7 percent faster, to be exact.

But sellers are making out even better in Boston and the western and northern suburbs of Middlesex County.

In both Boston in this big stretch of suburban towns, homes found buyers on average after just 77 days. The biggest drop came in Middlesex County, where days on market fell by nearly a quarter, from 101 last year, Zillow reports.

Meanwhile, the shortage of homes for sale doesn’t show any signs of improving anytime soon, with construction of new homes and condos still dragging along at anemic levels.

Homes are also selling faster in other markets across the country as well, with a dramatic boost in the speed with which sellers are to land a purchase and sales agreement.

Days on market nationally have fallen to 86, down a whole month from September 2012, when it took an average of 116 days for a house to sell.

Still, while Boston is beating the national average, we have nothing on San Francisco.

In the Bay Area, homes on average stay on the market just 48 days. Now that’s fast!

 

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Goode and Farmer Report – Boston October 2013

Most Boston neighborhoods are showing a very real trend as we look at third quarter sales. The sales increases we have seen quarter after quarter are moderating. Average sales prices continue their upward trend and average days on market are plummeting. In all Boston neighborhoods combined the average total days on market has decreased an average of 47% in 2013. The number of available condos for sale has decreased an average of 6% from this time last year. Inventory numbers are at a record low of 686 condos for sale in all Boston neighborhoods.

All Boston neighborhoods combined saw an 8% increase in the average sales price of condos to $592K from $544K last year. The total number of condos sold increased 6% to 3,599 units from 3,407 last year.

The Back Bay saw a 9% increase in average sales price to $1.215M but a 9% decrease in sales from 402 in 2012 to 365 this year. The inventory of available condos is equal to last year as 73 condos are available for sale.

The South End saw a 12% increase in the average sales price to $772K from $687K in 2012 and a 15% increase in the number of sales to 463 from 427. Inventory of condos for sale decreased 13% to 63 from 72 last year.

South Boston experienced a 10% increase in average sales price to $463K from $420K. Available condos for sale increased by 54% to 88, the largest and only increase in inventory in any Boston neighborhood. The number of sales increased 4% to a total of 489 from 471 last year.

The outlier neighborhood is Beacon Hill which saw a 21 % decrease in unit sales to 110 from 139 last year but did see a 12% increase in average sales price to $892K. Average days on market decreased 57% to a Boston low of 30 days! There are only 21 condos available for sale on The Hill.

The moderating number of sales as well as the crazy decrease in days on market…shows that inventory is of course the problem. While the market continues to show resilience, declining inventory levels are beginning to impact sales as is evidenced on Beacon Hill and Back Bay.

 

Boston Q3 chart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We will watch the fall market closely for the effect of declining inventory levels. The addition of many units for sale in South Boston is one positive sign, and we will see what develops going forward.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tiny Home – What A Surprise.

Very cool! we could use a gazillion of these in Provincetown and on the Cape.

Tiny Home Assembled In Just One Day Has A Big Surprise Inside

The Huffington Post  |  By Posted: 09/17/2013

Sometimes a home’s exterior can be, well, misleading. And usually that’s a bad thing, but sometimes there is an exception. That’s the case with the portable home ÁPH80 designed by Spanish architecture firm Ábaton. From the back, the simple construction of a grey cement board gives it the appearance of a garden shed, but step around to the front and you’ll see this jewel box of a tiny home in full glory.

 

tiny home 2

tiny home 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to Ábaton, the house was designed with three things in mind — wellbeing for its inhabitants, environmental balance and simplicity — and we think they’ve hit the nail on the head. Inside the 290-square-foot space which is perfectly comfortable for two, you’ll find a living-room/kitchen, a full bathroom and double bedroom. The large expanse of floor-to-ceiling windows and the gabled ceiling, which is eleven feet at its highest, make the small space feel open and airy. The interior walls were left white as a clean and simple backdrop to the most beautifully curated earthy furnishings by Batavia. And most of the materials used for the home can be recycled.

 

tiny home 4

s-TINY-HOME-1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But the coolest part is that after it’s been manufactured, this little dwelling can be assembled in just one day and it can be transported almost anywhere.

Where can we sign up for one?

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More Sticker Shock In Boston

 

A recent post by Scott regarding prices and inventory levels in Boston and suburbs.

Coming this fall: More sticker shock

Posted by Scott Van Voorhis  September 9, 2013 08:34 AM

Welcome to fall, traditionally the hottest time for home sales, barring spring.

And brace yourself. After a small breather in August as the market slowed down a bit during vacation time, the fall is likely to bring another round of crazy price increases and bidding wars for scarce homes.

Here’s a Globe piece from an old friend of mine, Jay Fitzgerald, which offers a preview of the fall market.

More than 60 towns and urban neighborhoods have already blown past previous price peaks set in 2005 at the height of the housing bubble, the story notes, citing stats from The Warren Group.

And who’s leading the price charge? Well, if you haven’t already guessed it, it is the usual suspects, “desirable Boston neighborhoods and close-in cities and towns such as Arlington, Brookline, Cambridge, and Newton,” Fitzgerald writes.

Here’s a quote from a frustrated buyer interviewed in the piece.

“I always expected high prices,” said Rich Garfield, 31, a software engineer now renting in Somerville’s Davis Square, “but our agent told us right off the bat that everything we looked at would go higher than the asking price, and that’s exactly what has happened.”

If you have lived in Greater Boston for a decade or two, you might be wondering whether the crazy cycle of skyrocketing home prices is starting all over again.

If so, your right, and here’s why.

Here’s Fitzgerald’s piece again:

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, a forecasting firm, said longer-term factors are also at work. Massachusetts has a decades-old history of dramatic run-ups in housing prices precisely because not enough new housing is built to meet demand, said Zandi, who has closely followed the New England economy.

A combination of scarce land and sometimes contentious permitting at local levels has inhibited home building in the state, he said. “It’s ultimately a supply problem.”

 

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July Was Best Month For Home Sales Since 2006

Great July market review from The Globe’s Chris Reidy below…

By Chris Reidy

|  GLOBE STAFF  AUGUST 29, 2013

The number of Massachusetts single-family homes sold in July was up more than 18 percent on a year-to-year comparison basis as the Bay State had its best month for sales volume since June 2006, the Warren Group said Thursday.

Condominium sales in the state were also up sharply. Meanwhile, the median price of a single-family home rose 10 percent in July, increasing to $349,000, said the Warren Group, a Boston company that tracks local real estate activity.

“Many recent real estate reports have signaled a strong real estate recovery, and our numbers speak to that rebound,” David Harris, editorial director of the Warren Group, said in a statement. “While consumer confidence and strong employment numbers continue to bolster the market, there’s concern that higher mortgage rates and increasing home prices could dampen the revitalized market.”

Last month, 5,941 single-family homes were sold statewide sold, up from 5,014 sold during July 2012, the Warren Group said.

As for condos, 2,336 were sold in the state during July, up nearly 17 percent from the same month a year ago.

July’s median selling price for a Massachusetts condo was $310,000, up 5.5 percent from July 2012.

The Massachusetts Association of Realtors also issued its monthly report on the local housing market Thursday. The association uses a different method than the Warren Group does to calculate sales activity.

According to the association, there were 5,750 detached single-family homes sold this July, a 20.3 percent increase from a year ago. The July 2013 total was the most homes sold in one month since July 2004.

In a statement, association president Kimberly Allard-Moccia said: “The combination of buyers wanting to close and move in before the start of the school year and their concern over increasing interest rates resulted in another positive month in July. Hopefully the activity of the past few months will encourage homeowners who are thinking about selling to put their homes on the market. Buyer demand is there, but the shortage of inventory often prices buyers out of the market.”

Chris Reidy can be reached at [email protected].

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Boston Inventory Levels

As an interested observer of the downtown Boston real estate market I am amazed at the contrast with our Cape market. The urgency and temperment of the Boston market is so different than ours as it is being driven so clearly by inventory levels.

Condo inventory is down in Boston (all neighborhoods combined) by 32% over last year at this time to 954 condos available for sale. Days on market are down 32% too to 69 days on market.

24 Worcester Sq #2, 2B/2B, 823 sf, $575K
24 Worcester Sq #2, 2B/2B, 823 sf, $575K

 

I remember the days of 300+ listings in the South End and Sundays where there were literally 250+ open houses…in the South End alone. Boy are those days over. There are currently 40 condo listings in the South End as of August 15. Sales remain strong and with the average days on market of 44 properties are going on the market and off the market very quickly.

 

 

 

 

492 Beacon St #T, 2B/2B, 1,353 sf, $899K
492 Beacon St #T, 2B/2B, 1,353 sf, $899K

 

 

In the Back Bay inventory is down 24% to 91 and days on market are down 43% to 75. There are 91 condos on the market down from 120 last year at this time. It’s interesting that  the market value of these fewer condos is $182M, greater than last years total valuation. Average asking prices are higher.

 

 

 

 

47 Mt Vernon St #47, 2B/3B, 2,350 sf, $1.299M
47 Mt Vernon St #47, 2B/3B, 2,350 sf, $1.299M

 

Beacon Hill numbers are astonishing. Inventory is down 29% to 25 condos available on The Hill. Interestingly average days on market are still 131 about the same as last year.

 

 

 

 

48 Monument Sq #B, 1B/1B, 511 sf, $419K
48 Monument Sq #B, 1B/1B, 511 sf, $419K

 

 

In Charlestown condo inventory for sale is down 50% from last year to 50 condos for sale. Average days on market are down 51% to 45.

 

 

 

 

Q2 sales numbers were down in most Boston neighborhoods…from -1% in South Boston to -39% on Beacon Hill. It will be interesting to see which neighborhoods have the most resilience when it comes to falling sales numbers when we get out first peak at third quarter reporting at the end of September.

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Where Condos Are Going Over Asking Most

Below is an interesting post from David Bates at CurbedBoston. With all the “over asking” activity it’s a fascinating analysis.

Where and Why Hub Condos Go for Over or Under Asking

5%25%2B%20Neogtiating%20Room.jpg

Another month of Boston condominium closings and another couple of hundred above-ask offers accepted.

In nine key condo markets in July, 55.9 percent of sales prices were greater than list prices, which narrowly improves on June’s wicked impressive 55.4 percent share of over-ask offers.

As far as individual condos that sold for the most over-ask, 71-73 Stearns Road, #2, in Brookline sold for $121,00 over-ask; 85 Fayerweather Street in Cambridge sold for $131,000 over-ask; and 79 Chandler Street, #2, in the South End went for $226,000 over-ask.

As well, out of about 1,100 total closings in June and July in these nine key markets, about 90 offers went at least 10 percent over-ask, a segment I think of as “extreme over-asks.” On the other side of the real estate coin, only 62 June/July sales had even 5 percent negotiating room. Those sales with at least 5 percent negotiating room are a segment I think of as “under-asks.”

As I looked at the details of the extreme over-asks and under-asks, I wondered what separated them? Was there any characteristic that could determine whether an on-market condo would attract extreme or negotiated offers? I decided to look into it.

My first thought was to compare location, location, location. What I found out was that extreme over-asks were most prolific in Somerville, where almost one out of every five sales was extreme, and Cambridge, where nearly one out of every seven closings was extreme. In fact, I saw that just four markets (Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline and JP) made up more than 80 percent of all the extreme sales that had occurred in these two months.

Did that mean that under-ask offers permeated in the markets that weren’t dominated by extremes? In one case, this was very true. The No. 1 location for under-asks was Back Bay, a market that not only accounted for more than one-third of all under-asks, but also a market where extreme over-asks were rare.

In other neighborhoods, location didn’t seem to be much of an indicator of whether a condo was going to attract extreme or negotiated offers. For example, Brookline was among the most prolific for extreme over-asks (16), while at the same time it had the second most under-ask offers (10).

If it wasn’t location, then what was the best indicator of whether a condo was most likely to garner under-ask or extreme over-ask offers? The best indicator I found was market time. The shorter the time a condominium was on market, the more likely it was going to get extreme over-ask offers; and the longer the time was on market, the more likely that it was going to receive a negotiated offer.

While the vast majority of extremes sold in seven days or less (63 percent), nearly seven out of every eight (87 percent) under-asks were on market for at least 12 days. And, while only 5 percent of the extremes made it 30 days on market, 50 percent of the under-asks lasted at least 36 days on the market.

So, if negotiating room is the most important room in your condo purchase, don’t look at the neighborhood, look at days on market.