December 2019 Massachusetts Closed sales stats

[Timothy Lewman]

December 2019 Massachusetts Single Family Housing update:

What a year! We closed out 2019 with a bang as median SFH prices increased by 9.93% over 12/2018 per MARealtor.com, showing up at $412,250, another record high. MARealtor.com reports only transactions from the 3 MLS services in Massachusetts. The Warren group also reports state statistics, the difference being they report ALL closed sales which includes those that aren't publicly listed. The Warren Group shows the median price for SFH at $397,500, a 10.42% increase over their 12/2018 number.

As far a sales volume - the number of houses changing hands - we had a pick up for December but an overall decline for the year. MARealtor shows we had a 14.73% increase from 12/2018, 4,129 to 4,737 closed sales. For the year we are down 0.1%, 55,635 2019 VS 55,688 2018.

The Warren Group also shows a dramatic 13.27% increase in sales for 12/2019 vs 12/2018. For the year, Warren group shows 59,034 for 2019 VS. 59,732 for 2018, down 1.17% overall. We had 4,044 houses sold or transferred that were not listed on the MLS, 6.77% of all the closings.

If you are looking for new listings to help increase sales volume, keep looking because they were down in December 2019 by 13.73% VS 12/2018. For the 2019 year, new listings were down 3.44% VS 2018.

All of this has pushed months supply to a new low of 1.7 months. 6 months is considered a neutral stance.

Case-Shiller index of housing shows that the Boston region up 0.48%, compared to the national index which was up 0.15%. These are very minor changes that don't amount to much. https://us.spindices.com/…/sp-corelogic-case-shiller-boston…

Analysis:

In general we have had the same problem for years now, more people looking to buy in the Bay State than available houses. Basic market economics show that we have more demand than supply, which pushed prices up. Until we can get more inventory of existing homes and new construction homes, we have no price relief in sight. Low mortgage rates are helping keep homes affordable for those that can find one.

National info:

National Association of Home Builders NAHB.com, shows that construction materials 2019 price increasing 1.5%, compared to 1.9% in 2018. http://eyeonhousing.org/…/building-material-price-growth-s…/

New construction sales for 12/2019: 694K vs. 728K expected (annualized numbers). On a year-over-year basis however, new home sales were up 23%. The median sales price of new homes in December 2019 was $331,400; average sales price was $384,500. For the year we had an estimated 681,000 sales in 2019, up 10.3% from 2018 figure of 617,000 https://www.census.gov/construction/nrs/pdf/newressales.pdf