Mulit-Family Market Update

[Jonathan Bombaci]

Monthly data through February 2023 for MA in total shows a very strong cyclical market. The big story here is the very, apparent, and continual, lack of inventory in the Multi-Family marketplace. We saw inventory pick up a little bit going into Q4 last year, then decline rapidly. Last year, we had a VERY STRONG seller's market and with inventory levels running similarly this year it is setting us up for a continuation of a seller's market. Looking at the Sold vs List price chart, we can see listings are now selling -1.8% below asking price on average, we are still seeing strong bidding wars on the best properties. Interest rates have moved significantly last year and we are feeling its impacts of less buyers being in the marketplace for larger MF however the 2-4 unit market is very competitive with big bidding wars right now. We've been seeing more price decreases on MLS but if a property is priced right, it will still move very quickly and for significantly over asking. We have experienced some of our buyers getting priced out of the greater Boston market due to the higher interest rates. However, "starter home" and Small Multi-Family markets are still going very strong due to the pent-up buyer demand, lack of inventory, and increasing rental prices.

We are keeping an eye on the multi-family inventory in MA very closely and also monitoring the average sale price vs list price so we can provide better guidance to our clients. If we see a sharp increase in inventory this will be a good forward-looking indicator that prices may start to soften. Average multi-family listing prices continue to be at an ALL TIME HIGH. However, based on what we see with very low inventory on the market we do not see any indicators in the data to suggest the market will be changing in a significant way in the short-term.

*This is MULTI-FAMILY specific data pulled directly from the MA MLS, this data does not include any Single Family, Condo, or Commercial properties. It also does not include any properties sold off-market or anything that was not physically listed on MLS as a "Multi-Family".

Thank you @Ian Hogan for providing the data and charts to make the analysis possible!