The Lamacchia Housing Report presents overall home sale statistics and highlights the average sale prices for single families, condominiums, and multi-family homes in Massachusetts and New Hampshire for April 2020 compared to April 2019. It also looks at other metrics in Massachusetts like Homes Listed for Sale, Homes Pending, and Price Adjustments made to active listings, as they are often the best indicators for predicting future trends in the market.
Massachusetts Home Sales Down 16.6%
The number of homes sold decreased and average prices increased for Massachusetts in April. Sales decreased by 16.6% which is 1,147 fewer sales in all three categories. Prices increased in all three categories by $31,466 from April 2019, up 7%.
Homes Listed for Sale:
April saw a major 51.1% decrease in homes listed over April 2019 which is entirely related to sellers holding off because of the COVID-19 outbreak. Fortunately most of those concerns are being eradicated by safer showing practices and the May market is ramping up as you can see in the chart below where the number of homes listed has been climbing since the first week of April. For the full report, visit MARealEstateUpdates.com.
Pending Home Sales:
The number of homes placed under agreement was also down significantly in April 2020 compared to April 2019 and again is due to the COVID-19 outbreak. As we always see when the stock market takes a nosedive, buyers back out of deals some of whom already regret it. As well, deals fell apart in March and hit the bottom in the beginning April as the stay at home mandates caused some businesses to close, and some buyers to lose their source of income thereby no longer qualifying for mortgages because of layoffs, furloughs, and unemployment. Pending sales were down 48.1%, 4,781 deals. May, however, is steadily recovering as the number of pending deals has been increasing since it hit bottom in the first week of April. For the full report, visit MARealEstateUpdates.com.
Price Changes:
Prices changes decreased by 552 homes, about 64.5%. With fewer sellers listing, along with deals falling thru, the number of recorded price changes decreased significantly. Most importantly with so few homes listed on the market, buyers were willing to pay what sellers asked which reduced the need for prices to drop.
New Hampshire Home Sales Down 33.6%
Like Massachusetts, New Hampshire saw a decrease in sales and an increase in prices when compared to April 2019. Sales saw a 33.6% decrease with 374 fewer sales in all three categories and a 9% increase in prices by $28,765. Prices increased in single families and condos.
What’s Ahead?
It’s no secret that buyer and seller activity experienced an unseasonal downturn for a couple of weeks in April, but by the end it was already starting to correct itself. As you can see in MARealEstateUpdates.com and NHRealEstateUpdates.com, our pages monitoring the progress of the market, everything as of early May is steadily climbing back to where it should be this time of year. Anthony explains market progress in his Weekly Updates, to watch the most recent click here or on the image below.
The summer market is going to give Realtors and agents a run for their money as many sellers and buyers who paused in April will be gearing up and making up for lost time to accomplish their real estate goals. It’s likely going to be a very busy summer to that end and as agents implement safe showing protocols, people are becoming more comfortable knowing that they can start buying and selling safely. Sellers should be getting ready to list now to beat other sellers and take advantage of the buyer demand.
Our COVID-19 Resource page is a tool designed to answer questions that homeowners, buyers, and sellers have about how all of this will impact their real estate goals. There are weekly videos in which Anthony explains the market and how it’s being impacted, blog resources, news articles, and more. For those seeking information on what their mortgage companies expect and are willing to offer their borrowers during this time, we also created a COVID-19 Mortgage Resource page.