YOUR Massachusetts Real Estate Market Update for the week of February 5th
I know we are only a month into the year… But it’s a lot of what I am going to be talking about in the monthly recap that I post this weekend. If you are wanting to know what the market is going to be like this year… Then just look at last year. Because we are really going tit for tat.
In this video we will go over the Single-Family and condo markets in the state of Massachusetts. And we will also do a quick interest rate update… And we will also talk about some relevant current events.
Demand wasn’t as strong as last week, but it was right in line with this week last year in both the condo and Single Family markets. It’s a strong market and it’s going to stay that way and most likely get stronger.
I know I have been a broken record on this one… But if you are a buyer looking to buy this spring, then save yourself possibly tens of thousands of dollars and start your search a little earlier.
Hi I am Jeff Chubb – A recovering Investment Banker turned Real Estate Agent that has sold more than a 1,000 homes. If you have any questions about the real estate market, then know I am here to help.
Also, I am looking to buy houses. Let me know if there are any houses that you are aware of that need a lot of Tender Love and Care. Friend. Family members. A random house that you drive by everyday and is in shambles… The uglier, then the better! If you know of one, then please shoot me an email or visit CashOfferMA.com.
Let’s get into it all and jump into the Single-Family market stats.
Nothing abnormal here. It’s more of the same in the sense of this is just the bottoming out that we see every year. Inventory is level and is going to stay this way for this month. Inventory is up slightly to 2,872 Single Family homes on the market in the state of Massachusetts. We now have 3.27% less homes on the market than there were just 28 days ago.
It looks like inventory going up slightly this week kind of bucks a little bit of the trend that we saw in 2023. The important thing to take away is that inventory is still tight.
We have 158 fewer Single Family homes on the market today then we did today back in 2023 and 800 more Single Family homes on the market then the inventory levels in 2022.
Here is the difference maker. We listed 695 Single Family homes this week. That is 63 more units or 10% more than the same week in 2023. So four weeks ago it was 12% less, then 3 weeks ago it was 10% less. Then two weeks ago we were even with 2023. Last week we listed 13% more houses and now we are 10% more.
It’s an interesting trend. And if it continues then we will start to see slight inventory builds week over week.
Buyers, this is what you want to hear as we go into the Spring market.
The 4 week rolling average is 546 units. We finally don’t have the slow holiday data mixed in which is why this number has jumped so much.
You can barely see the blue line for this week. And that’s because we barely missed the sales levels we saw this week, last year.
We had 679 homes go under agreement. This was 4 units or.6% less than the same week last year when 683 single family homes went under agreement.
I find it a little interesting that the surge of under agreements that we saw last week didn’t continue. The 679 units under agreement was 7.6% off of last week’s 735 units.
The four week rolling average is 575 units.
So when compared to last year’s market… New listings were up by 10% while under agreements were down by .6%.
There were 476 Single Family homes that closed last week for an average sales price of $751 thousand dollars and a median sales price of $595 thousand dollars. Sales levels compared to the same week last year were up by 15.5% as there were 412 Single Family homes that sold this week last year for an average price of $706k.
Months of inventory. This is how we determine what type of market we are in. 0 to 5 months is considered a sellers’ market with the closer to 0 you get… The more aggressive a seller’s market.
This week Months of inventory nudged up to 1.26 months from last week’s 1.23 months. The 1.26 months this week is compared to the 1.16 months this week last year.
This is more data showing that the market this year is very similar to the market conditions of last year.
Real quick, my shameless plug… I just wanted to mention that if you are thinking about buying or selling a home, then it would be a true pleasure to help!
Now onto the Condo market…
More of the same in the condo market. Just plugging along. We have 1,786 condos on the market as of Monday. This is a 29 unit increase from last week’s 1757 units and is.9% more than the inventory levels on the market just 28 days ago.
The blue line broke out this week… barely.
We now have 39 more units on the market today than today last year and 355 more units then compared to the inventory levels of 2022. The 39 units is a 19 unit build from last week’s 20 unit difference.
New Listing activity was right in line with last year.
There were 386 condos that came on the market last week with the four week rolling average of 342 condos.
The 386 units listed was 3 units or .8% more than the 383 condos that came on the market the same week in 2023.
Man. Under agreements just continues to play it tit for tat with 2023!
This week we put 326 units under agreement. This 326 units was 1 unit or .3% shy of last year’s numbers when we put 327 condos under agreement. So three weeks ago it was 7 units shy and then two weeks ago it was 6 units. Last week it was 12 units shy and now it’s just 1 unit shy. Ya, our under agreements are right in line with 2023.
The four week rolling average is 288 units.
So .7% more listings that came on the market when compared to this week last year while selling .3% fewer condos. Wow.
There were 172 condos that sold this week for an average sales price of $669 thousand dollars and a median sales price of $519 thousand dollars. This same week last year there were 213 condos that sold. So sales levels were down by 19%.
Months of Inventory ticked up to 1.92 months from last week’s 1.87 months. This is compared to the months of inventory levels of 1.67 months this week last year.
Time to talk about Interest rates… Cause boy did they suck!
It was a bit of a blood bath for interest rates this week. A lot of buyers are now seeing interest rates over the 7% levels. So what’s going on? Why?
It’s because of inflation. Well it’s because of the strong jobs report that was printed last week.
These strong jobs numbers have guaranteed that a rate cut is off the table for March. It has also most likely taken the rate cut off the table for May and drastically decreased the chances that a rate cut will happen in June.
You aren’t wasting your time here. It was well over a month ago that I was saying that there wasn’t going to be a FED cut in March.
Inflation is coming back. I have said it before. Inflation in a huge economy like this is hard to stamp out. History is a great indicator as to where we are headed. Go take a look at what happened back in the 70s.
Inflation is making us all poorer each and every single day. We can all thank the drunk money hungry, power addicted politicians in Washington for this. Inflation will NEVER GO DOWN as long as the government is printing trillions of dollars a year to finance their bloated budget.
These are very simple economic principles that our so-called “betters’ don’t seem to understand.
A little different today. But I want to talk about a very serious risk and a problem for home buyers and sellers. You need to be extremely careful when doing a real estate transaction. Check out this article.
Real Estate Fraud Risk is on the rise, and victims are sounding the alarm.
There is a lot of money involved with real estate transactions. And when there is a ton of money involved… Well that’s when you get the pieces of cow dung that aren’t willing to work an honest job and take advantage of and steal what is sometimes people’s life savings.
The article says that “Criminals are increasingly exploiting such transactions through real estate fraud, robbing victims who are often left with little or no recourse.
Crazy stat, but they found that 1 in 20 Americans who bought or sold a home within the past three years have been victims of some type of real estate fraud with the MEDIAN amount in consumer LOSSES exceeding $70,000.
70 Grand.
These losses are from fraudsters either stealing down payments or seller proceeds. And it’s all generally done around wire fraud.
These asses have gotten good. Their preference of choice is to hack into a title company or a closing attorneys system. And then they monitor and wait to see when and who they would like to strike.
The article talks about a situation where a buyer received a legitimate email from a title company that alerted him that he would be receiving wiring instructions the next day. Well the next day he received an email with an identical email signature with the wiring instructions. He wired the more than $28,000 to only find out that it was a fraudster impersonating the contact at the title company and they gave him wire instructions to another account.
This type of crime cost victims a record of $446.1 million in real estate transactions in 2022.
The most crazy situation I have heard is where a hacker got into an attorney’s Verizon phone. From there they were able to get into the attorney’s email. From there they were able to monitor the deal flow and waited for a day where the firm had multiple closings.
They then had a call forwarding on the attorney’s phone to some guy in Texas impersonating the attorney. The fraudsters initiated the wires of $1.6 million dollars. The bank called to verify and it went to the forwarded impersonating person.
Wires were enacted and $1.6 million dollars of seller proceeds disappeared.
So what can you do to ensure this doesn’t happen to you? It’s as simple as not wiring funds. Good old fashion checks and bank checks for the balance on closing day is the way to ensure you don’t fall in this trap.
We have a system in our area called Depositlink which is not a wire. A system like that is great and well worth the $10 or so processing charge.
The other thing that NEEDS to happen. I can’t believe I am calling for more regulation… But the state needs to make it a law that any company holding escrows needs to have Cyber Insurance.
Cyber insurance is expensive. Very expensive. So very few have it. But when you are tasked to hold what could be someone’s life savings… Then this is a simple protection that needs to be required.
This will cause many companies to stop holding escrow. And I could even see a situation where there is a charge for a company to hold escrow. Personally, I think this is well worth it as it ensures YOUR money that someone else is holding is secure.
Want to talk about your personal real estate needs?
Again, it’s Jeff Chubb. Whether you are looking to buy or sell a home in the next 9 or 90 days, then I would love to chat with you and find out about your real estate goals.
And if you know of anyone that is thinking about buying or selling a house, then I truly appreciate you passing along my information.
You can visit YouTubeRealEstateAgent.com or find all of my information in the description below!
Until next time.