Numbers... What do they really Mean?

Erik: 

- All of you who are really interested in the numbers and interested in following the real estate market, where's it going? We're gonna sit and dissect some of what's happening in the market.

Randal:

- For those of you that don't get the numbers thing, we're about to geek out so you might want to tune out, but if you're interested in some numbers, higher level, that's where we're going. Welcome back to Stay Focused, Focus Real Estate's weekly video series. We're here to give you some insights on exactly what's going on because honestly, we're adapting as we go, aren't we?

Erik:

- Yeah.

Randal:

- You know, looking at these numbers and geeking out from that 30,000, maybe 40,000 foot view of the state of Massachusetts looking at those numbers, 'cause it's really important to notice trends nationally, locally, regionally, right? So, pending sales year over year as of the end of June 2022 look like this. The pending sales for single family houses in the state of Massachusetts were down 8.4%. So that's a number of sales that happened, but the median price was up 9.6%. Now, if you look at the closed transactions, same time period, same property type, single family homes, you're looking at this closed volume is down 10.3%. All right. So the price though, was up 9.4%. But the inventory, this is where the story is, the inventory was down 6%. Erik's about ready to do condos for us. Wait until you hear this one.

Erik:

- So in Massachusetts condos, the pending, the volume was down 20%, 20.46%, which is huge. That much less available to buyers out there. So even though buyers are dropping out of the market, so are sellers, there's not as much to choose from. And the median price of those properties were up 7.7%. And the results for closed condos in Massachusetts, the number of, or percentage of closed units were down by 16.2%. But the price was up 8.5%. So again, we're seeing less sales but higher prices.

Randal:

- But wait for it.

Erik:

- The inventory, the amount of inventory that was available to buyers year over year at the end of June for condos was down 24.5%, almost 25% less to choose from for buyers at the end of June this year, over a year ago. And we've been talking for years, low inventory, it's getting worse.

Randal:

- It's getting worse. And so we're seeing the volume down.

Erik:

- The prices up.

Randal:

- Prices up.

Randal:

- And the inventory also down. That's what's happening in the market. If you need to know what's happening in your local market, that's what we're here for to dissect these numbers for you. How is that gonna play out for you, Mr. or Mrs. Buyer or Seller in the future, as you're thinking about am I gonna make a house purchase this fall? Is spring the right time to be going for it? What we're looking for, what we're looking at is lower inventory even lower inventory than we had in the middle of COVID. That's shocking to me.