The busiest time of year for home sales is getting underway, and so far in the red-hot Boston suburbs, two years of record-breaking price hikes and fierce competition appear to be continuing.The surge is driven by an incredibly low number of homes for sale, especially in the most desirable suburban school systems. Listing agent Elena Price with Coldwell Banker Realty said more than 100 people visited the open house for a Westwood home she put on the market this past weekend. It’s listed at $2.45 million, but she’s expecting multiple offers.”I’ve had a few people ask if they can write sight-unseen offers,” Price said. “I just listed a house two weekends ago and it has multiple offers, waiving all contingencies, and I think $225 over asking.”After two years of price increases, the change is evident in the Westwood home, which Price said might have gone on the market in early 2020 for around $1.9 million. And where the list price used to be the sales goal, it’s now become the floor.”It used to be that you would have a list price that was sort of your wish price. Now, it’s sort of like you know the starting point,” said Tim Warren, whose company, The Warren Group, tracks real estate sales in Massachusetts. Warren said the state’s median home price in January, a typically-slow month, still climbed 10.7% from last January to $495,000 — which means this is now officially the third year with double-digit price gains. And Warren expects rising interest rates to actually juice the housing market more, at least in the short term, as more people rush to get a loan locked in before rates rise further.”That urgency you know results in a lot of people bidding on the same home and more competition and higher prices,” he said. “Eventually, going to dampen the market and bring prices into what I would consider a more reasonable range of increase.”When that happens is still anyone’s guess.Warren said he would not call this a bubble — yet. He said the housing bubble of the mid-2000s featured six years in a row of double-digit price increases. “This year I expect we might have single-digit increases in median prices, but there are so many uncertainties,” Warren said. “It’s really hard to predict.”In Westwood, Price said she would never encourage anyone to waive a home inspection. But she said that practice does appear to be back, and she’s seen some buyers trying to bring inspectors into an open house with them.Her advice for those with built-up frustration, especially first-time buyers?”If they don’t need to buy right away maybe they wait for the slower months: June, July, September,” Price said.
The busiest time of year for home sales is getting underway, and so far in the red-hot Boston suburbs, two years of record-breaking price hikes and fierce competition appear to be continuing.
The surge is driven by an incredibly low number of homes for sale, especially in the most desirable suburban school systems.
Listing agent Elena Price with Coldwell Banker Realty said more than 100 people visited the open house for a Westwood home she put on the market this past weekend. It’s listed at $2.45 million, but she’s expecting multiple offers.
“I’ve had a few people ask if they can write sight-unseen offers,” Price said. “I just listed a house two weekends ago and it has multiple offers, waiving all contingencies, and I think $225 [thousand] over asking.”
After two years of price increases, the change is evident in the Westwood home, which Price said might have gone on the market in early 2020 for around $1.9 million. And where the list price used to be the sales goal, it’s now become the floor.
“It used to be that you would have a list price that was sort of your wish price. Now, it’s sort of like you know the starting point,” said Tim Warren, whose company, The Warren Group, tracks real estate sales in Massachusetts.
Warren said the state’s median home price in January, a typically-slow month, still climbed 10.7% from last January to $495,000 — which means this is now officially the third year with double-digit price gains. And Warren expects rising interest rates to actually juice the housing market more, at least in the short term, as more people rush to get a loan locked in before rates rise further.
“That urgency you know results in a lot of people bidding on the same home and more competition and higher prices,” he said. “Eventually, [rising rates are] going to dampen the market and bring prices into what I would consider a more reasonable range of increase.”
When that happens is still anyone’s guess.
Warren said he would not call this a bubble — yet. He said the housing bubble of the mid-2000s featured six years in a row of double-digit price increases.
“This year I expect we might have single-digit increases in median prices, but there are so many uncertainties,” Warren said. “It’s really hard to predict.”
In Westwood, Price said she would never encourage anyone to waive a home inspection. But she said that practice does appear to be back, and she’s seen some buyers trying to bring inspectors into an open house with them.
Her advice for those with built-up frustration, especially first-time buyers?
“If they don’t need to buy right away maybe they wait for the slower months: June, July, September,” Price said.
Read More:High prices, fierce competition continue in Mass. housing market
2022-03-01 14:18:00
