Now that we’ve passed Memorial Day, we are likely past the mid-way point for the spring 2016 real estate market here in Cambridgeville. If you’re a buyer and have not yet found your dream home, don’t despair — June should continue to bring a good batch of new inventory and July, though generally slower, will still be somewhat active and perhaps even a little less competitive, if we have a repeat of last year.
For homeowners who’d like to sell this season, there’s definitely still time, but you should get the ball rolling with an agent asap.
August is historically *vacation* month in real estate, so if you get that far and haven’t yet prepared your home to sell, or for buyers, if you’re still out there looking, your best bet may be to take a break and refresh before the fall market kicks in after Labor Day. But I’m getting ahead of myself…
What I really wanted to write about today is how the spring 2016 market has played out so far, and how that compares to previous years. So let’s take a look at some data. I’m focusing on condos here, since that is the bread-and-butter of our market, but if you have any interest in single family or multi-family info, just let me know.
Anyway, as of May 26, when Sybil and I sat down to do a deep dive in MLS, here’s what we found:
CAMBRIDGE — Since Jan 1, 2016, 331 condos have been listed — this is up a bit from last year, when that horrendous winter caused a very late start for listings. Historically though, that’s very few condos on the market. As you might expect, in line with the laws of supply and demand, prices have gone up this spring, yet again, and pretty significantly with the median price rising from $567,500 last year to $700,000 this year. Here’s a visual of the condo inventory and median prices going all the way back to 2005:
CAMBRIDGE SPRING MARKET CONDO LISTINGS & MEDIAN SALE PRICES
YTD May 26, 2005 – 2016
Not a pretty picture to be sure. But here’s the interesting — and somewhat encouraging — thing…
The steeply declining inventory trend that we see in the early spring market does not seem to apply to the later spring/summer market. As you can see in the chart below, the number of listings that hit the market starting on May 27 has been pretty consistent going back to 2010.
LATE SPRING/SUMMER CONDO LISTINGS & MEDIAN SALE PRICES
May 27 – August 31, 2005 – 2015
So maybe the rest of the spring/summer market will be a little kinder to buyers — we shall see!
Moving over to Somerville…
SOMERVILLE — Since Jan 1, 2016, 254 condos have been listed — as with Cambridge, up a bit from last year. Also as with Cambridge, median prices are up, rising from $549,000 last year to $627,500 this year. Here’s the visual:
SOMERVILLE SPRING MARKET CONDO LISTINGS & MEDIAN SALE PRICES
YTD May 26, 2005 – 2016
And note the same trend of more stable inventory year-over-year in the late spring/summer market going back to 2009, with the odd exception of 2012:
LATE SPRING/SUMMER CONDO LISTINGS & MEDIAN SALE PRICES
May 27 – August 31, 2005 – 2015
