After more than a year of the ridiculously busy COVID real estate market, I gave myself the summer off. Making the decision felt a bit decadent, until I did the math -- most salaried US workers get every weekend, ten holidays and at least two weeks' vacation a year. That's 124 days off -- MINIMUM -- basically double my 60ish days off this summer. Hmmm...
Anyway, from what I've heard anecdotally, the summer was pretty quiet in real estate, as is historically the case. This bears out in the data, with the Massachusetts Association of Realtors (MAR) reporting that pending single-family home sales in July this year were down 19.6% from last July, and condo sales were down 11.2%. Granted, last summer was unusually busy after COVID delayed the start of the spring market, but even so, MAR reported that this July had the lowest number of homes (singles and condos) for sale since it began tracking the data in 2004. (August data is not yet out.) The good news for sellers is that median prices were still up year-over-year this summer, with comps from the uber-competitive spring market setting the baseline.
What happens this fall remains to be seen, but typically, things pick up after Labor Day, and I expect that with the continued buyer demand and record low mortgage rates, we'll be back to our usual activity starting this week...