Lack of inventory continues to drive up single-family home prices in Central Mass.
Photo | Timothy Doyle
Homes on Worcester's west side
The price of single-family homes in Central Massachusetts continues to climb, as median sales prices increased again in Worcester and Middlesex Counties during February. This is largely a continuation of trends seen in January and during the whole of 2023.
The median sales price for homes in Worcester County was $415,000, a 6.4% increase from the median price of $390,000 seen last year, according to data released on Tuesday by The Warren Group, a Peabody-based real estate research firm.
Middlesex County, which includes much of the MetroWest region and suburbs north of Boston, saw an increase of 15.6%, as the median price rose from $648,900 in February 2023 to $750,000.
Worcester County saw a similar amount of home sales, with 309 sales conducted in February compared to 308 seen during February of last year. Middlesex County saw a slight increase, as the number of sales was 381, compared to 348 in February 2023, a climb of 9.5%.
“February was another record-setting month for median single-family home prices as sales activity was flat on a year-over-year basis,” Cassidy Norton, associate publisher and media relations director of The Warren Group, said in a Tuesday press release. “A lack of inventory is the biggest factor driving these trends, and with fewer and fewer homes hitting the market, we can fully expect to see more recording-setting prices paired with a low sales volume in the coming months.”
The continuing climb of single-family home prices was once again witnessed in the city of Worcester, where the year-to-date median price rose from $365,000 to $389,950, a 6.8% year-over-year increase. The number of year-to-date sales in the city was 102 at the end of February, a decline of 12.8% from the 117 sales seen at that time last year.
Fitchburg and Leominster also saw a decline in year-to-date sales compared to the first two months of 2023, with Fitchburg sales declining from 48 to 31, a 35.4% decrease, and Leominster sales declining from 27 to 24, a 11.1% decrease. While the year-to-dale median sales price in Leominster stayed flat at $425,000, Fitchburg saw an 11.8% increase in median prices, with a climb from $313,000 to $350,000.
Prices continued to climb in prominent Middlesex County communities even as the number of sales increased; year-to-date sales increased in Framingham from 24 to 42, a 75% increase, while Natick saw an increase from 17 to 31, a 82.4% climb. Framingham saw a year-to-date median 5.8% sales price increase from $608,500 in the first two months of 2023 to $643,750, while Natick saw an 11.6% increase, from $750,000 to $837,000.
On a statewide level, Massachusetts had 2,042 home sales in February, the same amount seen in February 2023. The median sales price was $550,000 in February, a 10.2% increase from the median price of $498,869 seen in February last year.
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