BOSTON – The median price of a single-family home sold in Bristol County, Mass., in February fell to $225,549, a 19.73 percent fall from February 2008 and a slightly larger drop than the Bay State’s 18.33 percent overall drop, according to statistics released this morning by real estate tracker The Warren Group.
The Bristol County median price in February 2008 had been $281,000. Statewide, the median price of single-family homes last month was $245,000, down from $300,000 in the same 2008 month.
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The number of homes sold in February in Bristol County remained at 164, unchanged year-to-year. Statewide single-family homes sales, however, fell 14.6 percent to 1,825 from the 2,138 homes sold in February 2008.
Statewide distressed home sales – short sales and foreclosures – jumped to 206, representing 11.3 percent of all homes sold. Two years earlier, 48 home sales were distressed, representing only 1.8 percent of the homes sold in February 2007, while last year the numbers grew to 122, or 5.7 percent of single-family home sales.
“Distressed property sales have become a bigger share of the market and will continue to be a factor going forward as lending institutions try to reduce their portfolio of real estate-owned property,” CEO Timothy M. Warren Jr. said in a statement this morning. “In some communities, the real estate-owned properties on the market are in competition with non-distressed properties and are having an impact on property values. We found that statewide the median price for single-family homes last month would have been $21,000 higher – or about 8.5 percent higher – without the bank-owned home sales transactions.”
Year-to-date single-family homes sales in Massachusetts are down 12.48 percent, to 3,732 homes from the 4,264 sold in the first two months of 2008. Bristol County home sales are down only 6.56 percent, from 320 to 299 sales in the first two months.
Condominium sales in Massachusetts dropped 29.94 percent last month to 866 units from the 1,236 sold in February 2008. The median price of those sales fell 13.98 percent to $220,000 compared with a year ago. The Warren Group this morning pegged that as the lowest statewide median condo price in a February since 2003.
In Bristol County, condo sales plummeted 57.41 percent, from 54 to 23 units. February median prices in the county fell 7.30 percent to $180,000.
The Warren Group Inc. is a provider of New England real estate data and the publisher of Banker & Tradesman and other journals. Additional information is available at www.TheWarrenGroup.com.
