BOSTON – The median price of a single-family home in Rhode Island fell in the first quarter by 25.93 percent, dropping to $180,000, according to data released today by The Warren Group, a Boston-based real estate tracker.
The median price for the same 2008 quarter was $243,000.
Rhode Island's Market Has Changed. Developers, Builders, Investors and Sellers Must Change With It.
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“This was a pretty dismal quarter for Rhode Island home prices,” CEO Timothy M. Warren Jr. said in a statement this morning. “Prices really aren’t showing any signs of leveling off. We don’t think that’s going to happen unless there are some steady sales gains.”
The quarter’s statewide price drop follows a 13.2-percent drop in median price reported for 2008, which put the median price at its lowest level since 2003, according to The Warren Group.
Last quarter, the median price fell by more than 20 percent in Rhode Island’s Bristol, Kent, Newport and Providence counties. But Washington County prices fell a smaller 14.82 percent, dropping to $268,315.
Statewide sales in the first quarter fell 12.34 percent, dropping to 1,200 from 1,369 in the same 2008 quarter. That performance comes on the heels of a 13.4 percent drop in home sales in 2008, the third consecutive year that single-family home sales fell by double-digit percentages, according to Warren.
Led by a 22.09 percent drop in the March median price, the median condominium price fell 16.28 percent for the quarter. The median condo price was equal to the single-family home price of $180,000. In the same 2008 period, the condo price had been $215,000, which was 11.5 percent lower than the single-family home median price of that quarter.
Condo sales in the first quarter decreased 30.87 percent, falling to 215 from 311 sales.
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.
