Mass. home sales up 12% from a year ago

BOSTON – Single-family home sales in Massachusetts last month increased nearly 12 percent compared with July 2008, The Warren Group reported today.

The Boston-based real estate group said sales numbered 4,977 in July 2008 compared with 4,453 in July 2009. The median home price also narrowed from $320,000 to $316,000.

“This is a much-needed boost for the state’s housing market,” said Timothy M. Warren Jr., CEO of The Warren Group. “We haven’t had a double-digit gain in monthly home sales since last October. And the declines in home prices have been getting smaller every month.”

Warren said low interest rates, reduced prices, the first-time homebuyer tax credit and improved consumer confidence sparked buyer interest in late spring, which led to an increase in closed sales in July.

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Year-to-date sales, however, remained 6.31 percent below last year’s level. The sales of condos also continued to slide, with year-to-date sales off 20 percent. But July showed some hope of recovering, with 2,190 sales, down just 37 units from July 2008.

The median condo price fell 4.3 percent to $276,000 in July from $288,500 last year. July’s 4.3 percent drop was the smallest so far in 2009. In the first five months of the year, price declines exceeded 10 percent. The year-to-date condo price is off about 10 percent to $252,100 from $279,900.

Separately, the closely-watched S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index showed home prices in 20 U.S. cities fell 15.4 percent in June compared with a year earlier, the smallest drop since April 2008 and slower than forecast, Bloomberg News reported.

The index did increase 2.9 percent in the second quarter compared with the previous three months, which was the first increase since 2006 and the biggest in almost four years, according to Bloomberg.

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 TheWarrenGroup.com.

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