Massachusetts home prices reached record highs last month. So why aren’t more people selling?
The supply of single-family homes and condominiums in the state — particularly in the Boston area — continues to be stubbornly low, mostly because potential sellers appear stuck in a frustrating cycle — selling might be easy, but buying a new place to live in a market with overcrowded open houses and bidding wars is discouraging. That’s keeping would-be sellers on the sidelines.
“If I sound perplexed about this, I am,” said Paul Yorkis, president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, who also operates Patriot Real Estate in Medway. “High sale prices are stimulating individuals to a certain extent to put their homes on the market, but not enough; nowhere near enough.”
In May, median prices for single-family homes reached a new peak of $385,000, a jump of 9.2 percent compared with May 2016, according to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. In Greater Boston, last month’s numbers were even more dramatic — single-family homes hit a record median sale price of $600,000, 13.1 percent more than in May 2016, according to the Greater Boston Association of Realtors.
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