Home Sales, Prices Down In Massachusetts; Smallest Drop Since September 2007

Boston, MA (AHN) - The number of homes sold in the month of May continued to decline on year-over-year basis in Massachusetts, the reports said.

The Massachusetts Association of Realtors reported Monday, single-family home sales moved down by 10.1 percent in May compared to May 2007.

According to the report, the median price of a home sold in Massachusetts fell 9.2 percent to $322,500, compared to $355,000 in May 2007, which is the smallest decrease since September 2007.

"Both single-family home sales and condominium sales experienced their biggest April-to-May percentage increase in the past 10 years," the association said in the statement.

The number of condominiums sold in the month of May declined by 24.5 percent, compared to May last year, with median sales prices down 2.6 percent.

The Warren Group, a provider of local real estate data, released a separate report on the Massachusetts housing market on Monday.

The group uses a different method to collect data and track residential real estate activity compared to the ways realtors association does.

The report by Warren Group indicates that single-family home sales moved down by 12.7 percent to 3,739 in May compared to 4,284 May 2007.

The median price of single-family homes declined by 7.8 percent in the month of May, dropping to $322,500, compared to from $350,000 last year, the Warren Goup said.

"The first sign of a recovery in the housing market will be a rebound in home sales. We're not there yet, but this is the second month in a row that sales have shown smaller declines than we've been seeing since the last quarter of last year," Timothy Warren Jr., chief executive of the Warren Group said in a statement.

"It could mean that more people were coming out to view and buy houses on the market as the weather warmed up earlier this year. But we still have a long way to go before we'll see sales increase, and even longer before prices will turn around."