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* Massachusetts home sales post another double-digit decline
* Local home sales slide
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* Massachusetts home sales post double-digit decline in October
* Finding a windfall in their walls
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Sales of single-family houses plunged 15.4 percent last month compared with November of last year, Warren Group, a Boston real estate and publishing firm, reported yesterday. The sales total of 3,538 single-family homes last month was the lowest for November since the recession of 1991. Condo sales plunged 23.2 percent in November.
"The number of sales are just plain dropping," said Alan Pasnik, Warren Group's real estate analyst.
The Warren report tallies residential sales that closed in November, which were typically put under agreement in late September and October.
Sales have clearly weakened over the course of the year, and November's sales slump followed declines of 17.1 percent in October and 18.7 percent in September.
Price declines were steeper in markets and neighborhoods with high levels of foreclosed properties than in the state as a whole, the monthly data indicate. The statewide median price for a single-family home last month fell by 5.8 percent, to $295,000.
But when bank seizures of foreclosed properties are excluded from the data, Warren said, the median price last month was just 1.6 percent lower than November of last year. And, over the course of the first 11 months of this year, the median price was virtually unchanged from the same January-November period last year.
"At the end of the year, we're going to come out and say it wasn't a great year but it wasn't that bad, either," said Patrick Fortin, an agent with Century 21 Commonwealth in Winchester.
The statewide median condo price fell to $258,006. But excluding foreclosed properties, the median was $270,000.
Pasnik said one reason why prices aren't falling further is because the number of homes for sale is shrinking, limiting the amount of oversupply.
The escalation in subprime mortgage delinquencies forms a dark cloud over the market: Warren recorded 386 houses and condos repossessed by lenders in November - nearly double the amount in November of last year.
Ron Huth, owner of Buyer's Choice in Wenham, said distressed properties have increased to about 10 percent of the housing market in a swath from Boston's western suburbs to the North Shore. These include short sales by homeowners trying to prevent foreclosures and houses repossessed or auctioned off by lenders.
The soft market has presented some great bargains for buyers. Some real estate agents and buyers report home purchases that are $100,000 below listing price, although such opportunities can draw a crowd of interested buyers. "Unless you get a property that has really been reduced significantly, they sit," Huth said. "When they do come into a price range where they are appealing to buyers, then multiple buyers come out of the woodwork."
Housing markets such as Arlington that have largely escaped the subprime crisis are showing pockets of strength. Arlington's single-family home sales declined 2.8 percent so far this year compared to the first 11 months of last year, Warren Group said.
But Robert Bowes, who owns Bowes Pennell & Thompson GMAC Real Estate in Arlington, said his office has seen strong demand increase this year from young, professional couples gravitating to the town's urban feel and its good public schools. He predicted 2007 sales handled by his agents, about 330, will exceed 2006 sales of a little more than 300.
"Seldom in our history have we had a time of low unemployment, low mortgage rates, good inventory, and lower house prices," he said. "That's why we're having the best year we've ever had."
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source: boston.com
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