With homebuilding and home selling occurring at a slower pace than the rise in homebuying demand, the state’s median home sale price keeps climbing.
Activity in the New Hampshire single-family home and condominium markets remained hot in March, setting new records in the process according to a new report from The Warren Group, publisher of The Registry Review.
Last month, there were 798 single-family home sales recorded in Massachusetts, 16.9 percent decrease from March 2020 when there were 960 transactions. This marked a seven-year low for single-family home sales in the month of March. Meanwhile, the median single-family sale price spiked 8.7 percent on a year-over-year basis to $325,000, up from $299,000 in March 2020 – a new all-time high for the month of March.
Year-to-date, there have been 2,248 single-family home sales in New Hampshire, a 9.3 percent decrease from the first three months of 2020 and the fewest single-family sales in the first quarter of any year since 2015. Meanwhile, the year-to-date median single family home price increased 14 percent on the same basis to $325,000.
There were 333 condominium sales In March, an 8.8 percent decrease from March 2020 – when there were 365 condo sales. This marked the fewest condo sales in the month of March since 2017. Meanwhile, the median sale price increased 14.3 percent on a year-over-year basis to $260,000 – a new all-time high for the month of March.
Year-to-date, there have been 957 condo sales, a 5.4 percent increase from the first three months of 2020 with a median sale price of $250,000, a 12.1 percent increase on the same basis.
As the spring market opened in March, the state saw a surge in new listings according to the New Hampshire Association of Realtors: 1,616 single-family homes hit the market that month compared to 921 in February. With the pace of home sales dramatically sped up compared to early 2020 – average days on market for a single-family home sat at 40 in March, compared to 66 in the same month one year ago – inventory sat at 1,137 homes, a 66.4 percent drop from March 2020. Overall, the state has seen 15.6 percent fewer homes hit the market in the first quarter of 2021 than in the first quarter of 2020.
Intense demand is encouraging some new home construction and some new sellers to enter the market, the association said in a statement released with its monthly statistics report, but both remain below levels necessary to bring the market back into balance. In particular, supply chain issues in the homebuilding industry and spikes in lumber prices are causing builders’ costs to increase and delivery timelines to lengthen.
“New methods of construction, including 3D printed homes, could speed construction and reduce costs in the future, but realistically are several years away from making a measurable impact on the market,” the statement said.
