Looking at Cambridge's Home Market in the Wake of Slow-Down Whispers
As July comes to an end, I wanted to take a quick look at one of the staple sub-markets of the Greater Boston area. With whispers of a slow-down gaining more steam across the county (CNBC's article on Southern California was quite the wave), I thought I would do a quick analysis of home activity in one of the most in-demand markets in the area to see if the market is truly changing here.
In the month of July, two key metrics that really stood out were the Average Days to Offer and Sales Price: List Price (SP:LP) ratio. The Average Days to Offer was 16 days, whereas the SP:LP ratio was 107, meaning that homes were selling by an average of 7% over their listing price! These stats account for the 80 homes that sold in the city in this month, and clearly homes are moving quite quickly at high prices.
If we look at these stats and compare them to the spring and early summer numbers of this year in Cambridge, we see that both stats are similar to May and June numbers, which makes sense since real estate sales pick up pace in the spring/summer time.
Now, to loop this all back to the original question of whether the Boston market is changing as well, I looked at data of the spring and summer markets in 2017. In these months one year ago, we had very similar statistics of SP:LP ratios around 107-108 and Average Days to Offer in the 12-13 days. Not only that, but the total inventory moved in the summer months was very similar to inventory moved this year (at 70-80 homes).
Though this is by no means a full, statistical analysis, these data components are showing that as of right now, the market in Cambridge has not had a dramatic change. Anecdotally, from my dad-to-day experience in the business I've drawn a similar conclusion; homes that are appropriately priced and well-positioned are moving quite quickly. I've had my listings go under agreement as quickly as two days, and I've had buyer clients who were in an offer battle with 14 other prospective buyers. We'll have to see how the market continues to change in the next coming months.