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Massachusetts home sales collapsing into singularity
By adamg on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 8:09am
Scott Van Voorhis has to turn to a thesaurus to come up with enough phrases to describe how quickly sales are collapsing in Massachusetts - and to get him to wonder when prices will do the same. "Gruesome" is one of the words.
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Comments
Sandwich heavy portfolio
"Aha! Once again, the conservative sandwich heavy portfolio pays off for the hungry investor!"
A quick browse of Craigslist
A quick browse of Craigslist shows homes in the Boston area are still running between $750,000 and $2,000,000.
So, I guess the market really sucks outside the metro area, huh?
It's not the price of houses
It's not the price of houses that's falling, it's the number of s sales. Prices are up slightly over the last year. Units sold per year has been dropping since 2005 - as shown in the graph.
Supply and Demand 101 - when the sellers drop their asking prices, buyers will come into the market. We've just had a massive housing cost bubble, and sellers are waiting for the bubble to start re-inflating. Unfortunately - and insanely - Washington actually gave tax credits in an effort to do just that - re-inflate the bubble. Now that that disaster is over and there's no more money from Washington - maybe rational expectations will return to sellers.
Changed my post
Because you're right - he said sales are collapsing and wondered when prices would do the same.
Real estate weasels don't
Real estate weasels don't really care about sale price - they get paid each time a property turns over. That's why they graph unit sales in the article, and not unit price. The trend is only gruesome if you rely on churn to pay your bills. Most homeowners can wait to sell - the weasels can't wait to get commissions.