It is the time of year when home prices are beginning to come down from their summertime highs. Yet homebuyers around here are still nowhere to be found.
While Greater Boston’s housing market was picking up speed when interest rates dipped earlier this year, single-family home sales in September fell to the lowest mark for the month since 1995, according to new figures out Tuesday from the Greater Boston Association of Realtors.
Just 744 single-family homes sold last month in GBAR’s coverage area, which includes most of Greater Boston except the North and South Shores, a 1.3 percent dip from the 754 homes sold in September 2023, when the market was already at a low. Condominium sales fell more dramatically; only 630 condos were sold in the region in September, 10.6 percent fewer than the 705 sold in the same month last year.
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The drop off in sales is a sign that after more than two years of a housing market frozen by interest rates, things are still not back to normal, with both buyers and sellers remaining hesitant to jump in.
“There was a noticeable lull in market activity over the final weeks of the summer as many buyers opted to delay their home purchase decision until after the Fed moved to lower interest rates, while others have grown more skittish and adopted a wait-and-see attitude as the presidential election approaches,” GBAR President Jared Wilk, a broker with Compass in Wellesley, said in a statement. “That’s resulted in a smaller buyer pool and decidedly slower sales pace since the start of September.”
Indeed, another explanation for the market’s continued sluggishness is the unease that often accompanies the presidential election cycle. It is not uncommon for would-be homebuyers to hold off on purchases until the election is decided, because they are waiting to see if the economy responds to the outcome of the vote.
But the underlying factors slowing the market are the same ones that have been deterring buyers and sellers all year. Mortgage rates are more than double what they were three years ago — last week, the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.44 percent, according to Freddie Mac, up from 3 percent at the same time in 2021 — meaning the monthly costs of a house bought today are far higher than they were for a decade before rates started to climb.
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The good news for homebuyers is that home prices are falling as they always do this time of year. The median-priced single-family in GBAR’s coverage area sold for $850,000 in September, roughly the same as median price in September 2023.
And new listings for single-family homes and condos are up 23 percent and 19 percent respectively, which is relieving some of the pressure on prices.
“With fewer buyers in the market over the last couple of months and a more plentiful supply of homes and condos now available for sale, we’re not seeing as much upward pressure on prices,” said Wilk. “Today’s buyers are not only finding more opportunity to negotiate, but with mortgage rates down about a half point since late spring and a full point from a year ago purchasing power has improved, making the market moderately more affordable.”
Andrew Brinker can be reached at andrew.brinker@globe.com. Follow him @andrewnbrinker.