There are some important and interesting things happening here in Central Massachusetts, most of which are great, if you’re selling, and not so great if you’re trying to buy your first house. It’s actually sort of incredible.
For instance, August housing prices just set a new record for Worcester County, with a median (the middle, not the average price, of all homes sold) of $476,000. In percentage terms, according to Rocket Mortgage, home prices are currently up 8.9% year over year.
Even more impressive is that Realtor.com listed Leominster as one of the ten hottest housing markets in the entire country, which means a lot of the smaller towns surrounding Leominster are just as “hot”, including small towns like Princeton and Westminster. As a point on the line, as we try to make sense of this market, in September nearly 60% of homes sold over asking price, about 30% of homes sold under asking price, and just 11% sold at asking price.
So what’s going on? Basically it’s what I’ve been writing about all along–North Central Mass is desirable. It’s safe, crime is low, the schools are pretty good to excellent, people can commute to Boston on the train, and there is a lot to do and see here. Both Princeton and Westminster have access to all sorts of outdoor activities, including hiking, skiing, biking, and here in Princeton, tennis.
But….the very things that make this area desirable are what often drive up prices. In particular, there is a lot of protected land….Leominster State Forest, land owned by the Princeton Land Trust, Wachusett Mountain Reservation and Ski Area, and strict zoning laws requiring large building lots.
New housing construction simply cannot keep up with demand, mainly because there isn’t enough buildable land. There is a real trade off here, in my opinion best exemplified by the much despised 40B law. This law allows builders to override zoning as long as they make a certain portion of their housing “affordable” and limit their profits (which a good accountant can often take care of). 40B both creates more housing, but also creates furious neighbors whose nice neighborhood suddenly has unanticipated single family homes, apartments and condos smack in the middle of it.
The big statistic here is that 30% of homes are selling under asking price. In a market like this, the reason something sells lower than anticipated is a combination of being too ambitious and setting the price too high, which then often leads to the home sitting on the market too long, which then makes the listing ‘stale’, and people wonder what’s wrong with it.
On the other hand, 60% of homes are selling over listing price, but that absolutely doesn’t mean that you are getting the best price for the house…it could very well be that you and your agent just set the listing price too low in the first place, and even though the home sold fast and over listing price, you very well might have left money on the table. There is a real art to pricing, and it involves much more than just setting the right price. You also have to market the house properly: clean the house, stage the house, advertise properly, present it properly, and do all the other things that make people want to live in the house and make it their home. It’s not at all just dollars and cents. People want to bond with their new home. It’s not simply a monetary transaction. I specialize in helping sellers to set themselves up for success, and when working with buyers, we strategize on how to get to the finish line with the least amount of stress, and the best end result possible. I encourage you to read my reviews, and contact me for a transparent discussion about the state of the Central Massachusetts housing market.