Here is the latest installment of Bates By the Numbers, a weekly feature by broker David Bates that drills down into the Hub's housing market to uncover those trends you would not otherwise see. This week he breaks down the South End condo market. (Last week, he deep-dove into the hard money that makes Hub building easier.)
4,235 South End condo sales since 2005, according to the MLS.
2,875 (68 percent) were between 600 and 1,399 square feet.
2,207 (52 percent) were two-bedrooms and only 436 (10 percent) were three-bedrooms.
2,086 (49 percent) referred to a "deck" in the MLS remarks section; 1,606 (38 percent) had "granite;" and 1,224 (29 percent) touted "view" in the MLS remarks section.
1,831 (43 percent) had at least two full baths.
1,607 (38 percent) had at least one parking space and 684 (16 percent) had garage parking.
682 (16 percent) were built in 2003 or after.
$627 was the median price per square foot paid for a South End condo in 2012 and $1,211 was the highest price paid per square foot for a South End condo in 2012 (505 Tremont, #405). Currently, 518 Tremont, #4, is on the market for $1,250 a square foot.
$590,000 was the median sales price for South End condos in 2012, up from $564,000 in 2011.
546 South End condos sold in 2012, according to the MLS, up from 497 in 2011. Only 315 South End condos sold in 2003.
474 South End condos have sold for more than $1 million since 2005, according to the MLS, an average of almost 60 million-dollar-plus sales a year. From 2000 through 2004, the South End had only 34 million-dollar-plus sales, an average of 7 a year.
67 was the average number of days it took a South End condo to find a buyer in 2012, down from 85 in 2011. In the last month, it only took South End condos 34 days on average to find a buyer.
55 condos were on the market in the South End on Jan. 19, 2013, down from 91 condos on the market in the South End on Jan. 19, 2012.
42 condos were on the market in the South End on Jan. 19, 2013, without active-status flags, which means at the current sales pace (33 a month), South End buyers could buy the entire available inventory in about 40 days. That is a seller's market.
8 Condos sold at "40 St. Botolph, South End" and 16 condos sold at "40 St. Botolph, Back Bay." It's the same building.
$3,925,000 is the highest South End condo sale ever recorded in the MLS (a penthouse at 1280 Washington Street in 2007). It is also the highest assessed condo for real estate taxes in the South End: $3,811,000 in 2012.
1 book described the South End of the past as "the nation's largest rooming-house district." Time.com noted that in the 1980s the South End was considered "dangerous and remote" but that today the South End is home to "Boston's best restaurants, design stores and boutiques" as well as "upscale families and finance industry fauxhemians."
0 is the number of Boston neighborhoods which finished ahead of South End in the Curbed Boston Cup 2011.
· The Curbed Boston Cup Neighborhood of the Year: South End! [Curbed Boston]
· Our Bates By the Numbers archive [Curbed Boston]