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 deep-dives into the Cambridge condo market. (Last week, it was Somerville.)
6,523 Cambridge condo sales from 2005 through 2012, according to the MLS.
4,811 (74 percent) were between 600 and 1,400 square feet.
3,595 (55 percent) had at least one parking space (rented, deeded, assigned, etc.) and 2,157 (33 percent) had garage parking.
3,371 (52 percent) were two-bedrooms and 1,109 (17 percent) were three-bedrooms.
3,148 (48 percent) had at least two bathrooms.
2,431 (37 percent) had "granite" in the MLS remarks section; 1,582 (24 percent) referred to a "deck"; and 1,475 ( 23 percent) touted "view."
840 Cambridge condos sold in 2012, according to the MLS, up from 714 in 2011. In 2007, 1,000 Cambridge condos sold.
883 (14 percent) Cambridge condos that sold from 2005 through 2012 were built after 2002.
$446,000 was the median sales price for Cambridge condos in 2012, up from $422,000 in 2011.
$465 was the median price per square foot paid for a Cambridge condo in 2012; and $1,531 was the highest price paid per square foot for a Cambridge condo in 2012 (975 Memorial Drive, #205).
204 Cambridge condos sold for more than $1 million from 2005 through 2012, an average of around 25 a year. Between 2000 and 2004, Cambridge averaged around 13 sales a year in excess of $1 million.
57 was the average number of days it took a Cambridge condo to find a buyer in 2012, down from 82 in 2011.
97 Cambridge condos were on the market on March 4, 2013, down from 112 on March 4, 2012.
7 available listings in the MLS for Cambridge condos priced below $450,000 on March 4, 2013; a year ago, March 4, 2012, 43 Cambridge condos listed under $450,000 were available.
2 descriptions of Cambridge: Wikitravel calls Cambridge "Boston's Left Bank: A little funkier, a little spunkier and definitely spicier than Boston." My own experience is that Cambridge is the most diverse part of the Hub and the only area where you find white, black, rich, poor, young and old.
$4,250,000 is the highest sales price for a Cambridge condominium ever recorded in the MLS—for 975 Memorial Drive, #1008, which is also the highest assessed condo in Cambridge at $4,744,000.
1.7 months is the amount of time it would take buyers at the current sales pace (available inventory/under-agreements last month) to purchase the entire available inventory of Cambridge condos, which makes it a seller's market.
1 most significant event in Cambridge real estate history was the repeal of rent control on Nov. 8, 1994.
· Our Bates By the Numbers archive [Curbed Boston]