Massachusetts home sales pick up in October amid steady demand

Pending home sales in Massachusetts picked up in October versus the same month in 2019, according to a new report from the Waltham-based Massachusetts Association of Realtors.

At the same time, too, the median prices of these pending single-family and condo sales were also up year over year.

The statistics sketch a picture of a market still seething with demand.

“The three words we can use to best describe buyers in the market over the last 12 months have been ‘demand, demand, and demand,’” Anne Meczywor, the realtors association’s president and a broker at Roberts & Associates Realty in Lenox, said in a release about the stats. “While prices continued to be up, buyers have benefitted from interest rates under four percent for the last five months.”

The number of pending single-family sales was up 12.6 percent, to 5,581, in October, and the median price for these pending deals was up 1.9 percent, to $400,000. Pending single-family sales have been up the past 12 months, the realtors said.

The number of pending condo sales was up 18.3 percent, to 2,113, and the median price 3.7 percent, to $368,000. Pending condo sales have been up or flat 11 of the past 12 months.

The stats say nothing about the inventory of available homes for sale. But an October report from the Greater Boston Association of Realtors showed a rise in such inventory at the tail end of summer, suggesting more options for buyers to choose from and a slackening in the frenetic pace of the local housing market. The sellers’ market seemed to be fading.

The latest stats on the entire commonwealth suggest demand is still there, whatever the inventory. What are you seeing on the ground?