current
MARKET
Our mission is to always offer a clear picture of the real
estate market for our community and clients and to
offer a factual review of the market as experienced over
the past year based on statistics. The last thing we are
willing to do at The Attias Group is to offer the typical
response we hear often enough “Oh my, it was so busy, I
am so busy, are you thinking of selling or buying?”.
We literally get hired by our clients because they demand
professional guidance on what is a major asset for most
families – their homes, and or real estate holdings. We
take our assignments seriously.
With that said, and though some quartiles of the market
for an assortment of reasons are doing well, that is
not the whole picture. Our annual forecast last year
mentioned that we believed the high end was en route
for pricing to soften due to high inventory levels, and
that certainly proved to be the case. This rang especially
true for “luxury” communities with longer commutes
to Boston, losing buyer volume to communities closer
to the city. Concord, Weston and Lincoln (though
statistically appearing strong) carried a great deal of
unsold inventory in the top quartile of homes, and by
the end of the year, pricing softened as projected. This
year the high end will continue on this path.
In real estate it seems customary to boast about median
price and days on market and, if those numbers are
good, then they are promoted. The truth is that what
does not sell tells the real story and this year plenty of
high end homes did not sell. This coming year those who
have to sell (not want to sell) will define current value in
that category.
The rest and most substantial part of the market (bottom
75% in values in any community) seemed to tell a slightly
different story. Of the 17 towns listed in this document,
10 had substantive decreases in the number of sales
year over year (see top of community sales page). In
some cases this was due to inventory levels, however,
the transition in U.S. leadership certainly created a noisy
political climate throughout Greater Boston and as my