With a drop in inventory and a rise in multiple-bid offers, confidence among Massachusetts Realtors in market activity and home prices soared last month, the state’s Realtors association reported.
The Massachusetts Association of Realtors (MAR) said its Market Confidence and Price Confidence indices, which are measured monthly, reached all-time highs in March. The market index soared 52 percent from a reading of 49.54 to 75.52 on a scale of zero to 100, marking the 20th straight month of year-over-year increases in the index.
Meanwhile, Realtors showed a slightly higher degree of confidence in prices, which measured at 78.74, also on a 0-to-100 scale. That marked the 14th consecutive month of year-over-year increases.
MAR President Kimberly Allard-Moccia, citing the start of a sellers’ market in the survey results. “Right now multiple-bid offers are about as common as single-bid offers, but that could change as inventory continues to go down.”
MAR members were asked about how prevalent multiple-bid offers were in 2013 (through March) because of the lack of inventory. Of those who responded to the survey, 37 percent answered that all or most of their transactions were multiple-bid offers, while 28 percent said an equal number of transactions were multiple- and single-bid offers.
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