Worcester home sales down 17% in September as median price hits $345K

Photo | Grant Welker The Legacy Farms housing community in Hopkinton

Write a Comment

By Katherine Hamilton

In September, the city of Worcester saw its first dip in single-family home sales in several months with 119 total sales, a 17.4% decrease from September 2020, according to a monthly report from Peabody real estate data firm The Warren Group.

Year-to-date sales still showed an overall growth in Worcester’s real estate market, with 996 sales, up 14.9% from last year.

The median sale price in the city was $345,000 in September, down $4,000 from August but up 15% from September 2020. Year-to-date, the city increased 19.6% from 280,000 in 2020.

Worcester County had a 1.2% decline in sales from 848 last September to 838 this year. The region’s sales have been falling over the last three months, but September’s dip was smaller than in August and July. The general downward trend follows a 34% leap in sales in June.

Worcester County has had 6,466 sales total since this time last year, which marks a 5.5% total growth. The median price in the area continues to rise exponentially with a 16.3% year-to-date increase from $320,000 to $372,000. Home prices are, on average, $30,000 more than they were last September.

Massachusetts’ home sales were down 10.4% from 2020 with 5,771 total sales, making September the third consecutive month where statewide sales have fallen.

The median price of a single-family home in Massachusetts is now $509,000, which is a 7.4% uptick from 2020 and a 27.8% spike from 2019.

The Warren Group’s CEO, Tim Warren, said in the report the high prices of Massachusetts homes are unaffordable to many buyers, which is a main factor in the downward trend of home sales over the last few months. Secondly, he said, there are not enough homes for sale in the state.

There have been 45,838 sales in the state year-to-date, which is a 7.2% rise from the first nine months of 2020. The year-to-date price of a home has increased 16.1% to $511,000.