Over the decades, real estate has seen many highs and lows, and everyone always asks: Is now a good time to buy? A good time to sell? Many Realtors® may actually answer that question affirmatively or negatively and give an explanation as to what they think the housing market will do. We here at Bentley's Real Estate will not tell you what the market will or won't do. Why? Because we don't know. Neither does anyone else. 

However, what we here at Bentley's Real Estate will do for you is give you sound counsel with what the current market conditions data provides. With that in mind, we still won't make any decisions for you, we don't do that. What we will do is help guide you to make an full informed decision based on your short, medium, and long term goals. 

So what is the current housing market conditions telling us? Using The Federal Reserve (The Fed) data, we can see that transaction prices for all homes in Massachusetts, as well as Essex County continue to rise. For the first quarter in Massachusetts, home prices were up 6.6%. The most current data also shows that for 2017, Essex County prices for all homes rose 7.7% (rounded). Here is what it looks like:

As we can see above, since the 2008 Financial Crisis, housing is still in the recovery. What factor(s) are helping this recovery? Many. There are many state and federal programs that have assisted many homeowners over the past decade. One of the main drivers of the recovery have been monetary policy instituted by The Federal Reserve and their Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) which artificially brought interest rates close to zero. This had a dramatic effect on both home price and borrowing ability. Below, we can see where The Fed has recently started to raise interest rates, and it's effect on the traditional 30-year mortgage rate:

Locally, where Bentley's Real Estate main hub in Newburyport is located, current conditions provided by MLS, show results are mixed on a variety of metrics. For single family homes in Newburyport, from 2017 to current year-to-date (July 31, 2018), we saw a slight 2.7% decrease home price, but the amount of home sales increased and the days on the market decreased. You can see this in the single family market report below:

If you're not looking to buy or sell a home, but a condominium instead, the metrics are almost in reverse of single family homes. There were less units sold, but the price per condo actually rose over 6%, with even less time on market: 

We hoped you liked our brief market overview analysis. These are just a couple of examples as to what each and every agent at Bentley's Real Estate takes in consideration in helping you make your home selling or buying dreams come true. If you would like more information about what Bentley's Real Estate can do for you, contact any member of our team, or you can contact us directly here.