South Boston Market Recap January 2020

We are only one month into calendar 2020, so it is somewhat too early to establish year-long trends reliably.

     

However, Rooney Real Estate’s overall first-month conclusions are that South Boston’s residential real estate has shown considerably more energy during January 2020 – a trend that we feel began right after Christmas.  There are certain quantitative reasons we are saying this:  the weather has been measurably warmer than usual and despite many predictions to the contrary, interest rates have dropped significantly since last fall – from a high of about 4.65% back then, to recent individual agreements as low as 3.45%.  A drop of over 1% is quite significant over the life of a mortgage.  And Consumer Confidence rose to 101.3 – the highest it has been since 2014.

     

Qualitatively, since year-end greater numbers of viewers have been showing up at our open houses in South Boston – perhaps two or three times as many as those who came before Christmas, and during the fall months of 2019.  And as odd as this may sound when the Patriots aren’t on their way to the Super Bowl, more potential buyers spend their January weekends looking at real estate.

  

The following are our specific comments, as of January 31 this year:

 

- Under “Listing Inventory”, the number of Listing Units stayed essentially the same, but Median Days on the Market dropped sharply – 98 in January 2019, to 51 this January (-48%).

 

-  Median days on the market for Listing Inventory (units that were on the market as of January 31^st, 2020) dropped significantly to 51 days from 116 days in Dec 2019. This indicates that some absorption of older inventory along with the addition of newer inventory (74 units).

 

-Under Agreement (listing units that went pending) rose from 37 last January to 51 this January (+38%) and considerably higher than the 15 sale pending units in December of 2019.

 

 

- Inventory at 1.9 months this January, about a third of what it should be, is still very low. Even with all the current building taking place in South Boston, the 1.9 inventory means that homes are not being put on the market and perhaps are being rented instead.  But currently approved rental unit projects will add more than 500 units to South Boston stock.  What will this mean as 2020 progresses?

 

Below is a chart comparing the overall statistics from Jan 19' to Jan 20'. One thing to keep in mind is the fact month to month is not the greatest comparison of market trends due to the possibility of a high-end / large development closing in a particular month can skew the statistics.  

 

 

As a closing note, the figures above deal with condominium sales only, because they account for more than 90% of South Boston’s total residential sales.  Sales of single-family and multi-family properties are so few that no accurate comments or conclusions are possible this soon in 2020.

 

The Chart below contains all Single and Mulit-family properties that closed in January 2020

Singles

 

Address	Price	Date	Sqft	Lot Size	Bed(s)	Bath(s)	Parking
504 E 3rd St	$1,125,000	1/23/20	1,088	1,216	2	1	None
776 E 6th St	$845,000	1/23/20	1,562	1,149	3	1	None

 

Two-family's

 

Address	Price	Date	Sqft	Lot Size	Bed(s)	Bath(s)	Parking
16 Beckler Ave	$800,000	1/24/20	1,713	1,029	4	2.5	None

 

Three-family's

 

Address	Price	Date	Sqft	Lot Size	Bed(s)	Bath(s)	Parking
5 Douglass St	$1,740,000	1/31/20	2,418	1,306	6	3	None
11 Carpenter St	$1,050,000	1/31/20	2,208	1,730	6	3	None
174 W 7th St	$925,000	1/9/20	2,202	1,187	7	3	None

 

The Chart below contains all Condominiums that closed in January 2020.