Two Massachusetts metro areas made Realtor.com’s top 20 hottest housing markets for the month of May — and no, neither were Boston.
Listings in the Springfield (No. 3) and Worcester (No. 7) metros received three times as many views per property as the national average and sold more than three weeks faster than the national average of 44 days.
That’s a record high never seen in the data’s history dating back to mid-2017, according to Realtor.com.
In a December foreshadowing, both cities were named among the top 10 housing markets for 2024.
May listings in Springfield spent a median of 17 days on the market with a median sale price of $400,000, according to the report. Worcester properties were listed for a median 19 days at a median sale price of $545,000.
“This suggests that the month’s hottest markets are seeing significantly more demand than the typical home nationally, despite still-challenging housing conditions,” Realtor.com economic analyst Hannah Jones said.
Downtown Worcester on Oct. 28, 2022. (Ryan Mancini, MassLive)
The report described Springfield as ”hugely popular due in part to its fairly affordable home prices of $400,000 and low unemployment rate.”
Of the top 20 housing markets in America, nine were in New England — in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire. All other markets were in the Midwest.
The month of May saw a nationwide average home price of $442,500. Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, one of the most competitive housing markets in the country, the median single-family home price for May was $636,000, according to the Warren Group, a leading source of real estate data, and the median condo price was $550,000.
Cassidy Norton, associate publisher and media relations director of the Warren Group, said May in the Bay State saw a nearly 8% year-over-year increase in the median sale price for single-family homes, reaching “an all-time high of $636,000.”
“Typically, increased sales would temper price growth, but the pent-up demand from homebuyers is redefining market dynamics,” she said.
Last month, Dan Meservey, a real estate agent representing Mathieu Newton Sotheby’s International Realty in Westborough, told MassLive that pent-up buyer demand “devours” inventory within days of hitting the market.
