April Review:
Real Estate trends on the Cape largely held steady in April with increases in median price, days on market, and inventory, while decreases continued in closed sales, pending sales, new listings, and percent of original price received. The increasing median sales price trend is bucking the national trend which has seen prices fall the past two months.
Median sales price continues to climb...still. April's median single family home sold for $760,000. This is an increase of $100,000 since January and is the new record, beating May 2022 by $11,000. I'll digress into affordability here briefly. The affordability index in April was 39, which means the median household income in Barnstable County is only 39% of what is needed to buy a median-priced home. In other words, a median Cape Cod family would need to make approximately 2.5 times their income in order to afford a $760,000 home at prevailing interest rates. This is the lowest affordability has been since at least 2006, which is as far back as our stats go. Yikes.
Low inventory continues to price out buyers. In our affordability example above, you may argue that half of all available homes are below that median number in price. True. However half of all available homes in April was 197. For all of Barnstable County. Which has a population of approximately 230,000 people. When we drill down even more, there were only 22 homes for sale in April, in Barnstable County for less than $485,000. If this number doesn't send a cold chill up your spine, it should.
Percent of original price trend reversed. After months of decreasing offer prices we were hopeful that this metric was stabilizing around 93-94%, however the past two months saw offers prices creep closer to asking price. Will we see multiple offers over asking price on most transactions again this summer? Is this a blip in activity because of the Spring market? We'll see!
Whichever seat you are in, whether buying, selling or vacation renting, the professionals at Chatelain Real Estate are here to give you the expert advice you will need to make your transaction a success. For more market data check out our blog category Real Estate Trends. You can also give us a call any time - we look forward to hearing from you.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | |
| Closed Sales | 172 | 157 | 210 | 217 |
| Inventory | 320 | 303 | 360 | 394 |
| Median Sales Price | $660k | $661k | $700k | $760k |
| Avg Days on Market | 41 | 65 | 55 | 48 |
| Avg % of Original Price | 94% | 94% | 96% | 99% |