45% of purchases in Massachusetts 2019, were First Time Home Buyers.
First-time homebuyers accounted for 45 percent of homes sales in Massachusetts in 2019, according to new numbers from the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. That was well above the national share of 33 percent.
The sizable share of first-time buyers came despite rising home prices in the commonwealth and a general dearth of inventory, especially in the Boston area. Another realtors report pegged the Boston region’s median sales price for detached single-families at $605,000 in December—a record high for the month.
The median price of a Boston-area condo was $542,250 in December, up nearly 8 percent from the same time in 2018. And the average sales prices per square foot for both single-families and condos were up December, too, to $330 a foot for single-families and $568 for condos.
As for the inventory of available homes for sale, signs of relative scarcity abounded toward the end of 2019. The number of active listings for detached single-families was down more than 30 percent in December compared with the same month in 2018, according to the realtors association, and the number of active condo listings was down nearly 17 percent. Both were down from November by double-digit percentages as well.
Still, first-time buyers took the plunge in sizable numbers statewide.