House sales slip again; condos surge

[midnight armadillo]

House sales slip again; condos surge
Data suggest local prices may be cooling

By Kimberly Blanton, Globe Staff | August 24, 2005

The Massachusetts real estate market is running hot and cold.

The state's condominium market continued its blistering, double-digit pace of sales increases last month amid surging demand for luxury, low-maintenance housing. Sales of 2,395 condos in July represented a 12.4 percent jump over July 2004, according to yesterday's monthly report by the Massachusetts Association of Realtors.

Yet sales of single-family homes slipped 7.4 percent, to 5,328, the third drop in sales from the previous year in the last four months.
...
From 2000 to 2003, Massachusetts home values rose 50 percent, the greatest increase in the nation.
But state and national numbers suggest that the era of double-digit increases in home prices in the Boston area may be over.
...
'Boston seems to be one of those markets where there are signs of the bubble beginning to not get any bigger," said Nicholas Perna, a former banker and economic consultant in Ridgefield, Conn. But, he added, ''We don't know whether it just slowly deflates or whether it bursts -- we just don't know that."

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2005/08/24/house_sales_slip_again_condos_surge?mode=PF


Well, if there's a crash maybe there'll be hope for me buying a home someday...