Now the dust has settled on the 2021, it’s time to look back and analyze what happened in the housing market last year. Across the past 12 months we have heard about the shortage of homes for sale and the high demand from buyers leading to bidding wars and inflated prices. But towards the end of the year there were also reports of a cooling of the over-heated market, as the end of pandemic related aid and talk of interest rate rises led to some buyers taking themselves out of the market. The pandemic (unfortunately) is still with us, and so, it seems, is the strong housing market. Across the board we can see house prices were up compared to 2020 - and remember how strongly the market recovered in the second half of that year. Acton saw average house prices up by 20%, and in Concord they were up by 27%. Time was still of the essence when making offers – days to offer and days on market were down on the previous year. Homes were on the market for less than 30 days in Bedford, Acton and Westford. It won’t come as a surprise to see that in towns such as Lexington and Winchester fewer homes were sold than in 2020 - and yet all our towns reported an increase in market volume – the effect of those increased sale prices. Overall, 2021 was a very good year to be selling your home, and a tough year if you were a buyer.
We don’t anticipate that to change much in the first few weeks of 2022 either. Inventory is still very low – in fact during the first week of January there were no single-family homes on the market in Acton. Buyers are still out in force and that supply / demand imbalance makes it a very good time to list your home. If you are thinking of making a move this year, read our blog on why winter can be a good time to list your home to make sure you know the advantages of not waiting until spring. Then talk to one of our experienced agents about how to make the most of the current market.
