Are homes under $500K an endangered species on the South Shore? What the numbers show
A single-family home going for less than $500,000 on the South Shore might as well be an endangered species.
No community in the region had a year-end median sale price of a single-family home sold in 2024 that was below a half million dollars, according to data collected by The Warren Group.
It's possible, but difficult, to come by one as of late, as evidenced by rising median sale price in the region and across the state. The median home sale price in the state reached $615,000 last year, an increase of 7.9%. On the South Shore, that year-over-year change amounted to a 6.3% jump, to $680,000.
A little more than a dozen single-family homes on the South Shore were listed for sale on Zillow for under $500,000 as of the end of January.
Randolph had a median sale price of $560,000, which was a 10.5% increase over the previous year.
Abington's median sale price was $557,750, or a 13% increase.
Carver had a median sale price of $525,000 last year, an 18.5% jump.
The median sale price in Whitman was $510,000, or a 9.6% increase.
Rockland's median sale price was $505,000, amounting to a 18.9% increase.
More: Median home sale price reaches $1M in 2 South Shore towns: Where it went up and down
The COVID-19 pandemic shook the real estate industry. With a smaller housing stock, home prices were turbocharged.
In 2019, the median sale price was under $500,000 for a dozen South Shore communities. Carver, for example, had a median sale price of $337,700 that year. The highest in this category was Marshfield, at $460,000.
Over the years, the median home sale price has steadily increased. In 2020, the median sale price was under a half-million dollars in 11 communities in the region. The following year, that amount dipped to seven communities; then four in 2022; and two, Whitman and Rockland, in 2023.
At a slower rate, more and more South Shore communities had passed the $1 million median sale price mark. First, it was Cohasset in 2020, followed by Hingham in 2021. Duxbury became the third to pass this milestone in 2023.
Now, five South Shore communities hold this distinction of the median sale price of a single-family home being over $1 million, adding Norwell and Milton.
Hannah Morse covers growth and development for The Patriot Ledger. Contact her at hmorse@patriotledger.com.
This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Least expensive median South Shore sale price in 2024 topped $500,000
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