Is the Bear Market Here In Massachusetts Real Estate?

The Boston Globe confirms all is not well:

Boston-area homeowners trying to sell their houses are sharply reducing asking prices -- in some cases, by $100,000 or more -- in response to the sudden slowdown in the real estate market.


Demand for single-family homes has declined as prices have risen in recent years and interest rates have begun to climb, causing the number of properties on the market to pile up.

The median price of a single-family home in Massachusetts has dropped 7 percent in the past two months, to $349,000 for sales that closed in October. But reductions in asking prices of 10 percent or 20 percent are now common in both high and moderately priced neighborhoods, according to real estate agents and listings of homes for sale. In Cambridge, price cuts averaged $300,000 in a sampling of a dozen houses listed in the $1.25 million to $4.3 million price range. In suburbs like Tewksbury and Hopkinton, homes originally listed for around $500,000 have been slashed to the low $400,000s.

What makes this all particularly difficult is Massachusetts is one of the few areas of the country actually losing population.I guess not everyone can be a tenured professor living off federal government money.We wouldn't be suprised if prices on a percentage basis go down more than they did in early 1990's in Massachusetts.