Housing slowdown deepens in Mass.

The Boston Globe reports:

The Warren Group, a Boston-based financial and real estate research firm, said 4,416 single-family homes sold statewide last month, below March 2005 sales of 4,482. The median house price dipped to $325,000, from $330,000 in March 2005.

For the entire first quarter, single-family sales were 8.4 percent below year-ago sales, the Warren Group said. Home sales in Massachusetts have fallen in 13 of the past 14 months, when compared to the same month a year earlier.

Newport said a combination of population losses -- the US Census Bureau estimates the state lost more than 42,000 residents a year between 2001 and 2004 -- and a sluggish economy combined to curtail sales. ''People are leaving for other states, and there's less demand for housing than there is in the rest of the country," he said.

Changing fundamentals in Massachusetts.With people leaving,the only way prices can stay up is if speculators want to step in.