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| Rhode Island Home Values Increase |
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The median price of houses sold in Rhode Island in June hit $290,000, the highest monthly median price since July 2006, the Rhode Island Association of Realtors reported Friday.
A continuing issue with low inventory led to a nearly 4-percent decrease in the number of houses sold in June, compared with June 2017, the association also reported.
June’s $290,000 median price was more than 6 percent higher than it was in June 2017 ($275,000), and it is also “just 2.8 percent less than the highest monthly median price on record.”
“There’s no doubt that our biggest problem right now is that we can’t meet the pent-up demand for housing,” association president Joe Luca said. “People aren’t selling. They’re staying in their homes longer for a number of reasons — fewer people are being forced to sell due to distressed sales, some people refinanced to extremely low rates that they don’t want to give up, [and] others don’t want to sell because they’re scared they won’t be able to find a home to move to in this market.”
“On top of all that,” Luca added, “Rhode Island remains last in the country in construction starts, and the few new builds that we do have aren’t at a price point that first-time homeowners or most of the middle class can afford.”
Rhode Island communities with the lowest inventory in June included parts of Providence, Pawtucket, Woonsocket, Central Falls, Cranston, and Warwick, and the neighborhoods of Manville in Lincoln, Rumford in East Providence, and several rural villages in the southern part of the state: Ashaway (Hopkinton), Wood River Junction (Richmond) and Bradford (Hopkinton and Westerly). All these locations had less than two months’ worth of housing supply, and five to six months of inventory is considered balanced — neither a buyers’ nor sellers’ market.
Rhode Island’s small condominium market also experienced a price increase in June, with the median condo price rising 8 percent to $230,000, though sales fell by 7 percent, to 227 condos sold.
The association added that “with the cost of rents skyrocketing, multifamily properties have become an attractive investment and sales have seen a meteoric rise in prices as a result.”
There were 205 multifamily properties sold in Rhode Island in June, with a median sales price of $250,000, up 19 percent from June 2017.
Article Credit: Chrisitne Dunn Providence Journal
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