Cape & Islands News

Real estate market continued decline in 2008

Sales fall by 8 percent, sales volume off nearly 20 percent
Median sales price slips below $300,000

By James Kinsella

The real estate numbers are out for 2008.

And, to no one's surprise, they're not good.

Almost every indicator fell: sales, sales dollar volume, median sales value, mortgages and mortgage dollar volume. One indicator was up: foreclosures.

Almost every indicator fell: sales, sales dollar volume, median sales value, mortgages and mortgage dollar volume. One indicator was up: foreclosures.

John F. Meade, the Barnstable register of deeds, reports that the volume of real estate sales over $50,000 fell 8 percent, with the total value of sales off 19.8 percent from the previous year.

The median individual property sales value was down 10.1 percent from the previous year. Mortgage activity dropped 20.8 percent from last year's levels.

For the year, the number of foreclosure deeds recorded rose 72 percent to 599.

In December, the number of real estate sales in Barnstable County over $50,000 totaled 383 deeds, a 10.5 percent decline from the previous December.

Meade said the month's activity translates into nearly $199 million in real estate sales on the Cape. The median sales price of property in those transactions was $290,000.

In contrast, December 2007 saw almost $240 million in real estate sales, translating into a median sales price of $329,000.

The number and value of mortgages also declined in December, falling from 1,307 to 1,006 mortgages, and from nearly $416 million to almost $382 million in value. Meade further reports that overall activity at the registry and in Land Court, a related section where realty documents are recorded, declined again in 2008. Activity in both sections includes the recording of a variety of real estate documents, including deeds and mortgages.

A total of 89,470 documents and plans were recorded in the two sections last year, a 12.3 percent drop from 2007, a year that saw 102,065 documents and plans recorded.

Activity in the registry and at Land Court has been declining since 2003, the busiest year in the registry's 300-plus-year history, when just over 200,000 documents and plans were recorded.

The volume of recordings fell sharply in 2004, when Meade reports that 138,119 documents and plans were recorded. Activity continued to decline through 2005, when 124,763 documents and plans were recorded, and in 2006, when 112,790 documents and plans were recorded.

Though scant consolation to real estate agents whose business is growing scarce or to homeowners who are watching the value of their homes sag, the decline is coming after several years of record activity at the registry and Land Court, and, by extension, in real estate activity on Cape Cod.

According to Meade, 2003, 2002, 1998, 2004 and 1986 (in that order) remain the five busiest years ever at the institution.