Jon Gorey - Globe Correspondent
December 22, 2020 12:02 pm
The words we might use to describe 2020 — “tragic,” “turbulent,” “surreal,” “recessionary,” “isolating,” and, of course, “unprecedented” — wouldn’t seem to suggest a booming real estate market. And yet, aside from a brief pause in early spring, the housing market remained red-hot this year, one of just a few bright spots in an otherwise strained economy.
When the sawdust settles on the 2020 housing market, Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, expects the United States will end the year with a 3 percent increase in home sales and a 6 percent uptick in prices over 2019. The median price of a Massachusetts single-family house has risen even faster — 11.3 percent, year to date through November, to $455,000, according to The Warren Group — though sales were up just 1.5 percent from last year.