“I’m not ready to say that it’s a buyer’s market…yet,” said Joselin Malkhasian, president of the Greater Boston Association of Realtors, remarking on real estate trends in Cambridge this year as more homes have come up for sale while prices remain relatively stable.
Cambridge saw 118 new single-family listings through July, up about 20% from 98 during the same period last year, according to Massachusetts Association of Realtors data, while new condo listings increased about 10%, from 492 to 539.
Sales have risen alongside the increase in listings. Single-family home sales through July climbed about 27% from the same period last year, from 60 to 76, while condo sales increased about 15%, from 288 to 330.
Prices, meanwhile, have changed little. The median single-family sale price through July was nearly $2.48 million, up 1.9% from last year, while the median condo price actually fell 1.8% to $993,000.
Malkhasian said the shift is largely the result of housing inventory recovering from the severe shortages of the years following the Covid-19 pandemic. Mortgage rates plunged to historic lows during the first two years of the pandemic, prompting many homeowners to refinance their home mortgages and lock in unusually low interest rates. But as rates later rose and home prices climbed, those homeowners faced much higher borrowing costs if they moved. Many instead stayed put, further constraining supply and fueling competition among buyers.
“Even if they wanted to buy bigger or downsize, it was a little cost prohibitive because appreciation had gone up so high, meaning the cost of the home had gone up so high, and then interest rates had gone up,” Malkhasian said. “Sometimes the cost of selling wasn’t worth it to them, so they’ve actually hung on to their properties for longer.”
As more homes have returned to the market, that dynamic has begun to shift.
“Right now, we have the opposite of that,” Malkhasian said. “We have more units available, so higher transactions, but we’re really not seeing the price point shift up because buyers don’t have to pay over asking price or compete for multiple listings.”
Still, the shift toward a more balanced market has not erased sellers’ advantage. Cambridge single-family homes sold for an average of 105.3% of their original asking price in July, up from 102.2% a year earlier, according to MAR data.
“We are still in a seller’s market,” Malkhasian said. “But I do think that it’s becoming more balanced.”
The picture is somewhat different in neighboring Somerville, where increased activity has been concentrated in the condo market.
Single-family sales through July were virtually unchanged from last year, edging from 41 to 42, while exactly 62 new single-family homes were listed in both years. Condo sales, however, jumped 20%, from 225 to 270, as new condo listings climbed 24%, from 351 to 436. Unlike in Cambridge, that increased activity has coincided with a more noticeable decline in prices: Somerville’s median condo sale price through July fell 6.5% from the same period last year, from $925,000 to $865,000.
Malkhasian said the growing supply of condos in Somerville has given buyers more choices and put greater pressure on sellers to compete on price than in Cambridge.
“We have more inventory, buyers have more to choose from, a little less buyer demand because interest rates are up, and we’re seeing homes sit on the market,” Malkhasian said. “Days on market are averaging longer, and home prices are shifting downwards.”
Somerville’s multifamily inventory has also nearly doubled from a year ago, Malkhasian said. Developers have historically bought multifamily buildings and converted their units into condos, but greater competition for condo buyers has made those conversions harder to sell at a profit.
“We’re seeing multifamilies sit on the market longer as well because there’s not as much of the demand for them because developers aren’t able to sell them as condos as quickly or as profitably anymore,” Malkhasian said.
Where the Cambridge and Somerville markets go from here may depend heavily on mortgage rates, which have risen again in recent months amid renewed inflation concerns, Malkhasian said. The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage was 6.66% as of Aug. 27, according to Freddie Mac, up from 6.43% at the beginning of July.
Malkhasian said the war with Iran could also affect where mortgage rates go next. Higher oil prices stemming from fighting in the Middle East can raise the cost of goods across the economy, adding to inflation and making it harder for interest rates to come down. The Federal Reserve reported in July that higher energy prices stemming from the conflict had contributed to increased inflation this year.
“We’re already seeing that slowdown right now,” Malkhasian said, pointing to homes taking longer to sell and more sellers cutting their asking prices as signs that the market has cooled as the year progressed. Higher rates have also reduced buyer demand compared with earlier this year, when lower borrowing costs helped bring more buyers and sellers into the market.
A decline in mortgage rates could reverse that slowdown, Malkhasian said.
“I do think that once we start to see reprieve in interest rates, whenever that may be, and if they do come down, I do think that we’re going to start seeing a busier market because we saw evidence of that earlier in 2026,” Malkhasian said.
But Malkhasian cautioned that a substantial drop in rates could also bring back some of the intense competition that characterized the early pandemic housing market.
“If the Fed drops the rate too early or too much, it could create what happened in 2021 again, where appreciation was happening in the double digits,” she said. “That kind of growth was not sustainable.”
A stronger
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