The median multi-family price nearly hit $600,000 in September

For the past two months and leading up to the presidential election, real estate agent Bryan Quinlan has seen the housing market slowing down, with fewer listings and more houses sitting on the market for longer.

Now that the uncertainty over the next president is gone, things are starting to pick up, he said. Quinlan is with Keller Williams Realty Leading Edge.

The latest numbers from the Rhode Island Association of Realtors on home sales match what Quinlan saw: decreased sales with a stagnant median selling price.

The median single-family home price hit its highest level in June 2024, at $494,000, lowering to $485,000 in September and October.

During the summer, the number of single-family home sales was higher, 812 in July, 804 in August, before slipping back down in September to 691 and in October at 680.

The latest housing numbers for October show more inventory than last winter, with 1,322 houses listed for sale compared to between 822 and 917 listed from December 2023 to March 2024.

The price remains high, although how much higher prices will go is an open question.

Houses continue to sit on the market for longer than they did earlier in the summer:

• 31 days in August, September and October
• 27 days in May
• 23 days in June
• 18 days in July

What are they saying? “We’re seeing homeowners who are tapping into their equity and 401K and competing for properties with first-time home buyers without those luxuries,” Rhode Island Association of Realtors President Chris Whitten wrote in a news release. “Many are cash buyers who are downsizing or buying a second home. It’s tough for younger buyers to compete with that.”

The solution to high prices, the lack of inventory, and the lack of diverse inventory, which would allow empty nesters to downsize or growing families to upsize, is to build more housing. To that end, his association will be “working closely with legislators who are willing to help remove barriers to building and enable the creation of more homes,” Whitten wrote.

What’s happening in the multi-family market?

In the multi-family market, median prices hit a new record high of $595,000 in September before sinking down to $560,000 in October. The multi-family and condo markets can be a little skewed with median prices because of the lower volume of sales and inventory, with 125 multi-family houses sold in September and 143 sold in October.

For the sake of comparison, 691 single-family homes sold in September and 680 in October.

The multi-family market remains hot, with an average of 23 days on the market in September and 26 days in October.

“There’s always demand for multi-family houses,” Quinlan said. “Even when I got into real estate eight years ago, there was always high demand compared to single-family houses, in a slower market. You can sell any multi-family easily for half a million, and it doesn’t matter the condition so long as it’s rentable.”

Is this the new normal? Quinlan said prices will likely eventually stagnate within the next two years but the lack of inventory keeps pushing prices higher and higher, even as higher prices and mortgage rates shrink the pool of potential buyers.

“Maybe it’s not a 5% increase, as it depends on the economy and the new president as well,” Quinlan said.

What’s going on in the condo market?

Historically the type of place where people who can’t afford to buy a single-family house would look, condos are a little cheaper than their single-family counterparts in terms of absolute price, but the median price is subject to more variability because of the low number of sales, 183 in October and 178 in September, and how some segments of the market sell for millions.

In October, the median condo price was $355,000, down from $427,450 in September and up from $330,000 in August. The peak median condo price was September, followed by July at $395,000.

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Follow Wheeler Cowperthwaite on X, @WheelerReporter, or reach him by email at wcowperthwaite@providencejournal.com.