Year-End 2009 Trends: The Northeast (New York, Boston, Philadelphia & Washington DC

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We’ve just returned from New York City, attending last week’s Real Estate Connect New York City 2010 hosted by InmanNews. Outstanding event to hear what’s happening right now in the real estate industry, and we’re all about real-time… Thought this would be a good time to close out our “2009 Year End Trends” blog post series, focusing on the Northeast markets. (And besides, it’s time to start looking ahead to 2010 since we’re three weeks into the year now..)

Unlike the rest of the country in this series, I’m taking a broader view of the major Northeast housing markets by looking at metro-level data instead of city-level data for New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington DC. Here’s a quick look at the market data followed by analysis of what we’re seeing in this region:

Median Ask Price Trends by MSA: New York, Boston, Philadelphia & Washington DC

Active Housing Supply by MSA: New York, Boston, Philadelphia & Washington DC

Nothing too surprising in any of these metros. Each saw a positive price bump in Spring 2009, but gave back the gains as the year progressed. We’ve saw this consistently throughout country.
Inventory continues to decline steadily in Boston, Philadelphia & Washington DC, with a slight rise in New York that was unusual compared to the national trends.
We’ll be watching the Price of New Listings in each area in early 2010 to see if there will be another Spring-time bounce in 2010. (This stat serves as a leading indicator for any real estate market, capturing the most recent market activity before sold transactions even occur…) The downward trend in this stat has leveled off in recent weeks which is a good sign:

Median Price of New Listings by MSA: New York, Boston, Philadelphia & Washington DC

If you’ve enjoyed this look at the major cities and metros across the US over the past couple of weeks, register now to receive our Real-time Housing Market Report. It’s free and distributed around the 10th of each month.