Warwick, R.I. – February 17, 2023 – January home sales in Rhode Island continued the trends seen throughout 2022 of year-over-year gains in median price despite slowing sales. Data recently released by the Rhode Island Association of Realtors portrayed a 5.8% hike in the median price of single-family home sales and a 39.1% drop in sales activity compared to January 2022. Pending sales were also down by 30.1% indicating a continued lull in activity through the next few months. The single-family median sales price last month was $391,375.

“With just a 1.3-month supply of single-family homes for sale, even those buyers for whom affordability isn’t a factor have limited choices in their home search. At the beginning of the pandemic, real estate professionals were saying that Rhode Island is open for business. Now we’re saying that Rhode Island is almost sold out,” said Bryant Da Cruz, 2023 president of the Rhode Island Association of Realtors.

Rhode Island’s housing supply was low before the pandemic and has grown smaller since. In addition, rising interest rates have added more burdens to an already stunted housing market, knocking many prospective buyers out of the market and keeping many prospective sellers in their homes to avoid paying higher mortgage rates in a new home.

Sales activity among condominium sales fell 41.6% last month from 12 months prior and with a drop of 48.2%, pending sales fell by nearly half from the prior year. The median price of January condominium sales in Rhode Island rose 6.7% to $320,000.

In the multifamily home market, sales activity fell by 36.6% year-over-year and those under contract but not yet closed by the end of January dropped by 42.4%. Even with the fall in activity, the median price of $440,000 represented a 10% annual gain, the highest of all sectors.

“In today’s market, with its rising rents and scarcity of home ownership options, investing in multifamily properties makes perfect sense. Even at today’s higher prices, in most cases the return on investment is there,” said Da Cruz.