What’s Going On With Downtown Real Estate?

So Listing Information Network recently released its First Quarter 2011 Sales Summary. It certainly is a mixed bag, but definitively better than those ubiquitous doom stories from the local media, which seem to forget that real estate is local and generalizations certainly help sell papers but don’t tell a clear story of what happens in local markets. Here are some highlights of what’s going on in a few downtown neighborhoods (compared to the same quarter in 2010):

Back Bay
Total number of sales -16.33% (82 units)
Average selling price -4.14% ($1,306,435)
Average price per SF -6.55% ($808.91)

Beacon Hill
Total number of sales -21.88% (25 units)
Average selling price -5.71% ($852,720)
Average price per SF -8.37% ($675.27)

South End
Total number of sales -12.94% (74 units)
Average selling price +9.8% ($694,941)
Average price per SF +5.76% ($602.02)

Midtown (intersection of Financial District, Theater District and Chinatown)
Total number of sales +50% (18 units)
Average selling price +66.5% ($1,332,361)
Average price per SF +29.8% ($862.97)

Fenway
Total number of sales +53.85% (20 units)
Average selling price +2.61% ($320.828)
Average price per SF -23.24% ($436.18)

North End
Total number of sales -15.79% (16 units)
Average selling price +4.01% ($512,406)
Average price per SF -3.97% ($563.79)

South Boston
Total number of sales -25.23% (83 units)
Average selling price +24.9% ($397.961)
Average price per SF +9.65% ($392.89)

Charlestown
Total number of sales +2.17% (47 units)
Average selling price +15.29% ($485,918)
Average price per SF +8.57% ($443.61)