The Massachusetts Association of REALTORS® recently released some statistics about February residential home sales in the state.   And while units sold in February of 2009 were indeed lower than the same month in 2008 – there was some information that seemed to us to suggest a couple of potential bright spots in the state’s real estate landscape.

First, inventory of both Single Family Homes and Condominiums was down on a year over year basis in February of 2009.  And this was the 11^th straight month where inventory had decreased for both types of homes.  On one hand, that could certainly suggest that more people are sitting on the fence and waiting for the market to recover before listing their home.  But regardless, it implies that there is less capacity on the market for both houses and condos then the same time a year ago – and with interest rates still low we’d hope that would support some prices a bit.

Secondly and maybe more interestingly, condo units sold in February of ‘09 rose from January ‘09 and that is the first time this has happened since the Association started tracking this statistic in 1996.

Here are the stats:

Source: Massachusetts Association of REALTORS®