Click Here for listen to the radio broadcast: Steve Medeiros, President of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors (27:33)

HOST: In this hour of discussing real estate, we talked about commercial real estate, we talked about commercial development there, we wanna move to the residential side. Let's bring in the new president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, his name is Steve Medeiros, Steve welcome to the program. The numbers keep coming right? When you look at the facts, it says that sales up to 21% year to year in 2019, medium prices are up to 16% over the year, the average price of a single family home now 479,000 and the data point that has my attention is homes for sale, the number of home down 62% year over year. There's just no inventory, correct Steve?

Steve: That is correct, that is one of the things that we are working through. The good thing is that homes are moving so people are able to buy homes (when sales are rough) so you know, something comes on the market, if priced right and it doesn't have a lot of major concerns to it, it seems to sell pretty quick.

H: Well, so for this story we've seen this movie before as they say, no inventory prices keep going, what's gonna knock this train off the track, Steve? What are you lookng at that could, one day when we open this discussion we could be talking about something different then, no inventory and higher prices

S: yeah, that's a great question. What I actually think is what pushed it, if you ask me this question back in the spring when the pandemic is starting, I would've never guessed that the numbers are gonna look like this, so you know what's really gotten us to this point has been the fact that rates are on all time low. There is a lack of inventory which is got people making their best offers which has been pushing the prices off, so I think the rates have been a big thing. Rates adjust upward, that can obviously slow things down a bit but as of right now, it doesn't seem like things are gonna be changing for the (near?) future.

H: We're talking with Steve Medeiros, President of the Massachusetts Realtors Association, story of the statehouse news service quote Tim Warren of the Warren Group Real Estate Company, the Warren Group CEO and he says: The only thing I worry about is the rapidly rising median price across the straight for 6 straight years which are very good market but were strained growth to price just to the 5% tail on the 2020. Huge changes and prices rolled by 14% for more than 5 straight months for whole year, prices rose 12% and Warren Group says they see this unsustainable, do you agree with that and what does that mean

S: What I'm looking at is more so affordability because rates has come down, people looking at the monthly payment and what can they afford, so that's the big thing that's helped people and pushed the prices up because people, they look at their payment and they say, "Well, I don't know if I want to pay this much for this home but I can afford the home", and I think if they're looking at their job situation and their job is steady and they feel like they're in a good position, then they were able to make that decision because it's very similar to as if the rates have been higher and they were looking at a lower price home, they were in the same boat financially for their household and I think that's really what would have gone. For me, if the inventory remains constraint in most market and so when you look at the most supply in the inventory, 63.6% decrease in the 25% of the condos that's gonna be, you know if we can get more inventory on the market, I think that will help, there's no quick fix for housing demands but there needs to be an effort to understand demand and to work together to provide options with the legislative path, a great build right before the session ended, the housing choice build that helps hopefully as we get some additional production going that will help if it may not gonna hit the market right away but that will definitely help to alleviate some of the stress on the housing inventory.

H: Steve Medeiros with us, President of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, who wanna tell the listeners as we keep you updated on the events of the inauguration of the five families now walking up the steps to the White House, their home for the next 4 years and again we'll begin when we have those details. So Steve, I'm glad to have you with us because I want your reaction to something we've been talking about mostly in the political sphere and that's Governor Baker's housing choice bill, I don't know how closely you follow this but the upshot is he's been marking on this for years as a way to get more affordable housing that you mentioned in bill in the Commonwealth, now it hit a snag on Beacon Hill, the legislature presented a bill of climate change bill that had language in it that they can felt was gonna stimy affordable housing in the Commonwealth. Do you follow this bill and what's your take on all this because the advocates, the lawmakers say "No, this is gonna help us build more housing", the governor says "No, no, no, we're going too fast, it's gonna slow housing down".

S: I think the governor was, it was on a good spot when you look at we ended up getting passed, when they actually, what they actually passed is what we were looking for. It was something that was supported by the real estate community, affordable housing advocates, municipalities, people business interest in the planning community so it was kind of a group effort to get that piece of legislation to pass and when you look at it you know, it's not gonna make a difference tomorrow but it's a good start and it's gonna help us get to where we can have more production but the key thing is gonna be that the actual states and towns that are in the Commonwealth actually adapt these owning best practices because we passed, the bills have passed but the actual municipalities, you know, adapting is the key thing and actually using this to get some of the growth (?) that we need to happen, you know, are starting to work.

H: Steve Medeiros is our guest and Steve we're at the bottom minute here, I'd like to get your take, I know you work for Keller Williams Realty and what kind of year has it been for your business there in this real estate bill?

S: Surprisingly, when I look at the end of the year, my business dashed up from the previous year despite the fact that we had two really difficult months of trying to get things done with the pandemic. When the pandemic first started, it was, things slowed down a bit in March and April but thankfully, the governor saw the housing market as one of the key factors on our economy and being real estate essential has allowed us to actually continue to do what we do because if not, we would have a lot of people who would have been waiting to close on a home and not been able to close, so a lot of the key things moving and thankfully, he understands how the housing market actually helps the economy of Masachussetts.