Massachusetts ranked 5th in the United States for million-dollar cities

In Zillow’s annual list of “million dollar cities”, Massachusetts has 26.

That’s one less than last year.

Notice that the report uses the term “city” loosely. Sudbury, which is a city, disappeared from the list after just four months, said Jeff Tucker, senior economist at Zillow.

Communities in the United States where the average home is worth $1 million or more qualify it as a million dollar city, as calculated by the Zillow Home Value Index. The index, released March 13, pulls data from a variety of public sources, including city and county assessors, the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and home sales transactions, Tucker said.

There are 464 million dollar cities across the country, with the majority in the coastal states. Thirty-two states have at least one, and there are 37 cities with a typical home value of more than $3 million, according to the report.

The top five metros with the most millionaire cities were:

Boston tied with Seattle for fifth place last year.

These New England communities made the list:

“Los Angeles lost the most million-dollar cities since July, with seven below that mark,” read Zillow’s press release. “The New York metro area lost six, San Francisco lost four and Austin lost three during that time.”

The nation lost 58 of these cities in total. (California was the hardest hit: 20.) In the six months since the 2022 real estate peak, the typical home in those communities lost $114,500 on average, a decline of 4%, Tucker said. .

The overall decline is mainly attributed to high mortgage rates, freezing the number of buyers who can qualify for the high price, he said. The average long-term fixed rate is 6.6%, Freddie Mac reported today, more than double what it was in January 2022.

David McCarthy, president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, told Boston.com that the Massachusetts market, including high-end properties, remains strong.

“We still see in the majority of the state that we continue to have a seller’s market,” McCarthy said, “and we still see buyers in the high end mortgage-free market. Because the inventory is so low we are seeing a drop in the number of transactions, what has changed is that no doubt it has made things super competitive and there is not as much business to be had.

Tucker predicts the market will see an increase in million-dollar homes once mortgage rates come down in the next year or two, and he expects all home prices to rise again , but not at the pace of last year’s boom.

“I’m always hesitant about where we’re going,” McCarthy said. But “Massachusetts is a fantastic state to live in, and we’re already much stronger than other parts of the country.”