Projo Biz Blog

While Rhode Island's housing market in January was nothing short of dismal, the misery was not spread evenly around the state, according to figures from the Rhode Island Association of Realtors.
Statewide, prices for single-family homes dropped 29 percent in January, compared to the same month a year ago. The median price this January was $175,000, down from $245,000 last year.

But, following the real estate adage that the three most important factors about a property are location, location and location, how the picture looked depended on where you were looking from.

Three older urban cities saw median prices near or below $100,000, according to the Realtors: Central Falls at $101,000, Woonsocket at $97,250 and Providence at $75,000.

Meanwhile, three seaside communities saw median prices above half a million dollars -- in one case, way above. Little Compton registered a median of $572,000, Newport came in at $750,000 and Jamestown tallied $1.8 million.

Providence's East Side, when taken by itself, also joined the half-million-plus club, at $501,000.

In all, 26 Rhode Island communities had medians above the statewide median of $175,000 and 11 were below. (Two had no sales in January according to the Realtors data, which is derived from its State Wide Multiple Listing service, which captures most, but not all, transactions.)

While more communities were above the median than below, the statewide median was dragged down by three cities with low medians and a large number of sales: Pawtucket, 23 sales at a median of $151,000; Warwick, 47 sales at $150,000, and Providence, which had 51 sales.

 Tags  Rhode Island Association of Realtors

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