Despite the decline in average and median home values, Hillsborough homes sold for an average of 99.9% of their asking prices in 2024, matching the data from 2023. This is the third-highest sale-to-list price ratio recorded in Hillsborough over the past decade and  challenges what used to be mainstream thought about ultra-high-end markets; it was once a given that homes at the top end of the market would not command full-price offers. While that is still mostly true at the very high end of the market, we now have enough of a sample size to feel confident that buyers of fairly priced homes in the $3 million to $7 million range are now likely to pay 100% of asking — or above.

In 2023 we noted the continued steep decline in Hillsborough home sales and wondered, given that inventory had not yet followed suit, whether this would exert long-term pressure on property values. And we did see prices fall some in 2024, down almost 5%, but that was not due to a glut of available properties. For-sale inventory finished the year down 8% from 2023, continuing a trend that began in Q4 of 2023, when inventory, after running significantly ahead of 2022 benchmarks, evened out with 2022 totals for that quarter. This year, inventory began the year almost 20% behind 2023 levels then closed the gap to the point where Hillsborough had almost identical numbers for available inventory and new properties for Q4.  Whether this is an indicator that inventory is again on the rise will go a long way toward predicting the market for 2025. 

There is plenty of data that suggests the Hillsborough market saw a slowing of momentum in 2024.  Average days on the market (DOM) can be included as part of that data.  Homes in Hillsborough took an average of 43 days to sell in 2024, an increase of 19% year-over-year and the highest recorded in the town since 2021, when homes also took 43 days to sell. However, to put this into context, consider that 43 DOM is significantly lower than Hillsborough’s historic average of 56 days (at least since we’ve been keeping track of data since 2001).  As we emerge from the COVID/post-COVID market disruption, we shouldn’t be surprised to see real estate return to its “normal” cycles. 

Look no further than Hillsborough to find how the combination of the pandemic market, plus increased interest rates has had on buyers at the top end of the housing market. These two factors have Hillsborough buyers trending toward large down payments and all-cash offers in a very significant way. Since 2020, when all-cash buyers accounted for 15% of purchases, the percentage of buyers passing on a mortgage altogether has doubled, to 31%, and it has risen by a third since 2022, when 23.1% of buyers chose to pay cash. In 2024, 31% paid cash. Looking further, we see that last year almost half of the buyers in Hillsborough (56%) put down more than 50% or paid cash for their home’s purchase. Compare this to 2020, when only 30.4% did so, and 2022 when 35.6% did. Buyers putting down somewhere between 21% and 50% still make up the largest segment of the homebuyer community, but only barely. Last year 36.9% did this, almost half as many fell into this category in 2020 (59.8%), 2021 (60.2%) and 2022 (55.8%).