A Saturday-by-Saturday look at single-family inventory and prices, January 1994 through April 2026.
The chart that started this
Most local real-estate market reports show you the past quarter, maybe the past year. The view is always too short to see the patterns that actually shape the market you live in. So I went the other way and pulled every single-family listing in Woburn, Massachusetts going back as far as MLS PIN’s records reliably extend — to 1994.
The dataset: 10,366 unique single-family listings, each with its list date, off-market date, status, list price, sale price, and original price. From that, I computed the active inventory on every Saturday for the past 32 years (1,687 Saturdays in total), monthly median sale prices, days on market, and a handful of other “market temperature” metrics.
The results tell a story you can’t see from a single year of data — and a story that lines up, with some interesting exceptions, with what economists are documenting at the regional and national level.
The headline: inventory has collapsed, then prices took off
In October 2006, there were 142 single-family homes for sale on a Saturday in Woburn. In March 2025, there were four. That’s a 35-fold reduction. And the median sale price went from about $150,000 in early 1994 to around $775,000 today — roughly 5x in nominal terms, or about 2.5x after adjusting for inflation.
But the timing of these two trends is what’s genuinely informative. Inventory peaked in 2006 — at the very top of the housing bubble — and has been declining for almost twenty years. Prices, meanwhile, didn’t really take off until after 2012. The two trends operate on different clocks.
What the long view changes
A few patterns become visible only when you have decades of data, not years:
The 2008 crash didn’t show up the way you’d expect. Most people remember 2008-2010 as a period of rising inventory and falling prices — the classic crash signature. In Woburn, inventory actually fell during the crash, from a peak of 142 in 2006 to a low of 63 by early 2009. That’s because the crash didn’t unleash a wave of for-sale signs. It froze the market: sellers who didn’t have to move pulled their listings, and prices in Woburn corrected only modestly — the smoothed median fell from about $410K in 2007 to $345K in 2010, roughly a 16% drop. Compared to U.S. metros that saw 30-50% declines, Boston-area towns like Woburn were relatively insulated, partly because prices hadn’t gotten as inflated during the bubble.
The structural inflection wasn’t 2008. It was 2013. From 2005 through 2012, inventory mostly ranged between 60 and 140 active listings on a typical Saturday. Starting in 2013, the entire baseline shifts down and never returns. By 2017, the year’s peak inventory (47 listings) was lower than the trough of any year from 2005 through 2012. This wasn’t a cyclical downturn — it was a structural shift. You can pinpoint it almost exactly to that year.
COVID didn’t cause the listing collapse — it just accelerated something already happening. The 2018 trough was already 8 active listings. By 2020 it was 12. The pandemic and rate-lock effect (more on that below) added a layer on top of an ongoing structural shift, but the descent had been going for years.
2025 marked the all-time low: four active single-family listings on March 8. That single Saturday is the lowest reading in the entire 32-year history.
Why this is happening: the regional and national context
Woburn isn’t unique. The single best explanation for the post-2013 collapse in inventory comes from Federal Reserve and FHFA research on what economists call the “rate lock-in effect.”
When mortgage rates rose sharply in 2022, homeowners with low fixed-rate mortgages — most of them locked in during the 2020-2021 refinancing boom — suddenly had a powerful financial reason to stay put. According to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s working paper on the lock-in effect, every percentage point that market rates exceed a borrower’s existing fixed rate reduces the probability of sale by 18.1%. The paper found that mortgage rate lock-in prevented an estimated 1.33 million U.S. home sales between mid-2022 and the end of 2023, and increased home prices by 5.7% by reducing supply.
But here’s the important wrinkle: lock-in alone doesn’t explain Woburn’s full picture, because the Woburn inventory decline started years before rates rose. The region has a deeper, structural problem layered on top of the rate-lock effect. Massachusetts faces a housing supply shortage estimated at over 200,000 units. State analysis underlying the Affordable Homes Act suggests the Commonwealth needs to produce more than 200,000 new housing units by 2030 just to meet current demand, and the MBTA Communities Act — the state’s most ambitious effort to ease zoning restrictions near transit — has so far put only a small fraction of that need into the development pipeline.
Decades of restrictive zoning, lot-size minimums, and local opposition to multi-family construction have left Eastern Massachusetts structurally short on housing — and that shortage was already binding when the rate-lock shock arrived. Lock-in didn’t cause the Woburn shortage; it amplified one that already existed. As The Warren Group — the firm that has tracked Massachusetts real estate data since 1872 — has documented in their statewide reporting, this is a regional pattern across Greater Boston, not a Woburn-specific phenomenon.
The price story — why median, not average
Reporting median sale prices rather than averages matters more than people realize. Real estate prices are right-skewed by definition — there’s no upper limit on what a luxury home can sell for, but a lower bound near zero. A handful of trophy sales can pull the average significantly above what a typical buyer actually faces.
In Woburn’s 2022 data, the median sale was $660K but the mean was $730K — a $70K gap explained entirely by a few sales above $1.7 million. By 2025, the top sale was 2.9x the median (compared to 1.8x in 1994). Every reputable real estate index — Case-Shiller, the National Association of Realtors, Redfin, Zillow — uses median for exactly this reason.
Looking at the Woburn median over time:
- 1994-2007: $150K → $410K (2.7x over 13 years, including the bubble run-up)
- 2007-2010: $410K → $345K (modest 16% crash-era dip)
- 2010-2025: $345K → $797K (2.3x over 14 years)
The 2020-2022 acceleration is the steepest in the entire record. Median price went from about $565K in early 2020 to $700K by mid-2022 — a 24% jump in two years, faster than even the 2003-2007 bubble. Today’s reading has plateaued around $775K, the first sustained pause in growth since 2018.
For broader regional context, Massachusetts had over 43,000 single-family home sales in 2025, with the statewide median single-family sale price reaching $638,000 — and Greater Boston specifically reaching a median single-family sale price of $799,000. That puts Woburn’s $775K reading right in line with regional norms. If you’re thinking about buying or selling here, our Massachusetts Housing Market 2026 update covers the price adjustments that are starting to show up in the data.
What sellers and buyers actually feel: the “market temperature” indicators
Inventory and price are the headline metrics, but they’re outcomes. The richer story comes from looking at seller behavior — and the MLS data is full of it.
Listing failure rate (the share of listings that ended up cancelled, expired, or withdrawn rather than sold) tells you how often sellers are disappointed. In 2005, almost half of Woburn listings failed — a textbook bubble signature where sellers are mispricing wildly. By 2017 the failure rate had collapsed to 10.6%. In 2025 it ticked back up to 18%, the highest since 2018.
Sale-to-list ratio captures bidding-war energy. The crossover when listings routinely sold over asking happened in 2013, not 2020 — eight years before most people associate it with the pandemic. By 2024, 69% of Woburn single-family sales went for over asking. The pandemic intensified an already-established trend. (If you’re a seller thinking about pricing strategy, this is the metric to watch — it tells you what other sellers are getting.)
Median days on market crashed from 68 days in 2007 to just 15 in 2024 — a measure of how rapidly homes clear when supply is tight and buyers are competing. In 2025 it nudged back up to 19 days, modestly slower.
Price-cut frequency dropped from 64% of listings in 2007 to 16% in 2024 — sellers in recent years simply haven’t needed to discount. That’s now ticking back up: 24% of 2025 listings reduced their price.
These four metrics moving in the same direction at the same time is how market shifts start. None of them are individually alarming. Together, they suggest Woburn is at the leading edge of a housing market that is starting to settle down, with sales and prices rising moderately rather than at a breakaway pace, indicating better balance between sellers and buyers.
How Massachusetts compares to the rest of the country
The U.S. picture in 2025-2026 has been one of slow, partial recovery in inventory. The National Association of Realtors reported that U.S. existing-home sales hit roughly 4 million annualized in early 2026, with a national median sales price near $400,000 and 3.7 months of inventory — well below the 6-month threshold typically considered balanced.
What this means: nationally, supply has improved meaningfully from the 2022-2023 lows. But that recovery is heavily concentrated in the Sun Belt and the Mountain West. In parts of the South, like Texas, Florida, and Tennessee, inventory has not only recovered but is now higher than before the pandemic. The Northeast and Midwest still remain tight.
Woburn — and Eastern Massachusetts more broadly — sits firmly in that “still tight” category. Whatever rebalancing is happening nationally hasn’t reached us in any meaningful way yet. The state’s inventory remains structurally short of demand by hundreds of thousands of units, the rate-lock effect remains binding for the majority of homeowners, and zoning reform — though slowly progressing — is producing only a fraction of what’s needed.
What 2026 looks like so far
Through Saturday, April 25, 2026, Woburn has had between 10 and 21 active single-family listings on any given Saturday. Today’s reading: 18. That’s roughly 4.5x lower than where this chart started 21 years ago, and well below any year on record before 2018.
The 2026 numbers are slightly different in nature from the historical ones — they’re an instantaneous read on a moving target, with some listings still active and not yet closed out. By next Saturday, some of those 18 will be under agreement and a few new listings will appear. The methodology handles this correctly, but the latest few data points have a different statistical character than the rest.
What I’d watch in 2026: does the cooling we saw in 2025 continue? Failure rate up. Days on market up. Price cuts up. Sale-to-list ratio softening. None of these are dramatic, but they’re all moving the same direction at the same time — and that’s how market shifts begin. If 2026 continues the trajectory, we’ll be looking at the first genuine market cooling Woburn has seen since 2012. If it doesn’t, then 2025 was just a pause in an ongoing tight-market era, and the structural forces that have shaped the last 13 years remain in control.
Living in Woburn beyond the data
The numbers tell one story, but they’re not the whole reason people choose to live here. Woburn sits at a sweet spot: 10 miles from downtown Boston, with quick access to I-93, I-95, and the commuter rail, but with the kind of walkable neighborhoods, excellent restaurant scene, and outdoor spaces that make weekends feel like a real escape. Horn Pond, Whispering Hill, and the Middlesex Fells border the town, and the downtown has been quietly transforming over the last decade.
If you’re new to the area or thinking about moving here, our Ultimate Guide to Moving to Woburn, MA covers the practical side — schools, commutes, neighborhoods, and the hidden gems locals love. We also publish a weekly events guide covering Woburn and surrounding towns — local festivals, restaurant openings, town meetings, and the sort of family-friendly things that don’t show up on a Boston-wide calendar. It’s our most-read content for a reason: people don’t just want to know what a town’s housing market looks like, they want to know what life there feels like week to week.
A note on methodology
All data in this post comes from MLS PIN, the multiple listing service for Eastern Massachusetts. I pulled every Woburn single-family listing with list date in 1991 through April 2026 — 10,366 records in total — using a “list date in [year]” filter to ensure each listing is counted exactly once.
The pre-1994 records were excluded from the analysis because MLS PIN’s coverage during the database’s early years was incomplete (1992 had only 54 listings entered, vs. 295+ in 1994), reflecting the gradual onboarding of brokers rather than the actual market.
Active inventory on each Saturday was computed as: list date ≤ Saturday AND off-market date > Saturday (or off-market date null). For the 18 currently-active listings without an off-market date, this correctly represents them as still on the market today. Median monthly sale prices were computed from sold (status SLD) records only, with sale price > 0 and a valid settled date.
The full underlying dataset, the per-Saturday inventory series, the monthly price series, and the market-temperature indicators are all available in CSVs derived from the same source data — making it possible to verify any specific claim in this post or extend the analysis in directions I didn’t go.
Sources: MLS PIN (raw listings); The Warren Group (Massachusetts and Greater Boston statistics); FHFA Working Paper 24-03 (rate lock-in research); National Association of Realtors (national existing-home sales data); Massachusetts Affordable Homes Act and MBTA Communities Act (state housing policy).
Have questions about the Woburn market or thinking about your next move? Talk to a Realtor or explore homes for sale in the area.
Frequently asked questions about the Woburn housing market
What is the current housing inventory in Woburn, Massachusetts?
As of April 25, 2026, there were 18 single-family homes actively for sale on a Saturday in Woburn, MA. Year-to-date 2026 active inventory has ranged between 10 and 21 listings on any given Saturday. This is roughly 4.5 times lower than 21 years ago and well below any year on record before 2018. The all-time low was 4 active listings on March 8, 2025.
How have Woburn home prices changed over the past 30 years?
The median single-family sale price in Woburn rose from approximately $147,000 in January 1994 to a peak of $797,000 in January 2025 — about 5.4x in nominal dollars, or roughly 2.5x adjusted for inflation. Growth was steepest from 2010 to 2025 (2.3x in 14 years) and the sharpest single window was 2020-2022, when median prices jumped 24% in two years.
Why is housing inventory so low in the Greater Boston area?
Two forces explain it. First, the federal mortgage rate lock-in effect: FHFA research shows that for every percentage point market rates exceed a homeowner’s existing fixed rate, the probability of sale drops 18.1%. Second, Massachusetts has a structural housing shortage estimated at over 200,000 units — addressed only partially by recent zoning reforms like the MBTA Communities Act. The shortage was binding in Eastern Massachusetts well before rates rose, and lock-in amplified an existing problem.
Is the Woburn housing market cooling in 2026?
Several leading indicators are showing modest cooling. In 2025, the listing failure rate rose to 18% (up from 13% in 2024), median days on market rose to 19 (from 15), price-cut frequency rose to 24% (from 16%), and the median sale-to-list ratio softened from 103.3% to 101.7%. None of these moves are dramatic individually, but they are all directional and consistent. If 2026 continues the trajectory, it would be the first sustained market cooling Woburn has seen since 2012.
What is a healthy housing inventory level for a town like Woburn?
Historically, a balanced market in Woburn meant 60-100 active single-family listings on a typical Saturday — roughly the range from 1994 through 2012. Inventory has been below that band continuously since 2017, and below 50 since 2018. National guidance from the National Association of Realtors considers 6 months of supply at the current sales pace to be balanced; Greater Boston is currently running well below half that level.
How does Woburn compare to the rest of Massachusetts and the country?
Woburn’s median single-family sale price (~$775K) tracks closely with Greater Boston’s 2025 median of $799K and is above the Massachusetts statewide median of $638K. Nationally, the picture is more mixed: U.S. existing-home sales reached roughly 4 million annualized in early 2026 with a median price near $400,000 and 3.7 months of inventory. Inventory has recovered meaningfully in the Sun Belt and Mountain West, but the Northeast — including Eastern Massachusetts — remains structurally tight.
