Swampscott's Late September Home Sales Cluster Near $660,000 Median Price

SWAMPSCOTT -- Fifteen properties changed hands in Swampscott between Aug. 28 and Sept. 26, with recorded prices ranging from $305,000 to $875,000 and two separate sales landing at the top of that range.

MARKET OVERVIEW

The Essex South Registry of Deeds recorded 15 property transfers in Swampscott during the period. Of those, seven carry a recorded sale price so far; the remaining eight show no price yet, which is typical for recently filed deeds and does not indicate the price was withheld. Among the seven priced sales, prices ranged from $305,000 to $875,000, with a median of $660,000. Fifteen recorded transactions over four weeks is a moderate volume of activity for a town of Swampscott's size, though no prior-period figures are available here for comparison.

TOP SALES

The highest-priced sale was 5 Macarthur Circle, which sold for $875,000 on Sept. 25. Wayne O'Keefe sold the property to Robert Hendry. A second property, 21 Muriel Road (Lot 17), also sold for $875,000, on Sept. 22, with Ruel W. Longfellow selling to Jenna L. Rodriguez. The commercial or mixed-use property at 495-497 Humphrey Street sold for $725,000 on Sept. 14; Benevento Realty Trust sold to Flannery Family Holdings LLC. At 20 Eureka Avenue (Lot 90), the estate of Helen M. Dubuque sold the property to Sean A. McGovern for $660,000 on Sept. 17. Rounding out the top five, 7 Edgehill Road (Lot 5) sold for $515,000 on Sept. 15, with Andrew Brown selling to Daniela A. Siek.

NEIGHBORHOOD BREAKDOWN

No street recorded more than one sale during the period, so no single-street cluster emerged. By price tier: three sales came in above $700,000 (5 Macarthur Circle and 21 Muriel Road at $875,000 each, and 495-497 Humphrey Street at $725,000). Two sales fell in the $500,000-to-$700,000 range (20 Eureka Avenue at $660,000 and 7 Edgehill Road at $515,000). Two more sold below $500,000: a condominium unit at 21 Capstan Way (Unit 37, Building 4) for $440,000, and a property recorded in registry records under the address "See Record" for $305,000, sold by Rhonda P. Shear to Muralb LLC. One seller, Roger Lin, appears twice in the period's records, transferring both 54 Columbia Street and 13-15 Charlotte Road into a trust in his own name; neither transfer carries a recorded price yet.

MARKET NOTES

Eight of the 15 recorded transfers, more than half, moved property from an individual owner to a trust or estate entity bearing the same name, a pattern consistent with estate planning rather than open-market sales: 34 Bellevue Road, 242 Puritan Road, 1002 Paradise Road, 31 Young Avenue, 4 Archer Street, 20 Ingalls Terrace, and Roger Lin's two properties on Columbia Street and Charlotte Road. None of those eight carries a recorded price, which may reflect that trust transfers of this kind don't always involve a sale price in the same way an arm's-length transaction does. The period's sales also included a mix of property types: single-family homes (Macarthur Circle, Muriel Road, Edgehill Road, Young Avenue, Archer Street), condominium units (Capstan Way, Paradise Road, Ingalls Terrace), and what registry records indicate are multi-unit or mixed-use properties (495-497 Humphrey Street, 13-15 Charlotte Road). No bedroom, bathroom or square-footage data was available from the deed records for this period.

Recorded Deeds

Source: Registry of Deeds. Sale amounts shown as recorded; transfers without a disclosed consideration are noted as such.

Compiled from official town feeds, community organizations, and local press. Outside reporting is attributed inline.