ATHOL - How far have home values dropped in this Central Massachusetts town? The answer sounds like the punch line to a joke, but no one is laughing: They’ve eroded so much that you can buy a house for about the cost of a Toyota Camry.
“If [prices] go much lower, they will be giving them away,’’ said Matt Tarlin, an investor from Needham who has bought three homes in Athol and nearby Orange, where values are similarly depressed, and houses sell for as low as $20,000.
Athol’s real estate decline has been fueled by a glut of foreclosed properties and high unemployment. The median price of a single-family home in Athol has fallen by more than 50 percent since Massachusetts values peaked in 2005, to just above $78,000 - the lowest in the state.
That compares with about a 19 percent decline in values statewide during the same period and a median price of $286,000, according to Warren Group, a real estate tracking firm.
The small town’s predicament illustrates how the housing market’s collapse hit less affluent communities harder than Massachusetts as a whole. Now, even as prices in wealthier parts of the state - including Brookline and Cambridge - move above the market’s ceiling of seven years ago, Athol, Orange, and places like them remain in a malaise.
Many here, including Stephanie Pandiscio, president of the North Central Massachusetts Association of Realtors and a longtime Athol resident, are girding for a lengthy recovery period in a community they value for its close-knit feel, natural beauty, and safe streets. Even then, Pandiscio doesn’t believe prices will ever “come back to what they were in 2005.’’
No doubt, Athol - with a population of 8,265 - faces major economic obstacles. The median household income is $43,071, compared with a $64,509 state median, and the December unemployment rate was 9.5 percent, more than a third higher than the 6.5 percent statewide figure, according to state and federal data.
As the state’s housing boom accelerated in 2004 and 2005, the town attracted a wave of first-time buyers, many of whom borrowed too much money. In a hot market, Athol was still comparatively cheap and loans were easy to come by. And as happened elsewhere, demand quickly drove up values.
“It was crazy. The prices were so high,’’ said Pandiscio.
But when the economy faltered, many newer residents of Athol and Orange had little or no financial cushion. Some were forced to sell at a loss, others couldn’t manage their hefty mortgages and went into foreclosure.
“Less qualified buyers were driving the prices up. They were the ones that ended up in foreclosure,’’ said Rick Healey, owner of Foster-Healey Real Estate Inc. in Athol.
