“It's been an exceptionally busy summer in all segments of the market,” states GBAR president David McCarthy, owner of Keller Williams Realty Boston Metro. “Some of the activity is carry over from our delayed spring market, but we've also seen more new listings come on the market than normal the past two months, and the potential for an increase in interest rates this fall is also helping to motivate prospective buyers.”

The median single-family home selling price rose 5% over the past 12 months, from a median of $505,000 in July 2014 to a new all-time high monthly median price of $530,000 last month. The condominium median selling price climbed almost 10% in the past year, from a median of $419,000 last July to a new all-time high monthly median price of $460,000 in July 2015. It's the 10th straight month the single-family home median price has risen on an annual basis, and the ninth consecutive month the median price for condos has improved, GBAR states.

Gregory Vasil, CEO of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, tells Globest.com that the rental housing market in the City of Boston is also strong, despite a significant amount of new product coming on-line in certain sections of the city. He reports that some owners of new rental apartment product have been offering incentives to lure tenants to their properties.

“What we have seen is some of the people leave the older housing stock and coming to the new because of the incentives,” Vasil says. The market has not seen the escalation in rents that normally occurs at this time of year, due at least in part to the incentive offers. He adds that while the market is very tight, prospective tenants have more variety to choose from in the city.

While the GBREB does not release hard statistics on multifamily vacancies, Vasil estimates the current city rental apartment vacancy rate at about 5%.

Other trends Vasil sees in the market is that some developers who have originally proposed their projects as rental apartments are now considering switching to condominium.

The tight city rental apartment market has led to rental price escalation in the outlying suburbs, such as in Newton, Brookline and Quincy, for example. He says that has been partially due to prospective renters being priced out of the City of Boston market deciding to rent outside of the city.