A continuing trend of strong demand coupled with a limited supply of available homes has resulted in a frustrating spring for would-be buyers and an all-time high for the median home sale price in Massachusetts — $560,000.

The Warren Group, a Peabody-based provider of real estate and banking data, released its monthly housing report for April earlier this week.

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Adam Guren, a Boston University associate professor of economics who focuses on the housing market, agreed that the key factor driving up housing prices seems to be a classic case of supply and demand.

"Increased demand is intersecting with highly constrained supply," he said. "So supply comes from two places — it comes from existing homes and it comes from construction."

And while Guren wouldn’t speculate on what the status of the market will be like in the future, it seems people want houses, and we can’t build them fast enough, he said.

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Several communities set not only new highs for median sales price but milestones.

In Milford, for example, the median sales price for a single-family home sold in April cleared $500,000 — $511,250, to be exact, which was 16.7% higher than the year-ago median price of $477,000.

And in Framingham, the median sales price last month was above $600,000 for the first time ($617,500, up 6.5% from the April 2021 median of $580,000).

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Other communities that saw new milestones in average price were Franklin ($627,500 up 17.7% from $533,250); Hudson ($612,500, up 37.6% from $445,000); and Ashland ($600,000, up 22.4% from $490,000).

The median sales price in Southborough cleared $1 million for the first time last month ($1,063,500, up 14.8% from the year-ago median of $926,000), and in Wellesley it topped $2 million ($2,005,000, up 21% from $1,657,500).

Josh Lioce, CEO of Livian-Massachusetts in Milford, who has been in the real estate industry for more than two decades, said the inventory level of available properties in March and April were the lowest he’s seen in years.

The Warren Group reported that the total number of single-family homes sold throughout the state during April totaled 3,862. That's 14.8% less than the number sold in April 2021 and only 3.8% above the 3,729 sold in April 2020 — the month economy essentially froze at the onset of COVID-19.

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An added burden for would-be buyers from a year ago is that homes are no longer one of just a few items increasingly quickly in price. The Consumer Price Index, which measures the aggregate price increase of a basket of goods and services, is increasing at a greater than 8% annual clip.

“We’ve lost a tremendous amount of buying power as a consumer because of rising interest rates and inflation,” Lioce said.

That said, consumers still have more buying power in residential areas, compared to those in cities, he said. Lioce’s business operates from offices in Franklin and Milford.

Milford is in a unique position of being about 45 minutes away from Worcester, Providence and Boston, Lioce said. People who have the option to work from home or who only need to commute to major cities a couple days a week are starting to move to the suburbs.

“You can come here and buy a pretty good piece of property for what you wouldn’t even be able to dream of buying closer to those cities,” Lioce said.

There will always be several outliers of homes selling above the listed price, Lioce said, but he is already seeing some levels of the supply-and-demand storm calming.

Clients rushed in with cash offers years ago, more than he ever saw in his career. However, the number of cash offers has come down in the last 60 days, Lioce said. He’s starting to see a more traditional flow of buying trends seep in.

That follows what has been chaos in the market for the last 36 months, Lioce said. He’s seen clients and agents alike suffering from buyer fatigue.

“It’s been an emotional roller coaster,” Lioce said. “Everyone thinks this is a great market. It’s not a great market — this is a chaotic market.”

Homeowners can benefit from the market, and it’s great for wealth across the board, he said, but it’s certainly not a great market.

Some ways to level the chaos would be to build more multifamily units, add affordable housing and change zoning laws, Lioce said.

His advice to anyone trying to buy a home right now would be to have patience and determination.

“You can’t win unless you’re in the game,” he said.

This article originally appeared on The Milford Daily News: Median home sale price in Massachusetts was $560,000 in April