Condo buyers are returning to Boston’s urban core and are expected to spend a record $5B by the end of the year, according to a new Advisors Living report.

The total sales volume is set to blow past the previous record of slightly more than $4B in condo sales volume and last year’s total of $3.6B, Advisors Living, Boston Realty Advisors' residential platform, said in its Q3 2021 Boston Urban Market report.

Buyers are eying a return to Boston, Cambridge and Somerville after flocking to the suburbs during the coronavirus pandemic.

“2021 will be a year in the history books for real estate in Greater Boston, with record-high selling prices, record numbers of homes sold and record low inventory being consistent indicators in many communities,” the report stated.

Back Bay eclipsed the Seaport as Boston’s most expensive neighborhood, according to Advisors Living, with studios averaging $458K per unit and one-bedroom condos averaging $813K. The averages were boosted by a few seven- and eight-figure condo sales, including a $21M sale of a four-bedroom luxury condo at The Mandarin Oriental on Boylston Street in Back Bay.

Neighborhoods in almost every corner of the city have less than two months' worth of condo inventory on the market, including South End, North End, Jamaica Plain, Dorchester and Charlestown. Cambridge sales went up in the past year despite a lack of new condo development while Somerville recorded record price metrics, including an average sales price of $897K per unit.

The median listing price for a single-family home in Boston sits at $799K, according to a November report by Norada Real Estate Investments. Boston is also home to the nation’s second-most-expensive ZIP code in Back Bay, where the median price of a brownstone this year was $5.5M, outpacing even the Hamptons, according to a PropertyShark analysis.