At J. Philip Real Estate L.L.C. in Briarcliff Manor, “I”™m seeing what I believe is the beginning of a recovery” in the Westchester housing market, said broker-owner J. Philip Faranda. “Consumer confidence is returning and there”™s an enormous amount of pent-up demand.”
Faranda had not yet seen the newly released third-quarter sales report from the Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors, but its numbers might reinforce his optimistic outlook. Residential real estate closings in the summer quarter rose 31 percent in Westchester from the same period a year ago. Closings jumped 29 percent overall in the four-county region ”“ which also includes Rockland, Putnam and Orange counties ”“ served by the Realtors group”™s subsidiary, the Hudson Gateway Multiple Listing Service.
In Westchester, the listing service was notified of 2,943 completed sales of single-family houses, condominiums, cooperative apartments and two- to four-family buildings in the third quarter. Of the four categories, cooperatives saw the greatest spike in third-quarter deals, with 469 sales representing a 38 percent increase from a year ago.
The third-quarter activity included 1,991 closings on single-family homes, a 30 percent increase from the same quarter in 2012. HGAR CEO Richard Haggerty in the report said that was the highest total for any quarter since 2005 for that property class.
In a separate report for Douglas Elliman Real Estate, consultant Jonathan J. Miller said the Westchester market”™s quarterly sales total was the highest in more than 30 years.
Quarterly sale prices in the county generally rose at a more modest pace than sales volume. HGAR reported the median price of a single-family house was $652,050, up 3.5 percent from the same period a year ago. Despite the spike in demand for co-op units, their median sale price in the county was unchanged from last year at $155,000. While the 372 condos sold in Westchester from July through September amounted to a nearly 35 percent increase from 2012, the median price of a condo rose less than 2 percent to $355,500.
More high-end properties, though, are being listed and sold in the county. HGAR reported an average sale price of $862,356 for a single-family house, a nearly 8 percent increase from a year ago. More than 24 percent of Westchester”™s houses sold for $1 million or more in the recently ended quarter, while million-dollar-plus sales accounted for only 16 percent to 22 percent of sales throughout last year.
Haggerty in the HGAR report said the faster-paced sales have driven inventory on the market “to low but not market-killing amounts.” The third quarter ended with 3,328 listings of single-family houses, a 9 percent decrease from a year ago. The condominium market, with 507 end-of-quarter listings, saw the steepest drop in inventory at 22 percent.
“I still think there”™s a fairly decent selection,” said Faranda, who serves as vice president of the Hudson Gateway Multiple Listing Service. “We didn”™t have an inventory crisis that they did in some parts of the country.”
At Houlihan Lawrence, president and CEO Stephen Meyers and managing principal Chris Meyers in their company”™s third-quarter report said they expect brokers in Westchester to close on about 5,400 sales for the year, “the most since 2005 and in line with the 20-year average annual level of homes sales.”
“If there is such a thing as a ”˜normal”™ housing market ”“ one that is neither in decline nor booming unsustainably ”“ this is it,” they wrote.
Faranda offered a similar view. “I think we”™re in for a fairly long period of stability where prices will not spike and not decline and we might see modest appreciation for the foreseeable future,” he said.
In the faster-selling Westchester market, “Buyers are starting to do dumb things again,” Faranda observed. Those include signing contacts on new homes without having signed buyers for their current houses, waiving house inspections and, in another return to pre-recession behavior, engaging in “competitive bidding wars” with other prospective buyers.
“It”™s not morning in America yet,” Faranda said of the Westchester market, “but we”™ve sort of realized the sky”™s not falling.”