Douglas Elliman sees signs of improving housing market

“We”™ve seen a very good quarter and we”™re seeing some very optimistic numbers,” Scott Elwell, senior executive regional manager of Westchester and New England for Douglas Elliman Real Estate told the Business Journal in an interview. Elwell was discussing the firm”™s report released today on sales activity in Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess during the first quarter of 2019.

Scott Elwell Douglas Elliman
Scott Elwell

In Westchester, for the market as a whole in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period last year, the median sales price rose 6.4% to $463,000, the number of sales increased 9.2% to 1,845, and the time a property was on the market declined 4.3% to 89 days, according to the Douglas Elliman report.

The report also stated that the number of single-family home sales in Westchester rose 6.8% to 989. That put an end to six straight quarters of year-over-year declines. The median sales price, however, slipped 1.2% to $600,000. The condo market showed an 11.7% sales increase to 258 units sold with an increase in the median sales price to $360,000. Co-ops saw a 9.8% increase in sales to 447 with a median sales price increase of 6.9% to $170,000.

In addition to the condo and co-op market, there was an uptick in multifamily sales where the number jumped 19.8% to 151 with a median sales price increase of 13.7% to $535,000. “There has been a strong demand for multifamilies in the area and many of those buyers are buyers that are living in one of the units and renting out the others,” Elwell said. He characterized the heightened interest in condos and co-ops as “a flight to convenience.”

The report does identify a soft spot at the luxury end of single-family market. “People are driven toward smaller houses and new homes close to town”¦there continues to be strong interest in living close to town and new homes that you can just walk right in, and that has gone up through the luxury market,” Elwell said. The median sales price in the luxury market, identified as the upper 10% of all single-family sales, experienced a decrease of 8.7% to $1,780,000.

Elwell said that buyers are looking in a larger and larger geographic area. “We”™ve seen buyers that have been very committed to just Westchester move up north, Putnam to Dutchess, or east or northeast to Fairfield County. And, we”™re doing the best job we can at educating our agents to help them for larger territories.”

In both Putnam and Dutchess, median sales prices rose for the eighth consecutive quarter. The Putnam median sales price rose 4% to $325,000 and the number of days on the market dropped by 7% to 93.

In Dutchess, the median sales price reached $273,500, an increase of 1.5%. There was a 13.9% drop in the average time properties remained on the market to 93 days. If there was an issue in Dutchess it was the 21.3% increase in the listing inventory to 632 properties, compared with a listing inventory decrease of 4.2% to 469 properties in Putnam. Westchester”™s listing inventory was only slightly changed with a 0.4% increase to 3,596.

“We”™re at a point where buyers and sellers are coming into agreement and the numbers are evident of that in all categories,” Elwell said.