BY MAGGIE GORDON
Hearst Connecticut Media
After a strong showing in 2013, the real estate market in Greenwich”™s backcountry has hit a slump this year, as houses linger on the selling block for longer periods of time and the number of sales declines.
Backcountry homes on the market at the end of the third quarter were active for an average of 295 days, up 40.5 percent from 2013, when the average time was 210 days, according to a third-quarter report released by Houlihan Lawrence”™s Greenwich office. Across town, time on market has increased as well, though not as significantly as it has for homes north of the Merritt Parkway, with the town”™s average inching up from 143 days to 146 days in that time, according to the report.
“The backcountry market definitely has been challenging,” said Julianne Ward, a real estate agent with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices. “I find that showings are not as plentiful as they used to be, and buyers are just expecting a lot more when they go backcountry, because they have such a large amount of inventory to look at.”
According to the Houlihan Lawrence report, there were 23.9 percent more listings on the market at the end of September than at the same time last year: 145 single-family homes in the backcountry as compared with 117 the previous year. The glut of homes is likely due to the strength of the backcountry market in 2013, said David Haffenreffer, manager of Houlihan Lawrence”™s Greenwich brokerage.
“Any time you have a strong year in sales ”” and you saw that with the number of units that sold last year ”” you”™ll see new inventory come to market, because sellers think it”™s a good market for their home,” Haffenreffer said, noting that the backcountry saw a total of 60 single-family home sales in 2013. That figure was up 46 percent from the previous year, and the highest figure seen since the housing bubble burst in 2007.
”˜Leveling off”™
As of Oct. 16, 41 single-family homes were sold in the town”™s northernmost portion, according to Houlihan Lawrence; when annualized, that figure works out to an expectation of 51 homes closing this year ”“ down 15 percent from 2013.
“I think what we”™re seeing this year, with that 15 percent decline from where we were last year, is more of a leveling off from what was a big uptick last year,” Haffenreffer said.
But it could also have to do with a shift in the market, as list prices increase rapidly. At the end of last September, 26.5 percent of backcountry listings were priced at or above $6 million; now, the share is up significantly, to 33.8 percent.
The number of homes priced above $10 million soared to 27 so far this year from 18 in 2013. While there has been more activity at the $10 million-plus level ”“ with six backcountry sales recorded in the first three quarters of 2014 compared with just one in that time last year ”“ the report categorizes the supply-demand ratio for that price range as “very low” due to an expansive inventory.
Waiting for price cuts
Still, those homes are selling. Of the 13 homes across town that sold for $10 million or more in the first nine months of 2014, six were in the backcountry. Last year, during the same amount of time, there were only four eight-figure sales, with one in the backcountry.
Haffenreffer”™s firm has a pending sale at 7 Topping Road, which is listed for $10.8 million, and Ward closed a $13 million deal for a home at 217 Taconic Road late this summer. But while the right matches are being made throughout town, Ward said she thinks buyers are willing to take their time, waiting for price cuts before diving in.
“If you really want to sell your house, you can in any market and at any time. You just have to be flexible with your buyers, because the buyers are the ones who are making the market, and if they don”™t like it at a particular price, they”™re not going to buy it. And until they like it, it”™s going to sit there,” Ward said.
“It used to be there was an overabundance of buyers and not enough houses, and now it”™s the opposite,” she said.
Hearst Connecticut Media includes four daily newspapers: Connecticut Post, Greenwich Time, The Advocate (Stamford) and The News Times (Danbury). See greenwichtime.com for more from this reporter.
