Realtors closed on 2,243 residential sales in Westchester County from July through September, a 15 percent increase from the same period last year and the highest third-quarter sales volume in the county since 2007, according to the Hudson Gateway Multiple Listing Service.
The regional listing service in White Plains reported 1,534 third-quarter sales of single-family homes, a nearly 16 percent increase from a year ago.
House prices, though, declined for the quarter. The median price of a single-family house was $630,000, down nearly 8 percent from the same period in 2011 and a 14 percent drop from the third quarter of 2010.
For condominiums, the volume of sales in the higher-priced half of the county market raised the median sale price to $349,750, an approximately 4 percent increase from a year ago. Yet the average or mean price of a condo dropped 12 percent from a year ago, to $374,470.
The third-quarter average or mean price of a single-family house in Westchester was $801,023, a 9 percent decrease from the same period last year.
Listing service analysts said the lower average price is largely due to price concessions by sellers adjusting to economic conditions. The decline is partly due to fewer sales of houses priced at $1 million or more.
High-end properties in Westchester accounted for 22 percent of all house sales in the third quarter, compared with 26 percent in the same quarter last year and 28 percent in 2010.
The year-to-date sales rate in the county is 10.6 percent above that of 2011, according to the listing service. At the current pace, the Westchester residential market will reach 7,000 sales at the close of the year. The listing service said that volume is “convincingly” above the 6,639 sales reported at the start of the real estate recession in 2008.
The year-to-date sales rate in the county is 10.6 percent above that of 2011.
