A strong third quarter for Westchester house sales
Third-quarter housing sales in Westchester County were up more than 10 percent from a year ago, but the increased demand from buyers did not result in higher median sale prices for houses and condos and did not much shrink the inventory of market listings, according to the Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors.
Realtors showing homes in Westchester, Putnam, Rockland and Orange counties reported 5,231 closed sales in the quarter, an increase of 687 units or 15.2 percent from the third quarter last year.
Orange County led the four-county region with a 30.1 percent increase in number of sales, followed by Putnam at 21.1 percent and Rockland at 16.3 percent.
- Charts courtesy Westchester Real Estate Inc.
Westchester, where Realtors reported 3,157 housing sales, a 10.3 percent increase from last year, accounted for 60 percent of third-quarter sales volume in the region.
Sales of condominiums and two- to four-family homes rose 22 percent in Westchester from last year, with 403 condos and 143 two- to four-family homes sold from July through September. The 2,065 single-family homes sold in Westchester in the third quarter represented a 6.7 percent increase from the same quarter last year.
There were 11,761 residential sales in the four-county region for the first nine months of this year, a 15.5 percent increase from 2014, Hudson Gateway reported.
In Westchester, the third-quarter median sale price of a single-family home was $676,500, down about 1 percent from the median sale price for the same quarter last year. The median sale price for a Westchester condo also declined slightly, from $375,000 a year ago to $373,000 this year.
Co-ops sold at a median price of $162,500, a 4.8 percent increase from the third quarter last year. The median third-quarter price of a two- to four-family house in the county was $465,000, up 9.4 percent from last year.
The third quarter ended with 11,734 houses in the four-county region listed with the Hudson Gateway Multiple Listing Service, according to the Realtors association. Third-quarter sales activity reduced the total market by 625 housing units or 5.1 percent.
In Westchester, the inventory of single-family houses showed only a slight change ”” with four fewer homes listed at the end of the third quarter than a year ago. The county”™s co-op market, which reported 1,308 third-quarter sales, an 8.2 percent rise from last year, saw a nearly 17 percent reduction in inventory at the end of September with 1,056 listings.
Analysts at the Hudson Gateway Association in their quarterly report said the region”™s housing market inventory “has not shrunk so much or so rapidly as to put a crimp in the continuing market improvement” and has not put “significant upward pressures on prices.”
At Westchester Real Estate Inc., a group of independently owned real estate firms, Executive Director Gail Fattizzi in the group”™s third-quarter market report said brokers in Westchester “are still seeing signs of two different markets. At the high end of the market, luxury property sales are sluggish and there are still many more available than sell in an average year. ”¦On the flip side, more moderately priced homes are in stronger demand, with less inventory on the market, and are often selling with multiple offers.” Yet buyers in that more competitive market are careful not to overpay for a home, Fattizzi said.
Douglas Elliman Real Estate in its third-quarter report said the median sale price in Westchester”™s luxury market ”” the upper 1 percent of all single-family houses sold ”” was $2,150,000, a 6.5 percent decline from the same quarter last year. The luxury price threshold dropped 2.1 percent to $1,645,000.
