House sales lag in 2011
Westchester County”™s lagging housing market failed to rebound in 2011, as overall sales dropped 6 percent from the previous year, when the market was moderately boosted by federal tax-credit incentives for homebuyers.
The Empire Access Multiple Listing Service reported a total of 6,194 residential sales closed last year by its member Realtors, down from 6,586 sales in 2010. The county housing market in 2009 had tumbled to 5,824 sales, a 12 percent drop from 2008 and the start of the recession.
Sales of single-family houses dropped 4.4 percent last year, from 4,014 closings in 2010 to 3,838. That decline in sales volume was matched by a falloff in the median sale price of a Westchester house, which was $600,000 in 2011, a 4.8 percent drop from 2010.
Homes sold at lower prices as the year wound down. The fourth-quarter median sale price of a single-family house listed with Empire Access was $525,000, an 8.9-percent decrease from the fourth quarter of 2010. The listing service said it was the lowest median price for any quarter since 2002.
That fourth-quarter decline was caused in part by fewer sales of homes priced at more than $1 million. Those accounted for 13.7 percent of sales in the recent fourth quarter, down from the norm of the last several years, when high-end sales made up 16 percent or more of the total.
“Most of the decrease, however, was simply the result of weak demand that prompted price concessions from sellers,” said Realtors consultant P. Gilbert Mercurio, the recently retired CEO of the Westchester Putnam Association of Realtors, in his market analysis.
Cooperatives were the only housing type in the county that showed signs of a sales revival at the end of 2011. Though co-op sales for the year were down 8.5 percent, the 293 co-ops sold in the fourth quarter amounted to a 20.1-percent increase from the same period in 2010.
Co-op prices, though, did not keep pace with sales volume. The fourth-quarter median sale price was $146,000, down more than 15 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010. Mercurio in his report said the combination of a higher number of co-op sales with lower prices suggests “that this sector may have finally found the price points that generate traffic.”
Co-ops also were the only housing sector to record an increase in inventory listed on the market at the end of 2011, which was up 2.7 percent from a year ago. As sales increase, potential sellers are encouraged to list their properties. The market”™s inventory rises with rising sales, Mercurio noted.
In a soft or uncertain market, sellers remove their listings. Westchester”™s year-end inventory of single-family houses was down 3.9 percent from 2010. Condominium listings on Dec. 31 were down 10.8 percent and listings of two-family to five-family houses were down 7.5 percent from 2010.
Low mortgage interest rates that dropped below 5 percent in mid-2011 did not spur a sales revival in the county. Instead, lenders”™ tougher qualifications and higher credit-score requirements for potential homebuyers and slower processing of loans have negated the benefits of low interest rates, according to Realtors.
Residential brokers in Westchester have said a continued lack of consumer confidence also kept housing sales down last year. Mercurio said that low confidence has consumers postponing big decisions such as buying a home.
The nation”™s political divisions over economic recovery measures have been a chief cause of that eroded confidence, Mercurio said. Lagging consumer confidence could continue until the November elections, keeping Westchester”™s housing market lagging as in 2011, he said.