Preparing for new owners, broker Gino Bello removed a lock box from a three-bedroom house he recently sold in the 9-year-old Valimar subdivision in Greenburgh. The renting couple who bought it qualifies for the $8,000 federal tax credit for first-time homebuyers.
Bello, an associate at Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty in White Plains, has worked with several of those buyers before the April 30 federal deadline to sign purchase contracts and qualify for the credit. “Over the last two weeks, I”™ve gotten seven deals that I”™ve put together,” he said, including two from couples who are downsizing residences and can claim a $6,500 tax credit for house sellers that Congress last fall added to the housing stimulus program.
Yet the tax credits, which apply only to sales under $800,000, are not driving the recovering Westchester housing market this year, Bello and other brokers said. Rather, they said, a combination of prices, low mortgage interest rates and increasing buyer confidence in the economy account for the 54 percent increase in overall first-quarter residential sales from the same period in 2009 reported by the Westchester-Putnam Multiple Listing Service.
By the numbers
First-quarter sales of single-family houses, which totaled 756, were up nearly 78 percent in Westchester from a year ago, followed by a 37 percent jump in condominium sales, the MLS reported.
Other counties in the Hudson Valley region too saw rises in the first-quarter market, though less dramatic than Westchester”™s.
Overall residential sales in Putnam County rose 28 percent from the first quarter of 2009, led by a 41 percent jump in sales of single-family houses, according to the MLS. In Rockland County, sales of single-family houses were up about 12 percent from early 2009, according to the New York State Association of Realtors. NYSAR reported a nearly 9 percent rise in single-family house sales in Dutchess County and a 44 percent year-over-year increase in Ulster County”™s relatively small housing market.
The exception was Orange County, where first-quarter sales of single-family homes declined by nearly 2 percent from last year.
Gregory S. Rand, managing partner at Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty, said the region”™s housing markets heat up according to their distance from Manhattan. “Manhattan heats up first. Then Westchester heats up,” he said. “Westchester is up a lot. Rockland is up but not as much. Orange is kind of flat in house sales, but they”™re next.”
Then too, said Rand, “That huge number” for Westchester”™s sales increase this year “has a lot to do with last year being so terrible.”
Priced to sell
The 2010 sales numbers are being compared to what Gail Fattizzi, executive director of Westchester Real Estate Inc. in Eastchester, called “a horrible year” in real estate. Fattizzi, who heads a consortium of 10 independent real estate companies in Westchester, Putnam and Rockland counties, said the statistics might suggest to sellers that they should put a higher price on their properties.
“That”™s a misperception,” she said. “Prices have come down considerably in this area. There may be an increase, but prices have come down.”
At the Westchester Putnam Association of Realtors Inc., CEO P. Gilbert Mercurio in his first-quarter market analysis noted total sales were less than half those posted as the county”™s market peaked in 2006 and 2007. Volume this year was more like that at the start of 2008, when the real estate recession first was felt in this area, he noted.
Seasonally adjusted, Westchester”™s first-quarter sales amounted to an annual rate of 6,830 units, a sales volume last recorded here in 1995 and 1996, according to Mercurio in the MLS report.
The first-quarter median sale price of a single-family house in Westchester was $599,500, a 13 percent increase from a year ago, when the median price plunged to $532,000 after reaching $635,000 in the first quarter of 2007.
For a single-family house in Putnam County, the median sale price was $310,000, down nearly 10 percent from a year ago. In Rockland County, NYSAR reported a first-quarter median sale price of $390,000, down 4 percent from the first quarter of 2009. The median house price in Dutchess County was $256,000, down nearly 9 percent from a year ago, while Orange County had a 2 percent drop with a first-quarter median price of $254,400. Ulster County, where the midline sale price was $215,500, a 13 percent rise, was the only other market in the region with a first-quarter price increase from a year ago.
High-end in the mix
At Houlihan Lawrence in Bronxville, “We have been very pleasantly surprised with the level of activity and deal flow happening in the high-end market” of houses priced over $1 million, said Christopher Meyers, the real estate firm”™s chief operating officer. Houlihan Lawrence has an approximately 45 percent share of the Westchester market for homes over $1 million and a 51 percent to 52 percent share of the over-$2-million house market, he said.
The first quarter this year included a market above $1 million “that wasn”™t really in the mix in 2009,” he said. “We have a pretty healthy functioning market at levels up to $5 million.”
Mercurio in his first-quarter report said the high-end market accounted for 18 percent of house sales this year, compared to a low of 13 percent in the first quarter of 2009. Sales of homes priced at $1 million or more typically claim a 25 percent share of the Westchester market.
Brokers said the high-end market and housing sales in general have been strongest in the county”™s southern communities. Comparing Houlihan Lawrence listings to houses sold, Meyers said the company is seeing a healthy 4-to-1 or 5-to-1 ratio in southern Westchester, but double-digit ratios for houses on the market in the northern part of the county. The listings-to-sales ratio is highest for homes in the $2 million to $5 million range.
“What we”™re seeing is the high end of the market, especially in northern Westchester, is still in the process of correcting,” Meyers said. “I would call this a recovery market. Prices are stabilizing, but we”™re not yet seeing them rise again. “There seems to be a better consensus between buyers and sellers about where prices should be. Homes that are priced appropriately are getting multiple bids.”
Price, condition
Both Rand and Fattizzi pointed to greater “buyer savvy” as an element in the recovering market. “People are being cautious and conservative still in what they”™re willing to pay,” Fattizzi said. “Properties that are well-priced right now are getting a lot of interest and a lot of offers.”
“I believe this is a pure free-market recovery,” said Rand. “It”™s driven by price and confidence” that the recession is over and house values are bottoming out.
In the Greenburgh subdivision, Bello said the house he sold went for $665,000. “We listed it for $675,000 and it went after two weeks,” he said. “Three years ago, this unit was selling for between $750,000 and $800,000.”
For buyers, “Price and condition is the number-one factor,” Bello said. “Buyers in today”™s market are looking to get homes that are already fixed up. Three or four years ago it was about flip-this-house. Now it”™s about people wanting to lock into a typical 30-year loan because the interest rates are so low.”
Brokers worry that if those mortgage rates rise, the region”™s housing market recovery could falter.
