The third-quarter real estate sales report for Westchester and Putnam counties is a bad news/good news situation.
First the bad news: Total closed sales in Westchester were 5.4 percent fewer than in 2009 and 23.7 percent fewer in Putnam.
The good news, however, is that the Westchester-Putnam Multiple Listing Service Inc., which prepared the report, is projecting “healthy” overall sales of 7,000 units for 2010.
P. Gilbert Mercurio, the listing service”™s CEO, attributes the summer setback to two critical factors.
“One has to do with the first-time home-buyer”™s credit, which required purchasers to enter into a contract no later than April 30 and close by June 30,” he says.
Thus, they may have felt compelled to buy a home sooner rather than later in the year, diminishing the third-quarter numbers.
Some critics have pooh-poohed the role that the first-time home-buyer”™s credit has played in influencing the housing market. And Mercurio has acknowledged that it”™s hard to say how many purchasers rushed to take advantage of it in the second quarter when they otherwise might”™ve waited. But he says the anecdotal evidence culled by the listing service, a subsidiary of the Westchester Putnam Association of Realtors Inc., is strong enough to suggest that the credit had a part in the summer dip.
“This was true in the co-op and condo sector, where you”™re more likely to have first-time purchasers,” Mercurio adds. “That”™s where the biggest decline was.”
The other factor contributing to the third-quarter detour cannot be denied ”“ the erratic performance of the stock market in the spring, caused by volatility in Europe and China and unemployment numbers at home that would not budge.
Nonetheless, Mercurio is cautiously optimistic about the year-end picture.
“If we can get past 6,500 units sold” ”“ which he”™s predicting ”“ “I”™d call it a win.”
Nonetheless, other signals are uncertain. The median sale price of a Westchester single-family home increased by almost 16 percent ”“ or more than $100,000 ”“ to $730,250. This was driven by an increase in million-dollar property sales, which in turn was aided by prices in the high-end sector declining 3 percent.
For houses under $1 million, year-over-year appreciation was up slightly: The median sale price in the third quarter of 2009 was $567,500. This year it was $591,000.
Some analysts have said that even though the Dow Jones Industrial average appears to be headed up, the real estate market won”™t recover for a full five years.
But Mercurio is more hopeful. One rainbow he sees is the return of the co-op and condo market in New York City, particularly Manhattan.
“When it does well, that turns on the spigot for the suburbs,” he says.
Apparently, what happens in Manhattan doesn”™t stay in Manhattan, and that”™s a good thing for Westchester and Putnam.
