by Mark Pruner
Market Report
One of the problems with trying to discern where the Greenwich real estate market is going is having the government, both state and federal, skew the numbers. Our largest anomaly this year was stellar June sales followed by mediocre July sales. Thanks to Theresa Hatton at the Greenwich MLS for explaining that June/July 2015 anomaly. It’s TILA the new federal regulations regulating closings. TILA is going to be a nightmare for the first six months as banks, attorneys and agents get used to these new regulations.
All you have to do is to look at the jump up in June to see how hard people wanted to avoid these regs which had originally been slated to kick in August 1st and have now been delayed until October 3rd.
In 2014 we had the government shutdown threat which delayed closings until October. With one business days still left in September (when I write this) we are looking at another increase as so far we have had 50 sales well above our 9 year average of 44 sales. So the 10/3 TILA date may be pushing some sales into September 2015. If the new CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) would stop helping us out, the real estate business would go a lot smoother.
As mentioned September 2014 was a bad month and September 2015 is well on its way to being a very good month. Already our sales exceed September 2014 in just about every price category. The 2015 resurgence of the downsizer buyer can really be seen in the $800,000 to $1,500,000. We also see the further shift to high end sales happening later in the year.
Overall we have 613 single family homes on the market, which means we have a bunch of new listings in the fall market that are worth looking. We have sold 527 homes so far in Greenwich and 474 of those were through the Greenwich MLS. We have had 50 sales reported to GMLS through 9/30/15. This is up 19 sales from last year with a few more hours to go.
For the third quarter in 2015 we have had 188 sales and should pick up about 10 more private sales and late reported GMLS sales. The third quarter of 2014 had a spectacular July, a good August and a poor September, but still totaled 219 sales. Overall the market is mixed with some price ranges better than last years and other better last year.
It’s the sort of market where a good real estate agent can make a real difference.
