By Mark Pruner
Sentinel Contributor
I mentioned in a previous column that September 2015 was a very good month. We had 63 sales once the private sales were added in compared to 40 sales in September 2014 so sales were up more than 50% for this year. Then we came to October 2015 where we only had 42 sales reported to the Greenwich MLS compared to 50 sales last year in October. We will pick up a few more sales so we might find that October 2015 might get close or even match October 2014 sales. Forty-two sales is not bad for October when our nine year average 41 sales both GMLS and private sales.
This up, then down sales pattern is the same pattern that we saw in June and July of 2015. It appears that the new mortgage regulations have scared people into accelerating their purchases in both periods. Originally, these regulations were scheduled to kick in August and then were delayed until October.
The result makes for a bumpy sales market, but when you add up the September and October sales for 2015 we’re actually doing better than we did last year. For the two months of September and October 2015 we have 105 sales versus 90 in 2014. With the additional sales that are done privately and not listed on the Greenwich MLS we are actually looking pretty good.
Overall year-to-date we have had 582 sales through the end of October compared to 589 sales through October 2014. We ended up with 698 sales in 2014 and anything over 700 sales is considered a good year.
The trend to higher-end sales later in the year also continued in October. From $2,000,000 to $5,000,000 we had 20 sales last month. Below $2 million we have the same 20 sales which is unusual, since we normally have more sales in the under $2 million market, since there are a lot more people that can afford those prices.
When you look at contracts we have 14 contracts between $2 and 3 million but only 4 contracts between $3 and 5 million. The bulk of our contracts are in the $1 – 3 million range where we have 42 of our 72 contracts. The good news is at the high-end we have seven contracts between $5 and $7.5 million. The result is that months of supply should drop significantly in that price category in the next two months.
So far this year we have sold $1.3 billion worth of single family homes in Greenwich and we have another $1.4 billion worth of homes listed on the Greenwich MLS. Our median listing is $3.16 million. Not many places can say that half of their listings are over $3 million. On the sales side however our median sales year-to-date is $1.875 million.
We still have three market price ranges. Under $2 million is very competitive and pro-seller. The market from $2,000,000 to 7,500,000 is the transition from pro-seller to pro-buyer. The market over 7 ½ million has been slow and will continue that way. We only had one sale between $7.5 and 10 million and nothing over $10 million even though we have 47 listings in that price category. We also only have 4 contracts out of 80 listings over $7.5 million.
When you look at the percentage of the sales price categories from $1 to $1.5 million, $1.5 – $2 million and $2 to $3 million, all represent about a fifth of the sales, so the total price group from $1 – 3M represents almost 60% of sales. That same price range from $1 to $3 million represents about 40% of inventory.
Some quick factoids:
· Median price per square-foot: $565
· Median sale price to original list: 94%
· Average days on market is 175 but median days is only 102 days. Once again showing properly priced properties sell pretty quickly
· Median house is a four bedroom, 3 ½ bath house with 3300 s.f. on a little less than half an acre.
· The median house was built in 1957 and pays taxes of $12,476 a year.
