WESTCHESTER COUNTY REAL ESTATE MARKET REPORT
3RD QUARTER | 2011
The Westchester residential market fully stabilized as a traditional buyer’s market in the third quarter, with seasonal increases in both sales and prices from last quarter. After years in which the market was buffeted by external and artificial forces like the 2008 credit crisis and the 2009-10 home buyer tax credit, Westchester has settled into a more traditional seasonal rhythm. Sales
Were up 34% from the second quarter, right in line with the 31.4% seasonal increase from the second to third quarter observed over the past ten years. Similarly, prices were up 3.4% from last quarter, reasonably comparable to the 4.7% ten year seasonal average.
The market also showed increased levels of sales from last year, with sales up 8.7% from the third quarter of 2010. We should note, though, that part of the increase is due to the tax credit hangover that depressed activity in the third quarter. Most tax credit-inspired transactions closed by June 2010. As a result, activity in the 2010 third quarter was artificially depressed, helping
the 8.7% increase in sales compared to last year.
Readers should not be alarmed by the decline in prices from last year – the 4.2% drop in the average sales price, and the 6.3% fall in the median – because part of that decline is due to a change in the mix of properties sold compared to last year’s third quarter. Because the tax credit’s expected June 2010 deadline spurred many low-end buyers to hasten their purchases
Into the second quarter, sales of lower-priced homes dropped significantly in the third quarter. So higher-end buyers made up a greater part of the mix of purchasers in the next quarter, and the disproportionate number of high-end home sales artificially drove prices up a bit. Thus, now that the market is more balanced between high- and low-end homes, the resulting average
Sales price misleadingly appears to be declining.
We expect that the market will continue to demonstrate normal seasonality in the fourth quarter, with transactions and sales declining slightly off the third quarter highs. But we also expect activity to be significantly higher than it was during last years tax credit “hangover and that we will continue to seethe market behave like a seasonally normal buyer’s market.
Anthony Stokes Pereira (845) 624-8100 Ext. 188
Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty
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Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate - Rand Realty, founded in 1984, is the No. 1 real estate brokerage in the Greater Hudson Valley with 25 offices serving Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam and Dutchess counties. Rand has more than 800 sales associates, as well as a commercial real estate company (Rand Commercial Services), mortgage company (Rand Mortgage), title company (Hudson Abstract Services) and insurance agency (The Hudson Group Insurance Agency). The company’s Web sites are: randrealty.com, randcommercial.com, randmortgage.com, www.hudsonabstract.com and www.hudson-group.com. Rand Realty is also on Facebook and Twitter. Anthony Stokes Pereira web site www.anthonystokespereira.com . Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
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