The Westchester NY real estate market has been in turmoil over the past 18 months since the stock market crash of 2008. Many parts of the county are still in decline, but some areas are perking up with lower inventories and lower prices. A few areas in the county are starting to see minor price increases. Real estate in Scarsdale NY is one such area. In general, this should be no surprise since there has always been a demand for Scarsdale NY homes. Such homes also include Scarsdale coops which are also quite desirable.
Scarsdale NY Single Family Homes – Scarsdale Schools
The average price for Scarsdale homes for sale – saw an average price increase of about 14% to $1,437,000. Although prices had not truly increased in such a dramatic way. It points to health in the market because is shows that higher end homes are actually closing. The banking crisis kept the larger homes out of the market place in Q1 of 2009. So this increase reflects a broadening of the viable market and not a true price increase. The price range of solds was far broader in 2010 than in Q1 of 2009. Prices ranged from $558,000 to $3,625,000.
Looking at sold listings, the inventory on the market is considerable over 15 months. However, if you look at contracts and pendings – the picture is brighter with a little more than five months of inventory. But that assumes that everything under contract will sell. The truth lies somewhere in between. This is still a buyer’s market – but it is definitely not a fire sale.
Edgemont Single Family Homes – Edgemont Schools – Scarsdale P.O.:
Average housing prices increased in Edgemont as did sales volume which was up 200%. The average sales price at the end of the first quarter was $1,608,000 – up from $840,000 at the end of Q1 in 2009. Interestingly, the price of lower end homes was static, but the price increase reflects the fact that higher end homes are now selling again. For example the highest priced home that sold in Q1 of 2009 was $1.1 million. But in Q1 in 2010 the highest priced closing was $4.2 million. So prices haven’t risen dramatically – but the price range closed sales has increased dramatically. There is still considerable inventory on the market – so this is still very much a buyer’s market. With respect to closed sales in Q1 there is a 15 month inventory. But there are many contracts and pendings in the pipeline. If you use that as your benchmark – the inventory is a little over six months.
Scarsdale NY Cooperatives:
Cooperatives in Scarsdale – including Garth Road with a Scarsdale P.O. – showed moderate gains in prices – up 3.8% over Q1 in 2009. The average sales price in Q1 of 201 was $246,000. Sales volume was static from the previous year and inventory vs. closings indicates that there is a 9.7 month supply of active listings if you look at closed sales from Q1 2010. Looking at contracts and pendings that goes down to 6.5 months.
An Important Note About the Criteria for the Statistics:
I handle each type of housing in Scarsdale differently. I also include a special section for single family homes in “Edgemont” which is really in the town of Greenburgh with a Scarsdale post-office and zip code.
For condominiums and cooperatives, I use the Scarsdale post office and zip code as my criteria. Many of these complexes are actually located in Greenburgh and Eastchester.
This reflects the way most buyer’s shop for housing. Coop and condo buyers work by address whereas those looking for single-family homes are often shopping municipality and school districts.
Further Reading:
Scarsdale NY Housing Market Statistics – Fourth Quarter 2009:
Scarsdale NY – Housing and Market Statistics for Third Quarter 2009:
Housing and Market Statistics for Scarsdale NY – Second Quarter 2009:
Scarsdale Coops – Pet-Friendly Scarsdale Country Estates
Scarsdale Manor Cooperative – Garth Road -Scarsdale NY
The Chauteaux Cooperative – Scarsdale NY
© Ruthmarie G. Hicks – http://thewestchesterview.com – All rights reserved.
Westchester NY real estate has been heavily impacted by the financial storm of 2008. In some areas, the storm continues to brew and in other areas – there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. White Plains NY homes are no exception to the rule. Last year saw a marked decline in the prices for single family White Plains NY homes for sale. Although there were significant declines in the condo an cooperative markets, these did not match what happened to single family homes. Sales volume was sluggish in spite of a strong buyer’s market.
The first quarter of 2010 the single family home market, is showing signs of strength. While the condo and cooperative markets appear to be showing signs of greater weakness.
Cooperatives – White Plains NY:
The average sales price of a coop in White Plains is down 16.4% over the 4th quarter of 2009 at $184,000. There were 29 sales recorded on the WPMLS in Q1 and the current inventory has 172 listings. Using these numbers there is nearly an 18 month inventory on the market – indicating significant weakness and a depreciating market. Contracts and pendings are encouraging – but assuming all of these contracts end in a sale – which never happens - there is still a near 10 month overhang of inventory. The bright spot in the market is that sales volume is a good deal higher – up 45% over last year when the markets were virtually frozen.
This is a market that represents opportunity for buyers and requires sellers to be very realistic. The pricing a the Broadlawn reflects this trend that is being seen throughout the White Plains market.
Condos – White Plains NY:
The average price of a condo in White Plains NY has gone down 14.8% from the first quarter of 2009. The average price of a condo in White Plains fell form $460,000 to $392,000. 23 sales were recorded on the WPMLS during the first quarter with an overhanging inventory of 161. That leaves a nasty 21 months of inventory on the market making this a strong buyer’s market. However contracts and pendings make this picture look a lot brighter and indicate an 8 month inventory. The reality probably lies somewhere in the middle of these two numbers. But either way, buyers have a strong upper hand. As with coops the volume of sales for Condos in White Plains is up 43% from Q1 2009.
The price range is interesting to note: In 2009 the high end of the market was not moving at all – this has changed. The price range according to the MLS ranged from $135,000 for a small studio to $1,220,000 at the Ritz Carlton.
Single Family Homes – White Plains NY:
Surprisingly – single family homes saw a price increase of 8.2% with the average sales price coming in at $643,000. The number of sales closed on the WPMLS was 39 – an increase of 34% from the totally stagnant market of Q1 2009. Although encouraging, a closer look indicates no true price increase. What we appear to have here is resurgence of sales at the upper end – skewing the data higher. This follows the pattern in the condo market. The number of months of inventory on the market 11 months if you look at closed sales, and 7 months if you look contracts and pendings.
This is a market that is showing a bit more strength than some other markets. It is still very much a buyer’s market. But the steep dip in prices that was 2009 has created a more healthy market in its wake.
Further Reading:
Jefferson Place – White Plains
© Ruthmarie G. Hicks – http://thewestchesterview.com – All rights reserved.
Yes, these old Timberland boots were used as flower pots! It’s an example of how out-of-the box thinking can transform something that would find its way into the the trash, can be turned into a spring time arrangement.
Whether buying or selling Westchester NY real estate, clients often need help with curb appeal. When selling, landscaping creates an inviting atmosphere that invites buyers into the home. Buyers, on the other hand, are often eager to put their own personal stamp on their gardens and may often be at a loss as to what to do or where to go.
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Whenever I go on a listing appointment, I generally find that the seller already has a “number in their head” about what their home should sell for. This number can come from various sources. It is – unfortunately – almost always higher than the current market can command.
In truth, I can’t blame sellers for this…their minds have been levered to continued price increases to such an extent that the current market has left most sellers blind sided.
The first thing I often hear is that “I need to get X out in order to buy my next home which I can now get for Y because its gone down in price. The trouble if the property you want to buy has gone down so much in price, chances are the property that you want to sell has gone down by a similar percentage. Wishful thinking is often the culprit here. Markets are fluid – that was fine when prices were going up – but it also holds true when prices decline.
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Yesterday I showed a foreclosure. Until fairly recently, Westchester hasn’t witnessed much in the way of “underwater” home ownership. We’ve always had our share of foreclosures, but they were far from commonplace. The house was a mess. The walls contained broken dreams of home ownership and you have to wonder about the people who lived there.
There have been a lot of blogs written lately about who is to “blame” for the housing bubble and its disastrous aftermath. Some bloggers blame lenders, some blame agents, brokers, NAR, the Fed, home owners…the list goes on and on.
But one common thread I find very discouraging are blogs which lay blame on the homeowner who was underwater. They should have KNOWN better. They were GREEDY. They were IRRESPONSIBLE, they were this, they were that…
In truth, the housing debacle is as much a result of the decimation of the middle class as it is about a housing bubble itself. Families have found the ground shifting under them faster than they could ever have imagined. Many homeowners have found themselves into the horns of a dilemma. This is the story of my generation. As a forty-something I’ve felt the sands shifting under my feet ever faster. I have found myself scrambling to earn those ever elusive extra dollars that will allow me to keep my own home – even as I help my clients sell theirs.
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You know that your real estate market is expereincing a shake-up when an article about it in Inman News. The post was actually a reposting of an original article written by “The Real Deal” by Amy Tennery called Westchester real estate shake-up: Brokerage world sees shuffling of agents as firms shutter and consolidate during downturn.
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Kris Berg wrote a very compelling post on Inman yesterday Don’t Forget the Customer The article was spot-on about how brokerages function – and often how the function to the detriment of the consumer.
Now, I think most consumers would understand that in order to keep their doors open, a brokerage needs to be profitable. The bottom line for any business is that they must turn a profit or close their doors. Ideally, profitability should be tied to customer service. The agents of a brokerage should provide outstanding customer service including intelligent negotiating skills, a fine marketing plan, and service that smoothes the transaction process. Unfortunately, that model is not the prevailing one among brokerages.
The way brokerages function often is a mystery to the consumer and it often comes as a shock to new agents who think that the brokerage is there to “support” them. After all they are paying very hefty splits to the brokerage -supposedly for leads and support and training from the brokerage. And therein lies the rub for the consumer. Most brokerages disconnected from customer service and the newly licensed agent course became the big cash cow. They recruited and recruited throwing anyone with a license and a pulse up against a wall and hoping that something will stick. Even a non-productive agent had a couple of good deals in them from family and friends.
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Back in the bull market days of 2005-2006 the notion of needing to “stage” your home for a faster sale was nearly laughable. But home sales in the Westchester market are not what they once were. As most seller’s are painfully aware – this is not 2006. There is ample inventory on the market, prices are down and buyers are increasingly picky. Things once deemed insignificant now become major stumbling blocks to a successful sale.
Increasingly, listing agents, myself included, are encouraging sellers to stage their homes prior to putting them on the market. That includes, but is not limited to painting, pointing up and arranging furniture in a way that maximizes the potential of the space and creates a neutral atmosphere. We ask that seller’s depersonalize the space so that buyers can “mentally move in.”
Although I am not one to spend a homeowners money needlessly, there are times when I feel staging is essential. Staging is most beneficial in the following cases:
An Empty Home:
When the sellers have moved out – they tend to leave an empty shell of a house that used to be a home. That house can tend to lack personality and be all too forgettable to a prospective buyer. Right now there is an excess of inventory that is completely unfurnished and after a while they can all start to look the same to buyers. If a house is in danger of becoming that forgettable – it needs staging in order to stand out in the eyes of buyers.
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It is very interesting that just as consumers are demanding ever more hyper-local content and knowledge from agents that we are also seeing another distinct trend in the opposite direction: the tendency to list and sell to larger and larger geographic areas.
The contrast between old-school hyper-local agents and the newer nomad agnet was driven home to me while I was working with two listing agents who still work exclusively in small niche markets. I was at a closing with one of them and she implied that since I had the entire city of White Plains to cover, why didn’t I simply refer out the client who finally bought in Scarsdale?
Can a real estate agent be too local?
I knew that the attitude about staying hyper-local is alive and well though it appears to be a staple of old-school real estate. Still, I was more than a tad surprised. Scarsdale is not the moon. It is the town directly adjacent to the west side of White Plains and about a whopping six miles from my front door to the center of the village. If we followed this line of thinking to its most extreme would mean that a buyer potentially moving from New York City to Westchester NY would have to have as many as five or six agents to explore all the possibilities open to them that were within about 30 minute commute. For the consumer this seems most unwieldy if not highly impractical. Could you imagine the mountain of agents all crawling over each other for the buyer’s attention? What a mess. Not to mention a monster of coordination.
From the agent’s perspective, there could also be a danger to being too local. What if something happens to that small segment of the market you represent? If your geography/price range are razor thin – you are setting yourself up for trouble. This was clearly seen this year when agents who specialized in small high-end markets got creamed because jumbo loan issues bit them in the backside. Another listing agent I encountered was used to selling about 10 major properties a year – but this year had only managed a single sale.
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We had our first snow yesterday. As usual we were told to expect the storm of the century, so I did what everyone else in Westchester was doing…got groceries, hoarded salt, made sure I had a good shovel and hunkered down. Seriously, the way we treat snow storms around here one would think that no one had ever heard of snow plows and other modern marvels that actually make it possible for you to be back in the real world within 24 hours. Nevertheless, the storm and subsequent dig-out gave me some quiet time with my canine family. I have two Siberain Huskies and a husky mix who for obvious reasons LOVE the snow. The colder the better and the heavier the snow fall, the happier they are. So after spending quality time with my shovel and salt, I spent some time outside with Buddy, Jade & Tundra. They had a great time tearing up the yard. To get good pictures however they had to stand still…I got a few shots of them running, but most of that passed by my camera in a blur!
For the stills here is a link to Siberians in the Snow on Flickr.
Enjoy the video and Happy Holidays.
