The Congressional debacle has made for a strange real estate market. The Greenwich real estate market had been doing well. July and August were stellar months for sales as you can see from the chart (blue line for 2013) then sales fell off drastically in September to 49 houses sold from 57 house in September 2012. In reality the situation was even worse than the chart shows for the public market. Fourteen of the 49 sales in September or 29% were private sales that weren’t listed leaving only 34 sales on the GMLS. Usually we see a handful of sales each month as private transactions. The last time we saw such a large number of private transactions was in December of 2012 when lots of people sold off real estate to avoid the January 2013 increase in the capital gains tax.
The $3 – 4 Market in Greenwich, CT
Find out what's happening in Greenwichwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Supply
Find out what's happening in Greenwichwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
In all of Greenwich there are 523 total listings. Of this number 238 houses are priced from $2 – 5 million as of the end of the beginning of October. Of 238 listing, 93 houses are priced between $3 and $4 million, our second biggest price range. In the $3 – 4 million price range in Greenwich proper we have 65 listings and 42 of those properties are in mid-country nearly half are in mid-country. Bottom line we have a good supply of very nice houses in this price range.
Demand
Months of Supply
Since the beginning of the 2013 to the end of September, 497 single family homes have sold in all of Greenwich. Between $3 and $4 million 35 homes have sold and of those 20 homes are in mid-country Greenwich. We also have 8 pending contracts or accepted offers as of the beginning of October.
This chart shows months of supply of single family homes in Greenwich by price range as of the end of September. Up to $2 million dollars the market is very active and is a seller market. The $2 – 3 million price range is a transition range. In the price range from $3 – 7.5 million we have an average of 2 years of supply. This market had been slowly getting better through August, but sales slowed in September due to increasing problems in the U.S. Congress.
Also the market in this price range is better than this snapshot shows. The upper range has been getting better particularly in July and August then inventory jumped as over 100 new listings came on with the fall market. With uncertainty in Congress buyers took a wait and see approach. The red bars which include contracts as well as sales YTD indicate that sales should hold up over the next couple of months as these contracts close.
Raw Numbers
The chart below highlights the absolute number of houses listed and YTD sales. Sales for the $3 – 4 million are better than the higher price ranges, but still not at pre-recession levels.
October Real Estate Update
So far in October we have had 29 homes sales. The large majority of house sales, 23 houses, have been below $3MM. We have seen the very high end bouncing back as we have had an additional sale over $10MM with 135 Taconic selling for $14MM. We also have had 3 houses sell between $5 and 7.5MM. Of the 94 listings we have between $3 and 4MM we have had only 1 sale so far this month.
