The Dutchess County housing market continued to enjoy sustained levels of increasing sales activity, but we’re still seeing a difficult pricing environment. These levels of buyer demand are bound to push up prices eventually, but we understand if Dutchess homeowners and sellers are getting impatient.
Sales. Dutchess County single-family home sales surged in the second quarter, with transactions up 47.2% from last year. Indeed, the 667 quarterly sales represented the highest total since the third quarter of 2006, at the height of the last seller’s market. Similarly, the 2,080 rolling year sales is the highest total we have seen since 2007. For comparison, note that Dutchess closed about 1,500 sales in all of 2008. .
Prices. Even with this torrid activity, pricing was still soft, with the average down 5.6%, the median down 0.8%%, and the price-per-square foot falling almost 20%. Over the longer term, we’re seeing some pricing challenges, with the average price down about 3% over the past 12 months. We keep expecting Dutchess prices to rebound, especially at these torrid levels of sales activity, but full recovery from the effects of the market correction remains elusive.
Negotiability. The negotiability indicators also show that Dutchess sellers are still struggling to get some leverage. Homes were selling for a little closer to the asking price, with the listing retention rate up above 95%. And the days-on-market fell just a bit, indicating that homes are selling a little more quickly.
Condominiums. The condo market was similarly robust, with sales up 44.2%. Unfortunately, we saw the same pricing dynamic, with prices down significantly across the board.
Going forward, we believe that Dutchess is poised for price appreciation, but we remain puzzled as to why it hasn’t happened yet. Basic economics tells us that increased demand coupled with stable inventory drives up prices, so we remain hopeful that we will see meaningful price appreciation by 2016.
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