Real Estate Market Heats Up in Orange County

ORANGE COUNTY, NY — The constricting supply of housing in Orange County has brought about some long-expected price increases, according to a report about the 2nd quarter of 2017 from the Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors. The price bump was seen in the second quarter of 2017 in most property types, with the highest jump in multi-family houses. The number of sales also increased, with condos far outpacing all other housing sectors in the county.

Orange County, long characterized by high sales volumes but flat prices, posted a second quarter single-family median price of $235,000, an increase of 5.6 percent over last year.

Price increases were much sharper in other property types. The median sale price for 2-4 family homes jumped 42.9 percent over last year, to $125,000. The median condo sale price went up 22.2 percent to $165,000. Cooperative prices jumped by 51.4 percent.

Orange County had a solid 10 percent increase in the number of single family sales. In its cooperatives sector, 6 units sold, up from 1 last year. There were 53 sales of 2-4 family houses in the second quarter of 2017, compared to 36 in the second quarter of 2016. There were 118 sales of condos, compared to 91 sales at that time last year.

Realtors participating in HGMLS, a subsidiary of the Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors, Inc., reported a grand total of 1,098 closed residential transactions in Orange during the second quarter of 2017, an increase of 13.8 percent over last year.

The double-digit percentage rate of shrinking inventory is continuing as new listings barely make up for high rates of sale, HGAR officials said. Prospective homebuyers were operating in a market that has seen tremendous reductions in the supply of for-sale housing over the past four years. Here's the change in Orange County from 2014 to 2017:

With the inventory in all four sectors down, real estate officials said, "There appear to be no obstacles to a continuation of a healthy Hudson Valley real estate market except for the shortage of inventory which may inevitably drive prices higher or may diminish the volume of sales, or both."