Sales Up, Inventory Down: Real Estate for 2017 So Far in the Hudson Valley

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — High sales rates and a sharp drop in inventory dominated the real estate market during the first quarter of 2017 in Orange, Putnam, Rockland and Westchester counties. However, the recovery was characterized by uneven pricing trends, and only three of the four counties participated in the sales growth, the Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors, Inc. reported Monday.

Realtors participating in the Hudson Gateway Multiple Listing Service, Inc., a subsidiary of HGAR, reported a grand total of 3,700 closed transactions in the four-county region during the first three months of 2017, a 9.1 percent increase (or 309 units more) over last year’s first quarter results. The closings largely resulted from sales and market activity during the winter months of 2016 and early 2017, and comprised single-family houses, condominiums, cooperatives, and 2-4 family houses.

Among the four counties, Rockland County enjoyed the highest percentage increase in sales, 29.3 percent, among the four counties. Its best performing large-volume sectors were condominiums, up 37.2 percent, and single family houses, 23.7 percent.

Orange County had an overall 11.6 percent increase, and Westchester saw a 4.4 growth in sales.

Putnam County posted a 2 percent decline in home sales in the first quarter.

So far the shrinking real estate inventory has created uneven pressure for price increases, the association reported. The four-county end-of-quarter inventory shrunk by 20.3 percent from 2016 to 2017, and no individual county posted less than a 20 percent decrease, yet the effect on prices has been mixed.

Westchester, for example, posted a 5.3 percent increase in its first-quarter single family median sale price, from $569,950 in 2016 to $600,000 in 2017, but that is where it had been in 2014 and 2015.

Putnam reported a 1.7 percent decline in median sale price.

However, Orange County also appears to have both shed excess inventory and posted a 7 percent increase in the median sale price of a single-family house, to $230,000.

And Rockland County achieved a 6.5 percent increase in the median sale price of its single-family houses, which was posted at $425,000 for the first quarter. Rockland also fared well with its condominium sector, achieving a 10.7 percent increase in the median to $217,500.

NOTE: Putnam Country, having the smallest volume market of the regional foursome, is subject to wide statistical swings as a result.

Images/ HGAR