Real Estate Market Heats Up In Westchester

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY — The constricting supply of housing in Westchester 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 barely increased, with co-ops outpacing all other housing sectors in the county.

Prospective homebuyers were operating in a market that has seen tremendous reductions in the supply of for-sale housing over the past four years. In Westchester, the inventory was 4,359 homes at the end of the second quarter, a better than 14 percent drop from 6,342 in the second quarter of 2014.

The median sale price for 2-4 family homes jumped 7.6 percent over last year, to $445,000. For single family homes, Westchester County’s median price at $670,000 represented a 3.1 percent increase from the second quarter of 2016. The median condo sale price went up 5.3 percent to $375,500. Cooperative prices also rose, by 3.9 percent to $161,000.

Westchester, the most populous of the four counties served by HGAR, posted 2,642 sales for an increase of just 1 percent over last year.

While Westchester County had a slight 1.3 percent drop in single family sales, its best second-quarter achievement was in its cooperative sector where realtors posted a 12 percent increase in sales. There were 145 sales of 2-4 family houses in the second quarter of 2017, compared to 132 in the second quarter of 2016, an increase of 98. percent. There were 354 sales of condos, compared to 376 sales at that time last year, a decrease of 5.9 percent.

The double-digit percentage rate of shrinking inventory is continuing as new listings barely make up for high rates of sale, HGAR officials said. In Westchester:

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."