WCBS 880 Special Series On Housing: New York's Suburbs Coping And Looking For Recovery
GREENWICH, CT (WCBS 880) - At Prudential Connecticut in Greenwich, realtor Mark Pruner says sales activity, noticeable at the lower end of prices, has moved up the scale to properties priced at around $3 million.
"Anything under that has less than a year supply, and at the lower end we're looking at less than a six-month supply. Anything under six months is considered a hot market," says Pruner.
The amount of research that buyers are doing before sitting down to look at available homes is impressive. That can fine tune a search to areas doing well - Riverside and Old Greenwich in the case of Connecticut.
"We just did our 2010 revaluation and that's the area that held its value the best and in some cases, the waterfront properties went up by as much as 30 percent versus what they were in 2005."
WCBS 880's Paul Murnane On The Market
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In Westhcester County, home prices are falling still, but 2011 numbers from Gil Mercurio's Westchester Putnam Association of Realtors suggests prices on the whole are off 15 percent from market highs of five years ago.
"There's an environment that, I think, keeps people on edge," says Mercurio.
More than 400 houses were sold in Westchester in April and May, he said. That's just slightly below the same period in 2010, when many first-timers were taking the plunge.
"It's a pretty solid performance there," he says.
The question now is, if those first-timers are in limited supply, how will homes sell this summer if fewer on them are on the house hunt?
Missed Monday's piece in this series? Click HERE.
